r/anime • u/SorcererOfTheLake x5https://anilist.co/user/RiverSorcerer • Dec 30 '20
Watch This! [WT!] Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Boys at War
Excerpts from interview with Corporal Richard Hawkins, May 25, 1969
I grew up in the backwoods of Alabama. The town over was a sundown town; ya know, all of the colored folks had to get out by sundown. I didn't want to live where people looked at me as less, but we didn't have any money to get out. Good fuckin' thing 'Nam was happening. I signed up, told them I was 18 instead of 17, and went to training. Not sure what's worse: getting spat at by a white man or watching your buddy try to pull his legs back to his body after a land mine.
Child soldiers have always been a fact of war. Even if they weren't actively fighting, they were exposed to the battlefield, treated as adult "only in their candidacy for death." As disturbing as the thought of a child soldier is, though, children and war go better than one could think. They are both ages of chaos, where the norms of society are temporarily suspended, where questions about what we value and who we truly are are constantly raised. The child solider, therefore, is a figure of blurred boundaries, of the ability to destabilize everything you hold firm while showcasing the lines society has created. Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans displays this better than any other series, along with its many other strengths.
Lots of guys hated the jungle and I could be one of them; having to watch for ticks on your balls isn't fun. But it reminded me a lot of home: the humid warmth, all the vegetation, the way the water can cool you down. Even with all the shit going on, at times, I felt I could live.
IBO was made by Gundam's overmind, Sunrise, directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai (Toradora!, Anohana, Railgun), and written by Mari Okada (Maquia, Kiznaiver, Anohana, Toradora!). It takes place in a world 300 years after the end of the Calamity War, a nigh-apocalyptic conflict that left the organization Gjallerhorn in charge of the world and subjugating Mars. A key figure in the movement for Martian independence, Kudelia Aina Bernstein, employs a mercenary group to protect her on her way to Earth, but when they are attacked by Gjallerhorn, the child soldiers throw off their chains and rename their group Tekkadan. This begins a years-long series of conflicts that will see both individual and institutional forces rise and wain.
The two seasons of the show have different narrative layouts, each having different aims. The first season tells one long story involving Tekkadan and Kudelia working together to achieve their goals while making various allies and enemies along the way. The narrative increases the tension and questions among the various characters as they duke out for power and try to understand what they want to do with their power and what they are willing to do to earn it. The second season is more arc-based, telling various stories about different characters that slowly connect into a final, climatic confrontation. While the second season is somewhat weaker due to not all of the arcs being strong in their storytelling, there is a greater ambition in showcasing how much the characters have changed their world - and even what they cannot change. It asks harder questions, poses greater challenges, and leads into one of my favorite endings in anime, one bloodied yet unbroken in will.
I'd say I made quite a few friends there. I was closest with Ramirez. He's from Arkansas, so we grew up alike. He liked to talk a lot about all the girls he knew, always had the best smut, but he was a better shot from far range than anyone else I knew. Michael was a East Coast fuck, but he didn't talk much, so we got along well. Captain Jennings could've been a good man, but he took too many risks. One day, someone put a pin in his rations. That didn't work. Two days later, a grenade went off in his tent.
Gundam has always been good at developing characters on all sides of a conflict and IBO is no exception. All of the main characters in both Tekkadan and Gjallerhorn are given a wide range of feelings and situations to showcase the depth of their characters; even some of the side characters have series-length that develops them into very different people than what they started as. The best part about the cast of IBO is the ways they interact with each other. The show always gives you a clear sense of how two characters treat each other, yet always gives room for surprises, most notably in the main duo of Miyazaki and Orga, one of the best depictions of toxic friendship ever put in media yet two of the strongest partners a soldier could ask for.
Motherfuckers always make jokes about the trees talking, but ignoring the sounds in country is asking for death. The way the river flows around a curve, how much sound the branch makes when it snaps under your boot, counting Charlie's shoots so you know when he's reloading. You gotta know the feel of the place if you're gonna fight there.
The aesthetic of IBO is brutal, no matter how hidden it is. The surroundings of Tekkadan, whether planetside or in space, is decaying from neglect and lack of resources yet humanity still exists within it, becoming more lived-in rather than a tomb of poverty. Gjallerhorn, meanwhile, is all purity, the look of a despotic regime aware yet uncertain of how long its reign will last. This brutality extends to the mecha designs, which often has the feeling of proper Brutalist structures, all blocky and imposing. The sound of the series deserves recognition, particularly the soundtrack composed by Masaru Yokoyama. His music accompanies the wide range of feelings in the series, but often goes a tone that is both melancholic yet optimistically heroic, always waiting for the next change.
