#takaki gundam

[lilenui]

Weekly Yuru-tetsu~ Orga: I've heard there's a custom where you gift sweets to someone you like! So today I'm gifting you guys sweet treats! crowd: yay! yay! Mika: Then, I'll give you mine, Orga. Orga: ....Mika! Takaki: Then I'll give mine to the Boss, too! Eugene: Well then, mine too. Shino: Mine too... crowd: *mine too* Orga: You guys...! Orga: Then I'll give it back to you guys!! crowd: Yayy!!! [back to the second panel] Kudelia: This is...family! (Tekkadan learning new customs and assimilating them in their own way is quite possibly the cutest thing ever)

[wordsandrobots]

First go at sketching Takaki's rather sad 'I promise I'm a grown-up' beard (as featured in The Haunting of Takaki Uno) over a screen-grab of his series epilogue appearance. Not completely happy with this and I'm starting to think I need to get a decent drawing tablet (that is, one that actually lets me draw on the screen instead of fighting my screwed-up proprioception).

Still, this is more or less what I was imagining.

Yes, he does get mocked for this, by Ride, who is not what you might call gifted in the facial-hair department, so the insult is a bit of a no-sell. The extent to which the beard helps with its intended purpose of getting people in the Arbrau government to stop assuming he's an intern on work experience is, however, highly variable.

[juustozzi]

day 17: takaki from msg: iron-blooded orphans

[evilpenguinrika]

This man?

He's about to catch some fucking hands.

[redsamuraiii]

Murrue Ramius reminds me of Megumi Iruma

They're both Captain in charge of her entire crew!

[maxderats]

Inktober! I always kinda skip it or drop it after a few days, but this year not only did I tried it, I even finished it! So here are the results of my first actually completed inktober challenge. I didn't go with the list, instead my "list" was to make one gundam character a day from october 1 to october 30.

Day 1-2 : Suletta Mercury & Miorine Rembran (Gundam : The Witch From Mercury) Day 3 : Nika Nanaura (G-Witch) Day 4 : Ojelo Gabel (G-Witch) Day 5-6 : Guel Jeturk & Felsi Rollo (G-Witch)

Day 7 : Feldt Grace (Gundam 00) Day 8 : Atra Mixta (Gundam : Iron-Blooded Orphans) Day 9-10 : Takaki Uno, Aston Altland and Fuka Uno, they're watching Ratatouille (GIBO) Day 11-12 : Kati Manneqin & Patrick Colasour, they're doing the Frieren dance (G00)

Day 13-14 : Norba Shino & Yamagi Gilmerton, yes that one frame wasn't gay enough for me (GIBO) Day 15 : Sabina Fardin (G-Witch) Day 16 : Azee Gurumin (GIBO) Day 17-18 : Norea du Noc & Sophie Pulone (G-Witch)

For the next page, I did characters from other mech shows just as a way to change a little bit of air. Day 19 : Rui Kanoya (Re:Creators) Day 20 : Lio (Promare) Day 21-22 : Asuka & EVA-02 in one of the gorgeous redesign JB/Gunbusted did Day 23 : Rossiu (Gurren Lagann) Day 24 : Flame (Synduality Noir)

As we were coming closer to the end of the month, the theme for the last page was halloween costumes! Day 25-26 : Orga Itsuka & Mikazuki Augus (GIBO) Day 27-28 : Suletta & Miorine again (G-Witch) Day 29 : Tieria Erde (G00) Day 30 : Chuchu/Chuatury Panluch (G-Witch)

I had a lot of fun doing it and will for sure try it again, though maybe not in october specifically? Still many characters I wanna do, more Turbines and Grassleys, Merribit, Cracker & Cookie, Elan, more 00 characters... Having such a closed theme really helped getting into it every day without thinking too much about what to draw.

[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.

[fantasyinvader]

One year later, and I'm having trouble placing G-Witch as either being better or worse than Iron Blooded Orphans.

