#Atra Mixta

[kaxtwenty]

It would be so awesome...

It would be so cool...

[wordsandrobots]

Hey there! loved your IBO writeups and I wanted to hear your thoughts on a certain character relationship/dynamic that I have yet to see fully analyzed. What do you think is the significance or thematic meaning behind the Mika, Atra, and Kudelia trio.

Besides the occasional harem joke lol, the most I have yet to muse about their dynamic is that while both Mika and Kudelia are fixated on their self sacrificing roles and ideals, meaning Mika being the Devil of Tekkadan and Kudelia being the Maiden of Revolution, Atra seems to be the glue that binds them together and tie them back down to reality. Which fits considering the ending.

But what are your thoughts tho?

(Also any plans on a Mika and McGillis writeup)

Hi! Glad you've enjoyed the rambling!

First, really, truly sorry it took so long to get around to answering this. A combination of illness and heavy workload has left my brain more scattered than usual.

Second, nothing planned at present regarding Mika and McGillis, although it's definitely something worth exploring. There's a lot of interesting things to be said about the way McGillis misreads their relationship while being so inspired by Mika, and how Mika cuts through a lot of McGillis' bullshit by being tied to the reality the older man is trying to escape.

Now, on to the main topic.

One way to look at it is that Mikazuki, Atra and Kudelia are a marriage of different conceptions of what gives life meaning. You've got Mikazuki dedicating himself to serving another's ambition, Atra finding purpose in everyday tasks, and Kudelia working towards improving the world as a whole. These can also be seen as three different forms of sacrifice, with each of them giving up things they could have had elsewhere (self-direction, safety, status) for the sake of doing what they think is right.

Another approach is to emphasise their similarities, as equally compassionate people. Kudelia is spurred into action by moral indignation at the treatment of her fellow Martians. Mikazuki is automatically protective of those around him, including strangers. And Atra's skill-set is rooted in the practicalities of looking after other people. This shared drive shapes their relationship from the start: not for nothing do group hugs form key moments in its progression.

If I were to take a stab at assigning them a particular thematic meaning as a group, though, it is this: combined, they represent how far out of reach superficially mundane desires can lie for those at the sharp end of society.

Consider Atra. I've seen criticisms of Iron-Blooded Orphans focused on the stereotypical nature of her contentment with the domestic and desire to settle down with the people she loves (including somebody saying the writers 'had never met a woman in their life', which is bleakly funny) and yes, these do reflect gendered expectations to an extent. However, to stop there misses that, in context, 'I want a peaceful existence as a housewife and supportive member of the community' is a wildly aspirational life-goal. Before meeting Mikazuki, Atra was a homeless runaway fleeing a miserable existence as the dogsbody at a brothel. She isn't under any illusion that what she wants is going to follow naturally from simply being a girl, much less so after falling in with a group of suicidally-reckless child soldiers. The desperation that leads her to suggest Kudelia have a child with Mikazuki in order to keep him with them is extremely well-founded.

Likewise, as I've discussed many times before, Mikazuki's stated aim (devotion to Orga aside) is to be a farmer. To grow vegetables. More of a challenge on Mars than on Earth, yet hardly the stuff of a 50-episode mecha anime in its own right. But, again, Mikazuki is not in a social position where this is automatically feasible. Not only does he lack the required education, farming itself is not the stable livelihood it should be. Fighting is a far more certain source of income and while he does not ever stop trying to learn about growing plants – as a recent commenter rightly pointed out – the choices he makes or is forced to make continually place his dream further out of reach.

And for her part, Kudelia wants nothing more than to ensure Atra and Mikazuki can live the lives they want. Their articulation of her intentions reveals its core straightforwardness: she really is working to ensure the happiness of the Martian people. That's the entire point. Settling on Mikazuki's hypothetical farm is an idea she clearly sees as a long way off, even while cherishing the invitation. But she never wavers from wanting that reality for Mikazuki and Atra, and by extension the rest of Tekkadan. High-handed and naïve though her initial attempts to treat them as equals are, she keeps trying and internalises the lessons they teach her, and that only increases her commitment to a world where no child has to get blood on their hands for the sake of survival.

