Warning: Contains SPOILERS for the Mobile Suit Gundam light novel Cradle PlanetIchiro Ohkouchi’s new light novel Cradle Planet provides important background information and context for the time skip that occurs between Episodes 1 and 2 the new Mobile Suit Gundam anime The Witch from Mercury.
Hiroshi Kobayashi’s Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch of Mercury tells the story of teenager Suletta Mercury and her efforts to become a mobile suit pilot at the Asticassia School of Technology. While Suletta is already a competent pilot surviving the school is not assured as Suletta has spent much of her life on a mining platform on Mercury. Suletta and her mother Prospera arrived at Mercury alone and on the run after her mother’s company, Och Earth, was attacked and destroyed because of their work on Gundam – mobile suits engineered for military combat. Suletta, Propsera, and a prototype Gundam were the only survivors of the attack, whose victims included Suletta’s father. Now a student with many people her age, Suletta must navigate all the issues of being a teenager while also making sure to prove her piloting skill. Making matters worse is Suletta’s budding relationship with Miorine Rembran, a classmate and daughter of the school’s leader and the person who ordered the attack on Ochs Earth that killed Suletta’s father.
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While the first episode of the anime details the attack on Och Earth, and how Gundam technology, such a key feature of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise was to be banned. At the time of the attack, Suletta was four years old. In Episode 2, Suletta is already 16, has already arrived on Earth, and is about to start her first semester at Asticassia. While she may be socially awkward and display a countryside naïveté, she is amazingly adept already at mobile suit piloting, especially with her unique mobile suit system “Aerial”. Viewers are given no information about what happened during the 12 years time skip. This is where Ohkouchi’s Cradle Planet novel proves an important resource. It explains what happened on Mercury between the time when Suletta and her mother just arrive at Mercury to the days before she leaves to attend Asticassia.
Life on Mercury Prepped Suletta For Life on Earth
The story is told from the perspective of Aerial, the Gundam prototype that Suletta and her mother arrived in. Before the attack on Ochs Earth, Prospera and Suletta’s father had been working on the Aerial in the hopes that it would overcome problems the company was having with its other suits. It uses highly intuitive, cutting-edge technology. Despite their hard work, Aerial didn’t function properly until minutes before the attack of Och Earth, so Suletta activated it on her own. Since arriving at Mercury, Prospera repurposed Aerial to be Sulleta’s full-time companion during the times she is away on business. Over the years, not only has a bond grown between Aerial and Suletta, at least from Aerial’s perspective, but Suletta has also learned to operate Aerial with the skill of a seasoned professional pilot.
There a plenty of reasons why an anime would want to include a time skip between episodes, such as saving time and costs or sparing the audience with non-essential content. In most cases, viewers are left in the dark as to what happened or have to do their own research to figure out what was missed. Fortunately, for this Gundam series, the creators were kind enough to include an explanation in the form of Ohkouchi’s Cradle Planet light novel. It’s the perfect offering for interested fans without weighing down the anime. Hopefully, more anime will follow in the footsteps of this, the latest iteration of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise.
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Cradle Planet is available to read online at The Witch of Mercury website.
