This is a list of fictional characters from the Japanese anime series Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.
Setting The narrative begins over 300 years after the , a disastrous interplanetary conflict which caused more casualties and destruction than any previous war in human history and nearly brought the human race to the brink of self-induced extinction. Eventually, elements from several different factions united to form an international peacekeeping force, Gjallarhorn, to defeat all of the other factions and bring the war to an end. Gjallarhorn achieved this by producing advanced Gundam Mobile Suit Frames to dominate the battlefield, equipped with Ahab Reactors and Alaya Vijnana interfaces. The end of the war was marked by a shift to a new calendar system, becoming the first year of the "Post-Disaster" era. Some time before the Calamity War, Mars has been terraformed to the extent that it has a breathable atmosphere.
With the cooperation of remaining leaders from each surviving faction, Gjallarhorn reorganized Earth's political landscape into four powerful economic blocs. Meanwhile, each of the four power blocks was assigned a sector of Mars to rebuild and build up the Martian governmental structure from scratch. Gjallarhorn itself remained as a peacekeeping force, officially neutral, but ruthlessly crushing any who might threaten international stability again. It achieved this by maintaining a firm monopoly on Ahab Reactor production, though after the Calamity War itself production of new Gundam Frames (which were difficult to manufacture) was phased out - instead, subsequent generations shifted to using scaled-down, mass-produced versions of the concurrent and simpler Valkyrie Frame. To highlight the discrepancy, records show that the Gundams produced measured in the dozens, but the mass-produced models number in the hundreds. The mainstay of Gjallarhorn's forces are the Graze type Mobile Suit Frames, which utterly dominate the battlefield through superior technology and numbers.
The four major economic power blocs on Earth itself are:
: Consists of present-day Russia, Canada, and Alaska, straddling the Arctic Circle. Capital and parliament are located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This economic bloc appears more prominently in the first season of the TV series than the others, because the Chryse colony on Mars is controlled by Arbrau. The name may be an acronym. Strategic Alliance Union (SAU): Consists of all of the Americas south of present-day Canada, including the territories of the present-day continental United States, Central America, and South America. : Consists of present-day China, Japan, Korea, southeast Asia and Indonesia, Australasia, and India (but not Pakistan). : Despite the name, the "African Union" actually consists of not only all of Africa, but Europe and the Middle East as well (it is possible that these later two regions were so badly devastated during the Calamity War that the African regions are considered the core territories; or simply that the largest territory gets the name, or a multitude of other reasons). Arbrau specifically only controls the territory of the Russian Federation as the borders existed at the beginning of the 21st century: Eastern Europe and the Central Asian states (north to Kazakhstan) are part of the African Union. Pakistan is also controlled by the African Union.
Having established stable political relations between these four economic blocs in the Inner Sphere of the Solar System (also known as the Earth Sphere), Gjallarhorn also set about ordering the Outer Sphere - primarily consisting of Mars and the Jupiter system (and possibly other settlements). Gjallarhorn evenly divided the territories of Mars and the rest of the Outer Sphere between the four different economic blocks for them to rebuild, so that each of the four control different locations on Mars, i.e. the Martian city-state Chryse is controlled by Arbrau.
In the subsequent three centuries, Gjallarhorn became increasingly ruthless and corrupt, and meddling in the internal politics of the four economic blocs. Power within Gjallarhorn also became dominated by seven major political dynasties (technically not holding official power, but almost like Zaibatsu). Meanwhile, Mars and the rest of the Outer Sphere became the literal Third World for Earth, their resources and raw materials feeding the wealth of the mother planet even as they struggled to survive. Serious economic disparity remained a major problem on Mars, where child labor, human trafficking in the form of child soldiers known as Human Debris, and ordinary child soldiers became commonplace. This in turn has led to civil unrest, but Gjallarhorn and major Earth-based companies keep the locals in line by hiring private military contractors as crowd control, the soldiers in many of which are child soldiers themselves. The heavy use of locally recruited mercenary companies allows the Earth power blocs to fight unrest by proxy, instead of having to spill their own blood for their economic interests on the planet. Over time the economic blocs from Earth have given at least some limited autonomy to their Mars colonies, but this largely exists on paper as neocolonialism through economic domination remains. By the beginning of the TV series in 323 P.D. many of the colonies on Mars such as Chryse are agitating for independence.
Several large megacorporations as well as large crime syndicates - sometimes indistinguishable from each other - also wield a fair amount of clandestine influence over political affairs and/or internal faction rivalries within the four Earth economic blocks and even the seven families of Gjallarhorn itself. Several large pirate groups also exist which Gjallarhorn hasn't made a concerted effort to destroy because they can be hired as mercenaries/military contractors.