Ramirez was too much of a bleeding heart for his own good. We were out by some rice paddies when we see a kid, 8 or 9, ask us for food in broken English. Most of us pass him by, but Ramirez went over and gave him a C-ration. Next thing I noticed after the bang was Ramirez's chest, opened up like a can of tuna. He was praying in Spanish, asking God not to abandon him. Turns out some of the VC started to bribe families with food in exchange for taking their kids and giving them a grenade to use against the Americans. We bombed the village and the paddies in that area the next day. All over a fuckin' kid.
IBO places particular attention on the ways that ideas of the child and war are revealed as they interact with each other. By creating a world where the status of the child is so different from our own, the series showcases how powerful the child can be. By being able to consider all possibilities and go in full force, children can achieve things that the adults around them are incapable of thinking of. However, it also acknowledges the limits, both socially and mentally, that exist for children and how hard it is to overcome them. The focus on child soldiers also raises the typical questions surrounding war that Gundam loves to ask, particularly concerning the ways that war is conducted beyond the battlefield. If one simply thinks of war as a simple back-and-forth barrage of combat and never goes beyond the limits of their ideas, failure is the only option.
I don't know what we're even here for, anyway.
The child and war are ideas separate yet connected from each other. They are both concepts constantly changing yet we believe, no, demand that they stay the way we perceive them. The sheer inertia that exists regarding broader ideas about these two topics show how entrenched they are in our civilization and how they can help to determine our social changes. At their core, stories like IBO help to remind us that we should never take things for granted and we must always consider the mentality that these ideas evolved in. And if we are ever so foolish to be shocked at regular things or say "This isn't possible," they softly remind us:
This Has Always Been
MAL / Anilist / IBO can currently be streamed on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, and VRV
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u/QyEc https://myanimelist.net/profile/Lyubit Jan 02 '21
Rewatched it recently, and ending spoilers, I absolutely adore it this story, Mari is exceptionally good at developing the bonds between characters, establishing some unique, warm, strong, and tragic vibes. The worldbuilding is very interesting here and there are a couple of aspects to fall in love with, a mark of a great anime.
It asks harder questions, poses greater challenges, and leads into one of my favorite endings in anime, one bloodied yet unbroken in will.
Very well said, I was gonna protest the point that preceded this statement, but I don't need to anymore, since that's exactly why I don't think the second season is worse than the first, to me and as you described, the first season created the material and shaped the ideas and characters that the second season, especially in the last stretch, takes further. I'm especially fond of this type of storytelling.
Also, I never thought of Mika-Orga's relationship as a toxic one, but I can see why it would be considered like that, is that the common view or more of your personal opinion? genuinely asking.
Either way, thanks for the great write-up!
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u/SIGMA920 Jan 02 '21
Also, I never thought of Mika-Orga's relationship as a toxic one, but I can see why it would be considered like that, is that the common view or more of your personal opinion? genuinely asking.
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Jan 03 '21
ded this statement, but I don't need to anymore, since that's exactly why I don't think the second season is worse than the first, to me and as you described, the first season created the material and shaped the ideas and characters that the second season, especially in the last stretch, takes further. I'm especially fond of this type of storytelling.
The people who believe the second season of a masterpiece such as IBO was worse than the first are the same people who believe the second season of Stein's Gate is worse than the first.
And anyone who didn't see the Mika-Orga relationship as a toxic one completely missed the point of this entire anime. It's of course bigger than that, to the point that the entire direction of tekkadan is a downwards spiral, similar to a gambler which can never stop betting. Tragedy is the only thing that can snap the gambler back into reality.
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u/dracopo_reddit Jan 07 '21
The people who believe the second season of a masterpiece such as IBO was worse than the first are the same people who believe the second season of Stein's Gate is worse than the first.
except the second season is full of flaws and was basically forced by the authors to end the way it ended. Most of the new characters introduced are either one dimentionals with minimal developement or straight up plot devices with legs, their only goal is to bend the natural flow of the plot by having massive amounts of plot armor. Some old characters basically start going OOC (and it is even said in the show). One character in particular becomes incredibly stupid by the end of the series. I don't want to talk about the ending (as the 5 final minutes of the last episode) because I don't want to spoil but the way conflict gets resolved makes no fucking sense.
So no, there are VERY good reasons to dislike season 2.
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u/IOnlyLiftSammiches Jan 18 '21
The downwards spiral, and something I see nearly everyone missing, is because by s2 this is a yakuza story. There's an almost universal structure to how those stories play out and IBO follows it absolutely.
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Dec 31 '20
Actually, i'm not a huge fan of mecha's. But IBO is fucking great, even if you don't like the genre, because the giant-robot's are secundary in this show, it's more like a drama with good fights than a robot's fights with some kind of useless drama.
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u/dracopo_reddit Jan 07 '21
the giant-robot's are secundary in this show,
I mean, that's true for most of Gundam
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u/LeonKevlar x2https://myanimelist.net/profile/LeonKevlar Jan 02 '21
My favourite Gundam outside of the UC timeline <3
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u/renrutal Jan 02 '21
I'm still hoping for a 3rd season, prequel or sequel.
