Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

The Fourth Form isn't a perfect copy of the Calamity War Barbatos, but a vague approximation. One big clue is that it lacks the buckler, which was an original Calamity War relic. We've never seen its original loadout, just the incomplete parts of it that were still attached when Tekkadan started it up in Episode One.

As for Agnika Kaeru, it's not unusual for someone to be credited with founding an organisation despite dying before said organisation was properly established. Examples include Julius Caesar and Oda Nobunaga. The available evidence implies that Gjallarhorn was the military force Kaeru headed during the Calamity War (or, at least, the one he figureheaded), seeing as the name seems to be derived from the personal emblem he had on his Gundam, and after the end of the war and his death, it was turned into a supranational peacekeeping force by the survivors.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Damn that ending... just... damn.

I'm sad now, I'm legitimately sad. I'm happy that things aren't as bad as the start of the series, but just the bodycount that had to be built to achieve that... Just. damn...

And now it's over, a hollow feeling has returned, what next for Gundam?

Twilight AXIS is on the horizon (post-Unicorn story). I always kind of did wonder what actually happened to Axis after it got Green Space Magic'ed away from Earth.

Me too.

Some benevolent soul on the internet has allowed us to watch Idiok's death over and over again.

Suck it, troper!

You know... I wonder, if the ending to season 2 and how it went was in response to how people felt that there wasn't enough for season 1.

I changed my signature in honor of National Princess Week.

edited 28th Apr '17 5:18:12 PM by Demetrios

Princess Aurora is underrated, pass it on.

But... she's not a princess...

She's close.

Princess Aurora is underrated, pass it on.

A summarization of this link: According to Kengo Kawanishi (Mikazuki), we might get a movie version, but Sunrise has said nil on the subject.

edited 8th May '17 2:12:18 AM by HallowHawk

Hm, I'm not sure how well a movie version of IBO would work. The standard for a four-cour series is a movie trilogy, but with IBO broken up into a pair of two-cour seasons, that'd be sort of hard to hash out. Still, the second season could certainly do with a rewrite, which a movie version would give them an opportunity to do. We'll have to wait and see what comes of it, I guess.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The movie version take places after IBO, where a mysterious figure tells Ride to kill a bunch of people, including former Tekkadan members. Because according to him, they deserve to be punished.

edited 8th May '17 6:17:28 AM by flamemario12

Apparently, the original plan back when IBO was planned to be a single season series was to have them suffer heavily losses at the end, much like they ultimately did in Season 2. So yeah, Season 2 feels like the director was cashing in after giving them a reprieve from the first season.

According to what, exactly? With the sole exception of G-Reco (and look how that turned out), Gundam shows that have aired on TV have always been planned for ~50 episodes. The ones that have significantly fewer are because they were cancelled early. Without an interview or something saying otherwise, I'm skeptical of the "IBO was originally planned for one season" claim.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

G-Recs problem was that it was trying to cram in too much with what little episodes it had. Hell, even with 50 episodes I doubt that people would still understand what was going on. Tomino should have cut the content in half and make do with what he had.

I think gundam needs to take a break from having a 50 episode series. Most of the time it doesn't work out, like 00 S2 or Seed Destiny

Oh yeah, Build Fighters was pretty good. Try was meh, hopefully the new season is better

edited 8th May '17 10:08:23 AM by AlphaVII

Warrior to the very end! My tumblr, dood!

Build Fighters? Season One was pretty self-contained.

The stuff about the ending of IBO S1 was from an interview with Nagai in Newtype Magazine. Unfortunately, I don't believe that a translation of it exists, so that information has always been second-hand.

What's precedent ever done for us?

With what Native Jovian said on how a four-season show is compiled into a movie trilogy, how many hours can one anime movie be at the longest?

edited 19th May '17 4:56:47 AM by HallowHawk

I think the two-season format isn't bad it just seems Sunrise seems to have trouble keeping things consistent with the quality. 00 and IBO weren't entire messes just had some mishandled stuff (tho' I'd argue 00 at has a stronger story still whereas IBO suffered from the handling of the final acts). Having to do a consistent fifty episode series without a 'seasonal break' seems to create worse series these days for Gundam.

