Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

God damn, this show can get dark

Ein continues to be kind of gay, though episode previews aren't canon

Oh hey, a death flag for an established character that actually meant something.

Just saw the latest episode and that was quite a shock.

Mowed down in a hail of automatic gunfire without even a second thought.

And man. Fumitan's death is sad, Kudelia has been hit with the realities of war. And Nobliss desperately wants to kill Kudelia for some reason.

if Mikazuki ever finds out.

So Kudelia was a revolutionary at heart even at a young age. Huh. Well as she saw now, didn't work out too well for the revolutionaries. I don't think anyone was surprised at what happened to Fumitan. I thought it was going to happen this time, but it looks like next episode will be when Kudelia finally does something.

Plans and plans and plans coming together and crashing against each other.

Well, the protesters were doomed from the start, that much was obvious. Never really liked Fumitan anyway, so I don't think I'll miss her too much.

What the series is being inconsistent about is how well-known Kudelia is. Gjallarhorn doesn't know what she looks like, the freaking newscasters don't recognize her, yet the revolutionaries "saw her on the news" and immediately know who she is. There's some contradictions here, writers.

There are two tiers of information in this show, as they've made clear - the official stuff that Gjallarhorn and the general public use, and the piggybacked pirate channels that criminals and revolutionaries use. The union folks in this arc clearly had their information manipulated and filtered by Nobliss - I assume that the 'news' they're referring to is an underground press.

Well, there goes Fumitan. I feel like she was sort of a wasted character — she spent the entire time waffling over whether she wanted to be loyal to Kudelia or Nobliss (without ever explaining why she felt any loyalty to Nobliss in the first place), then had her go for Redemption Equals Death in an extremely symbolic but highly silly way. Sure, the plan was to kill Kudelia the entire time, but not only did she miraculously survive the slaughter of the protesters (yeah, the anonymous protester girl shielded her, but even some models of rifle can reliably punch through multiple people — a vehicle-mounted machine gun would have no problem killing Kudelia straight through another person), but apparently Fumitan knew exactly where the sniper was and arrived just in time to block the shot... and then they immediately decide "eh, you know what, let's not kill Kudelia anyway" after Fumitan can no longer protect her. (Actually, most models of sniper rifle should be capable of a One-Hit Polykill from that range, too, now that I think about it.)

In other words, Fumitan died for narrative convenience rather than because it made any sense. Meh. I can forgive the writers for wanting to kill her for narrative reasons, but at least arrange things so that her death makes sense. Hell, just have Fumitan run out and try to push Kudelia to safety, the sniper takes the shot while they're on the run and hits Fumitan by accident, and then she collapses and bleeds out once they're no longer in the line of fire. Same scene, same results, minus the silliness. Oh well.

Still, the real thing to look out for is going to be how Kudelia reacts once the shock has worn off. Is she going to double down on the idea of bringing Earth to the negotiation table, or is she going to decide that Gjallarhorn isn't dealing with them in good faith and they might have to resort to violence themselves in order to be heard?

edited 24th Jan '16 2:16:32 PM by NativeJovian

It was a job she was hired to do. She likely felt obligated to fulfill her duties for the job until she got too close.

Nobliss's team only had one shot because they were in a Gjallarhorn-heavy area (they were literally sniping from a window of the local government centre) and they didn't want the boys in blue to investigate where the shot had come from. Remember that they're not allied with Gjallarhorn, so if they get caught and questioned, things could go badly south.

As for Fumitan, she was in on the assassination plan and they'd just briefed her on where she needed to get Kudelia to. Of course she knew where they were shooting from.

edited 24th Jan '16 3:45:44 PM by Iaculus

Wait, you're telling me that the child that Kudelia gave a candy to in the flashback was a girl all along?

Wow, this episode tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. And that's despite the things going pretty much exactly how I expected them to. Poor Fumitan, redemption really equaled death for her.

Both Gjallarhorn and Nobillis must go down hard. What a bunch of scumbags.

I guess this episode was the tipping point, Kudelia experienced the horror of war first hand and lost someone dear to her, and I think this will only harden her resolve. I wonder what decision will she make next episode.