Here, though, we come to the crunch. Because the things in the way of the simple, simply-stated future these three are after do not lie within their actual relationship, which develops naturally over the course of events until they are firmly a romantic trio. Rather, they are grappling with being caught inside an exploitative structure that proceeds from three hundred years of Earth-centric hegemony. Mikazuki and Atra's poverty has roots far outside their control and Kudelia's challenges to those roots are met with violent resistance from the status quo. For them to be happy would require either a dramatic elevation of their position (Orga's solution), or transforming the economic distribution of their society (Kudelia's solution).

All three are ready to make a fight of it, utilising their complementary talents and shared reserve of bravery. They support one another as best they can through the ensuing struggles. Mutual respect and care is a key part of what binds them together, with Kudelia's determination reflecting what she sees in Mikazuki, Atra's acts of protectiveness towards Kudelia belying her noncombatant role, and Mikazuki swearing to fight for Atra's happiness as reciprocation for her declaration of love.

But in the end this is simply not a story where the daring warrior, plucky princess and brave peasant-girl can win the day. The sacrifices necessary to reach for a better future preclude everyone living to see it. Atra's fears that Mikazuki will be lost to them prove accurate. Kudelia's desire to provide those she loves with a safe, stable life is subordinate to the material connections necessary to pursue that very goal. And Mikazuki's drive to act for others leads him to embrace Gundam Barbatos, the silent fourth member of this relationship, carrying him inexorably to his doom.

I talked in my essay on queerness in IBO about how the epilogue is centred on Akatsuki. Mikazuki and Atra's son is the triumph achieved despite the tragedy, a testament to love that mattered in spite of the violence that consumed it. We find him living peacefully on Sakura Farm with Atra, Kudelia acting as his guardian, giving tangible meaning to his father's death and how things have changed since, no matter if Tekkadan are forgotten.

That framing, however, is bittersweet. The final shots, juxtaposing Akatsuki with photographs from before everything fell apart, reinforce the cost of reaching this point and there remain battles to be fought, as Kudelia smiles for the cameras, signing treaties with her enemies to further chip away at long-standing injustices. The better world is still a work-in-progress and far too many people didn't live to see even this much.

Behind the hope, the cruelty of the situation lies laid bare. Again, Mikazuki and Atra were not asking for much. Their happiness, which Atra achieves in part, would have been entirely unobjectionable. The suggestion Mikazuki enjoys killing makes him display – for him – considerable distress. His hands tremble at the idea, despite violence being central to his current existence. Indeed, it is that existence, stretching back to his time on the streets, that taught him to respond violently. Had things been different, he would have been content raising crops and children.

Even Kudelia's suggested changes are relatively mild. Greater economic parity with Earth is hardly an unreasonable request and finds supporters among the political class. At the same time, the outsized response exposes a great deal about how important the inequality is to those at the top, how it is actively chosen and enforced. Trite as it might seem on the surface, a goal of 'making everybody happy' can lead in radical directions, provoking questions like 'why isn't everybody happy?', 'who does their unhappiness benefit?', 'who would its abolition inconvenience?', and 'how does society justify the absence of happiness in the first place?'

Iron-Blooded Orphans spends its run pairing such matters with a sweet, supportive, polyamorous teenage romance. The sharpness of this contrast emphasises the humanity of those involved and the sheer unfairness of their circumstances – and of what is required of them to improve matters, when power is hoarded elsewhere.

-----

At least, that's where my mind went off the back of your question. There's a lot of that contrast in IBO, between the mundane reality of the people involved and their outsized reputation, infamy and actions. Plus, the treatment of sexuality, polyamory and queerness as just ordinary is something I deeply love about it, as a show.

Thank you for the ask! As a bonus note, this is my go-to Atra song.

