It is my goal to collect all of the mobile suits manufactured by Jeturk Heavy Machinery, and after ordering (and receiving) the Premium Bandai Desultor, I thought I was done. But during a trip to the local hobby store, I realized that I was missing one …
Yes, yes, I know what you may be thinking - “how in the world could you almost forgot about the Gundam Schwarzette?!?!?”
Now in my defense, it’s been a while since I watched Witch from Mercury. And it’s true that despite how cool it is, the mobile suit doesn’t get all that much screen time. AND it’s true I haven’t seen it on store shelves in a long while. So it’s not exactly been on the forefront of my mind.
But still, how could I almost forgot it?!?! I’m ashamed of myself!
Spoiler Preface!!!
This post contains some major spoilers from VERY late in Witch from Mercury. You may want to skip it if you haven’t watched the show.
About the Mobile Suit
Here is what the instruction manual has to say:
I feel like the details on this are a little vague, but here’s how I personally interpret it. As a proof of concept, the Darilbalde was really just meant to be an experimental unit for the purposes of gathering test data. Once they had it, the plan was to make another, better unit that Jeturk could presumably sell to clients.
However, they were over ambitious in their plans and/or didn’t have the technology to make better drone tech than what was on the Darilbalde. That is, until Aerial showed up, and GUND tech was offered up to any interested parties, at which point Jeturk’s engineers had the tech they needed to cross the finish line.
Now, there’s one thing that isn’t clear - how much of the Schwarzette is based on the original, pre-GUND design, and how much of it was modified and updated as a response/reaction to Aerial? We know that the body of the mobile suit didn’t change too much. Here’s an early version:
And here is the finished version:
Aside from the addition of more Shell Unit sections (as well as a pair of devil horns, which we’ll get back to later), it’s pretty much the same. But then there is the matter of the weapons … but first, let’s talk the suit’s one and only fight.
Appearances
While we see glimpses of the Schwarzette in a handful of episodes, its only significant appearance is during a battle in the penultimate episode.
It winds up being piloted by Lauda Neil, the half brother of my Guel, my favorite character in the show. Lauda’s in pretty bad shape at this point in the story. He’s gone through a lot of misfortune, and in his trauma he believes that root cause of it all is Suletta’s arrival on the scene. He takes off in the Schwarzette in hopes of getting revenge against her.
The only problem is that his timing is terrible, as he shows up right when Suletta is trying to literally save the world. Ultimately Lauda is unable to seek her out, as one of Suletta’s allies flies in to intercept:
Yep, it’s Guel, and since his Darilbalde was trashed in a previous engagement, he had no choice but to go out in his old custom Dilanza.
On account of having a much more powerful mobile suit, Lauda managed to cause heavy damage to the Dilanza, including cutting off both its legs and breaking its Beam Partizan. But Guel’s a good enough pilot that he was able to stay alive, and eventually the crippling effects of the GUND Format caused enough physical damage to Lauda that he was nearly incapable of going on. Thus the two decided to finish the fight by rushing forward to deal a killing blow.
But Guel couldn’t bear to hurt his brother, and he felt like he should pay for the mistakes he made throughout the story. In so in an act of love for his brother, he turns off his blade, and well …
Yeah …
We then get a tender moment between the two brothers, with lots of sorries and crying. It’s obvious that Guel is going to float away and blow up, except …
In a twist that is only vaguely telegraphed, Felsi swoops in like a champ and fires some weird flame retarding foam at the Dilanza, saving Guel.
It’s a bit tacky, but I’ll allow it, not only because it spares my favorite character, but also because it’s a swerve that you don’t often see in most anime.
Weapons
First off, let me just point out the Schwarzette has revolver style guns built into its wrists, which is awesome as f*ck.
But it’s signature weapon is something called the Guardian. You know how Aerial has her Escutcheon shield that can split apart into small flying Bits? The Guardian is the same thing; in fact, the instruction manual explicitly states that it is based on the Escutcheon.
Basically, it’s a bunch of Bits that come together in the form of a giant sheathed sword. In this mode (called “Guardian Sheath” mode) the sword form can act as a shield, but it can also open fire with four builtin beam gatling guns.
