Mobile Suit Gundam – Iron-Blooded Orphans

Today I’d like to talk to you about the show that’s been keeping me from reading that stack of trade paperbacks that I’ve had lying around for a while now. Hell, it even has me falling behind on the The Walking Dead TV show! I’m talking about Mobile Suit Gundam – Iron-blooded Orphans.

Most of you geeks and nerds out there have probably at least heard of Gundam. I mean, the franchise has been around for almost 40 years now and has spawned some amazing animated movies and TV shows, manga comics, novels and video games. And their model kits are some of the coolest “toys” to ever come from Japan. In contrast to a lot of the other giant robot series out there, Gundam has always been aimed at an older audience and has always featured adult themes, which showed the hardships of modern warfare. This is also the case with Iron-blooded Orphans, but somehow this particular series has really captivated me more than before.

I’ve watched a couple of the older series and movies through the years and have always liked Gundam, but I never really got into it that much. And I guess that goes for anime in general. When a lot of the classic anime movies were released in Europe in the early to mid nineties, I watched a whole bunch of them, but I’ve always been more into American comic books and cartoons. So when the first season of Iron-blooded Orphans was released in 2015, I didn’t think much of it. A second season was released in 2016 and ran until april of last year. But I only discovered it recently, because of a youtube video that I accidentally stumbled upon. And now I’m so glad that I did.

The series followes a group of teenagers and children, working for a company called CGS on Mars, that treats them very poorly and even abuses them. After they are attacked and their leader leaves them to fend for themselves, one of them manages to awaken an old Gundam Mobile Suit and uses it to defeat their enemy. After that, they start their own mercenary company called Tekkedan and their first job is to escort a young noble woman and freedom fighter to earth. And that’s where the adventure starts.

You can’t help but grow to love the characters in this series. Orga, Mikazuki, Atra, Biscuit, Shino, Akihiro, Naze, Lafter and the others will all grow on you with every passing episode. As with every war story, people will die, and I won’t give any spoilers here for those who haven’t watched it yet, but I felt genuinely sad when some characters died. The story of these kids, who are often referred to as “space rats” or “human debris”, is so sad and yet so beautiful, that they really grow on you.

Of course Gundam wouldn’t be Gundam without some awesome mecha battles as well. Especially Mikazuki and his Barbatos mobile suit are so awesome. The animation on these fight scenes is simply brilliant. Seeing these giant “robots” battle each other is always cool, but it’s even better when you know that they are piloted by these characters that you’ve grown to love. I actually found myself cheering for Mikazuki, Akihiro or Shino when they were kicking some bad guy’s ass. That just makes it all the more fun.

Besides the great story, characters and animation, the music in this show is also awesome. The first part of season one has Man On A Mission’s Raise Your Flag as an opening theme and this just fits the show so well. It really embodies the fighting spirit of the young Tekkedan crew as they battle all the odds that are stacked against them. And Misia’s Orphans No Namida is the end tune for most of season one and is just the perfect soundtrack for the entire series. Later the start and end tunes change, like Spyair’s Rage of Dust, but they’re all really good tracks. I found myself looking for a lot of these songs and artists on spotify and actually playing them in my car. They’re just hard to sing along to, because my Japanese isn’t very good 😉

After finishing season two, I went back to watching Netflix’s Voltron series. I’ve been trying to catch up with that, because the last season is starting next month. And I really love that show too, but after watching Iron-blooded Orphans, Voltron really feels like a show for kids again. Comparing the two is like comparing Toy Story to Saving Private Ryan. It’s just a completely different thing, even though both have an anime style and both are shows about giant robots.

So there it is, my two cents about this awesome series, which is another great chapter in the long lasting saga of Gundam. Anybody who is into anime or giant robots should definitely give this show a try. Even people who aren’t into anime or animated shows in general should give this a try, because it’s just so damn good. As far as I’m concerned, this was better than a lot of the live action movies and TV shows that I’ve seen recently. I just read an article about the stuff that Bandai has planned for the Gundam franchise for 2019 and it all looks very promising, but I doubt that they’ll be able to top this.