Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

Episode 8

Is it just me, or does Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans really suffer when it doesn't make the Gundam an integral part of the week's plot? This is another world-building and character-development episode that feels very much like a “break” from the real action of the show. Characters sit around in meetings, have heart-to-hearts, and learn the true meaning of family in an episode that tells its story through lots of dialogue, when showing it through action would have worked better.

By far my favorite part of the episode was the beginning, which showed Tekkadan's victory over Naze Turbine's group from a different angle. Last episode, the fight focused mostly on Mikazuki and Akihiro's points of view. We were aware that there was a break-in going on elsewhere, but we were caught up in the Gundam battles. Rather than throwing that action away, the episode reframed the battle's end from Orga's point of view. It was immensely satisfying to see Orga put the blustering Maruba in his place behind the barrel of a gun, but of course that moment is tempered when we learn that Maruba is off to an asteroid mine for years of heavy labor to pay back his debt to the Teiwaz. He certainly deserves what he got, but it's just a subtle reminder of the sobering reality of the Gundam universe, where characters die and are assigned to fates worse than death on a regular basis. The wheel of fortune is especially tumultuous in a Gundam show—your enemy today may be your ally tomorrow, and your ally today may be dead in a week.

Now contrast that with the saccharine message of the episode: you can choose your family, and Tekkadan is a family. I noticed last episode that Naze's pilots and crew are entirely female, something I jokingly referred to as a harem. So when Naze comes out and directly defines his crew as “my harem,” I was pretty taken aback. We've gotten so used to dancing around the harem trope in anime that it's surprising to actually see it acknowledged, with such forwardness that it makes Kudelia blush. Still, Kudelia and Atra can't resist meeting the youngest members of that family, the babies in the nursery who all count Naze as a father. (No orphans on his ship yet!) This portrait of unusual but sweet domesticity parallels Naze's revelation to Orga: “That's not what you call comrades, that's… family.” The Tekkadan is just like Naze's space bigamy!

It's also a message that Orga can pass along to his BFF Mikazuki just when he needs it the most. Mikazuki is having a rough time this episode, and I'm not entirely sure why. He feels like he didn't do enough and needs to work harder, but he just held his own in a battle using a Gundam in disrepair only last episode. I thought it was a fantastic directorial decision not to show Mikazuki's face in his despair, but rather to show the concerned faces of the people who care about him most while Mika keeps his back to the audience. The real issue, as he confides to Orga, is that Mika thinks if he doesn't pull his own weight, he'll get ditched. "It's not about getting ditched or not... when it comes to family.” Thanks to Mikazuki's incredible abilities—and his identity as the main character—this subplot seems to be a non-issue, with nothing at stake that's not easily resolved. I think it's an effort to continue the long tradition of Troubled Gundam Pilots, without much success.

I have a lot of criticism this week, but it's difficult to be too hard on a show as dynamic and entertaining as Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. Sure, there was a lot of time spent in meetings and conversation, but it was wise to continue shifting the perspective through a half dozen different characters in order to keep the momentum. I enjoyed the new oboe-rific background track, which I'm guessing is going to become Naze's theme. There's still a lot of politicking just below the surface—the four blocs, the shadowy mob boss, Kudelia as property?—that seems primed to pay off in a big way. “The Form Of Closeness” showed us that there may be a lot of weird families out there, but Tekkadan is one that has my attention.

Rating: B

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is available streaming at Daisuki.net and Funimation.com.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.