I absolutely love the idea behind IBO. That despite the narrative framing, the people we are following are actually the bad guys. We're seeing things from their POV and as time passes the show blatantly hints more and more that we should be questioning them and Orga's leadership, as while we can understand their actions they are still committing crimes and eventually taking part of a coup so they can be made into the Kings of Mars. Even in the show's universe, it's eventually revealed that Tekkadan were only seen as “heroes” because people like Gordon and McGillis did PR for them as part of their schemes, and when Gjallarhorn reveals it's own narrative of events following McGillis and Tekkadan launching a surprise attack on their base the public turns on them.

Director Nagai put a lot of emphasis on how the show shouldn't make the audience think Tekkadan was wrong or misguided however and according to Mari Okada vetoed a lot of ideas she had for the show, and some of those ideas really would call Tekkadan into question. Nagai was going for the propaganda angle like Paul Verhoeven did in Starship Troopers, whereas Okada says she wasn't comfortable writing for the show and led a revolt for a happier ending than Nagai intended. I'm not sure if this led to a misstep or not, since the final result still has that feeling of historical revisionism and therefore would be the natural conclusion to the series, but the fact is a lot of people didn't get what the director was trying to say and just blame Okada for how things ended with the story elements she was allowed to put in.

And for me, that's a sign that the writing missed the mark. I mean, I remember people getting angry at Merribit being upset over what Tekkadan became at the end of s1, Takaki leaving or Zack calling Orga out because people bought into Tekkadan's mindset. That part of the writing was on point, but people didn't really get that said mindset was meant to be a bad thing. Even when it leads to the group's destruction, people are still supporting it and cheering Ride getting revenge on in the ending. The message is there, but for a number of people it failed to land.

When I look at G-Witch then, I can't help but feel it was the result of the franchise trying to make it clear that it doesn't support the things IBO might have said if taken at face value. Simple stuff like “fighting is bad,” “revenge is bad,” “profitting off of conflict is bad,” “taking corrupt deals to achieve your goals is bad,” “using child soldiers is bad.” The only thing that really stands out the the only real risk the show took, having a female lead in a yuri relationship that is not fetishized. That is remarkably progressive for the show to do in Japan. That female lead is more like Mikazuki under the cute girl exterior and the show takes the time to make it clear that that's not alright, so as a result while Mikazuki just focused more and more on becoming Orga's killing machine at the cost of his dreams Suletta's arc results in her becoming more that the pawn she originally was for her mother. And, of course, the contrast between said uiri relationshp being presented in a benevolent light and the Orga/Mikazuki dynamic being an example of toxic codependancy.

G-Witch also doesn't drag like IBO did, but it's short episode count also makes it so it can't flesh things or relationships out like they could have been. I feel like you could have done IBO as a 26 episode anime and lost nothing (they were able to cover 3/4s of it in a 9 episode compilation after all), whereas G-Witch would have benefited from a longer run (no even a 50 episode series, do it in three cours like the OG Gundam or X did). And this ultimately leads to another difference between the two, while G-Witch could fleshed out things more IBO deliberately left out information to it's direction. Something as simple as “The AV System Tekkadan uses is illegal” is danced around while later on Gjallarhorn using illegal weapons on Tekkadan is used to make them look like the villains, whereas it's pretty quickly established in G-Witch that Gundam-type mobile suits and their special tech are illegal and that leads to the protagonists trying to use that tech for non-military purposes.

G-Witch is pretty straightforward, whereas IBO tries to deceive the audience only to then give them a moral not to blindly follow what you are told. You couldn't even trust the show itself to be straight with you, but Tekkadan's destruction is meant to get the audience to realize they were misled. That's going to piss people off to be sure, but that also shows that there's a level of artistry going on and makes IBO rather unique. It's the kind of thing you would see done in a novel or something, but the only way to really confirm the intent is to know the authorial intent. Again, there are people who think Tekkadan did nothing wrong and support Ride's revenge tour and the show was controversial in Japan because people WERE taking it at face value.

It really is like Verhoeven's Starship Troopers.

Meanwhile, G-Witch is a fun, simple series that gets it's messages, as cliche as they are, across. It's not like SEED where the producers push for pacifist messages that the director wanted to challenge in Destiny. G-Witch feels like everyone on production was on the same page, no writers pushing to change the ending like with IBO. Everything was just well put together, a simple, thought-out story told well unlike AGE (though AGE is still fun in my opinion).