('Words, you cannot possibly have a Thea Gilmore song for every occasion.' Just you watch me.)

[Index of other writing]

[lordychica]

Random Artworks:)

More sketches/animations of my Boiyo's can be found on my Twitter: (@/LordyChica)

[nicydraws]

Six Fanarts Challenge (6/6) Atra Mixta | Hatsune Miku | Gawr Gura Anya Forger | Jiro Kyoka | Mew Mint

[lilenui]

Weekly Yuru-tetsu~ Orga: The food, the work, the trouble, it's all the same. Whatever's in front of me, I'll just clean it up. Mika: Orga, have you lost weight? Orga: ...? Is that so? Mika: I don't like you being so poorly Orga. Orga: H-hey, you.... Atra: I don't like it either! Orga: Okay, I'll gain weight! I'll definitely gain weight, so please no more! [Ever since then Orga has been eating hefty meals] [See previous strip] Atra: I'd like the boss to eat as much of his favourite food as possible, but he just says "I don't mind anything as long as it fills my stomach." Mika: For sure, but what is Orga's favourite food? Orga: ...Anything I eat with you guys is my favourite food, everything tastes delicious when you eat it with your family. (not sure I can eat all of that) Shino: Please eat my food too!! Ride: Boss!! Dante: Boss!! Eugene: Orga!! Orga: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!

[bubblingbeebles]

gundam IBO aka my problems with mari okada

i finished gundam IBO, tried to figure out why it felt so wrong, and only afterwards found out it was written by mari okada and honestly that explains so much.

if she somehow reads this post i’m sorry but here is my thesis about mari okada: all of her works have the same two problems:

1 - they set up a situation that will pull on your heartstrings, but then pull so much harder than was narratively justified that it breaks immersion and ruins the impact

2 - they have weirdly-romanticized ideas about romance, basically where a character falls for some idea that a person represents rather than the person themself, while also usually either (a) being heteronormative and/or steeped in tropey gender roles (b) ignoring perfectly good (less idolizing) chemistry between a different pairing

spoiler zone under the cut.

first of all, disclaimer: the other okada works i’ve seen that i’m comparing to are anohana, nakitai neko, maquia, and toradora. i found the first two to be insufferable, textbook examples of both problems. i liked maquia because i think it got the heartstring pull right, perhaps as a fluke, and avoided problem 2 by being about motherhood instead of romance. i tolerate toradora because, despite the annoying harem, it at least subverted problem 2 in the end by ending with the pairing that has actual chemistry.

IBO, i also find to be textbook examples of both problems, and both problems boil down to the fact that the show never really graduates from the toxic orga-mika-flashback ideology (”keep fighting until we reach the promised land“)

problem 1 basically comes down to how dark the ending is, how much they all lose in the end. the show presents an oppressive system - not just evil individuals - and so many ways our protags could have beat that system, but ultimately makes each one fail either through chance or through character flaw, and like, that’s not just crushing as a story beat, that’s crushing on the meta level of what makes a good story. the show could have been about cashing out with a peaceful life (i.e. not pursue the “king of mars” dream), but no. the show could have been about refusing to let the ends justify the means (i.e. refuse to partner with char chocolate mcgillis), but no. the show could have been about political reform and postwar quality of life (i.e. give any screentime to kudelia’s s2 business exploits), but no. in each case the orga-mika ideology blinded them to everything but to fight. the show set up from the very beginning to have them outgrow that ideology, and then spectacularly failed to deliver.

back on the object level, a more obvious example of problem 1 is just the string of named character killings. in season 1, biscuit’s death had meaningful narrative consequences. in season 2, i predicted naze would die after being politically maneuvered into some corner, which would have been narratively satisfying... if they payoff had been anything other than “now more characters will die with increasingly little justification”. we get the same exact story beat with takaki/aston, with akihiro/lafter, with yamagi/shino, and ultimately with orga. i’m not saying “war produces senseless deaths en masse” is a bad moral, i’m saying that repeating the same exact setup four times robs that moral of its emotional impact.

