Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe is the second movie in the Hathaway trilogy. While the violence here is lighter than one might expect for a Gundam entry (battles are a surprising rarity in this film), female objectification comes across on screen a number of times.
Whatever it takes, Hathaway Noa will save the Earth from the Earth Federation.
He wasn’t always the head of the terrorist organization Mafty. At one point, the Earth Federation would have called him a celebrated—if somewhat traumatized (for reasons we have not the time to get into)—war hero.
But not anymore. Now, Hathaway assassinates Earth Federation leaders—even if a civilian or two get caught in the crossfire.
It’s all because the Earth Federation is horrifically corrupt, led by evil men hoping to rid the world of as many people as possible in order to horde its riches and resources for themselves. That’s why they started the Man Hunters, Hathaway would claim, who find and deport illegal immigrants to Earth back into space. But the Man Hunters aren’t afraid to cause a little bloodshed in their goals—and they’ll find reasons to send legal citizens to a space colony, too.
Hathaway and his crew currently operate on intel that a significant number of Federation leaders will be meeting in Adelaide, Australia. It’s an area Mafty can hit to devastating effect, if they play their cards right. But Federation forces led by Kenneth Sleg are quickly closing in on Hathaway and Mafty.
And in between Hathaway and Kenneth’s inevitable clash stands Gigi Andalucia. Gigi spent a passionate night with Hathaway during the events of the previous film. Since then, she cannot stop yearning to get back to the man.
But Kenneth keeps her close: He recognizes Gigi’s near-precognitive levels of perception as a valuable asset in the effort to suppress the Mafty terrorists.
There’s something to be said about the neutrality the movie takes with its conflict: Neither side comes out morally perfect in their actions, and no one can be labeled the “good” guys.
The animation here is stellar, blending realism with its 2D characters through smooth scenes.
Someone describes Gigi as a “goddess of luck.” This is on account of the woman having a sort of foresight ability, which she occasionally uses to detect danger or influence military plans. Gigi denies being a fortune teller, though she describes her unique talent as “just [having] a bad feeling.”
Gigi asks if a man is religious, and he says no. Someone jokes that they should pray to God. Gigi tells Hathaway that he should become a god.
A woman assists Hathaway as he prepares for takeoff in his Gundam suit; she’s wearing overalls with nothing underneath, and the overalls reveal most of her breasts. The camera intentionally focuses on the woman’s chest and rear. Hathaway comments on her breasts, and as she leaves, she flashes the rest of the crew while turned away from the camera.
We see Gigi’s bare rear as she gets out of bed in a dark room; we see her a few other times in her underwear. She remembers another instance in which she removed her top just as a man walked into the room. The man in question, in the present, showers while thinking about that moment, and he chastises himself for his “carnal lust.” Gigi takes a bath, and we see her from the shoulders up.
A man and woman hold each other while lying naked in bed. (The man’s arm hides the woman’s breasts from the camera.) Another woman leans over in a loose shirt, revealing the side of her breast to the camera.
A couple of women wear bikinis or other revealing outfits. A couple of men are seen shirtless, including a man who never wears a shirt for the movie’s duration.
An old man puts his hand on the back of an uncomfortable Gigi while making a suggestive comment. We later see the two in bed (with Gigi in a revealing outfit), implying more occurred.
Various military personnel speculate as to whether two people had sex. A man and woman kiss. A man attempts to get a glance up a woman’s dress.
We hear a portion of the suggestive SZA song “Snooze” during a title sequence.
Gundam mobile suits—giant human-operated war robots—obviously play a role here. We witness a Gundam-led attack from the perspective of ground forces, watching as the war machines cause explosive chaos. Battles between people-operated mobile suits occasionally occur in the movie, and some suits explode, killing the people operating them. We also see dozens of bodies strewn across the ground at one point; dogs chew on the corpses.
There are references to suicide, torture and “mobile suits squeezing people to death.” We’re told that over a hundred people (likely civilians) died in a hunt for illegal immigrants from space to Earth. A woman slaps another woman following a crude remark.
We hear roughly 10 uses of “d–n” as well as one use each of both “h—” and “b–tard.”
People smoke cigarettes and cigars. Someone drinks champagne. A man refuses to take prescription pills.
None.
With some franchises, it’s a lot of work if you want to know what’s going on.
Want to get into Marvel? That’s over 30 movies. Interested in One Piece? That’ll take over a thousand episodes to get caught up. Ready to explore the galaxy in Star Trek? Be willing to digest more than 50 seasons of TV.
The Gundam franchise is much the same way. Since its creation in 1979, Gundam has flown across TV sets and movie screens with nonstop popularity. (If you’ve ever seen Pacific Rim, you can thank Mobile Suit Gundam for making giant mechs popular.) The franchise was even making alternate universes before they were cool; to date, there are at least 12 alternate timelines in this franchise.
In other words, to fully understand everything being discussed in this movie—there’s about 50+ hours of content that’d be helpful to watch beforehand. Chances are, however, that if you’re reading this review, this isn’t your first time engaging in Gundam content, so I won’t belabor that point.
What viewers will want to know is that, despite the beautiful animation and the impressively scaled battles that bring viewers straight into mobile suit combat like never before, the Hathaway trilogy focuses on a bleak world in which Mafty and the Earth Federation alike apparently love outdoing each other in war crimes. And, as for other issues, we see multiple women nearly nude many times before the movie’s end.
So viewers will want to take those issues into account before suiting up for Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