If IBO holds your hand, it's trying to lead you astray, and for that I feel it's the smarter series. Buts also a massive chore to get through due to the pacing, and it tries to make up for it's lack of action by instead leaning into the visceral destruction caused by physical hits. It's theme songs are also miles better. However, G-Witch is the show I'd rather rewatch due to the pacing. There feels like there's more to the world of G-Witch, whereas IBO felt more like there was more to the story we weren't being told. But in a way, that makes the world of G-Witch feel more real and grounded, they're not just ignoring parts of the setting that complicates the narrative. And whereas IBO ends with tragedy for the protagonists, especially when you take word of god explanations for what the ending didn't tell you into account, G-Witch rewards the protagonists for their actions instead leading to more positive messages you can't misinterpret.

G-Witch is simply the better show.

Plus, and this is just me, if I think about how they'd be in Super Robot Wars I would have a really hard time believing the protagonists of other shows would just go along with IBO's plot and possibly would knock Orga's teeth out over his direction of Tekkadan (especially if Judau is there, since he's the motherfucker who punched Bright in response to his bullshit in ZZ) which in turn would lead to Mikazuki and them having an antagonistic relationship. I know IBO is in the gacha game and it's units appear as DLC in SRW 30 where the story isn't touched, but I just have an easier time believing Suletta would get along with the stars of other shows. They'd need to do what they did to Kira in SRW Z for IBO, or maybe go the SRW L route and change events in such a way Tekkadan doesn't join the coup.

[artillatron]

Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans

Character thoughts below

Iron-Blooded Orphans is a story with a lot of contradictions, and so far it seems like it's asking difficult questions, but unlike other series there are some questions that just don't have good answers.

Mikazuki - I know he's a protagonist, but I really would like to have seen more about him. I like the archetype of the hollow shell willing to do anything to repay the life that was saved, but we don't get much more about what lead to that alleyway, or how he and Orga came to meet, was it in that moment? Before that? How long? Cool character, and I especially like his limit breaking having physical consequences, which serves to show his determination and give consequence to Orga's actions.

Orga - A man who pushes limits, then gets in over his head before he knows it and dies to his own hubris. I find it fascinating to try and pinpoint where exactly he went wrong, because he has rationale but by the end we realize he's in too deep, and I especially like that he tries offering himself as a sacrifice, but is rebuked because he isn't the only one responsible for their situation, and the very same parts of him that got them from Mars to Earth in the first place is also the reason they end up hunted, like many things in the series I feel goes with the theme of double edged swords.

Biscuit - My man, I saw someone say he was the voice of reason for Tekkadan, and maybe he was. As the only one to ever really challenge Orga, once he's out of the picture Orga immediately becomes more reckless. There were so many unnecessary losses in the assault on the city, and Biscuit would never have allowed them to go in with that kind of plan. Their ultimate tactic does work, but only out of attrition and desperation do they succeed. That's where you start to see the blind faith in Orga cut both ways, it does let them hold on and win, but so many would have survived from that point and further if Biscuit was there. Perhaps even more, because Biscuit could have been leading the earth branch and certainly would have identified issues immediately, unlike Takaki, who although was thrust into it, was not prepared to lead.

Kudelia - A good foil to Orga, someone who continues to fight using peace, and who looks at the path she takes to the future. What will it take to make that future as good as it can be? There are shorter paths, but as Orga is warned, making more enemies to take the shortest path isn't the smartest choice. I do not understand her whole thing with Mikazuki and Atra though, that was just kind of a mess.

Mcgillis - The representation of power, and how it cannot come from a single man. Despite his training, ruthlessness, skill, and getting a legendary gundam, he can't win. He loses to Gaelio, who isn't alone because of Ein, and Rustal's forces decimate him. Despite everything, one man cannot hold power alone.

Naze - Really cool guy, loves women, does his best to be a mentor.

Amida - One of the few times I can remember a wife guy having a wife who clearly loves him in the same way, beautiful and talented and a queen.

