Oh god, please get a different writer. Pretty please?
Ichiro Okochi is not a bad writer. He has a LOT of good writing credits to his name and a plethora of awards. So why is this show so worryingly BAD in the writing department?! Is it executive meddling? Is he just phoning it in out of boredom? Is he taking the piss and actually trying to sabotage this show? Is this a cynical sort of half-assery meant to tick the checkboxes the studio decided would make
Gundam relevant to "the youth"?
Within less than a minute of the episode's start, we've gone from the Earth dormitory complaining about Miorine's ill-considered plan to having her barge in uninvited and announce that she's taking over the dorm and drafting everyone in it into her new company. I can't help but think of K-2SO in this moment...
"Congratulations, you are being employed. *beat for reaction* Please do not resist."
She's right back on her hypocritical bullsh*t. She objects deeply to Delling telling her what to do, and here she is lording her status as Delling's daughter over the other students to take over their dormitory for her own private use and forcibly draft them into her new company. She doesn't offer them a choice or give them a chance to say "No". She follows it up by admitting she doesn't have any kind of actual plan. They say she bought out a bunch of assets from Peil Technologies and Shin Sei Development Group, but won't it take like a year for the Shin Sei staff to reach Asticassia from Mercury?
All this before the opening credits!
It isn't until after the credits that we get to see anyone actually react to this news properly... and because this show is written the way it is, the students who've spent their ENTIRE LIVES being told that GUND-ARM technology is evil and inhumane and that those who work on it are evildoers of the worst order largely just roll with it. The only two people who seem to see any problem with it are Chuchu, who is mostly just pissed that Miorine's a spacian bossing her around and talks sh*t about her, and some background character named Martin who is the only one expressing what everyone should be expressing given what the setting has established: legitimate fear that this is unethical human experimentation. Everyone else seems like they're only interested in how much money they'll be paid.
That's kind of Fridge Horror territory. Asticassia's Earth dormitory is full of people who have no real ethical qualms as long as they're paid enough... these are future business leaders!
We finally get to have that discussion about why develop a Gundam and whether Aerial can be mass-produced... and it's dodged completely.
This is data on banned technology, and YOU KEEP IT ON YOUR CELL PHONE?!
Suletta finally gets to ask why her mother lied to her about the Aerial. She gets fobbed off with an obvious lie. Even Miorine is just sitting there with a look on her face that clearly says "This is bullsh*t why can't you see it?" Suletta's apparently not scared of suffering irreparable damage from piloting a Gundam either.
It's nice that this series at least takes the time to hang a lampshade on how stupid its own plot is every now and again. If it weren't for that, this would be totally unwatchable instead of just mostly unwatchable.
Shaddiq Zeneri stops to remind Miorine that her investors aren't philanthropists, and that she'll have to actually have a business plan and be able to produce marketable results. He offers to take over the company and marry her as a way to justify it. He's apparently an orphan raised in a corporate-run orphanage, and not actually the son or grandson of Zeneri Sr. who is CEO of Grassley?
Oh boy, we get to watch them do PAPERWORK! Riveting.
... and while this bit Reality Ensuing is nice, the way this series has panned out there will be some Deus Ex Machina swinging in from the wings any minute now. They apparently burned most of the funding they received buying out Peil Technologies' and Shin Sei's Gundam development groups, and what's left is practically nothing. They can't even settle on what they're supposed to be building and selling, though they at least think about all of the implications of becoming a weapons manufacturer. Just as quickly as all the navel gazing started, it's back to being the autocracy of Miorine and making weapons is A-OK.
"Make a Promotional Video that'll rid Gundams of their negative public image. You have two weeks."
That's right, you've got two weeks with no resources to create a promotional video that'll magically overturn TWENTY-ONE YEARS of GUND being a demonized technology. Hop to it!
Guel Jeturk, meanwhile, is living in a tent on the grounds and his classmates have nothing better to do than bully him now? Shaddiq shows up and stops them, offers Guel the hospitality of Grassley, and then runs off to take a call because his family are sending shipments of anti-Gundam weapons. His (adoptive?) father instructs him to see to it that the Gundams are erased from the world. He criticizes his father's lack of vision.
Why the hell is everyone now so ready, willing, and able to look past decades of demonizing GUND-ARM technology? It's not like anyone has made a compelling argument that Delling was wrong about it in all that time. Suletta and the Aerial are literally the ONLY counterargument and it's a rather weak one to say the least.
Miorine's finally asking some of the real questions like why the GUND-ARM technology couldn't be refined and why its developers are so demonized.
Of course, we don't get to see the actual answers... that'd be too much like telling a story.
Suletta is such a waste of a main character. She makes that whiny milquetoast Shinji Ikari look positively decisive and well-put-together by comparison. I feel like by the time this mess of a show is over, there needs to be a supercut where all of Suletta's stammering and being told to shut up is removed. It'll probably make the series at least a cour shorter.
We get to watch a promotional video from the Vanadis Institute about GUND technology and then a terrible, cringeworthy PV produced by the GUND-ARM Inc kids that even Prospera busts out laughing at.
At this point, I'm starting to think it'd be a mercy if the Dominicus corps busted in here and killed the entire cast so we can start over with someone else. Just "lol jk real series starts now".
"Let's have two people, one of whom hates the other, try to have a moment. That won't feel forced at all."
Wait... Asticassia didn't have any rule or regulation regarding checking that new technologies used in student-run companies were actually safe until just this moment? Forget space OSHA, these CEOs are shockingly cavalier about the lives of their own children!
Apparently it's part of Shaddiq's power play to seize control of Miorine's company and/or take the Gundam by force. This, like almost every other previous development, essentially comes out of NOWHERE and will likely be overcome just as suddenly. It's like the writer has forgotten how to build up to a plot twist. There's practically no foreshadowing of this AT ALL.