Next, the Bits can come apart and deploy (this is known as “Guardian Draw” mode). In this mode they act like Aerial’s own Bits, and are capable of flying around and shooting at targets. The Schwarzette itself then switches to using its remaining handheld weapon, a long blade that’s normally hidden inside the sheath.
Lastly, there is “Guardian Marionette” mode, which is exactly like Aerial’s “Bit on Form” mode. Some of the bits attach to Schwarzette’s body to help enhance its performance.
Omni-Azimuth Laser
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the "Omni-Azimuth Laser" attack. This is when all of the bits fire at once; it seems as if they can alternate between firing wildly in every direction, or concentrating on a single point:Hopefully you can see the pattern here. The Guardian is simply an attempt to outdo Aerial’s own weapons - and somehow I doubt it’s what Jeturk’s engineers originally had in mind. The similarities to Aerial are just too strong.
Which then makes me wonder - what was its original weapon set supposed to be …?
Aerial VS Schwarzette
We never actually see these two mobile suits square off, so there's no telling which would win in a fight. But while the Guardian may have been an attempt to outdo Aerial's own weapon set, I'm not sure it actually does.The biggest flaw is that Schwarzette doesn't have a traditional beam rifle. While it has plenty of other long range weapons, none of them seem capable of the kind of precision firing you can get with a beam rifle.
The counter argument, I think, is that this doesn't matter, on account of Schwarzette's ordinance being so overwhelming. But anyone who's watched any amount of Gundam knows that ace pilots can always find a way to fly through a barrage of beams or missiles.
The other flaw I see is that, when using its shield, Aerial can choose between using her Beam Rifle or her Beam Saber. In contrast, when Schwarzette wants to use its Guardian sheath mode, it can't really use it as a melee weapon (well, I guess it could, but it would be unwieldy), nor does it have any alternate melee weapons to fall back on.
In other words, Aerial's weapons are more flexible, and I think that would give her an advantage in a fight. Then again, we should also keep in mind that Schwarzette's arsenal was always going to be at a disadvantage, because it was very clearly driven by the real-world Rule of Cool. Which, to be fair, it is exceedingly cool.
About the Visual Design
Aside from the copious number of shell unit sections running across its frame, and it’s very Aerial-like weapon, the actual body of the Schwarzette is very clearly a Jeturk design. The entire torso, as well as the shoulders, are straight off the Darilbalde, while the feet are also very similar.
Even the halo-shaped crest on its head is a callback to a similar construct on the Darilbalde:
However, it ditches the monoeye that’s common on all other Jeturk mobile suits, in favor of having two eyes like any other Gundam. It also has a much more muted color scheme than other Jeturk suits. It’s not quite the standard color scheme found on most Gundams, but with all the grey it’s at least moving in that direction.
Basically, it’s a fusion of two distinct visual aesthetics, and I think that makes it one of the more intriguing designs in the show.
Now about those horns. My headcannon is that Lauda himself asked for those to be added, because they matched his very edgelord-y mood at the time. Or maybe it’s a bit of flair that real world mecha designer Ippei Gyoubu added to symbolize the dark and sinister nature of the mobile suit. I’ve seen at least one fan online assert that Schwarzette looks something like a fallen angel due to the combination of the halo and the horns.
About the Model Kit
When the penultimate episode of GWitch aired, I remember the collective internet asking how quickly they could preorder the models for both Calibarn and Schwarzette. Despite both mobile suits having extremely limited screen time, they clearly made an impression on fans.
That said, I also remember some fans being worried about the fact that Schwarzette was clearly going to use a lot of stickers. I haven’t heard anything since about whether or not that ended up being a problem, so I guess we’ll find out together.
Other Thoughts
I don’t think schwarzette is an actual word, but is rather a fusion of two real world constructs - the German word “schwarze”, and the suffix “ette”. Put them together, and the name seemingly means “black haired girl”, or “girl in black”.
On a very literal level, I suppose it works, as the mobile suit has some dark colored parts. What I’m more interested in is whether or not the name implies that, like most (all?) of the other Gundams in the show, the Schwarzette is meant to be coded female.
I guess that would make sense, but on the other hand is has a fairly masculine silhouette compared to something like Lfrith or Aerial. I say this only half jokingly, but maybe the test is to check its hands and see if it has long manicured nails.