anyways, on to problem 2: atra and kudelia.

i should be happy about our girls getting a happy end where they’re literally married! i really should! the thing is..! the whole framing around it is stained with authorial intent so deeply that even this literal gay marriage is somehow heteronormative.

in short: the on-screen pretense of their relationship dramatically fails the bechdel test. (whatever happens off screen, the camera lens matters.)

in long: atra and kudelia explicitly talk about their respective relationships to mikazuki in that exact mari-okada-weirdly-romanticized way (”when a girl is crying, a boy should console her”), whereas their relationship to each other is, while obvious, unstated so explicitly as that, and i think that - because of okada’s track record - you need to do some heavy death-of-the-author-ing if you want to claim that they, in character, realize they have romantic chemistry on their own. moreover, as i wrote before i saw s2:

when she was jealous of kudelia about mikazuki, and then all it took was 1 poly adult role model to instantly break her out of that, was such a moment. i hope she meets a gay person and has the same moment again and then (becomes an adult and then) they date

...this of course never happens(*), and so, literally married as they are, occam’s razor says that in character, the only role model they have remains naze’s harem, where women can only be connected romantically indirectly via a guy -- in their case, the memory of a deceased emotional blank slate of a guy, as newly embodied in akatsuki -- and thus they are together because that indirection makes them platonic family (which is a powerful theme of the show in its own right, so it naturally completes the logic here).

(*worse yet: the only on-screen-text-canon gay character, yamagi, is heavily tokenized and brutally bury-your-gays-ed, and i find this actively harms the case, because it sets the precedent that if it was gay, they could have been explicit about it.)

if okada sensei had just spent 5 seconds of screen time for one of them to say “you know, what we have with each other is also romantic, isn’t it”, it would have been an amazing subversion of her own trope, but no. i can’t ignore the author here even if, underneath the metatext, their chemistry and their happy end are undeniable.

and that, i suppose, is why i am so eager about witch from mercury, even if its politics are even more incoherent than ever. it at least gives us - not just the queerness - but the queer-normativity we deserve in storytelling.

[niaojirou]

One of the powerpuff girls isn't even a girl and is a war criminal

[fiannalover]

Mikazuki's corpse does so much heavy lifting everyday cheerleading Kudelia/Atra into being such a tasty and God tier ship

[liamthestickyclone]

Drew these little goobers

ahahsbdhshsnabahahs I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH

…makes the ending all the more sad…

[gremoria411]

Really loving the Definition on these, particularly the eyes, Akihito’s forehead and Eugene’s hair.

The gradient on Mikazuki’s boots and lower body in the first picture is also really nice, it really helps his head and chest pop, with the red of the blood and Tekkadan logo and bright blue of his eyes also serving to effectively draw the attention there.

I also want to draw specific attention to Atra’s eyes being really good, but I’m not sure how to describe it.

Mika, etc.

[kaxtwenty]

Amazing things happening on Gundam Twitter right now.

[wordsandrobots]

Iron-Blooded Oprhans G Side Story - Soup Party

So Trafalgar Log just put up fansubs for the latest IBO Side Story and . . . look, if you've seen all of Iron-Blooded Orphans or even just finished Season 1, go watch this (there's spoilers for S1 in the thumbnail which is why I'm not doing this as a link post).

It's cute, funny fluff and utterly delightful. I'm not going to write up reference notes because there's really nothing added in terms of continuity. Just the development of a relationship and some daft jokes.

(I will say that I think this release exhausts the footage for the side stories shown in the trailer for the app, except possibly the bits featuring Shino and Naze, which looked like they'd belonged to the Urdr Hunt campaign instead.)

[lordychica]

Random Artworks :)

Just past months pieces of the Boiyo's together along with the crew! All my animations can be found on my Twitter. (@LordyChica.)

