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wordsandrobots · 2 years

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IBO reference notes on . . . Iron-Blooded Orphans: Gekko

You're probably wondering why I brought you all here today. Well, it's to talk about a spin-off manga to my current favourite show.

Mobile Suit Gundam IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS Gekko is a side-story to Iron-Blooded Orphans, written and illustrated by Hajime Kamoshida (source: Gundam wiki). It ran to four volumes, covering fifteen chapters, and has not been published outside of Japan (unofficial fan translations are available on The Internet). The only official English-language release of the story is an adaptation as DLC for SD GUNDAM G GENERATION CROSS RAYS (I feel the capitals are important to the game's vibe). Play-throughs of this can freely be found on YouTube, and I would certainly recommend any IBO fans out there give those a watch. The adaptation streamlines parts of the story but also includes additional information in game menus (best seen in videos for music from the game).

This post is going to be a summary of Gekko (translated as Moon Steel in other sources), so spoilers ahoy. I'm going to outline the plot and characters, as well as explain why you should care. (In the absence of official translations for the manga itself, I am reliant on others' efforts for some of this, so please accept that caveat before proceeding.)

So what's the deal?

Gekko begins with the assassination of 'Daddy' Ted Morugaton, president of the shipping company Tanto Tempo. Sixteen year old Argi Mirage, who was also hired to shoot the man, ends up trying to protect him instead (Argi is not a very good hitman) and two further protagonists are introduced in quick succession: Volco Warren, another sixteen year old, heir to a disgraced Gjallarhorn family, and Liarina Morugaton, Daddy Ted's seventeen year old daughter. Like IBO proper, although there is a central Gundam pilot character (Argi), the story an ensemble affair, as Argi, Volco and Liarina track down those responsible for Daddy Ted's murder, navigate the fallout for Tanto Tempo's leadership, and stumble across a conspiracy inside Gjallarhorn (no, not that one; another conspiracy).

There are two things to note upfront. The first is that this is a smaller story than Iron-Blooded Orphans itself, and not simply because it literally has a smaller cast. Where IBO spans the solar system and plays out against a background of mafia politics and revolutionary agendas, Gekko is largely restricted to the space colonies and focused on drama concerning Tanto Tempo's fortunes. There are hints of larger connections and the writer situates things within the side-effects of the main show, but the primary concern here is whether Argi, Volco and Liarina can survive one company's internal disputes. It's like if the stuff with Jasley from season 2 was the main plot.

Second, you'll see I gave ages for the cast above. That's because, unlike literally everyone in IBO, they actually have canonical ages. The Gekko cast are from the Avalanche Colony cluster, near the Moon (hence Moon Steel), and while Argi is certainly working class, he's nowhere near as bottom-of-the-barrel as our favourite child soldiers. Liarina is the child of a rich businessman and the Warren family actually used to administer Avalanche on behalf of Gjallarhorn before they were framed and ruined. Though certainly orphans, these characters' plot takes place in a different level of the world to Tekkadan's.

With his dying breath, Daddy Ted makes Volco and Argi promise to protect Liarina, which leads them to saving her from a related assassination attempt using Volco's family Gundam, Astaroth. She then ropes them into helping get revenge on the culprits, with the choice of murder weapon (a mobile suit) initially pointing the finger at Gianmarco Salerno, head of Tanto Tempo's transport division. However it rapidly transpires the actual mastermind is the company's banker, Rosario Leone, who attempts to murder everyone in an effort to stop them exposing his crimes. He fails and is killed by the mercenary he hired to protect his interests (Fujiko Mine-alike, Nanao Narolina), seemingly on the orders of Ville Klaassen, the oily Gjallarhorn bureaucrat who framed the Warren family and had some kind of backroom deal with Leone.

Thus the first arc ends with Liarina installed as the leader of Tanto Tempo (Gianmarco flatly refuses the job and backs her after tying with Argi in a duel to the death), with Argi as her bodyguard and Volco acting as an assistant. But in the stinger, it turns out Nanao has stolen Astaroth . . .

Flash forward six months and we find Liarina dealing with Sylt Zalmfort, an administrator for Gjallarhorn's Ariadne Network. Being the fine, upstanding pillars of the community they are, Gjallarhorn are jacking up the prices for using the network, which threatens to ruin Tanto Tempo. This is Liarina's first real test as company president, so she immediately leaps to trying to find dirt on Zalmfort in order to blackmail him. Said dirt rapidly presents itself in the form of Zalmfort's daughter, Mina, who narrowly escaped a recent shuttle explosion.

