Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (TV)

[Ryllharu]

1) She did the dance because she had to. They were marketing Gundam, Inc. by streaming the entire duel. She's promoting the company with the campaign they came up with, as embarrassing and cringeworthy as it is.

2) GOOD. Gundams are war machines. It was a team battle, and both sides fought as a team. That's the shit I want. Gundam and Macross both suffer from main lead syndrome, where the lead has perpetual plot armor and there's no tension in the series because of it (it's something 00 did right, as did Macross F tv series). Earth House got their ass handed to them for the majority of the match, but they still won the war simulation. Early Code Geass got that right, and very very few other mecha do. Gunbuster (before the buster machines are revealed) and Martian Successor Nadesico are the only two I can think of, with the latter exploring that entire Team vs Hero Unit dynamic rather thoroughly.

3) In general, I don't think Gundam WfM is targeted at girls. It's not a shoujo mecha (that could maybe be associated with Granbelm, definitely Escaflowne). The goal was to have the series be female-led, and it is...it's just Miorine and not Suletta for the moment.

4) Good. See #2. Thank you for a realistic portrayal of a war encounter. It wasn't camping, by the way, in case you missed the obvious signs. Earth House cobbled together their broken mobile suits and overcharged the remaining part of a laser cannon they had. Slagged the barrel doing so and were helpless after that, but they killed the enemy commander.

5) I think this is another one they did intelligently and naturally. Shaddiq claims he wanted to protect Miorine. They got along really well as kids, she trusted him, they were open and honest with each other. But Shaddiq accidentally betrayed her. The only way that he could think to protect her was to control her, and that's everything she hates about the way people treat her.
Miorine grew up and learned to start trusting other, and Shaddiq didn't. It's nice to see a series address that people can love and care for each other, but when that trust is broken, it could be a very long time for that forgiveness to happen. Miorine demanded a contract from him to not interfere with her business again, that's how harshly he broke her trust.

edit:
Gundam purists will tell anyone who bothers to listen to them that UC is the only setting that matters, and that's gotten power-creeped to hell. And that Gundam has sucked for decades and decades.

Ad Stella has a relatively even skill vs tech level for the moment that I'm happy with.