The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk II

[Amion]

Considering the apparent success of IBO so far, (still waiting for someone to give us some rating updates), especially its gunpla, which rumor says are selling well, I don't see "Them" getting involved too deeply. Hopefully tropes will be introduced naturally. So far we haven't really had any from Gundam that stick out or aren't used spectacularly different, like McGilis and his Montag identity.

[Dustman]

After giving it a few weeks to collect perspective on the complete first season, I feel confident in assessment that, uh... it's okay? (So far.)

Though I'm hesitent to distract people with personal details, I'd like to clarify my position on this by first saying that I tend not to enjoy open dialogues on a work in progress. The act of consumption hasn't been a communal activity for me in many years. In fact, I feel I may have joined this forum sooner if I had returned to the franchise any earlier in my life.

How that comes back around in relating to Gundam IBO is that I am first and foremost acknowledging it as a work in progress. As early as the first cour, it increasingly seemed to me like IBO was pre-approved for 50 episodes based on the frequency of story beats and lack of structural urgency. Of course, nobody could say that with certainty due to the lack of an official announcement. With the series progressing as it did, I found that this ambiguity was causeing me some concern for how badly they could end up botching their execution, particularly during the events of episode 24.

Thankfully, I was vindicated and utterly relieved to see a season finale that ended up not feeling at all rushed, nor grinding to a halt with a cheap cliffhanger. Such has been the trend in shows like Valvrave or Aldnoah Zero and those series in particular seemed to be trying to replicate the chaos of Code Geass without any of its elasticity and dumb luck in rebounding from circumstance. But even if it were to end up predictably resorting to a timeskip, I feel optimistic about IBO's future now purely from having such a clean shave.

And that's about as much as I'd like to say about the show's actual contents, haha. I want to see the shape it takes before delving in too deep. Speculation is just not as interesting to me as it is to discuss a work with informed perspective. What interests me at the moment is the narrative science of the split cour format.

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Okay, so... right here I should mention that I spent the better portion of the last hour and a half writing an entire essay about split cours just from this post. (This is the price I pay for drafting forum posts in WordPad. Writing is just so much fun!) So to keep it simple, it ended up being way too long and has been discussing shows not related to the subject at hand. I'm actually quite proud of how I expressed myself so I may as well post it as a separate topic. But first, I'd just like to ask whether anybody reading this would object to me doing it.

To be clear, I'm not really all that concerned if anybody wants to read it so don't tell me that. Haha, to be honest... I just want to know whether I've been annoying anybody with the frequency and content of my first six posts. I definitely want to put it out there after writing some concluding paragraphs, and I totally would if I weren't still so unsure of my boundaries. I'm reaaaaally new so I really don't want to come off as an overenthused nuisance :p

[ChaoticSheep1]

Yeah I'd agree with this assessment. Yeah I'd agree that the show right now is okay. Not great but not bad either.

But like you I'd rather give a good judging after it's full run. I'd love to read your thoughts about the show when the time comes.

[Omnislayer]

Avoiding spoilers because I'm only 14 episodes in but I'm really enjoying this series so far, I am really surprised on how dark and violent it is.
It's at least gorier than your average Gundam, that's for sure.

So far it's the best new Gundam tv show in a long time to me, I guess I'll see if it gets better or worse from here.

[BrentD15]

Avoiding spoilers because I'm only 14 episodes in but I'm really enjoying this series so far, I am really surprised on how dark and violent it is.
It's at least gorier than your average Gundam, that's for sure.

So far it's the best new Gundam tv show in a long time to me, I guess I'll see if it gets better or worse from here.

Is it gorier than SEED?

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

I had a lot of the same pacing concerns as Dustman, especially during the middle of the season when they were mucking about in space and things didn't seem to be going nearly as far as they could have been. That said, I also feel the same way he did about the ending -- impressed and a little surprised that they managed to pull everything together and wrap things up in a satisfying manner. They hit it perfectly, leaving it so that if the series ended today and season two never happened then IBO would still feel "finished" and have a satisfying conclusion, but leaving things open for a second season to explore as well. (Compare this to Gundam 00, the only other split-season Gundam show to date, where season one ended on a cliffhanger that would have caused riots if we hadn't already known that season two was in the pipe.)

As far as annoying people with your posts, Dustman, you're doing fine. You're writing longer posts than the average forum-goer here, but they're well-written and well thought-out without being repetitive or feeling like you're trying to pad out the word count on a school assignment, so it's all good. I sort of tend towards long-form essay-ish posts myself, honestly. I don't know about you, but I tend to write stuff as much to order my own thoughts about it as I do to share those thoughts with others.

Anyway, all that's a bit off topic for the IBO thread. Short version: you're doing fine, don't worry about it.