The background of the TV series is loosely similar in several respects to that in the main Universal Century's Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: the "Calamity War" was similar in scope to the One Year War from Universal Century, and Gjallarhorn is somewhat analogous to the Titans, a ruthless fascist organization enforcing Earth's hegemony over the outer colonies, to maintain peace (and thus, the political status quo) at any cost. Maps even show that a large circle of land in southeastern Australia is missing as a result of the Calamity War - matching how the same region of Australia was devastated by a colony drop in the Universal Century.
Characters
Tekkadan is a mercenary group formed from the remnants of CGS by the members of the CGS's Third Corp, following the coup against the First Corp. Orga chose the name "Iron Flower" for them using the metaphor that despite their downtrodden status as child soldiers, like an iron flower, they can't be destroyed no matter how much people seek to crush them. Their current mission is to protect and escort Kudelia Aina Bernstein as she heads to Earth for secret negotiations. Due to Orga Itsuka's Sakazuki blood oath with Naze Turbine and later, McMurdo Barriston, the group becomes an official branch under Teiwaz. Arriving on Earth, Makanai also hires them to send him to the parliament as well with Kudelia. Following the completion of their job, Arbrau hires them as their military advisors. With a massive influx of funding from Teiwaz and eager recruits, they are able to create an Earth branch to advise Arbaur's military and as a whole they became a burgeoning company that is envied by all in their field of work. Befitting of their origin as abused child soldiers, the members who are formerly Human Debris have discarded their red-lined clothing and are treated equally by their leaders. Following the successive plots against them and their allies, orchestrated by Rustal Elion and Iok Kujan of Gjallarhorn, and Jasley Donomikols of Teiwaz, Tekkadan breaks ties with Teiwaz and the Admoss Company to join McGillis Fareed in his war to remove Rustal from power, with the promise of gaining the sovereignty over Mars once McGillis obtains full control over Gjallarhorn at the cost of being Arianrhod's scapegoats. With all their communications to the outside cut off and with Gjallarhorn's manipulation of the media making it seem they would not surrender, Tekkadan was forced to stage a final stand while secretly evacuating as many members as it could through a secret tunnel recently discovered. The group was believed to be eradicated once its base was completely destroyed by a rail gun barrage from orbit. With Orga's death and many of the combatants killed while the none-combatants evacuated, the organization has been disbanded while the survivors lived on under new identities crafted by Makanai in gratitude for their past assistance. With their base having been demolished by a rail gun barrage from orbit, all that remains as a tangible mark of their presence is a memorial stone covered with the names of their fallen near Sakura's farm.
The protagonist of the series, Mikazuki is an orphan child soldier working for CGS's Third Corp and primary pilot of the ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos. Often known by the nickname "Mika," he and Orga were childhood friends who would not hesitate to sacrifice their lives for each other or their comrades. His first name is "crescent moon" in Japanese. Though he has poor social skills and is uninterested in romance, he excels in piloting and combat and focuses solely on developing his skills while protecting his friends. He is utterly ruthless against his enemies and is also shown to sometimes lose himself in anger. In some cases, he will even enter a berserker-like state if enraged and can only be snapped out by those close to him. For example, he nearly chokes Gaelio Bauduin to death when he is thought to have hurt Cookie and Cracker Griffon, only stopping when Biscuit's grandmother snaps him out of it. He also has a rather cold outlook on life due to his role as a child soldier. He solely views the world as a place of allies to protect and enemies to eradicate; with no room for concepts like duels or sparing defeated adversaries. Like other members of the Third Corp, he received man-machine interface implants known as the Alaya-Vijnana System, also known as "Whiskers," on his spine to improve his spatial skills and reactions in the cockpit while piloting. While having just one implant is risky (out of a group of ten that included Mikazuki and Orga, only six were successfully augmented unscathed), he was able to receive three and survive, making him the prime candidate for piloting the Gundam Barbatos. He has a habit of eating , ordinarily sweet plum-like fruits with a rare chance of being repulsively bitter. Mikazuki, like most members of Tekkadan, is initially illiterate, but Kudelia offers to teach him and some of the younger men how to read and write. He dreams of eventually becoming a simple farmer like Biscuit's grandmother once he can teach himself with books. While on Earth, he deals with a lot of frustrating situations such as Biscuit's death. And while he managed to avenge him by killing Carta Issue, he and Orga know it won't be over until Tekkadan meet Makanai's request to escort him to Edmonton for the parliament election in Canada. While Orga sent both Kudelia and Makanai to the parliament, Mikazuki faces a vengeful Ein and manages to activate Barbatos' full potential to kill him by fully syncing his body to the Mobile Suit. In aftermath of the battle, he entirely loses the sensation in his right arm along with a portion of the vision in his right eye while not linked to Barbatos.