Winter 2017 in Review: ACCA-13 and Gundam: IBO S2

Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans Season 2

When we last left our heroes, Tekkadan was able to take our Lady Kudelia to Earth in order to make her grand speech and work on bringing equality to Mars and the space colonies. Now that they defeated every obstacle on their way to accomplishing their goal, they must face something that they were not prepared to handle. Politics. Seeing these rag tag bunch of misfits who are more interested in fighting then talking weave through during agreements and groups was the most interesting part of this season. Well that, the mech fights, and what we learned about Gjallarhorn’s history in different segment of the show. Unfortunately, as leader of Tekkadan, Orga never truly succeeded in the business world or chose the right partners, which lead to the inevitable end of Tekkadan’s operations at the end of the show. He reached too far and he got bit extremely hard for it.

As a Gundam series, I rank Iron Blooded Orphans somewhere toward the upper middle of this franchises shows. It has a lot of good things going for it with some neat and original ideas, but unfortunately it was weighed down by a lot of Gundam series clichés. While there are Gundam series that revolve around a third-party group of individuals, never has a series revolved around struggling to keep this group afloat through a large variety of wheeling and dealing. I also love how spaceships were more useful in this series then just staying in one spot and performing basic carrier duties. The boarding parties were a lot of fun to watch. Also, the char clone is a staple of the Gundam series franchise, but McGillis Fareed is the best character of the show because of his never clear direction he is leading people around including Tekkadan. Unforunately, the last five episodes really went full cliché when Tekkadan joined a side in the Gjallarhorn fight. The show just become a lot less interesting for me and I just wanted it to all end. I still recommend this series and OO as show newbies in the franchise should watch to get into the Gundam franchise. I also think that Gundam fans would enjoy this show as well.

ACCA-13

ACCA is a little difficult of a show to explain. Not because I can’t explain the contents of the show, because I can, but because the show doesn’t accomplish much in the end. Infact, the series spends its time to make sure that order is maintained. That ACCA, an agency that maintains the order between the thirteen districts of the country, exists. After the prince and the upcoming heir of the throne decides that he wants to remove ACCA, suddenly there are words of a coup de tat in the wind. Where this coup d’e tat is happening and who wants to start it is the overarching plot of ACCA-13. The rest of it is filled with our protagonist Jean Otus, the vice lead of the inspection department, visiting all of these districts so we learn more about them along with auditing them and food. Food is a center piece of the show and that will become obvious immediately upon watching. It’s also a little bit of an episodic series, but it all comes together in the end with a solid pay off.

Now that you heard me talk about this show like this, you might think that the show is fast paced. Well no its not. ACCA-13 is a slow paced show that develops its mystery and its characters in an organic way. There is also a lack of emotions between characters because everybody has something to hide and they do this by bringing their best smug poker face to the fore front. I don’t know about you all, but that just adds more to the mystery of the coup to me. I should also mention that this is not an action series. Throughout the show, only one gun show has been fired.  That’s okay with me, because ACCA-13 is not about its action. It’s about these meeting of characters with their best poker faces on and Jean Otus trying to find his own path through them. If that sounds interesting too you, then go ahead and watch it. If it doesn’t sounds like your type of thing, that’s okay. Give it a try anyway. It’s not for everyone. I was put off by ACCA-13 at first in its opening episodes, but I fell in love with it when I discovered what the show is doing. If anything, it provided more flavor to this already diverse season.