What was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration becomes
tragedy when Dort 3 becomes the center of a bloody massacare by
Gjallarhorn. Caught in the middle, Mika,
Orga, and the others try to stay alive and witness the atrocities of
Gjallarhorn first hand. Spurred on by
what she’s seen and what she’s lost, Kudelia takes a stand and renews her faith
in her mission to reach Earth with Tekkadan’s help. Blasting their way out of Dort 3, Tekkadan
takes a stand against Gjallarhorn, with the planet Earth just barely out of
reach.
While Iron Blooded Orphans had my curiosity up until now,
this is the set of episodes where it has my attention.
I’ve been making a bunch of connections
between IBO and past Gundam entries and they’ve been helping me to understand
just how this world works and where certain characters might be heading with
their arcs.
Best of all, it’s exciting,
it’s tragic, it’s hopeful and at times, Iron Blooded Orphans can just be a flat
out fun series.
Any gripes I’ve had til
now, which seem minimal in retrospect, definitely weren’t bothering me the more
I got into this set.
Characters are
moving beyond growth and into actual change.
The political landscape is poised for a shake up and the action is both
exciting and ferocious.
In short, Iron
Blooded Orphans was on freaking fire and I hope this will carry on into the
midseries finale next time.
For now,
onto where we left off.
Looking back on the Battle of Dort 3, I could continually
see how much Iron Blooded Orphans has in common with another Gundam legend,
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Gjallarhorn are clearly the Titans of this
universe.
They have the power and clout to
keep any nasty and downright horrid operations out of Earth’s line of
sight.
Much like the Titans, Gjallarhorn
didn’t hesitate to use extreme force to put down the Worker
Demonstrations.
They even went an extra
step and provided the Workers with sabotaged weapons and Mobile Suits, so as to
not make the fighting look so one sided, though it was anyway.
Not to mention, the leader of this little
massacare even had the news coverage disconnected to keep their true
involvement minimal.
It’s Titans Tactics
101, only Gjallarhorn didn’t gas every man woman and child in the entire Dort
cluster.
Thankfully, there were officers
like Gaelio who refused to partake, even if he couldn’t do anything to stop it
himself.
Still, if it wasn’t clear how
dirty and corrupt Gjallarhorn was by now, the Dort 3 Massacare is all the proof
one needs.
So if Gjallarhorn are the Titans in this show, I guess
this makes Tekkadan the AEUG?
Eh, theyre
mercenaries for hire so theyre more like After War Gundam X’s Vulture Group
really.
But while they proved themselves
several times against Gjallarhorn in this set, it was Kudelia who stole the
show.
With the death of her best friend,
Fumitan, and seeing just how far Gjallarhorn will go to quell the slightest
hint of disorder in the Colonies (and Mars too for that matter), Kudelia
finally shook off her fears of being useless compared to everyone else and
stepped up into a more official leadership role.
She managed to get a message out from Dort 3
and challenged Gjallarhorn to try and silence her with the whole world
watching.
That takes guts and even
Mikazuki and Orga were impressed by Kudelia’s will and drive.
I often felt Kudelia was more in charge than
Orga during a lot of this set, though Orga was still in command of Tekkadan plus
he’s ok with it cause she’s the client and has their best interests in
mind.
Point is, Kudelia owned up to the
moniker everyones been throwing her way “Maiden of the Revolution” with
Tekkadan as her “Knights”.
She’s
definitely someone worth standing alongside and fighting for.
Clearly Gjallarhorn isn’t about to let this go
unanswered.
Not only were Gaelio and Ein
(a supporting character I haven’t talked much about yet but probably should) in
pursuit but we also got the introduction of Carta, a very theatrically minded
commander who comes from the same school as Dragon Ball Z’s Ginyu Force.
Carta’s loud, proud and all about style and
showmanship.
If any of her troops has a
misstep during a synchronized salute and cheer, she’ll call them out on it and
gets mad easily when her staging falls apart in any way…man is she going to
love Tekkadan.
Ein got a nice bit of
focus too, actually he has been for a while.
Ein’s an interesting case because he is one of the few Mars raised
Gjallarhorn members, which makes him an often belittled minority.
In spite of this, Ein’s been on the warpath
for Tekkadan ever since Mikazuki killed his former CO, Crank, back at the
beginning of the series.
And it looks
like Mika just jumped up higher on the Revenge List courtesty of how badly he
wrecked Ein in battle.
I absolutely
believe he’d take on some kind of Cyborg operation to fulfil his vendetta
towards Tekkadan.
Once we finally got to Earth, everyone got a moment to
breathe, look at the Moon and freak out over fish and refuse to believe it can
make a good meal.
Meanwhile, we got
setup for the next leg of the journey: escorting a wiley old man, Togonosuke
Makanai, to an upcoming Prime Minister election, where he’s certain he’ll win
and THEN he and Kudelia can talk about her wishes for peace.
It’s a stumble that caught everyone off
guard, especially when many Tekkadan’s members thought theyd be going home now
that Kudelia was on Earth.
Biscuit
turned out to be one of them after learning about his brothers fate in the wake
of his role in the Dort 3 Massacare.
It
was tough seeing Biscuit and Orga argue because these two have been pretty close
knit and in agreement so far.
But Orga
wants to keep forging a bigger and brighter future for Tekkadan while Biscuit
doesn’t want to see anymore family die.
He’s even going to far as to threaten to leave Tekkadan for good.
I don’t think it’ll get that far but man…I
believe he would and cant fault him but would always try to change his
mind.
Hopefully Orga can too.
Some other odds and ends before we wrap up.
The reentry battle was awesome, not a big
surprise given how much of a staple they’ve become for the Gundam
franchise.
Eugene piloting the Brewers
ship as a shield against Carta’s fleet was genius and gave the bragging loud
mouth a chance to be truly bad ass.
Mikazuki had a few nice moments with Kudelia and Atra, not ignoring how
in pain they were over Dort 3.
He even
brought the two of them in for a group hug and let them cry it out.
Crying might be something Mika himself is
incapable of, but he understands when others might have to.
Then there’s McGillis, who introduced himself
to Tekkadan under his masked persona, Montang, though that didn’t fool Mikazuki
for a second.
McGillis really is shaping
up to be this shows Char.
He wants
Tekkadan and Kudelia’s help in rooting out the corrupt elements of Gjallarhorn
and returning the organization to its former glory.
Does he count Gaelio as part of this
corruption?
I smell a Char/Garma Zabi
arc coming up for these two.
Also,
Gaelio has a Gundam Frame of his own (Akihiro discovered his brothers Mobile
Suit was actually a Gundam too under all that armor).
I liked McGillis’ thoughts that centuries ago
Gundams fought side by side to end the Calamity war but are now adversaries on
opposite sides.
It harkened back to one
of my favorite quotes from Gundam 00, “It’s a dark day when Gundams fight
amongst themselves”.
Honestly, I cant really think of any weaknesses in this
set of IBO episodes.
The series tapped
into its franchise roots for maximum dramatic effect which showed the true
nastiness of Gjallarhorn and the inner warrior it brought out in Kudelia.
Relationships were strengthened and
challenged and a new mission looks to be propelling things forward at full
speed.
Oh and the action kicked all
kinds of ass just as it should in a Gundam story.
Next time, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded
Orphans reaches its halfway mark…who will survive?
You’ll have to check back tomorrow right here
at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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