Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 24 – The G-Wrekketsu-ning

SPOILERS

I don’t know why I even bother really. Every time an emotional event happens in this show, I expect it to be the ONE Mika has a reaction similar to everybody else breaking down and weeping. Within minutes after the opening occurs (which was led into by Mika being informed of Orga’s fate), Mika instead has his own St. Crispin’s Day speech. Despite Mika’s lack of flair, it is filled with determination, rallying the remainder of Tekkadan to follow through and escape while he and a small contingency of MS delay Gjallarhorn’s advance. Yes you can see a bit of sadness in Mika’s eyes, but his moments in this episode show how he doesn’t really harbor much delusion that he’s totally useless without Orga.

It makes me realize, maybe the Kamina-Simon dynamic I envisioned is all wrong. Mika has always been an individual with a direction to go towards, whether it is this current objective, or surviving. He is not one with a childhood where he had to grow up having to be dependent on anybody to survive. The only thing ever missing from it during those times was purpose. Orga’s death does not change this, and his orders still resonate. Just because a leader is dead, does not necessarily mean his order dissipates with him, so here we are. Gotta get everybody out as best they can, no matter what happens to some.

The portion of the FINAL final battle is a nice enough spectacle, with Tekkadan actually doing quite well given the circumstances of an overwhelming Gjallarhorn force. The big thing of note (a big disappointing thing in a way) is the death of Hush. Mika arrives too late for his usual save, and Hush gets crushed by another MS’s weapon. Worse, it is not just any crush, but a crush where he’s still barely clinging to life. At the first part of the second season, we saw a newbie who had this AMAZING backstory, filled with the kind of potential for either being Mika’s greatest enemy or ally. Eventually, Hush becomes Mika’s third wheel in his many space adventures. For all this time, Hush is never shown to have any change of heart, whether it is disappointing of not being as Mika enough, or of uncertainty of whether this is the kind of life he wants. Then this episode happens, and nothing has changed but him becoming another loss on the battlefield. Lame.

Oh yeah, there’s McGillis too.

After this big setup of McGillis disappearing for an episode, then helping Tekkadan, and then appearing one final time to fight Rustal… He’s dead. For a guy who fancies himself a master planner, moving his way up into Gjallarhorn’s ranks, acquiring the Bael, and then leading a revolt against WDoJ/Arianrhod, he kinda dies like a bitch. You’d think he would have an extra MA or two up his sleeve, never mind a trick, but here he’s got nothing but bravado and confidence. He does an EXCEPTIONAL job taking down a variety of grunt suits before being felled by Galli-Galli, but then he then makes a futile effort to make it to Rustal as he slowly dies from his wounds. It’s kinda fucking sad in a way, but less sad when what I anticipated (him dying in a hail of gunfire as Rustal looks on) is instead met with one final interaction with Galli-Galli. It seems all his ambition for power made him believe he had to cut his ties with friends. To be sure, it’s a fair enough mirror once again between him and Tekkadan regarding human bonds. The real kicker is Galli-Galli’s tears, even after all this, deep down he still thought well of their time before this series. Now what happens after who can say, but it is quite a way to show how ambition kills and completely subvert usual expectations for Gundam endings.

Yet now, here comes the rub. Julieta’s back up and about, and is leading a team of Mobile Suits to finish the job on Mars (which we won’t see until next week, it’s not even in the preview). Hard to believe once again, the final battle is between Mika and a rank and file soldier in a special Mobile Suit. Will Tekkadan get everyone out in time? Will it be a pyrrhic victory for Gjallarhorn? Who will survive?

*sigh* Just one more week to go. I’m ready for disappointment, no matter if it’s erryboddy dying or a very poorly-handled finale.

Iron-Blooded Notes:

  • I wonder how well the second season is doing in Japan. For a show that had to ‘slightly’ censor itself due to its rather cold violence during the first season, it’s coming back in full force here. How fondly will it be remembered in hindsight once the dust settles?
  • The developments to this series’s end reminded me of the initial plans to end Gundam SEED, which if I remember correctly involved a girl with a bomb inside of her, Kira dying, then Athrun losing an arm.
  • Maybe, like Gundam SEED Destiny, we’ll only get the ideal ending for this show in an SRW game.
  • Where are Kudelia and Atra in the ending? Shouldn’t they be helping Tekkadan get out?
  • Also turns out Orga was killed by Nobliss’s men. How that turns out in the end I hope is in the good guys’s favour. I hope. But I don’t expect it at all at this point.

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