Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

Episode 12

Raise your death flag, and then fly it at half-mast. As we reach the halfway point in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, we witness the most significant character death yet. With an expertly paced story arc that will have you shocked that it's already over, this dark and powerful episode reminds us that Gundam isn't all warm fuzzies and family bonding.

If family is a sliding scale, Atra and Akihiro's brother Masahiro are on totally different sides of the spectrum. Atra has room for everyone in her family. She knows that both she and Kudelia have a crush on the same guy, but Teiwaz's space bigamy has clued her into a satisfactory alternative to fighting over him. We watch them bond like sisterwives as they co-create a bento for Mika and comfort one another as they wait for his return. It's a little strange but far preferable to seeing them squabble over Mika like the girls in every harem anime ever. It's a breath of fresh air to see how the women in this show get along and even seem to like each other—and on that same note, how comfortable everyone has become with one another, from Naze and Orga calling one another “Bro” to everyone chilling on the couch while they come up with a battle plan. It's much more powerful when Orphans shows family rather than harping on it in dialogue.

However, Masahiro isn't so willing to welcome people into the fold. Rather than being uplifted that his brother has come to rescue him and pull him into the Tekkadan family, Masahiro accuses Akihiro of abandoning him. “While I was waiting for you, you were having a good time?” he rages, when Akihiro says he's been treated like a human being for once in his life. This episode does not have a happy ending, doing away with Masahiro in the most heartrending way possible, as Akihiro watches in horror. In a way, Masahiro died as he lived, crushed under the boots of people who see him as a disposable soldier instead of a human child.

I can't say I was satisfied with this death—I don't think I was supposed to be—but there was a sort of poetry to it. With Orga's guidance, Akihiro was looking toward the future. (He's sick of hearing about Human Debris when “we're space rats, too.” Everyone had it bad in the past, before they could shape their own present.) Meanwhile, Masahiro couldn't move forward. “Nothing changes even if we die,” he told his comrades. More tragically, he says to Akihiro: “The more you hope, the more you suffer.” It's no wonder he had a death wish. These two siblings had grown apart so much that in a way, they were no longer part of the same family.

This episode was well done because it delivered an eventful battle while also showing us the real consequences of such a battle. It was like a game as the Orphans used their environment and their knowledge of both the enemy and their own technology (we learned quite a few useful things about how Ahab Reactors work) in order to secure a tactical advantage. But it was also horrifically sad. This is a cruel episode for leaving children's corpses in its wake, but it's also a reminder of the high-stakes environment in which this story takes place. It would be more artificial to expect a story about child soldiers to be all smiles. The title of the next episode, “Funeral Rites,” marks a significant tonal shift halfway through Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. We've made ourselves a happy family, now it's time to bid it goodbye.

Rating: A

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

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.