Originally posted on r/anime [14.02.19]
As the title says, I finished watching season 2 of Iron Blooded Orphans today, and... wow. I haven’t watched any other Gundam shows, but this was one hell of a ride. I originally watched about ten episodes of season 1 back when it was simulcasted, but I just kinda forgot about it after a while. I wasn’t really that into anime at that time either. But, I remembered Barbatos looking cool here and there so I wanted to watch it. But the fucking feels man. It’s nowhere near as bad as Toradora or Love Live, but still. I cried a bit over the course of the series, the scene where the Hammerhead got destroyed and Naze died were really impactful. But that ending, with Mika being utterly defeated, that fucking hurt. Fifty episodes. Fifty episodes of seeing this group of friends fighting together, eating together, living together... and then most of them just fucking die. I expected Orga to die, since he was the mentor-ish character to Mikazuki, but so suddenly, and oh my god. It’s hard to describe how I feel.
Iron Blooded Orphans isn’t one of my favorite shows. It’s most likely somewhere around 25-11 for me, but it kinda reminds me of Stardust Crusaders (which lies around the same in term of quality IMO). This isn’t a great show. If someone asked me to explain analytically why I like it, I probably wouldn’t be able to. But it’s definitely a combination of really getting a feel for their friendship, and badass robots brutally bringing destruction upon each other in space. And badass opening themes, even if the second one for each season are way worse than the first ones. As I’ve stated before, it wasn’t great, but it was certainly better than what I was expecting. I thought it would be a strong 6 to a light seven, and most likely not entice me to watch twenty five more episodes. But it did entice me. And seeing Mika, Orga and Biscuit die, seeing McGillies get so darn *close* to what he had sacrificed so much for, it really did give me some big feels. Also, seeing Lok get killed was fucking awesome though. Even though it came out before it, I couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that he looked so much like the main character from Neo Yokio, even though I’ve never seen it. Still hated him though.
And even though it was quite minor, Atra and Mikazuki’s relationship was absolutely adorable. Definitely reminded me of Syaoran and Sakura. Except that show actually made me feel fulfilled and happy when I finished it. McGillies is also definitely one of my favorite male characters in anime. For some reason I tend to prefer kind of bishonen-esque characters (Son Hak, Sasori, Yue). Both his battles with blue haired guy were really darn cool though, especially when it was revealed that he piloted it along with the consciousness of Ein. They could have done s better job hiding the fact that mask man was blue haired boy though, you’d have to really not pay attention to not notice.
So, in conclusion: Iron Blooded Orphans is a dumb but fun robot show that gives me big feels and definitely deserves a watch. It’s fifty episodes, but without that amount of time the family aspect of the show wouldn’t work nearly as well if it wasn’t two season along with two cours.