Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 1 (Collector’s Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (Kidō Senshi Gandamu Tekketsu no Orufenzu) is a 2015 original television anime series by studio Sunrise, director Tatsuyuki Nagai and writer Mari Okada. The series aired during the Autumn 2015 anime season in October.

Background:

“The year is P.D. 323.

Three centuries after theCalamity War, a new world order is maintained by the military organization Gjallarhorn, but the seeds of a new conflict are being sown on Mars. A private security company accepts a mission to escort the revolutionary leader Kudelia Aina Bernstein to Earth,and the company’s child soldiers rise up in revolt against the adults who betrayed them. Among them is Mikazuki Augus, who becomes the pilot of the Gundam Barbatos, a dreadful relic left over from the Calamity War.”

Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, August 2020.

Gundam continues to do surprisingly well for the UK with most of the collector’s editions selling out, whether it was immediately or within the first few months. Of course Anime Limited chose to go for the titles that already had a UK presence over the years like Gundam Wing and Gundam 00, or the more newer instalments like Gundam Origin and Gundam Thunderbolt.

And then there is Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans which is a unique case. It’s one of the newer Gundam shows of the past decade, but Nozomi Entertainment and Rightstuf did not handle this series as part of their Sunrise deal. Funimation was the one who brought the show to the United States & Canada, but the dubbing was done by Sunrise through Bang Zoom! Entertainment. Because of this, and the fact that Iron-Blooded Orphans was streaming on Funimation for the UK & Ireland, nobody was sure if Anime Limited was able to acquire it.

In the end, they were able to. I suspected that Funimation only had United States & Canada rights as their sets were region locked, but it’s good news for UK & Ireland fans as the franchise will continue to have its consistency!

Collector’s Edition Contents:

For the Gundam franchise, Anime Limited is giving each Gundam anime a rigid box to house the film or series with one or a couple of physical additions. For the Gundam titles that have multiple parts, like Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, the first half will include a box to house both parts, while the second half will include a booklet.

Like the other Anime Limited sets, this release is 1000 units only and I received my copy early as part of pre-ordering the set during their early bird sale. The SRP is £59.99 and the early bird price was £34.99.

Physical Contents:

• Rigid Box with amaray case packaging and clean artwork
• Info sheet for specs and sticker on wrapping for BBFC logo

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 10th August 2020

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 1 contains episodes 1 to 25 across four Blu-ray discs using the Funimation author. The audio options available include the main Japanese language with English subtitles and the Bang Zoom! English dub.

As this is a Funimation authored title, we have white subtitles which are locked during playback, and the regions are locked to B for Blu-ray. The Funimation release was originally released across four parts (two per season), hence why the disc count is inconsistent for this set.

Thanks to Scavenger on Twitter & the Blu-ray forum, it turns out that Funimation were given the broadcast masters for the series rather than the home video version. This basically means there will be some animation changes or adjustments throughout that were amended on the home video version. Since this is the broadcast version, there may be some errors.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	Yes
Discs	4

Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:

Disc 2:

• Funimation Trailers

Disc 4:

• Funimation Trailers

Unboxing Photos:

Final Notes:

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 1 is available to own as a collector’s edition Blu-ray over on Amazon UK. Season 2 is also available to order in the same fashion.