You see, the Zalmforts had a cosy relationship with the African Union (read: the Union bribed them to get special favours) and in the wake of the Edmonton debacle, Gjallarhorn internal affairs began cracking down on corruption. In an attempt to throw blame on another house, the Nadiras, Sylt made it look like they killed Mina in order to cover up evidence of 'their' crimes. And he'd have gotten away with it if Mina hadn't survived.

There follows a protracted chase as the Tanto Tempo crew slowly uncover the above plot and come into conflict with Zadiel 'Zaza' Zalmfort, Mina's brother, who is also hunting the truth. With the help of a recovered Astaroth – and, strangely enough, the woman who stole it to begin with – events come to a head outside the Dort colonies. Sylt tries to silence Mina via battleship and Zadiel baits Argi into a fight that swerves near enough the colonies for the Arianrhod Fleet to show up to arrest everyone. His father's crimes are thus exposed, Tanto Tempo gets in good with the new administrator (a grateful Lord Nadira) and our heroes go home with a new sense of found family.

I think there was meant to be more. The extent of Klaassen's machinations and his true motives are left opaque, and while his connection to Nanao is clearly telegraphed, it isn't paid off. I would guess there was intended to be at least another arc to tie everything together. However it never materialised, so everyone gets to stay alive, relatively happy and somewhat in limbo. Whatever else, Gekko is certainly not the tragedy the main series is.

Why should you care?

Gekko is not essential, nor is it especially brilliant on its own merits. While the design is great and the plot decent, the manga's art is merely OK and the mecha fights are stiff (it's traced CGI, which means it doesn't have the vim of the anime's more traditionally rendered combat).

The main reason to care about Gekko is what it adds to IBO's world-building. As I said above, this is a story that happens in the margins of the big events. It starts around the time of the Dort episodes and the riots are referenced repeatedly. The first arc ends with Liarina worrying about discontent on Avalanche, following the Dort unions' example. Kim, the sex worker who looks after Mina while she's homeless after the explosion, is explicitly a survivor of the Gjallarhorn-orchestrated massacre, having seen the girls she used to work with gunned down for trying to stick up for their rights. Moreover, the whole of the second arc is kicked off by members of Gjallarhorn scrambling to hide their dirty laundry in the wake of McGillis exposing Iznario's (political) misdeeds to the world.

There's a tonne of extra information added into the canon, from more Gjallarhorn houses to hints at what the Montag company was up to between IBO's two seasons. We learn that marriages in Gjallarhorn are as unbounded by gender as they are age, we get a look at a whole new set of near-Earth space colonies, and we even find out what happened to that wrecked Graze Naze sold on behalf of Tekkadan.

Being a Gundam manga there are, of course, some new mobile suits too. Specifically five new Gundams (Seere, Astaroth, Vual, Dantalion and Gremory), along with Hyakuren, Hyakuri, Man Rodi and Graze variants, plus another Valkyrja frame. Naturally, there are kits (of four out of the five Gundams; what I wouldn't give for a Labrys though . . .) and lavish illustrations for the mecha nerds among us.

Above all, Gekko is a view into what was happening over the horizon from the main IBO plot, filling in how Gjallarhorn reacted to the end of season one and offering a different perspective on the status quo. On this score, it is excellent and I wish there had been more tie-ins of this sort, given how much potential there is in IBO's setting.

Why do I care?

Saying all this, what I personally love about Gekko is the cast. The main three have a totally different dynamic from Tekkadan, constantly bickering and very focused on individual goals, while still possessing clearly defined better traits. They're all arseholes but they are at least well-intentioned enough the arguments read more like sibling pettiness than overt dislike.

Argi is a grump possessed of a grudging sense of morality, helping others with an air of 'this is an obviously bad idea but I'm not letting anyone else kill themselves.' His prosthetic marks him out as one of Gundam's few disabled protagonists, something he shares with Volco, who wrecked his motor control by sticking a chip in his head to give himself instant recall on useful data. Where Argi seeks to destroy the Gundam that killed his family, Volco's goal in life is to restore Astaroth, which was stripped of its armour to settle the Warren's debts. Acerbic, with an irritable disposition, he is nevertheless very loyal to the people who took him in and probably not as calculating as he acts.

Liarina is similarly loyal to those around her – in a 'you're mine, I'm looking after you' kind of way – while also being an irascible snob. She spends half her time fuming over Argi insulting her and the other half insulting him back, usually worse. Her response to finding herself in over her head is to charge into the middle of it all and literally take charge. If we're going to make the comparison, she's way more hot-headed than Kudelia and a hell of a lot meaner, but similarly determined to fill a role she's way too young for.

