ninthfeather | Ninth Yells About G-Tekketsu Episode 8 (Reply)

FICTIVE KINSHIP!

All my Tekkadan family feelings are canon and we can all go home. That is it; that is all I have to say.

Okay, no, I do have other opinions…but fictive kinship omigosh help I am done.

But if you are not as utterly slayed by that single revelation as I am and would like to hear me complain about space harems or muse more about character relationships, head under the cut.

So, yeah, Naze’s space harem. I was about as comfortable with it as the Tekkadan characters were. I’m glad the participants all seem happy. I’m not sure why a female writer decided to write them that way, but I think it’s a fair guess that it has something to do with the exclusively-male audience that the Gundam executives still seem to think Gundam has. Which is hilarious, because 1) the creator of the franchise mentioned noticing the female fans in a recent interview and also 2) your reviewer is female, so…yeah.

But, we did get a little bit more of a look at the female pilots. Once they weren’t in battle they stopped dripping innuendos and became more likeable. Amida’s got an interesting sort of competent, maternal vibe and was the source of this episode’s “I don’t like fighting children” line, Lafter is probably the most hot-blooded pilot we’ve had in Tekketsu outside of maybe Eugene, which delights me, and Azee…seems to be enjoying the Tekkadan, in her own way. I enjoyed the interaction between them and the Tekkadan pilots, but also between them and the two girls—though that was as much out of liking the interaction as enjoying both Atra’s determination to cheer up Kudelia and the faces they both made at the babies.

Then, there was the Naze and Orga scene. Oh gosh. I had difficulty watching that. For one thing, Orga’s speech about iron and blood was not a skillful title drop. But, the other thing was how good of a job they did with his body language this episode. Honestly, that scene would not have hurt me in the ways that it did if the frame had focused on his face, but it kept going to his hands, the way one was tightening around the other wrist, it showed him trying to keep a lid on everything for negotiations and failing in a way that his facial expressions wouldn’t have and was a really skillful choice that conveyed emotion without overplaying it. Also, the conversation itself…I was very, very pleased with Naze when he flicked Orga in the forehead for saying he was willing to die. Because, Naze has a point. The Tekkadan needs Orga to stay together, so he can’t afford to be reckless… (please let this mean he lives for a while…) Him freaking out in the hallway afterward and making a face when Biscuit laughed at him might be the first time that he actually seemed like a kid to me during this series, by the by. I’ve got solid guesses for nearly everyone’s ages except his.

And then Naze laughed at him for calling the Tekkadan comrades, when he was clearly thinking of them as family, and I got very excited, because that is my exact favorite thing. And once Orga awkwardly brought it up to Mika, that he wasn’t going to ditch him because that isn’t how family works? Yep. Done. Everything is beautiful.

This seems a bit healthier than earlier interactions between Orga and Mika, so perhaps they’re growing in less co-dependent directions? One can hope, anyway. I’m still putting all my hope in Biscuit, who, for all of his timidity, seems to be in charge of practical matters and anchoring Orga and Mika’s obsessive drives in reality.

Well, and then the preview happened. I saw Orga in traditional Japanese clothing in a way that implied that it was going to last for a significant part of an episode. This pleases me. (I would really like official ages on these characters soon, I swear if he’s sixteen I am going to be so creeped out, but for right now he looks like he’s 19 or so and man, does he look good in a haori). It also implies that Teiwaz is less the space mafia and more the space yakuza which is a very different kettle of fish, at least in some ways—though in others, not so different—they’re both basically criminal organizations with codes of behavior, it’s just that the codes themselves are pretty different. Who knows, Teiwaz may end up being more of a Japanese-themed tertium quid that isn’t really like either one.

Predictions: Eugene will never get a girlfriend, not if he keeps running around yelling “Women!” and insisting he doesn’t care. More seriously, getting into Teiwaz is going to be trickier than it seems.

Questions: What the heck is meant by Kudelia being “property” in relation to Gyjallarhorn?