We share our final thoughts on the Spring 2023 season, a solid group of shows that managed to survive some bumpy endings. Yes, that includes Birdie Wing and Gundam.
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Show Notes
4:20 My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999
9:49 Skip and Loafer
14:27 Vinland Saga
36:17 Oshi no Ko
52:38 BIRDIE WING: GOLF GIRLS’ STORY
1:03:29 Heavenly Delusion (Tengoku Daimakyo)
1:22:23 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
The Glorio Blog 
I’ll give you guys that they did a good job of show don’t tell in the first half, but I can’t agree that they actually did that after the betrayal episode. I guess maybe I forgot, but I just don’t remember a point when Miorine properly apologized for it. There’s the one scene where Miorine is in the blanket, but it’s more about picking her back up for the false flag (which she wasn’t even responsible for) rather than her coming to terms with treating Suletta like a child when she betrayed her.
Almost every character remains 2-dimensional, the only one I see as experiencing legitimate change is Miorine. Suletta is still just the goodie-two shoes dutiful daughter, earth people remain non-factors, Guel has that mid season development and then goes right back to being about family honor in a dishonorable family, Shaddik never really changes from being the midseason villain even in the epilogue, maybe you can make an argument for Elan5, but it’s essentially going from pompous to cowardly, not exactly a good character arc. Also yeah, Prospera should have gotten Hagued for sure.
Also the ending was just terrible. Nothing made sense within the universe, the enemy comes out of nowhere twice (first the Quiet Zero colony, then the space laser), as you all noted the stop war button comes out of nowhere, and nobody dies. Death has to be used well, but to have no one die in the final fight, not even Eri, is cowardly writing. The only people who died were the people the universe treats as disposable (Elan4, the earth resistance) and three bad guys (Jeturk, the rando Suletta murks, and Sophie, who is also has a narrative arc about being disposable) kinda makes it seem like the story saw them as disposable too. Not the best message.
Honestly I agree with you about most of your criticisms, especially regarding the final episode and the lack of true consequences, death or otherwise. I think though, and the point we were trying to make in the podcast, is that we kind of like the show *despite* its obvious narrative failings and compromises. There are definitely aspects of the writing that are severely compromised, be it by lack of time or by other reasons, but in our eyes the positives of the show outshone those deficiencies. Everyone will weigh those factors differently though!