IBO Season 2 is notorious in the Gundam fan community. If Gundam Seed Destiny had not captured the gold medal for "biggest fuckup in history", IBO S2 could easily take the crown. Every positive to S1, is gone in S2. This review will include spoilers. Please, take it on faith, do not watch season 2 and keep reading. If you can't take that on faith, watch season 2 and join me in the suffering pit.
Starting off with the lighter stuff, let me start with the positives. One, they did not cop out on the implied ending that has been apparent since season 1. Almost every named character in Tekkadan will die, horribly, because they are an underdog that stopped being underestimated. Despite the big fat meme about Orga's death being goofy, everyone who committed war crimes in Tekkadan will get their comeuppance. The fantasy that this team of young boys living by the sword will beat the man and save space, is not happening. They will be crushed by the hierarchy, and their death throes will be heard by no-one. Only the existing power structure, deciding to fix itself, will cause positive change in space. This is totally in step with the setting, the tone, and everything else. You'll occasionally hear people complaining that the big bad meanie general guy didn't get his comeuppance. That's the point. This setting is supposed to be semi-realistic, and that is absolutely in the fantasy department. Item two, is the worldbuilding added by season 2. The fun-but-dumb mobile armor hunt arc vastly expands the world of IBO, so that we can all now pang for an OVA exploring the Calamity War that so names the setting. It sounds like the One Year War on steroids, in the best way. The fight itself, is pretty fun, and the concept that Mikazuki is becoming increasingly physically dependent on Barbatos to function is fitting of the setting. So, onto the bad.
On the negative side, most everything else. Characters, pacing, narrative, twists, suit design, storyboarding... it's an across the board drop from season one. Instead of tediously explaining how each one of these things is a mess, let's laser in on one example that demonstrates all of these things: McGillis' finale. Whereas the Tekkadan sendoff is totally appropriate to the setting, this shit just leaves you scratching your head. Grand chessmaster McGillis, the architect of almost all of season 1 and 2, has invented a master plan to take total control of Gjallarhorn and restore liberty to space: after getting turned on by how hardcore Mikazuki is at murder, he concludes that activating and piloting a nostalgic artifact of Gjallarhorn will magically sway every single soldier to serve him. His grandmaster plan to completely upend the social order in space...is to steal one mobile suit and declare himself winner. He does this with a minor contingent of soldiers, a small mercenary band, and no political power beyond his own seat at the big boy's table. He proceeds to get the everloving shit kicked out of him in every possible way, including his friend / adoptive brother getting to come back from the dead and kill him. He gets his suit, then everyone laughs at his dumb strategy and shoots at him. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how absurdly stupid this plan is. It is possibly the dumbest plan in Gundam history, possibly the dumbest serious plan I've ever seen in an anime. It permanently annihilates his character beyond any recovery. How is this paced? Very suddenly, because it is apparent there's a fight in the writer's room and they can't make up their minds. How is this storyboarded? I hope you like bright lights bumping into each other in the distance, because IBO is still struggling to manage its budget again. Want new suit designs? Too bad, there are still two skeletons available to any given mobile suit, and it's almost always the Valkyrie frame. Twist? The twist is that McGillis is a fucking idiot and apparently was lucky to get as far as he did.
S2 IBO hurt me more than most shows do, but I can't go lower than 5. There's enough quality scattered in there that it's not TOO bad. Tekkadan's end, Orga getting delusions of grandeur, the escape of what few survived Tekkadan, the fun Armor fight, they keep you going to the end. IBO underperformed in merch sales and is widely mocked in Japan and parts of the western audience. The setting has been exiled to a mobile, presumably to never return. Which is a tragedy: IBO has possibly the best setting of any Gundam show, it's just terribly squandered on incompetent, feuding staff.
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