GIBO has followed a highly effective pattern throughout the Fall: terrific quiet episodes followed by even more terrific LOUD episodes. The latest Loud One might just be the best.
Eugene might scoff at Kudelia’s ignorance of the gravitic effects of Ahab reactors, but I was glad for the little lesson, which explains why there’s a vast churning debris field made up of ships and suits from the calamity war, all gathered together by still-active ahabs, like the Pacific Trash Vortex in space.
It’s a fitting battlefield for Tekkadan and the Turbines’ fight with the Brewers, who have been hired by Gjallarhorn to bring Kudelia back into their orbit, whether she wants to or not. The debris field has powerful metaphorical value too: it’s the ingrained belief of most Human Debris that they’re no different from those hunks of metal floating around; if they’re not useful, they’re worthless.
At the same time, the adoptive, surrogate, and biological families aboard the Hammerhead and Isaribi themselves came together much like the debris field in which they’ll fight, only their shared experiences, emotions, fondness, and love comprise the “gravity” that brought them together.
That “human gravity” gives the impending battle extra weight: it’s not just about giving the Brewers a bloody nose: it’s about saving Masahiro, who isn’t just Akihiro’s brother to Orga and Tekkadan. Mika understands this, so as he goes out to scout with Lafter, he promises Akihiro he’ll try to go easy on Masahiro until he arrives.
Heartbreakingly juxtaposed with Atra and Kudelia presenting their beloved Mika with a love-infused and no-doubt sumptuous homemade lunch for the battle (how adorably domestic), is the Brewers debris chow scene, who are lucky to get dry packaged protein bars. They notice there’s one extra, for their fallen brother Pedro, and talk arises of rebirth and resurrection into a better life after this one. Naturally, Kudal comes in and smacks them for such talk, but Masahiro seems intrigued.
As Mika and Lafter scout out the debris field (with Mika studying reading and writing and eating his lunch to kill time – every minute is valuable for this guy) Kudelia, Atra, and Merribit wait for the ride to get bumpy in the mess hall. Kudelia is apprehensive, but Atra takes her hands into hers to reassure her: Mika will come back; he always comes back. And because of how this particular Gundam treats statements like that, I know he’ll most likely come back too.
To me, it’s more another sign that Atra’s idea of sharing her love for Mika—rather than “winning” and depriving Kudelia of him—wasn’t a fleeting one. She cares deeply about Kudelia too, and doesn’t want her to worry. The display of affection and concern makes Merribit smile.
And that’s about it for the “quiet” part of “The Shoals.” Brooke and Kudal end up taking the bait, believing the false readings of enemy ships being right behind their scouts, and sending all their mobile suits to attack, leaving them wide open for when Tekkadan and the Turbines get the jump on them.
The Hammerhead impressively rams Brooke’s ship into an asteroid, while the Isaribi handles the other with arresting cables and a boarding party led by Shino. Kudal sorties in his Gusion (armed with his own hammer), while Mika, Lafter, Azee, and Amida all maneuver the Brewer suits so that Masahiro is isolated, to allow Akihiro to approach and retrieve his bro.
While the Brewers are no Gjallarhorn, didn’t see through their adversary’s tricks, and don’t impress Shino with their intruder repelling skills, they still put up a hell of a fight. In addition to its hammer, Gusion has anti-ship artillery that packs a punch, while most of the human debris pilots are fighting with revenge on their minds. Of course, ultimately Mika and the ladies don’t have much trouble taking them out; only Kudal looks to be a legitimate headache for our flygirls and boys.
As such, Akihiro gets the one-on-one encounter with Masahiro that he wanted. Akihiro still goes off about how he’s garbage, but Orga makes it clear he’s sick of that talk. Whatever happened in the past, they all have the power to change things as much as they want; they only have to do it. Akihiro thinks he can convince his brother of the same thing…but his brother is too far gone. “Why now?” is his refrain; as if now was too late.
When Akihiro headed out, I wanted him to bring his brother back to the Isaribi. I wanted the words Akihiro heard from Orga, and took to heart, could be successfully relayed to Masahiro and snap him out of his nihilistic human debris mindset. But none of that happened. When Akihiro mentions another family other than him, mom, and dad, Masashiro loses it; Akihiro’s been having fun since abandoning him.
Twisting Akihiro’s brotherly mobile suit hug for a darker purpose, Masahiro releases Akihiro at just the right time to spare him the blow of Kudal’s hammer, which crushes him instead. Whether he was thinking about ending it so he could be reborn in his mother’s belly—a clean slate he felt wasn’t possible in this life—it’s a rejection of Akihiro’s hope, and an immediate end to Masahiro’s suffering…if he’s actually dead, that is.
In a safer, more controlled environment with more time and cooler heads, Akihiro might’ve been able to more carefully explain things and convince his brother to join him, but in the heat of a battle in a debris field wasn’t that environment. And now, no doubt, Akihiro will blame himself for what happened as more evidence debris is all he should ever aspire to be; to hope or wish for more only brings about punishment such as this.