Past them, we have two new human debris characters, Sampo and Yuhana, a brother and sister trying to buy themselves out of their status with mercenary work; Gianmarco, the aforementioned transportation head who loves shirtlessness and fighting in roughly equal measure; Deira Nadira, the cross-dressing lord of House Nadira (that's how Gremory's manual describes her but she's drawn rocking both men and women's clothes equally well so personally I think she just has good taste); and everyone else I already mentioned. They're a great selection of concepts who make perfect sense and really add to IBO's world.

I don't know what more you could ask for in a spin-off. Aside from being allowed to finish it's plot!

Other reference posts include:

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 1)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 2)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (corrigendum) [mainly covering my inability to recognise mythical wolves]

IBO reference notes on … three key Yamagi scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Shino scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Eugene scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Ride scenes

IBO reference notes on … the tone of the setting

IBO reference notes on … character parallels and counterpoints

IBO reference notes on … a perfect villain

IBO reference notes on … an act of unspeakable cruelty

IBO reference notes on … original(ish) characters [this one is mainly fanfic]

IBO reference notes on … Kudelia’s decisions

#reference #Gundam Iron-blooded Orphans #gundam ibo #g tekketsu #Tekketsu no Orphans #Gundam Iron-Blooded Oprhans Gekko #spin-off manga #summary #mostly because I use the characters in my fic and I want people to know what on earth I am talking about

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gundamgirlvioletta · 1 year

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LRX-077 Sisquiede

Sisquiede (Titans colors)

Sisquiede (AEUG colors)

Sisquiede (Titans) as it appears in SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays

Sisquiede (AEUG) as it appears in SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays

Origin: SD Gundam G Generation: Monoeye Gundams (Game/Manga)

Timeline: Alternate Universal Century

Unit Type: Prototype Close Quarters Combat Mobile Suit

Pilot(s): Siegfried Wedner

Developer: Leipzig Newtype Research Institute

Operator: Anti-Earth Union Group (AEUG)

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NOTE: This MS comes from an alternate, non-canonical version of the UC timeline during its version of the events of Zeta Gundam.

TECHNOLOGY & DEVELOPMENT

Developed at the same time as the Gundam Mk-II as part of the old Principality of Zeon's "Monoeye Gundam" plan, it was originally never realized due to Zeon's defeat in the One Year War, but the Titans obtained data on the project and finished developing the concept machines for their own use.

The Sisquiede, alongside its sibling machine the LRX-088 Dezpada, were developed as high performance mobile suits meant to protect the LRX-066 Tera-S'ono, a third unit that was unarmed but had the ability to cause enemy pilots to go berserk. As the name "Monoeye Gundams" implies, its a mobile suit using the frame of a Gundam-type but the monoeye sensors of a Zeon suit.

It was an extremely high performance suit, leagues above many mobile suits of the Gryps Conflict. However, because the Titans, in their infinite wisdom, designed it to be used by an Oldtype (to complement the newtype-use Dezpada), it proved too powerful to handle. A custom OS had to be developed to limit the performance to levels a normal human could comfortably handle. As is typical, this limiter could be unlocked to switch the Sisquiede into "Offense Mode", allowing it to fight at its full potential at the cost of putting an excessive amount of stress on the pilot and limiting its operation time.

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EQUIPMENT

Its main weapon an I-Field Launcher, a unique cannon that combined a long-range beam rifle with a powerful megacannon. It housed a built-in I-Field generator that provided the Sisquiede with great defensive capabilities against beam projectiles. It was also equipped with a standard beam saber.

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HISTORY

The Sisquiede was stolen from the Gryps space colony by Siegfried Wedner, an AEUG member and former member of Zeon's special forces at roughly the same time the Gundam Mk-II was stolen by Quattro Bajeena and Kamille Bidan. It was later painted in a similar color scheme to the Mk-II and used by Siegfried as his personal mobile suit.

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Personal Opinion: GUNDAMS WITH MONOEYES?? I'm genuinely surprised this isn't a more frequent occurence in Gundam, it seems like such a no-brainer. In that regard, the Sisquiede is absolutely gorgeous, I think it looks great and I'm kind of sad by how underused it is; guess its to be expected since its not canon.

#Gundam #mobile suit gundam #mobilesuit #universal century #UC #SD Gundam #G Generation #mecha

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