Rustal - The bad guy, then the "good" guy, but never a good guy. He was only forced into a democracy at the end because of Mcgillis' actions, but I get the feeling he would have tried to become a dictator under different circumstances. SOB for using Julietta, Iok, and Gaelio like that.

Merribit - I was always frustrated with her choice to stay, and especially to not speak up at the end of season 1. She does care about Tekkadan, but she feels like another variation on the failure of adults in the series, she should have stopped them, should have at least tried, but can't bring herself to say anything. Perhaps out of pity, but without a voice to rein in Orga, it leads to the youngest cheering Mikazuki tearing apart Carta, witnessing violence beyond their years, and seeking single minded vengeance, which is the cause of nearly all members that die overall. Iok - Fuck that guy, the galaxy's dumbest soldier, got his own people slaughtered, was a coward and a tool the whole series, deserved even worse than what he got.

[ginkohs]

he deserves this!!!

[lilenui]

Weekly Yuru-Tetsu~ Danji: Orga-san! If you don't have the numbers, please send me out! Takaki: Danji! You can't just… Orga: You'll be under Shino when he comes back, but don't overdo it. *heh* Danji: *panting and grunting* He's super heavy yo! Orga: All right, Danji, you're out. Danji: Whyy!?

[wordsandrobots]

My skim through the various normal suit variants shown in Iron-Blooded Orphans ended on an unexpectedly dour note, so here's one additional screenshot, taken during Funeral Rites, right after Yukinojo compliments Yamagi on the fireworks idea (complete with slap on the back).

I... I think this might be the happiest we ever see Yamagi looking? He looks like a little kid! That's very notable when generally his expressions and demeanour really cut against that. Says a hell of a lot about his relationship with Yukinojo, if you ask me.

[jiusoul-art]

WIP Aston and Takaki :)

[evilpenguinrika]

picking back up where i left off in Gundam IBO s2

which was episode 7

i'm cursing past-me for leaving off at that episode because wow that was a horrendous punch of feels right there fuck

[duckielover151]

Among anime fans... I feel like we all have characters across all the series we watch... who we essentially adopt as our own. Like, there are the ones who have spots as fictional love interests, and then there are the ones you just want to encase in bubble wrap and see a happy ending for even if you have to picket on the writers’ front lawns to get it. 

And I mean... A show like Iron-Blooded Orphans... which is about child soldiers living in a society that systematically exploits and abuses them... dredged up those feelings in me a lot. But for no one more than Takaki. And I’m not even sure why he’s the one who stood out for me. There are certainly kids who suffered more and kids who were just as pure-hearted (I’m a big fan of Atra too) but Takaki was the one my brain just latched onto and was like... No. All these others are great characters... But that one is your fictional child.

I guess it’s just my reaction to his decision to leave Tekkadan that’s stuck with me. Because supporting that is the exact opposite of what I would usually feel for a character in that situation, even after all he’d been through. I love the loyalty in this show and how vocal they were about being a family. 

Basically, it’s like this: There’s this scene near the end of original Naruto where Shikamaru is falling apart over his first real mission being a failure that nearly killed no less than four of his closest friends. And he talks about how maybe he was never cut out to be a ninja at all and should just quit. 

And then his father shows up. And right when you’d expect him to give some sort of comfort or uplift him in some way... He basically tells him that the missions won’t stop just because he’s not there to participate in them. That his friends will go back into battle without him, and some of them might not make it back next time. Friends he might have been able to save if he’d stuck around.

And, like, as far as anime moments go... This one was always really powerful to me. Especially the first time I saw it at, like, 12 years old. (Shikamaru’s relationship with his father as a whole is just one of the best things in Naruto.) And that’s typically been my stance whenever I encountered other characters in similar situations in later shows. 

But not here. Takaki announces he’s quitting Tekkadan-- willingly breaking up a little piece of their family in a way that only death has broken it up to this point-- and all I could think was:

“YES. Yes you are. You start a new life and put your sister through school and be happy together and fucking LIVE.” I’m so relieved the one I got attached to was one of the few. The rest of the cast is determined to break my heart, but this one little piece is safe.

[seeyounexttime]

he sounded like takaki right there :)