English Dub Review: Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans “Stained Wings”

Where’s Devilman when you need him?

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Mobile Armor warms up as McGillis warns everyone that they should leave now. Orga’s already called for back up and is still worried about the mine, but with all the build-up around this thing, it’s not going down that easily. Iok decides he’s not done being a dumbass today and keeps firing on it, but only barely manages to make it out thanks to his subordinates sacrificing themselves. I’m sure he’ll make great use of this newly gifted life that cost so many t-AHAHAHAHA couldn’t say that with a straight face.

With the Armor gone for now, Tekkaden regroups and tries to come up with a plan. McGillis continues describing the sheer ferocity of the machine, calling a “humanity-killing angel” that killed off an entire quarter of the human race, which they were specifically built to do until Agnika Kaieru fought them in the war with Mobile Suits. Basically, everything we heard about last week, although now we learn the Alaya-Vijnana was made for controlling them that far back. Also turns out the Plumas are feeding off of supplies in the surrounding areas in order to create more Plumas, which can be made indefinitely. As such, with both Gjallerhorn and Tekkaden taking responsibility for this mess they’ve caused, it’s up to them to clean it up. Though not without the added unintended bonus of that Order of the Seven Stars.

After determining its next destination is Chryse, the most populated area, the team plans an ambush while also warning citizens to evacuate. First priorities are Kudelia and Atra, who are still at Admoss. They think on it, but Kudelia realizes there’s nowhere for them to even go, and fleeing now would fly in the face of everything she’s been working to build. That just leaves one option: destroy the thing before it gets there. Things seem to go well with the ambush point at first, until SUPER GENIUS IOK decides to make his move, blowing it off the planned course and heading straight towards an agricultural plant. Ride heads off to do exactly what they did in Chryse AGAIN, only this time it manages to vaporize the plant in seconds with its beam weapon. Ride manages to survive, but only to watch the horrors of burnt civilians behind him. Plus, we already had a cute kid death a few episodes ago, so he’s gotta make it out thanks to Mikazuki.

Up in space, Julieta and Vidar decide to intervene, with Julieta hoping to take down the Armor herself to secure the Order for Rustal. Oh god, the stupid is contagious. Upon touchdown, she meets Iok to point out the flipping obvious of his idiocy, while Vidar makes contact with McGillis. What could this mean??? Who will survive??? And can we finally stop acting like we don’t know who Vidar really is now?

OUR TAKE

The action begins with full force this time, and it pretty much manages to stay exciting throughout. It’s always neat, at least to me, to see the protagonist and antagonist groups have to team up to take down a common foe…or at least that’s what I would be saying if Iok wasn’t a complete and utter embarrassment to watch. I know and am somewhat glad that the show is fully aware of his life-endangering idiocy, as well as the fact that being one of the Seven Stars is not meant to be connected to intelligence (or even competence if Carta was any indicator), but it raises the question of why he is even there to begin with. Other than to just make things worse, that is. But hey, at least now McGillis knows exactly what he can gain from not letting Mars be completely destroyed. I can’t imagine there being any other way of him getting THAT information while he has his weekly verbal jerk off to Agnika Mother Flipping Kaieru, who he will not SHUT THE HELL UP about lately.

Now, with the rants out of the way, something interesting about this whole Mobile Armor business is the questions raised by their existence and function. Who would make machines just kill giant swathes of humans? How did THEY come first before Mobile Suits, which require a pilot and likely take a whole lot less work to build, given their reliance on the human element, than AIs likely did? And how did the Alaya-Vijnana system go from being the savior of mankind to being looked on as a sign of inhumanity? Is it because it’s almost spelled like vagina? Because that’s pretty lowbrow humor even for me, so you better not laugh at that. Okay? Good.

Either way, pretty neat kick-off to the action and exploration of a concept that I don’t think has been covered much, if at all, in Gundam as a whole. Let’s see where this goes.