Friday, April 8, 2016

FIF#7-Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans


The year is Post Disaster 323.  More than 300 years have passed since the Great Calamity War between Earth and the Colonies.  As a result, Mars has been successful terraformed and colonized.  However, even in the future, independence is a thing of the past as Mars lives under the thumb of the Earth.  Kudelia Aina Bernstein, a Martian Princess, is determined to gain Mars its independence.  At the same time, the youth of the private military organization, CGS, rise up against their adult overseers and declare themselves Tekkadan.  Their first official mission is to ensure Kudelia’s safe passage to Earth.  Though comprised of children raised since birth for combat, Tekkadan has three elements that give it hope to stand against Earth’s Gjallarhorn military organization: Orga, their leader who will never stop until Tekkadan sees it’s victory; Mikazuki, Orga’s best friend and a deadly pilot, and their long buried but nonetheless most dangerous weapon-The Gundam Barbatos.

This ones been a long time coming (I think longer than Digimon Tri), when it comes to features I wanted to cover here on First Impression Friday.  Problem was, I didn’t know how far into the season I wanted to get through before voicing an opinion on the latest entry in the Gundam franchise.  Well, for me anyway, the first season wrapped last week and the series is on a lengthy hiatus until the fall.  So now’s as good a time as any.  What did I think of the first half of Iron Blooded Orphans?

It was…ok.  I know that there are a lot of people who really love this series and say it is the best thing to happen to Gundam in a really long time.  For me, it took a couple of episodes to get into and even when I was knee deep in the series, a lot of stuff was flying over my head.  Politics has never been my thing, even if Gundam it can be a little frustrating.  IBO is no different in this regard.  Like every other series, many characters have hidden agendas that either don’t make sense to me, or I just don’t care about.  Some of the more personal conflicts of the ginormous cast were more entertaining thankfully.  If I do have anything bad to say about IBO’s first season, it’s that sometimes the cast wasn’t too large, I just don’t think it was diverse as it wanted to be.  Honestly, by the midpoint, I still couldn’t tell Eugene, Shino and a couple other characters apart.  When Orga barks orders to them, I just scratched my head, “Who’s he giving orders too?”  Of the many Tekkadan members, the only ones I ever cared about (more or less) were Orga, Mika and Biscut (oh God that name.  Such an endearing character but come on…).  Everyone else, im really surprised doesn’t get wacked by mid finale…and ill get to that in a second.

As for the two big leads: Orga and Mika are an interesting pair.  I still cant wait to see Orga’s cool façade totally backfire and bit Tekkadan hard in the ass.  It does in a big way towards the end when we lose a major character.  I’m just curious how far he’ll go before he realizes, all of Tekkadan might die before they find their place in history.  As for Mika…Mikazuki is the scariest Gundam protagonist of all time.  He’s like a loaded gun with the safety off at all times and he will not think twice about killing you in any manner.  Matters of honor and procedure never fly with him.  When one Gjallarhorngeneral tries to make a speech before he dies…Mika just shoots him, like words were a waste of time.  It’s scary but when certain moments arise and it’s necessary for Mika’s unhinged state to do some damage…ill admit I was excited.  That big character loss I mentioned a moment ago hits Mika pretty hard.  So hard that when the commander that kills the character challenges Tekkadan to a duel and gives them 30min to prepare…Mika just says “F*** It” and annihilates them all.   I have no doubt that Orga cares a lot about his best friend.  Still cant help but feel he a bastard exploiting Mika’s lack of humanity at times.  Mika does grow though, opening up to several characters, especially Kudelia, who is more or less his love interest.  Kudelia was pretty frustrating up until the last few episodes.  She’s cute but I couldn’t think of an episode that went by where she didn’t complain about how useless and powerless she was.  All these guys are doing everything in their power to protect her, the least she could do is cheer them on and support them rather than mope.

What about the Barbatos?  It’s one of the most interesting Gundam designs since the Turn A Gundam.  It may not have the “white mustache” but it’s run down look is pretty noteworthy.  I sometimes equated a lot of the action on Mars to that of Mad Max and Barbatos definitely reminded me of a Mobile Suit that would exist in a post apocalyptic world, and a lot less shiny that any mechs in Gundam X (which was a post apocalyptic story).  I also like how there was an emphasis on CQC with this Gundam.  The last few iterations of Gundam have seen a lot of beam spamming, which I know irritates a lot of fans.  But here, we have a return to the down and dirty, old school ways before cannons gave the edge.  Though I never got why Mika always used that heavy, if not effective hammer when he has a kick ass samurai sword.  Mika is a stubborn kid but using that sword would have saved him a lot of time in the long run at times.  All in all, the Barbatos is a welcome addition to the Mobile Suit Gundam line up.
As for Gjallarhorn…I found them to be one of the most annoying aspect of the series.  Many times I felt they were trying too hard to be Treize Kushrenada from Gundam Wing…well for a few characters anyway.  McGillis is way too complex for me to comprehend.  Galileo was just his pretty boy sidekick.  Catra…oh man did she pick the wrong team of kids to try and talk about style, honor and legacy with, I was just waiting for her to get what was coming to her.  As the supposed villains of the series, they were pretty easy to stand against.  Especially by the last few episodes when they should have realized that no matter how much they screamed about Tekkadan’s lack of honor and respect…it was never going to be heard.  One character, Ein, is around solely to avenge the death of his LT killed by Mika early on.   His final battle with the Barbatos was exactly what I wanted it to be.  In the tradition of Black Lagoon’s Revy, Mika pretty much mutes the mouthy maniac and asks if he’s just going to talk him to death or fight?  Gjallarhorn might be headed in another direction in Season 2 and hopefully they’ll improve as villains. 

Oh and I cant wrap this up without a shout out to my man Naze: the Teiwaz member who has his own harem ship of female Mobile Suit Pilots…I want a spin off series with this man and his ladies, hell a prequel would be awesome.  Maybe in Season Two?

Iron Blooded Orphans tried me at times, but I’m glad I stuck with it.  As far as Gundam shows go, it definitely feels different compared to 00, AGE and Build Fighters.  Gundam has always had a penchant for throwing children into war but this just seems grittier, more darker and therefore more interesting from the get go.  The characters are a cast of dozens but most are well rounded.  The action is as intense as you’d expect from the setting.  And it always came with that sense of wanting to know what came next when the awesome end credits rolled.  Oh and btw Raise Your Flag is the best Gundam Intro ever…deal with it.

I’ll def be back on board with Tekkadan when Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans returns Fall 2016.
 

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