Review:
This ends exactly as you would expect though I will give them points for one or two surprises (such as Ride’s future which I didn’t see coming). Still, any potential character growth for Mikazuki ends rather abruptly mid-episode much as it should given what they were up against.
However, the general tone of the episode is reflective. More importantly, after all is said and done and all the battles and fighting, things resume pretty much the status quo. There’s some changes in how the different organisations are run and Mars does gain a bit more freedom, but these are changes that could have come about just through negotiations if people had been willing to talk. And overall, the people in charge are still the people in charge. Given the massive cost and number of deaths Gundam remains true to its general message that war really doesn’t get us very far.
While you can mostly pick where the characters will be in the future, the second half of this episode progresses through them one by one and we see where they have ended up. For the most part this is satisfying, though very little is as satisfying as seeing Iok finally get his on the battle field.
All and all, I didn’t love this second season but it holds it together well enough. I’ll do a full review soonish.
Iron Blooded Orphans is available on AnimeLab.
Are you a fan of 100WordAnime.blog?
If you like this site and you like what I do, please consider becoming a patron.
Thanks,
Karandi James.
Do you find it better or worse when an anime goes on this long? I haven’t covered one which went past 24 episodes, and those are rare for me, so what is it like covering a 50 episode behemoth?
With this it became tedious because the second half was weak. If I’d been blogging when Bleach was coming out, I would have had nothing but fun talking about it, even when it was going through massive filler or a battle was unending. I guess it really depends on the series and what they are doing with their run time. Then again, it is the same with watching the shows. I have a preference for short anime (12 – 24 episodes) that wrap themselves up and finish because I like things that are completed and I like things I can binge in a day or a weekend on rewatch. But I also have a couple of quite long series that I’ve really enjoyed.
I really think the only long show I ever got into was Inuyasha and Sailor Moon. The rest, I just couldn’t deal with the filler. Hell, even for some shows which do 24 episodes in one season, I’m sitting there wondering why certain things was necessary. That could have just been placed in a OVA or something.
True, long stories have a real issue with dragging things out or going on random fetch quests (or similar) mid-season just to stretch out their run time. Though even 12 episode sereis sometimes do this. I kept thinking how much better 91 Days would have been if it had run for 6 or 7 episodes instead of a full season.
I personally would love if more anime were event series (Like we see on HBO) or got to the point like, I feel, Sailor Moon Crystal did. At least the first half.