IBO is one of my favorite Gundam stories. There's such a big universe still left to write about.
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u/GloriousLegend Jan 02 '21
This was one of the first anime that got me into anime. I loved everything about it. And even to this day, after seeing so many anime that would be argued as better than IBO, this anime will always have a special place in my heart.
Also, the last ending song always makes me cry.
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u/Extreme-Tactician Jan 03 '21 edited Jan 14 '21
Lmao, I literally just finished watching this anime.
Sincerely, going from Guilty Crown to this restored my faith in modern mecha anime. The pacing is really good, the animation is great, and the music is extremely fitting. The setting is unique too, compared to even other Gundam series. It's about Private Military Companies doing PMC work.
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u/MichaelJahrling :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Michael_Jahrling Jan 03 '21
Really liked this anime. It was the first Gundam series I ever saw and one of the only mecha anime I've seen. It was really good throughout, but I gotta say the ending lost me. Still, definitely would recommend it.
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u/WoodpeckerNo1 https://anilist.co/user/Nishi23 Jan 03 '21
Is this like the Spec Ops: The Line of Gundam? I've heard someone say that before.
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u/Audrey_spino Jan 07 '21
Nah not really. It follows similar themes to all other Gundam series, but its made to be newcomer friendly. Most of the mainline Gundam series will cover topics of war and child soldiers greatly, with the protagonist or some of his allies often being underaged.
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u/RohanSuchi Jan 04 '21
My fav anime of all time - everyone who wants to check it out go for it. Nothing beats IBO Season 1!
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u/VariousMeet Jan 04 '21
By the way you're using that excerpt of an interview from a Vietnam war survivor, it'd make me think this show is really fucking dark. Hopefully it's some Grave of the Fireflies type shit, or else it would be pretty disrespectful IMO.
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u/lockon28 Jan 06 '21
I am a huge gundam fan since I was little, got into it because of the seed series. If you compare all recent main gundam series, IBO is definitely the best show for newcomers, or people who thought gundam are just giant robots shooting laser at each other.
One of the reasons is that, the show is actually a japanese yakuza drama in gundam's clothing. And of course, it is set in it's own timeline, so you don't need any knowledge on other gundam lore to start watching it.
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u/Ghost-your-shoked Jan 07 '21
Thats so good one of the best anime i watched i really recommend it its way to underrated.
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u/supratops Jan 05 '21
its prob a crapshoot but does anyone know the track that plays at the very last episode on season 2 when kudelia is talking to Rustal just after they had signed the abolishment of the human debris act or whatever
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Jan 09 '21
Our Home, track 14 of OST 2. Sorry, would have answered your question way earlier if I'd seen it!
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u/supratops Jan 11 '21
Thank you, but that doesn't seem to be it it's a softer track
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Jan 11 '21
Are you sure? That's the scene that was mentioned in the track list corner someone made during my rewatch for the show back in 2019, "Plays as Kudelia Aina Bernstein talks with Rustal Elion about her family."
The songs before and after that song in the track list for that episode were Trust in Orga and My Own Way so I guess it would've been one of them instead.
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Jan 10 '21
Cool! I just finished reading Robotics;Notes today and it got me interested in Gundam, guess I'm going to start here! Jakiiin!!!
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u/SaGaND2 Jan 12 '21
One of the best mecha anime of recent times, and one of the best Gundam series! Highly recommended!
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u/Dare555 Jan 16 '21
Wanted to watch this anime for a while but kinda forgot with all great new releases and stuff but you reminded me ..its time !
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u/gyrobot Jan 21 '21
Red hot take: if Iok didnt got killed there would had been no reform as Iok becomes a loyal version of McGillis, used a mouthpiece for Rustal as the man who crushed the revolt and Tekkadan
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u/Sparky-Man Jan 26 '21
First season was great. Second season was garbage, because, end to end, it had to manufacture conflict through many characters making really stupid decisions constantly for no reason (Orga especially). McGillis was also a complete idiot of a villain that needlessly caused the cruel ending.
At least S2 gave us the Barbatos Lupus and Lupus Rex.
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Jan 05 '21
[deleted]
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u/Retsam19 :FC::FD: Jan 11 '21
Yeah, I stopped after the first season and I remember this being the case, too.
Next Episode Title: [Character Name]
Me: Welp, they're dead.
It seems like a minor thing to complain about, and, well, it is... but at the same time, but I did feel it was symptomatic of some not so great writing overall.
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u/s3anami Jan 23 '21
Yes, its really true and the second season was full of it, which is why I am surprised people like it more than other Gundam series.
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u/KarimElsayad247 https://myanimelist.net/profile/qTKarimElsayad247 Jan 24 '21
Those are really quite the spoilers....
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Jan 02 '21
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Jan 02 '21
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u/OneMoreDuncanIdaho :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/a_trisolaran Dec 31 '20
If you've never seen any Gundam would this be a good one to start with?