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 
That was a really rough episode.
Most of it was preparation, but when it came down to it Tekkadan and the Turbines were more than enough to take down the Brewers.
However, it came at a huge cost. Basically all the human debris kids died, including Masahiro, who had basically been mentally and emotionally destroyed by his life as a slave. Akihiro wanted to save him, but Masahiro couldn’t take the idea of having any kind of hope again. And so he sacrificed himself, saving his brother. And it is really heavy on the heart.
What I really like about this series is how they can cause tension and danger and yet still subvert your expectations. I had thought it would be Akihiro and a few other named characters would die. But instead it was the one everyone was trying to save, and I think that made more impact than if it had been Akihiro or Norba, or one of Turbine girls. This show does extremely well at giving tension and emotional weight, without having to resort to simply killing named characters to get an emotional response.
Here, I was able to gain emotional impact and hurt from the death of a character that we had only been introduced to a few episodes ago. I think it was the combination of his relationship with an actual named character and how much Masahiro meant to Akihiro. It was the fact that both Tekkadan and Turbines wanted to save him and were doing their best to do so. It was showing what a horrible life Masahiro and his fellow child slaves were enduring, that collectively made Masahiro’s death that much more impactful. The realization that this is what could have happened to Tekkadan’s men if they didn’t form such a tight knit bond with each other and have such support between each other, with leaders who looked after the group. Masahiro couldn’t take the idea of having hope again, his life as human debris destroyed him and it breaks your heart to see him choose death like that. (Though your “asterisk” of it he is really dead or not, does intrigue me. We have no scenes of either Masahiro or Akihiro in the PV at all.)
I don’t believe in reincarnation, I’m more of a Heaven/Hell person. And I can hope that all those poor children who died are now at peace and at rest and are happy now, and that Orga and Mika puts the beat down on what’s left of the Brewers.
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I wish I hadn’t called this 2 weeks ago…
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Masahiro’s death was predictable. But that’s not where the true tragedy lies. Rather, it is in the fact that he dies a truly broken soul. Those years of abuse (plus arguably the effect of that forced operation to implant the alaya vijnana system on him) has damaged his mentality that, really, that short pep talk frrom his brother would realistically not be enough to snap him out of his nihilistic mindset. Heck, even Akihiro himself took several months to finally break free of that (and certainly thanks to his newfound family’s help).
This is where I have to commend the series’ painstaking effort to build up its main characters. Sure, we don’t get to see more of Masahiro’s backstory, but we can get a picture of it from the mains that were like him, such as being human debris like his brother while at the same time being a space rat like Mika and the other boys. On the other hand, the stark contrast between their current lives also gives another insight to Masahiro’s psyche.
It is also worth noting that some viewers were complaining that the episode was “boring” because none of the main characters that had death flags died (instead, it was a minor character introduced just the previous episode). But this is where I would like to take another page from Kalerylan’s thoughts on characters and death flags. You see, a good tragedy’s power lies not just in killing off its main characters, but also also in its ability to show how these characters would instead have to live through such tragic events, such as the death of a loved one. And IBO certainly showed that here (something that I see it shares with Fafner).
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i agree with all that. I just called Masihiro’s death as soon as his big bro mentioned him/before he was in the story as a character :/ it’s not bad per see… just exactly where I’d expect a Gundam show would go?
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I think that’s a bit unfair. It was basically a 50/50 shot. One of the brothers was probably going to die, but really it could have been either. Guessing right is good, but it’s still just a guess. It wasn’t a given.
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One more thing, the sheer AMOUNT of death flags that get thrown around in this series mean you can predict the death of just about anyone. Pretty much all of them just carry a death flag under their arms at all times.
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Very good episode. Very dark. Here’s the thing about killing characters; it’s pretty much always cliche because nearly every sort of death has been done before.
The question is was it done well? And I think this was. Because it was pointless but at the same time you can see where they’re both coming from. Akahiro was telling his brother that he has a new family in order to show that there are people out there who will care about them, even as debris. But as soon as he said it, I knew it was the wrong approach. Masahiro didn’t need to hear there are OTHER people out there who will care, he needed to hear that his brother cared. Akihiro’s words, even though they were meant well, were the exact wrong thing to say.
And that’s what I liked about it, both of them behaved in a fairly logical way and yet they couldn’t find a middle-point (under such time constraints as a battle) and that’s sad. And that’s how it goes sometimes. You try, and you fail. And that to me is more affecting than a heroic sacrifice or whatever the more standard response would have been.
Because this is going to MESS with Akihiro. He was finally getting better, thinking he had the right to dream again, and then he goes and gets his brother killed (presumably he will blame himself). This is likely to spiral him WAY back down into self-loathing. And again, that’s way more interesting than him dying and Masahiro deciding to carry on his dreams or whatever.
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