Happy 38th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam!! April 7th aka Gundam Day marked the anniversary of this worldwide franchise. I myself a huge Gundam fan just found this out, like why am I so late on this I didn’t even know so it makes it even more right to share this with you. Just Recently this past Sunday Mobile Suit Gundam’s newest branch Iron Blooded Orphans just had it’s Second Season finale and what also appears to be the end of all ends for this new branch. I myself have only recently got into this anime when I binged watched all of first season last year. Iron Blooded Orphans is the 14th installment in the long history of Gundam franchise and was first released in June 2015 and the first ended in March 2016. Then we were issued with a second season in October 2016 all the way up until now.
Iron Blooded Orphans takes place 300 years after the Calamity War, where the use of Gundams is only being used by military forces if necessary. We meet a group of young Orphans on Mars who all are made to clean up this facility, almost child labor in a since, but they are treated poorly and are called “Human Debris” this name comes from an experiment which was done to most of them early on called Alaya Vijnana which allows Gundam pilots to be able have more control over their Gundam and be more connected into the system. The procedure is very dangerous and only a handful of children survived. We meet, Orga a strong leader of the group, and we also meet Mikazuki the strong silent type, who is willing to fight at any cost.
Season 1 of Iron Blooded was so amazing and adventurous, if you have not watch this show I suggest you get on it because next up will have some spoilers. Watching the first season it truly gave me that old Gundam Wing feel where you had your silent strong charcters, but also your characters that had so much charisma and wanted to just do anything and everything to fight for justice. This show had great lead characters, but also great side characters that you really built a relationship with and wanted them to prevail throughout the series. That’s one thing a lot of like anime’s and shows lack sometimes, when they only care about the main characters and throw in a side character that’s soon to be forgettable. In this Season this group of kids finally had enough of what the adults were dishing out and fought back, after fighting back they had to come up with a name that described them and it was Tekkadan. Tekkadan means Iron Flower, that perfectly describes the tough ruggedness, but also the delicateness of who these children are.
Tekkadan helps a young woman by the name of Kudelia who almost in a way becomes apart of their family, you almost forget that Tekkadan is just this group of young kids. Throughout all of Season 1 we see everyone makes fun of them only because of who they are, but once they go up against Tekkadan in a head on collision they see that Orga, Mikazuki and the rest of the team aren’t anything to fool with. During this season we see Tekkadan’s trials and tribulations with trying to become a bigger name where people would actually want to trade with them and take them serious. This all comes at the hands of Mr. Makani, Teiwaz and also Naze Turbine. Orga and Naze become close almost like a brother kind of relationship and Tekkadan has finally found a few allies in the intergalactic sphere. Tekkadan gets into a bit of trouble towards the end of this season which leads to a huge death that almost shatters your heart.
We enter season 2 with the harsh reality that Biscuit one of the most loyal and honestly one of best characters on the team. You can see that everyone is still recovering from this lost. To be honest this second season was so emotional, so many deaths and so many people faced difficult challenges. Orga truly getting into his role as boss, Mika aka the devil occurring to everyone in space still the Tekkadan enforcer. We also got into more stories of the team, one of my favorite members Akihiro, the muscle head of the group who actually turns out to be very shy, but also a strong and great leader and an excellent pilot. We also dive into the story of Ride, and Takaki. This season had a completely different tone then last season, last season Tekkadan was trying to shed their past and become known as an independent group. This season we see the crew has made a name for themselves as being apart of Teiwaz sort of like the underground allegiance, but also being in the middle of a heated battle with one of the top Political offices GjallarHorn.
Gjallarhorn is split into at the moment, One side is Mcgillis Fareed (one of my favorites) and the other side is Rustal Elion who is also one of the top chairs in the board of the seven stars. Mcgillis believes that Gjallarhorn is corrupt, which in fact they are, and Rustal wants to Mcgillis to stop believing in false ideals, and believe that what has been done in the past and what is going on now is the best plan. Might I add Rustal is a great tactician and military leader, he always has a back up plan for the back up plan. Rustal is always thinking 10 steps ahead. One of the reasons Mcgillis is one of my favorites he befriended Tekkadan, but he also believes that space should be governed by a system where each planet, or each person has the right to include their ideals, and give people a system they can believe in, and not just be a robot to. Well if you watched Season 2 you see how that ended for him.
Before I move on, I have to talk about my favorite character Mikazuki. He is the best and strongest fighter on Tekkadan and he pilots Barbatos which turned into Barbatos Lupus Rex with modifications. Mika is a very quiet character, but when he had something to say everyone listened and he only took orders from Orga, the person who he feels saved his life, so he felt he owed his life to Orga and would only do what he said if need be. Mika was a straight up assassin this dude was a gangsta in every since of the word he did not care who he had to shoot or kill. One thing I did love though in the last episode how Mika stood up and led the team and put the team on his back and everyone respected it.
This season we got to see some familiar faces, especially Gaelio. What!!! we all thought he was dead, he sure proved he could beat death and came back as the masked avenger Vidar. Vidar was actually a pretty cool alter ego and I really enjoyed it and even his Gundam was dope. We see Gaelio is looking for revenge on Mcgillis, but also as befriended Rustal’s apprentice Julieta who is another amazing Gundam pilot. Julieta wants to be the best fighter for Rustal, and Gaelio constantly is trying to tell her be the best for yourself do not try to be the best for someone else. I was never really a big fan Gaelio last season, but this season I liked is new found anger, but also battle cry and battle scar.
I’ve said this already, but I have to say it again this season was so emotional they tried to rip our hearts out none stop. These last like 3 episodes had you on the edge of your seat and then the season finale had me literally almost crying. This season finale was excellent, the Tekkadan team was escaping while Mika, Akihiro stood and beat down on the gjallarhorn forces. The team is altogether, but still feeling like they should’ve stayed and fought. Akihiro finally got his revenge after blaming himself for the death of many of the Tekkadan crew and Mika got his final battle with julieta. This episode springs us into the a year or two after the battle between Tekkadan and Gjallarhorn, we see Rustal has now taken some ideals from Mcgillis and put them into action and Kudelia is in charge now. We see many have mood on while one of them still holds on to a big time grunge that led to a super dope ending for one of the major bosses.
This finale definitely felt like a finale and that this would be the last time we would be seeing Iron Blooded Orphans, so many deaths, but also everyone has found a new place for themselves. We also see the birth of a new generation at the end which leads us to believe maybe this is not fully the end for Iron blooded orphans but maybe a time for a new generation that will come into the picture.
I truly loved this show, it gave me that old feeling when I first saw Zechs and Heero and all of them, nothing compares to that, but this branch of Gundam definitely is one of the best. Sorry for the spoilers but this new season has so many dynamics, that it was hard not to spoil anything. Can’t wait to see what the next branch of Mobile Suit Gundam and what they will come up with next. Maybe next we will see a new generation or maybe they will finally try to bring peace in the galaxy without the Gundams, we see how that ended in Endless waltz. Happy 38th anniversary to Mobile Suit Gundam one of my favorite anime franchises. comment below on what your favorite Gundam branch was and why or what you thought of this season… Peace to all you Gundam lovers
RiceBall 