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Iron-Blooded Orphans Ep. 27: In the Midst of Jealousy

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Summary

Hush watches in shock as the Barbatos Lupus lands on the ground and attacks a Garm Rodi with its sword mace. He doesn’t recognize the suit initially until Dane confirms that it’s “The Devil of Tekkadan.” Mikazuki proceeds to take down three more Garm Rodis, and Shino attacks the leader with his Shiden Custom, forcing them to retreat. Everyone wants to give chase, but Mikazuki tells them that the Barbatos Lupus has stopped working. Orga tells Merribit that he doesn’t want to chase the pirates because they also need to regroup. In space, Dawn Horizon Corps leader Sandoval Reuters receives an angry call from Gyojan, who is upset over their failure to take out Kudelia. Sandoval declares that the fight with Tekkadan is no longer Gyojan’s problem, but Gyojan counters that he’s paying them good money. Gyojan then calls Nobliss, who dismisses him as worthless and declines to speak with him. Orga asks Kudelia to stay at the Sakura Farm for safety, and Eugene wonders how they can fight the large pirate force. Orga notes that a target has been placed on Tekkadan, and they’ll have to face the pirates eventually if they want to survive. In the hangar, Shino tells the pilots to keep up the maintenance of their Mobile Workers. One of them expresses how unprepared he was to see his friends die, and Akihiro tells him to quit if he wants to. Dante asks Eco to spray paint a kill tally on his Shiden, but Lafter argues with him that he didn’t take the enemy down on his own. Ride joins the argument and points out that until the extra Shidens arrive from space, it’s not Dante’s personal unit. Elsewhere, Nadi is disappointed that the Barbatos Lupus is already busted up and asks Mikazuki about its performance. Kudelia greets Mikazuki, and Nadi tells him to go on a walk with her. Kudelia comments that she’s come by several times before, but Mikazuki has always been away fighting. Atra approaches them outside and gives Kudelia a bracelet that matches the ones she and Mikazuki have. At the front gate, Todo speaks to Eugene and delivers news from his boss. Orga speaks with McGillis, who is still posing as “Montag” and asks Tekkadan to take down the pirates since they threaten even the Earth Sphere. McGillis mentions that he’s sent Isurugi to help due to his knowledge of the pirates’ inner workings. Orga agrees to the job, although he’s never trusted “Montag.”

On Saisei, McMurdo approves Orga’s request to fight the pirates on the basis that they attack Teiwaz shipping lanes, but it would also show off the power of the new Shidens. JPT Trust Executive Director Jasley Donomikols scoffs at the idea of McMurdo acting like a nice grandpa to Tekkadan. At Tekkadan’s Earth branch in Edmonton, auditor Radice Riloto complains to Chad about the delay in receiving Shidens from Mars to add to their force of Landman Rodis. Chad notes that Mars needs the Shidens to fight the pirates, but Radice counters that that’s not the problem of the Earth Branch. He believes that Mars hinders them, but Chad declares that he has full confidence in Orga’s leadership. Outside, Aston Altland and some other Tekkadan boys get into a shouting match with Arbrau soldiers until Takaki steps in to break it up. Later, Aston eats with Takaki and his sister Fuka in their home. Takaki doesn’t disagree with Aston’s position about Tekkadan being in charge, but he notes that the Arbrau soldiers have their pride as well. Aston asks Takaki if he misses Mars, but Takaki is happy that he gets to be on Earth with Fuka and send her to school. On Mars, Hush asks Nadi to let him pilot a mobile suit and says he’s read all the manuals. Yamagi says that’s not enough to pilot a suit, so Hush answers that he’s willing to have the Alaya-Vijnana surgery. However, Nadi notes that at 17 he’s too old to have the surgery because the nanomachines won’t take root in his body. Hush insists and says he doesn’t care if the surgery doesn’t work, and Atra yells at him that he shouldn’t say that because the surgery could go wrong and kill him. She explains that Orga forbids them from getting the surgery for their protection, and Mikazuki grabs him by the arm before he can hit Atra. Hush angrily asks why the surgery worked for Mikazuki and not “him” before he storms off. Outside, Hush talks with Dane about how he was an orphan living in the slums, where a boy named Builth acted like his big brother. Builth joined CGS and got the Alaya-Vijnana surgery, but it failed and left him paralyzed from the waist down. Builth felt worthless, especially since a puny kid there had the surgery three times and was fine. Having lost the will to live, Builth committed suicide so as not to be a burden to others. Hush wants to be the next Builth and pilot a mobile suit to surpass Mikazuki and show others that there’s a point to living in this world. On the Arianrhod fleet flagship, Julieta vows to protect Iok even though she doesn’t care about him. She owes a debt to Rustal and is uneasy about the man working with them. In the mobile suit hangar, Rustal tells the masked man Vidar that everything McGillis did was as he predicted. Orga tells Mikazuki that they’ll be busy soon and that he’s counting on him.

Commentary

Mikazuki’s upgraded Barbatos Lupus made a dramatic entrance at the end of the previous episode, but the resulting battle is rather short due to the pirates retreating. Tekkadan is facing what is probably its biggest challenge in some time, as the Dawn Horizon Corps are a far larger pirate group than the Brewers were. But Orga convinces McMurdo to let him take on this fight, so he’s definitely learning how to play the game. Hush has shown disdain for Mikazuki up to this point, and now we know that it’s due to the suicide of his friend Builth and the resulting jealousy towards Mikazuki. Hush has a Hayato Kobayashi-like desire to surpass Mikazuki, but it’s physically just not possible unless he becomes some twisted freak like Ein. Would his jealousy take him that far? McGillis is making moves and uses his Montag alias to get Tekkadan’s help, but he’s not the only mysterious player in this game, as Rustal is working with a masked man. Given that the masked man helped them predict McGillis’ actions and is wearing a Seven Stars uniform, the most obvious suspect for his identity is Gaelio. Sure, we never actually saw Gaelio die when he fought McGillis, so it is possible? I would have liked for him to be actually dead, but it’s certainly possible that McGillis deliberately avoided killing him out of some bit of friendship. Either way though, Tekkadan is going to get swept up again with Gjallarhorn very soon and will have bigger problems to worry about than pirates.

Overall Rating
3.5/5

Iron-Blooded Orphans Info

Director:
Tatsuyuki Nagai

Writer(s):
Mari Okada
Hajime Kamoshida
Michihiro Tsuchiya
Toshizo Nemoto
Shinsuke Onishi
Hiroyuki Yoshino
Mayori Sekijima
Tatsuto Higuchi
Yousuke Kuroda

Mechanical Designer(s):
Naohiro Washio
Kanetake Ebikawa
Ippei Gyoubu
Kenji Teraoka
Tamotsu Shinohara

Character Designer(s):
Yu Ito
Michinori Chiba

Musical Composer:
Masaru Yokoyama

Format:
50 episodes; 9 compilation episodes

Airdates (TV):
Japan 10.04.2015 – 03.27.2016 (S1);
10.02.2016 – 04.02.2017 (S2)
U.S. 06.04.2016 – 12.11.2016 (S1);
10.08.2017 – 04.28.2018 (S2)

Airdates (SE):
Japan 04.29.2022 –

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