The show's writer, Ichiro Okouchi, got his start writing the light novels for Utena. The callbacks to Anthy and Utena are explicit, scattered throughout the first arc of the show: we have the weird school where duels decide who will claim the beautiful bride trapped in a situation she cannot escape from, the newcomer girl who arrives to save her, the slimy and snake-like popular boy who seems to hold a highly questionable amount of power. Combining Gundam with Utena is seriously inspired, and kickstarts this series' greatest strength, which is its creativity.
Rather than following what I can only call the typical Gundam first-cour arc, namely protagonist gets mech, we meet the squad of side characters, the conflict is introduced, and things gradually build to a point where there's all-out war, we have a jarring and surprisingly wholesome insertion of an arc in the middle of the series in which the two protagonists decide to use the dangerous and frightening Gundam mind-linking technology for good: medical technology that will let paraplegics walk, or will let amputees control an arm, and so on. It's something that's treated with a surprising amount of maturity and given a lot of buildup, starting all the way with the prologue episode. Since the core cast is made of essentially high school students, there's a dose of humor there as well, as the company comes across as a school project more than a billion-dollar enterprise.
The plot is TIGHT. The arcs all make logical sense, one flows into the next without missing a beat, every episode has a point, every moment at the school contributes to characterization or plot. This is not a show with a lot of filler, and in hindsight it's quite silly that people complained that a show set in a high school (albeit a mecha high school) had too much... stuff happening in the high school. I guess a lot of people wanted them to jump right into the War Is Bad part, but I'm glad we got some time to explore the relationships between the characters and get a peek at some of the simmering political tensions in the world before the tomato hit the floor, so to speak.
Our main character, Suletta, is an absolute delight. She's totally unlike any other Gundam protag I can think of--derpy, socially awkward, pure-hearted, and yet a highly competent pilot (to sometimes-frightening degrees). She is deeply attached to her mobile suit in a way that would make Setsuna F. Seiei proud, and while she usually appears mentally sound, happy, and friendly, there is something clearly... off with her at times, indicated visually by a distinctive ◉◡◉ face that may or may not signal brainwashing, a Bioshock-esque code phrase, inherent sociopathy, or some combination thereof.
Suletta pairs well with Miorine, her bride and the deuteragonist. Miorine at first appears to be an ice princess who must be warmed by the heart of her love interest (explicitly Suletta, don't let the accusations of queerbaiting fool you), but thank God she's so much more than that. A rich girl with a complicated relationship with her distant and cold father who nonetheless benefits from his patronage, Miorine is a good friend, domineering but not mean, and really, really funny. This series has fantastic animation and Miorine is often the star of the scenes, with her movements being almost Trigger-esque at times. She's super expressive, both in terms of her face and her body movements (and her hair!).
As for the rest of the cast, the clear standouts here are Suletta's mother, who sure has changed in Char-like ways since we last saw her in the prologue; Shaddiq, the cool and collected schemer who is probably in way over his head; and Guel, the Jeremiah Gottwald/Patrick Colasour, the jerk who takes L after L to such an extent that you can't help but root for the guy to win. As an aside, the character designs are so charming and varied here, with so many different body shapes, face shapes, skin tones, hair types, everything is so colorful and alive and it's just fantastic to see given some of Gundam's... clunkier adventures in sameface syndrome.
Naturally, since this is only the first cour, we have a bunch of mysteries and incomplete plots to deal with here. By far the most interesting is whatever secret lies at the heart of Aerial--without any spoilers, a tie-in novel shows that the machine is sentient, and while dueling, another character sees an... astral projection? or something? that sure does raise some interesting questions. That is tied in to the personality changes we can see in Suletta's mother, and Suletta's personality itself--possibly Suletta's existence itself. None of it feels like pointless hanging threads, and I'm so excited to see where the show takes us next. This is absolutely the best non-UC Gundam I've seen in years and may take the title of best non-UC Gundam ever by the time we're done. My expectations are high.
(For those who have not yet watched this show, be advised that Ichiro Okouchi is mostly known for writing Code Geass....... and keep in mind that the finale demonstrates this very well.)
