Mecha Fridays: All of our crazy questions about Iron Blooded Orphans

Written by Louis

January 13, 2017

iron-blooded-oruphans

Prepare to get your mind blown.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans is Sunrise’s new spinoff on the Gundam franchise written by Mari Okada, who worked on series such as Toradora and Pet Girl of Sakurasuo, and directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai, who also directed the anime series A Certain Scientific Railgun.

Iron Blooded Orphans is currently halfway through its second season as it starts to introduce more enemies such as the Mobile Armors and goes deep into the strife inside one of its factions, Gjallarhorn. The series has been well received for its grounded sense of realism, storytelling, and of course the charisma of its characters while at the same time receiving critique for its excessive use of violence as it tries to picture the lives of child soldiers.

However, despite being a good series, IBO is not without its sampling of crazy questions that still remained unanswered even though we are already halfway through its second (and presumably last) season.

So if you think IBO is a great series, well, prepare to have some of these questions annoyingly echo in your head.

Where are the other 66 Gundam Frames?

One thing that made us excited about IBO is that, with its referencing to the book Ars Goetia, we have been “promised” 72 different Gundam frames that supposedly ended a great battle called the “Calamity War”. Throughout the course of Season 1, we have been treated with 3 different main Gundam frames, namely, the Barbatos, Gusion and the Kimaris, with the Astaroth also revealed via model kit release, and we expected to see more, maybe even just silhouettes of the other frames. But then, come season 2 what we got was:

  • Yet another variant of the Barbatos
  • Another form of the Gusion with a stupid scissor for a goddamn weapon.
  • The Vidar (which looks pretty badass, by the way)
  • The Flauros, which we all know is a tribute to Harambe.
floorus

Or Optimus Primal?

So yeah, dammit Sunrise, where the heck are the other Gundam Frames?

How did Merribit end up dating Old Man Nadi?

Dear Sunrise,

W T F

Sincerely,
Merribit and Orga shippers.

Seriously, how?! And of all the members of Tekkadan you just have to settle with Old Man Nadi! And what’s more, they are also said to be already dating after some of the events after the first season!

Goddammit Sunrise.

nadibit

What is ChocoChar’s true motivation?

It’s been a tradition that every Gundam series will have its own Char Aznable clone, a smooth-talking, mask-wearing BAMF who acts as one of the major antagonists in the series. Normally, the Char clone has his own underlying motivations which commonly revolve around revenge of some sort, deeply rooted in a tragedy from a previous life. In IBO, the Char Clone that we get is McGillis Fareed, or his masked persona Montag, who’s goal is to “Purge Gjallarhorn of Corruption” in ways that he only knows what.

montag

Like wearing Card-Game-Anime hairdo over that ridiculous mask.

While we do know that he is inspired by the founder of Gjallarhorn, Agnika Kaieru, and is the bastard child of the Fareed family, we still don’t get the connection between that and ridding Gjallarhorn of corruption. Of course, we know that his stated goals ultimately masks his true goals which are still unrevealed even with halfway through season 2.

Who made designed the Gundam frames (and why isn’t there any readily available information about them)?

So, from what we know, based on the latest episodes, the Gundam frames were developed to combat the mobile armors, AI run beings of absolute powere that are capable of destroying civilization. While the Gundam frames are actually developed by Gjallarhorn themselves during the events of the Calamity war and the organization’s inception, it was not stated who actually came up with the idea, much less even hinted that humanity should create radar disrupting power generators called Ahab Reactors, and use nanomachines implanted to a man’s body to connect his brain to a freaking mobile suit using the Alaya Vijnana System.

Maybe the designers name is lost in history? Perhaps but there’s also one additional inquiry that needs to be answered: Why in the world did Gjallarhorn just simply forget about the Gundams? If the Calamity war is truly an important point in history that led to the creation of the damn organization itself then why are they doing everything that they can to forget it?

aeolia

Could it be this man?

How did Mika turn out to be such a psychopath (and where the heck did he come from anyway)?

Okay, so so far we have had information regarding the origins of Kudelia, Atra, Akihiro, Fumitan, Biscuit, some backstory between the relationship of McGillis and his dad, McGillis and Gaelio and McGillis and Carta, however, with 38 episodes already released we still don’t have any dedicated to the MC himself.

Okay, we get it, Mika might have had a troubled childhood, heck even the opening shot of the whole series implied that he just shot (and presumably killed) somebody when Orga found him but aside from that we haven’t had any episode that truly outlines his past and why he became such a cold-blooded killer.

I'll tell you but I'm gonna have to kill you.

I’ll tell you but I’m gonna have to kill you.

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4 Comments

  1. Kyou

    I imagine Gjallerhorn has a lot of secrets ( which for some strange reason, only Mcgillis seems to know) but I’m more interested in who created the Mobile Armors and why. Who thought they were a good idea?

    I want a full back story for Mikazuki and Mcgillis before he was adopted by Iznario Fareed. Both of them had to come from somewhere right?

    Though….if Mcgillis marries Almeria Bauduin before she’s legal (whatever the legal age is in Gjallerhorn) does that mean he would have the power of attorney over her inheritance since Gaelio is “dead”? So Gaelio’s inheritance from their parents should be hers now.

    Why didn’t Carta became the head of the Issue family when her father was sick? Even temporarily. Why did she still need a guardian (which was Iznario Fareed) at her age? Does Gjallerhorn have specific laws regarding it’s females?

    All my questions are about Gjallerhorn and how it operates since it has that aristocratic thing going for it (since Tekkadan is rather straight forward and mafia style).

    Reply
  2. TheUnknownPain

    It was already cast in stone that there are ONLY 26 Gundam frames that remain operational after the Calamity War was over. Besides that, revealing 72 Gundam frames just in 2 seasons seems ridiculous to me.

    For McGillis’ plans, it was already hinted in the latest episode on how exactly he was doing to do things. After he saw Mikazuki’s fight with the Mobile Armor he decided that the only way to cleanse all the corruption in Gjallarhorn was to “use true power to lead the world into a proper path”.

    As for the creation of the Gundam Frames, it was said that some individuals from all different nations came together developed the Alaya Vijnana system along with the Gundam Frames to combat the Mobile Armor. And as we know now, Mobile Armors were the main problem during the Calamity War which nearly caused human extinction. It’s only logical for Gjallarhorn to limit the information of the Calamity War because they don’t want that information to leak into the wrong hands.

    Reply
  3. Wolves

    The other 66 gundam frames acvordibg to the sidestory are mostly destroyed due to the calamity war as most didn’t survive and its evident most are buried as both Barbatos and Flaurous were buried while others like Vual and Astarith are in hands of gangs and mafias similar to Gusion.

    Reply
  4. Naru Hirasawa

    Seems that the writer was too much questioning things un-needed. Just let it flow. We’re here love to enjoy the good anime until the very end.

    Reply

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  1. Mecha Fridays: Would you drink a Heero Yuy Latte and why a movie about the Calamity War needs to happen - […] why though? Back in January we listed that one of the most baffling things in IBO is that it…

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