[Dustman]

Well, I actually don't think that IBO is very complete at all. Unlike how the first season of 00 was structured, I don't really see this as being sufficient plotting for a self-contained story. The characters have definitely been at the forefront and their adventure has ended but the setting developments have yet to pay off in a tangible sense. Essentially, I don't see this as very much of a climax, more like a turning point.

(So, I hammered the rest of my analysis. I'll get around to posting it later today. I'm warning you though, it's pretty thorough.)

[Amion]

Through for this forum means tasty.

[ChaoticSheep1]

I don't think the character's really got satisfying development. I also was a bit underwhelmed by the finale, Chocolate man really stole the show compared to the really disappointing Ein vs Mika battle.

[Dustman]

Earlier in the thread, I mentioned that they were at the forefront of the season but I don't think the characters arcs really paid off that much either. I do think that the finale was competent, though. Episode 24 really had me worried but the season did conclude tidily. But I also feel like this should be considered to be the turning point in what should be a larger story, rather than a self-contained serial.

In an adjacent thread where I tried to work out some of my thoughts on second seasons, sequels and split cours of the last 10 years, I surmised that I feel IBO has a unique opportunity to outdo itself with the second season. 00 burdened itself with living up to a first half that constructed itself as a complete three act story, wherein the second would never have the same level of modular satisfaction due to its dependency on a larger context. By comparison, IBO has been so slow and conservative in setting the stage for future events that they're free to really expand on it in a way where both halves can more perceptibly exist as a linear 50 episode storyline.

But this is all assuming that Nagai and Okada really have had that kind of foresight and can deliver a much larger, emotionally charged series finale than anything that they have so far suggested :p

[doghunter1]

Was it true these were concepts for the show that never happened:

Eugene betrays Tekkadan at beginning

Naze betrays Tekkadan in original story

People don't have faith in Tekkadan because they're amoral mercenaries

Kudelia gets stigmatized for associating with them

Story shows more of how wrong they can be

Ein is not final boss

S1 ends with Tekkadan suffering great losses.

I found these ideas from 4chan, but I doubt they're true. The links in question:

https://desustorage.org/a/thread/139862980/#q139862980

https://desustorage.org/m/thread/14100849/

[zetatype]

The part about Ein not being the final boss was confirmed by Okada herself. Originally, Ein was suppose to die in either episode 2 or 3.

Everything else, however, is unconfirmed to my knowledge. Though the part about Tekkadan taking heavier losses is possible given how the 3 episodes before the last one seemed to portray Orga as going down the wrong path. Wouldn't surprise me if this was the intention before S2 got green lit.

[Dustman]

Ein dying that much earlier makes all the sense in the world and explains why such a major force could have had so little to do with the middle part of the series.

CONJECTURE TIME: I wonder then if Carta were originally intended to be hooked up to Alaya-Vijnana. That too would be a perfect explanation for why such an outlandish and significant character could have died so anticlimactically. Being immediately operated on to save her life would have fulfilled McGillis's betrayal of Gaelio in almost the exact same way. It would have also been a far darker finale than what we got, in which case I could also see that thing where Tekkadan fights like maniacs and take heavy casualties (this was my suspicion of the finale during Episode 24).

I don't know about anything else (I don't want to spin any more yarn for the rumor mills) but that much all clicks into place for me as distinct possibilities that could have been floating around the studio. There are signs all over the place that this show could have been a lot meaner. My guess as to why it turned out so light must be a combination of the writer and the director not being naturally inclined toward that kind of thing in the first place and because the show caught heat from media watchdogs for Episode 3 alone. Regardless of the original plan, I'm sure that their producers at the network must have panicked and asked them to tone it down going forward.

[zetatype]

Gundam IBO is heading for Adult Swim.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... me/.102043

[BrentD15]

Gundam IBO is heading for Adult Swim.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... me/.102043

Sweet!

[Wellman]

Good to see, hopefully it will catch on. A successful Gundam show works out great for Gundam fans, the wonderful people at Rightstuff and hopefully puts some sense in the folks at Bandai Namco to give the populace more.

[Deathzealot]

This may bring in the younger fans of the series who seeing IBO on Toonami may look into further shows of the franchise. Just like many others, myself included, back in the day.

[ChaoticSheep1]

Seeing Adult Swim on Austar actually introduced me to Gundam SEED and thus the rest of the Gundam franchise.

[battletech]

To quote the Emperor, "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen". Hopefully unlike the Emperor everything will turn out and IBO will reignite Gundam in North America.

[Kuruni]

To quote the Emperor, "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen". Hopefully unlike the Emperor everything will turn out and IBO will reignite Gundam in North America.

While it has nothing to does with me myself, I wish it will done good enough that there will be official gunpla release there (and they don't screw up again).