Out of the entire Wham Episode, that's the only thing that comes to mind for you?

In other news, I honestly was expecting Kudelia to try to correct the union workers, saying that she had no idea about any of that. But everything went purple before that happened.

edited 25th Jan '16 2:56:18 PM by alphazoid

I have no idea what you are getting at.

Sorry, ya 'd me there lol

Finally another mecha fight:

• Ein has no right to complain about the Ryusei-Go when his beloved Gaelio's Kimaris has a far worse color scheme. That being said, Gaelio's performance in this battle was impressive.
• The battle was really nice. It was nice to finally see the Gusion Rebake and the Ryusei-Go in action.
• Yet another instance of Macky not seeming to care that Gaelio is in danger. Hmmmm....
• As expected, the eponymous "Kudelia's Decision" was to pull an Enemy Mine with Nobliss. Hopefully her broadcast will actually do something.

You know what the Kimaris color scheme reminded me of? This◊ Beast Wars: Transformers Galvatron toy.

Note: I don't even have the damn thing, but I remember it thanks to (the now-defunct) Culture Crash Comics' hilarious four-page "Toy Review Special" in Issue 8 (which I still have to this day). In that review, they described the color of that toy as "sickly ube". And I could say the same thing for the Kimaris.

Anyway, back on topic...

Speaking of colors, it was funny to see the recolored Graze II...err, Ryuusei-Go invoke the Law of Chromatic Superiority. And for bonus points, ryuusei means comet in Japanese.

Also, the Gusion Rebake looks awesome despite the Narm-y name.

edited 31st Jan '16 6:47:34 AM by IncognitoNinja

On this week's episode!

Damn that fight was awesome and my comments on the new Mobile Suits.

The Ryuusei-Go had a somewhat... Over-the-top introduction (Hell its name sounds like something out of a Super Robot Anime) But pink robots are always welcome in my books after i watched Nadesico.

The Gusion now actually looks like a real Gundam. (But now it kind of reminds me of the Quin Mantha from ZZ)

Gjallarhorn really did plan this pretty well. The newsies asked to be dragged into this, so they're being dragged into this. Kudelia is finally doing something. Gali Gali and his new buddy are good, but no match for Mika, Akihiro, and Shino's mighty Ryuusei-Go.

I want a Guison Rebake◊ so bad TT_TT I'm glad Akihiro's back.

Oh Mika. (Now I wanna know if, at some point, the others had cutesy, embarrassing nicknames given to them by Mika).

re Ryuusei-Go's color scheme: I think Shino just likes the color. If I remember correctly, his Mobile Worker was a (dull) pink. And Ride painted eyes and fangs to its head, which makes it looks kinda like a dragon, ha.

the preview: I have no idea why Macky's still in a disguise. What's the point?? I don't get it. Also, it looks like there's gonna be a meeting with Nobliss Gordon? Where is that guy stationed anyway?

Very impressive episode, Kudelia just took several levels in handling shit.

The space battles were impressive, and hey now Tekkadan has 3 suits!

McGillis's disguise is to let him act against Gjallarhorn's interests in secret. Tipping off Kudelia was likely just stage one.

One thing I'm noticing - this show tends to associate Tekkadan with the colour red, Teiwaz with yellow, and Gjallarhorn with blue. Now McGillis has started a quiet rebellion against Gjallarhorn, and his new suit, the Grimgerde, is red. Might we actually end up seeing a red Char (as opposed to a gold Quattro) fighting alongside the heroes?

Well he has his own plans that include Kudelia being alive for the time being. So I wouldn't be surprised if that does happen for a time.

I always love longer epic anime where people allegiances change over the course of the story due to their own motivations and interactions with other characters. Like how so many people switched sides in Code Geass. It kind of helps create a feeling of a shades of gray conflict where people have many reasons for why they fight and who they fight for and against.

I think this might be a bit early to say, but it looks to me as if Kudelia is about to shape up into an altruistic female character far greater than Relena, Lacus and Marina combined. Like, this universe's equivalent of Unicorn!Mineva.

...Not sure how you're judging that. But, yes, what she's doing right now puts her closest to Mineva