Alright, since it seems like we’re coming up on the final episode of G-Witch, I want to take this moment to talk critically about this show for a second. Because as much as I’m loving it, I think it’s got two big issues that are holding it back from true transcendence.
1) It feels like so much of the broader worldbuilding just hasn’t gotten the time it’s needed. Twenty five episodes is not a lot of time for a classic-style mecha series with tons of moving parts, and unfortunately, I think G-Witch was hurt by this. So many of its most interesting world details are barely explained or brushed over so quickly their use comes right up to the line of feeling like an asspull, and it results in some of the side characters’ arcs (hello, Lauda and El5n) seemingly skipping steps to get where the plot needs them to be. It’s not nearly bad enough to ruin the worldbuilding outright, but you can practically taste how much more the show wanted to do with all this stuff, and it sucks it wasn’t given the proper time like other Gundam series.
2) Why are Suletta and Miorine the only queer couple in this show? Miorine said back in the very first episode that being gay was totally normal here, which is awesome… except then we don’t see any other gay characters and all the other romantic tension/drama is straight. Despite the show’s claims to the contrary, Miorine and Suletta seem to be the only queer people in space, save for maybe that one of Shaddiq’s henchwomen with an all-girl fan club. And it feels like a big missed opportunity to really live up to that promise instead of doubling down on The One Special Queer Couple in an otherwise het world.
Is any of this a dealbreaker? No, unless the final episode really, truly drops the ball (or it turns out we get another season anyway, which, hey, still possible!). But I wish I could be as ravenous for all of G-Witch as its best moments make me feel, and I’m sad it doesn’t seem like it was able to live up to its full potential and become something truly unimpeachable.
“Remember, kids, if you’ve got a racist grandparent who espouses negative views toward an entire group of people, then you’d better listen to them because they’re right! Some entire groups of people are just collectively evil and can never be trusted!” - Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
If there’s no discourse about this now, then I suspect there will be soon once more people see or hear about this movie because good lord. For those who don’t get it, the context is that in the film the main character Ruby discovers that she’s actually kraken royalty and this of course creates generational angst between her and her mother and grandmother because everything’s gotta have generational angst in it these days. She is told by her grandmother that mermaids, the long-time enemies of the krakens, are all evil and untrustworthy sirens who manipulate people and seek domination over humans. Ruby also befriends a mermaid named Chelsea, who specifically calls attention to this feud between the two species and specifically says that she wants to put a stop to it with Ruby’s help. And so Ruby naturally says “screw your bigotry, Grandma; I’m standing by my friend even if she’s a mermaid”.
……Which leads to the inevitable third act “reveal” that Chelsea was actually manipulating Ruby the whole time in order to acquire a source of power, doesn’t actually desire peace between the species, and just wants to assert domination over humans as is her kind’s wont.
Look, if the bullshit about krakens and mermaids was not present in the movie, then despite what a hackneyed obvious “twist villain” scenario this is I still would have accepted it because it would just be an isolated incident between two individuals. Without the species feud, you could just freely respect Ruby for having such an open heart and positive nature, and freely hate Chelsea for remorselessly taking advantage of that for her own self-serving agenda.
But because this occurs against this specific backdrop, the movie is flat-out saying that racism is justified and that the teen protagonist should’ve listened to her racist grandmother! All mermaids ARE evil, untrustworthy sirens who manipulate people and seek domination over humans, and Ruby was a total dumbass to dare to believe otherwise about Chelsea!
Imagine if in The Little Mermaid, Ariel is exposed as a mermaid, Prince Eric immediately reacts with disgust before he and his followers harpoon her to death before cooking and eating her bottom half. Guess King Triton was right, all humans are heartless barbarians!
Or imagine if in Luca, the townspeople accept all of the sea monsters at the end, only for the sea monsters to murder them all in their sleep and lay waste to the town. Guess all those fearful superstitions about sea monsters were accurate and should have been listened to!
Or imagine if in Zootopia….oh heck, do I even need to give this example?
If you think I’m overreacting here, then just swap everything said about mermaids in the movie and replace “mermaid” with “Jew”. Chelsea’s Jewish now. Ruby has the audacity to believe that her Jewish friend isn’t some heinous caricature made of her people, only to learn that actually that caricature is spot-on, so from now on she will never trust a Jew again and will accept her position defending humanity against the evil Jews. Sounds fucking horrible when I put it that way, doesn’t it? I recently said that it’s a good thing that kids have recently been getting more stories calling out how wrong prejudice is, so to see a movie aimed at kids that is actively justifying and encouraging prejudice is mind-blowing in the worst way possible. Who the Hell signed off on this? Did nobody stop to consider the unfortunate implications? Did they think making Chelsea a caricature of a pretty, popular, two-faced Mean Girl justified applying that characterization to her entire species? Or was this Jeffrey Katzenburg being a petty bitch (again) over the fact that The Little Mermaid was being remade without him and he just wanted to stick it to Disney? Whatever the case, I’d recommend giving this movie a pass.
(I swapped out the original Japanese panels with the scanlated ones)
Shit, I bet all of Macro Cosmo’s female employees were the most down for helping Rose out with the Darkest Day, and I can’t blame them.
God, I love Pokspe!Rose. He truly is a kind person who wants to do good for others, and is just childishly misaimed about how to go about doing that good in certain circumstances (the whole Darkest Day debacle, acting like he doesn’t care about Bede in order to protect him from legal jeopardy, etc.) He’s an antagonist, but he can’t remotely be considered a villain.