[nicydraws]

Six Fanarts Challenge (3/6) Atra Mixta | Hatsune Miku | Gawr Gura

[lilenui]

Weekly Yuru-Tetsu~ Kudelia: Onboard hygiene is very important, so let's make sure everyone has a change of clothes! Atra: Yes, I agree! Eugene: These clothes though... Mika: Looks good on you Eugene. Eugene: Thank you...

[maguro13-2]

Atra : So I told Mika that I want you have a baby with him. So I told you and now I did, and thanks to you, we have a kid now.

Kudelia : Awesome and what happened to Barbatos when it was dismantled?

Atra : Oh, I'll never tell.

Kudelia : What did you put in the machine?

Atra : It's a secret. I'll tell you how it really happened.

*flashback*

Mikazuki : Well, this is my last stand. I may not win and might lose to a dark gritty show, but when my son lives on, I will have my revenge.

*Barbatos gets decapitated*

Julieta : The devil is defeated!

*BEEPING*

Julieta : Eh? What's that noise?

Barbartos : Mark my words! But I'm getting the last laugh! SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED! PREPARE TO BE BLOWN TO SMITHEREENS IN 5...4...3...2...!

Julieta : ...OH, SH***T!!!

*DBZ SFX : LOUD EXPLOSION*

Julieta : *comes out of the rubble* That d*ck! Who's idea was it to put a special detonator that causes the robot to Self-destruct!?

Rustal : Perhaps I take it too wisely, that I misguided that Augus and didn't he say that he has a son raised by two of his female comrades.

Julieta : He has a what!? *growls*

*hears something falling over*

Julieta : Eh? *screams* AAAAAAAH-!

*DBZ SFX : EXPLOSION*

Rustal : Oh, why did we even think about killing the hero?

Suzaku : That's my idea of killing my bro! That's how a man's failure taste!

*scene changes back*

Atra : So yeah, Barbatos was meant to self destruct and let Mikazuki had the chance before he was killed off the show. But hey, at least he delivered the baby boy to us. So we have a kid now.

Kudelia : ...Right. Well, at least we have each other, two girls and one kid. Wonder what's gonna happen to us by now?

Iok Kujan Ghost : Hey, girls! Check this out! Since you two are the only ones left that is now same-sex married couple, we've all became ghosts and decided that we're gonna haunts these fools for whatever they did in the wars. Can you believe that?

*IBO Male characters are ghosts*

Kudelia : Guys. How long have you been watching us, did you all turned into Ghosts?

Akihiro Atland Ghost : Yeah, we do! We're gonna haunt those suckers to death and get our revenge! We told you, we have souls in hearts and bodies, we can do whatever the hell we want, we're ghosts of being dead and Mikazuki right can see his son from over here!

Iok Kujan Ghost : Isn't this the coolest? We're all Ghostly dudes here and we will haunt the people that did us for real!

*Vacuum sound*

Iok Kujan : Hey, what are you doing?!

*Gets sucked into the Poltergust*

Iok Kujan : WOAAAAAH!!!

*POP!*

Elie : Try better not take it from him, he does not even know how to shut up.

Akihiro Atland Ghost : Good, well at least he's out of the picture.

Mikazuki Augus Ghost : Guess this means, that I'm gonna be with my family for a little longer.

Elie : [To Mikazuki] Also, If I had a kid like these two, I just found out male characters that makes female characters can asexually reproduce science babies, Asshole.

Mikazuki Augus Ghost : *with painful realization* Crap. You're right.

Dina : At least we got a kid and we live on a farm.

Joel Ghost : [To Mikazuki] Well, bud. I know how you felt this way. Well, look at the bright side, at least you're a family man now.

Mikazuki Augus Ghost : Ah, you're right about that. I am a Family Man.

Orga Itsuka Ghost : You are, same thing from this guy. *points at Guile*

Guile : Oh, I am relieved that I lived to see this day.

*later*

Akatsuki : After my dad's death, I now decided to take his place instead. So much of my mom and...my stepmom. Wow, just wow. Oh Good, I get it. What was I'm doing here? I wasn't paid to be part of the script.

*SMW SFX : Iris out*