As a physical product, the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Steelbooks for both seasons are nice and sleek with some striking featured art. Behind the discs inside is another set of art, representing the different seasons. Once opened, the paper sleeves over the backs reveal images of Suletta and Miorine, respectively. There's not much to the packaging beyond that, which is probably fine for what these are; you either want the Steelbooks because they're Steelbooks, or you don't.
The additional special features included in both seasons are, however, a little disappointing. Maybe this is just my experience with companies like Discotek absolutely stuffing its releases full of odds and ends, but the fact that each season of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury includes only textless, clean opening and endings as well as a promo video is frankly disappointing. If you're looking for bells and whistles, best look elsewhere (like in our guide to the best gifts for gamers).
Beyond grabbing the Steelbooks for both seasons as collector items, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, picking up the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Blu-rays makes for the best way to actually watch the entire series. The whole show is represented on the four total discs between the two Steelbooks, including the prologue episode.
As someone that watched all of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury while it was airing via Crunchyroll's streaming service, it's honestly shocking how much crisper and smoother the show plays through the pressed physical discs. Rationally, I know and have known that this is the case; I own hundreds of DVDs and Blu-rays. But the difference here is impressive.
I'd had my eyes on the Blu-rays long before they were provided to me for coverage purposes, and in my opinion Witch From Mercury is easily one of the best modern incarnations of the Gundam franchise, if not the best. These Steelbooks are the best way to actually watch the series, and that makes them easy to recommend to anyone that might be interested even if the actual physical packaging isn't particularly exciting.
Should you buy Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury steelbooks?
The reason to buy these Steelbooks, separately or together, is to own a physical copy of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury. The packaging is nice enough, but certainly not the key selling point, and the lack of any real special features to speak of means that it all comes down to the anime series itself. For my money, Witch From Mercury is Gundam at its best, and makes for an easy recommendation, but if you're not traditionally a fan of mecha it might be a tougher sell.
This review was made using a sample provided by the publisher.