AGE suffered from having a writer from a video game developer handle the story when they never wrote for a TV series and was not very good at pacing given they had only 49/50 episodes to work with and yet wanted to do a three-generation story arc. Toss in the utter sh*t treatment of the female characters, and turning the final protagonist into yet another fail pacifist fighter who hits the top 'worst Gundam protag' lists in the top three spots almost consistently; and you got a train wreck on your hands. What would have benefited this series would have been either extending the episode count to 75 so each protag in each generation had 25 eps a piece or have a two-generation story. Image if AGE had three seasons to do what it wanted, we might have gotten something decent especially if the head writer had plenty of time to refine their craft for TV.

Heck aside from jettisoning the writer/director duo of dumb*sses from the Seed series; I think both Seed and Destiny would have benefited from split seasons; especially Destiny. Have the first season end with the Archangel's 'destruction' and Kira's 'death' and blammo you can really raise the tension and fan interest as they wait for the next season. Of course if we had the same sh*tty writer and director it honestly would be a moot point.

This is just my thoughts on the matter. Still kinda bummed that IBO's ending was what it was, but I'm still major hooked on the series. Now if they'd just release some more 1/100 scales of the S2 model kits, or start cranking some Master Grades of the main suits. Fingers crossed if and when a MG Barbatos comes out it'll include the ability to make S1 Barbatos any of its 6 forms instead of buying multiple kits to get all the conversion parts. Plus MG Flauros and Full City for the win along with an MG Kimaris-Vidar.

edited 30th Jun '17 10:26:32 PM by GBHPrime84

Fly Gundam! Autobots ROLL OUT! COWABUNGA/BOOYAKASHA!!

I remember that they actually cut the Asemu's arc short by themselves because they don't think kids would enjoy this arc. In other words, they already have some extra episodes in Kio's arc.

edited 30th Jun '17 11:47:41 PM by Kuruni

Not going to lie I thought AGE was actually pretty good and never really understood the dislike for it. Yeah there are other series that are better but I wouldn't call it bad. That said, Iron-Blooded Orphans and 00 both had breaks between seasons so I don't think the lack of a break is the problem since there were breaks nor do I think it's (inherently) the amount of episodes.

I don't remember 00's second season being too bad but 00 was also my first Gundam series and I haven't seen it in awhile so I could easily be misremembering. When it comes to Iron-Blooded Orphans though I'd argue that if anything the biggest problem is that it didn't need a second season. The first season ended in such a way that with a few changes it would have been a satisfying ending. Season two had very little plot connection to season two anyways since it was mostly focused on internal politics with Taiwez until the last few episodes so just alter how episode twenty-five ends to include the changes that came about in the world between seasons/at the end of season two (That is: Tekkadan becoming a respected company, Mars becoming independent, etc.) with the implication that Tekkadan is still fighting. There you have a satisfying conclusion where Tekkadan accomplishes its goal of helping Kudelia arrive on Earth/liberate Mars and the fight against Gjallarhorn continues offscreen but with a greater sense of hope.

Hell you could even just end it at episode twenty-five with no changes at all and it'd still work as an ending to the show as a whole and I'm sure there wouldn't have been too many complaints. As much as I'm happy we got a second season we didn't really need one.

I think that it would be possible to re-write S1 to make it self-contained with a darker ending, but what we got kicked so many cans down the road that a second season was necessary. That confrontation between Orga and Mika on the train after Biscuit's death particularly seemed like lead-up to a less happy ending than we got. Basically, the fall of Tekkadan had become a necessary follow-up to their rise.

S2 also has the benefit of expanding the story, rather than simply bolting on a new conflict to the old one. It turned it from a simple underdogs-make-good road trip into a fascinating meditation on oppression, privilege, and the morality (and necessity) of violence as a tool of social reform, built around a mad, visceral dive into Japan's postwar trauma. It certainly feels a lot tighter and more thematically coherent (with itself and with S1) than 00 S2.

What's precedent ever done for us?

00 S2 also had that problem where they had to change a lot too didn't it? From what I understand the joke trailer was supposed to foreshadow all the stuff in S2 including the ELS making an appearance with the UFO joke.

edited 1st Jul '17 7:19:13 PM by OmegaRadiance

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

I still disagree with this. It continues to boggle my mind that so many people still think IBO was a cycle-of-revenge story where Tekkadan and McGillis merely want to hurt the people that hurt them, despite the show repeatedly and directly demonstrating otherwise.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Uh no one thinks that of Tekkadan or Macky. People think that Mcgillis is a delusional manchild, but not revenge obsessed.

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Then you definitely haven't been hanging out in the same parts of the fandom that I have.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.