Gundam has always been a franchise that focused on the horrors of war. It is the nightmare of existence, the human race being in a state of perpetual conflict. Throughout the franchise's history, the effects of war have been tackled from a variety of different angles. From those with autism (kamille) to brown skinned traps (Loran) but there has never been a Gundam entry that focused specifically on child warfare. The real world is rife with conflict, and in lesser developed countries, children are on the frontline. There is a saying that in war the truth dies first. This is true but there is another important piece missing from that saying, innocence is also the first to die. Mobile Suit Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans is the first in the franchise that focuses on a child army and the effects that war has on children. My initial hype for the premise led me to believe this show was going to be something very special. However, in actuality the gravitas of the subject was much too heavy for famed melodrama/romance writer, Mari Okada, to handle competently. Although this series spans 50 episodes, you leave with the feeling that the show was never finished.
It is 300 years after the calamity war, a conflict that utterly decimated human civilization and led to the death of billions of people. The effects of that war are still seen in the destitute conditions that our protagonists live in. Iron Blooded Orphans focuses on a group of rambunctious youths who work in a mining facility on Mars. These children were either abandoned at a young age or forced to work to pay off their family's debts. The conditions at the mining facility are brutal; the adults verbally abuse the children and beat them if they do not perform adequately. It isn't uncommon for kids to fall dead from exhaustion. The tone is well set in the beginning episodes. This changes when the mining facility is contracted to protect (for some reason) a young politician, Kudelia Aina Bernstein, who seeks to rid both Mars and Earth of economic inequality and exploitation. Unbeknownst to the kids, her life is threatened by forces who want to maintain the status quo. These people are gjallarhorn, a paramilitary organization created to prevent conflict and corrupt politicians. These kids, while mining, find an ancient Gundam frame, a mobile suit model that helped to end the calamity war. After finding the Gundam, the children become embroiled in war much bigger than themselves with their freedom and the fate of humanity rides on the success of the newly formed army, Tekkadan.
Iron Blooded orphans are divided up into several arcs with the overarching conflict of the show holding everything in place. The quality of these arcs is consistent in their mediocrity. Rarely are there any episodes which make good use of the darkness of the subject matter. There is always a feeling of levity in contrast to the direness of their circumstances. The arcs revolve around a conflict that focuses on a specific character. So the quality of the character writing directly impacts the strength of that arc. Sadly, the characters are milquetoast to say the least.
Iron Blooded Orphans has a rather large cast of characters with Tekkadan, the child army, having about 10 or so important characters and Gjallahorn having about 3 or 4. The front men of Tekkadan, Orga and Mika are the weakest protagonists in the Gundam franchise. Orga in particular is a very forgettable character. He is tasked with being the Leader of Tekkadan meaning he has to make difficult decisions that could get him or his comrades killed in battle. Although this is a reoccurring issue throughout IBO, these scenarios seldom leave any emotional impact. Orga is just boring. He can be confident when he has to be, but other than those moments he is so indecisive. IBO fails to delve deeper into the psychology of leader struggling to make decisions. Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt is a show that in merely four episodes, we can see the internal struggle of being a leader where Claudia, a fleet ship captain knowingly has to send untrained children to their deaths for the sake of the Federation. She breakdown and does drugs to cope with her guilt. There are no moments that are as nearly as impactful as that in IBO with Orga. He lacks any defining character traits that put him beyond that mold of characters of the same archetype. Every arc that he is the focal point of struggled to hold me interest merely because he is not compelling enough to be a main character.
His counterpart, Mikazuki Augus is a case of wasted potential. He behaves in a sociopathic manner. Mikazuki has no problem killing entire groups of people if it for his comrades or Orga specifically. However, the relationship that he has with Orga is never sufficiently elaborated upon so I could never understand why their bond is so close. This is especially frustrating when the entire cast get some flashback episode while the faces of Iron Blooded Orphans, Mika and Orga, never do. It feels as though the writers did not know how to making their backstory tragic enough so opted out of trying to explain it.
Despite the breadth of the cast, there are very few characters worth mentioning. We have Akihiro Atland, whom I affectionately call “Space Guts” due to his brooding aura and character design. He would have to be my favorite character out of the bunch. His backstory, where he was given up by his family to slavers to pay off their debts gave him and other like him the title of “human debris”. I would argue that the show would have been a lot better if there was a singular focus on Akihiro and others like him since they have the most interesting backstory and their stories parallel those in the real world. But, like many other characters, after Akihiro’s character arc was finished, he never got any more focus. His character remained unexplored which upset me because they could have taken him down a lot of interesting character routes. Mcgillis Fareed or “The loli lover char” could have been better if he was fleshed out more beyond his initial charm and cunning. And then we have the quintessential loli character, Atra, who is best girl.
This is where the show feeling “not finished” comes in because characters are never explored efficiently. Mari Okada is not talented enough to write a varied cast like Yoshiyuki Tomino is. She does not know how to juggle subplots and can only focus on one thing at a time. This also ties in with the show’s issue with world building. The lore of the world is not sufficiently fleshed out, meaning there are a lot of gaps in the history of the show. For example, we do not know the philosophy of Gjallahorn nor why the calamity war occurred. These things are mere afterthoughts and you know the same amount of information from the beginning to the end. The Gundam franchise, more specifically Tomino’s Gundam, had a big emphasis on political philosophy. The series were a dialogue between fascism, monarchism, and democracy. Iron Blood Orphans is brain dead in this department. The underlying philosophy of the show is literally “muh equality” with no deeper examination of why equality is good or how to realistically achieve it. Apparently, all you need in the world of IBO is naïve idealism and you can accomplish anything.
Iron Blooded Orphans is a show that I was desperately hoping to be good, considering that good entries in the Gundam franchise are far too few and between nowadays. Sadly, Mari Okada was not up to the task of living up to Tomino’s legacy. She should stick to her melodrama and leave war to someone who has the talent to survive it.
