Gaelio and Julieta ending up together, especially after the former has ditched his Vidar disguise is hilarious considering both are former Super Sentai actors-turned-successful seiyuu: Gaelio is Mega Blue and Julieta is Gokai Yellow.
Cross-Dressing Voices: Lynn is guest cast as Masahiro Altland in Season 1. She would get a more prominent role in a Gundam series half a decade later. Similarly, Ride Mass is voiced by Mutsumi Tamura, as well as some of the younger Tekkadan crew.
Development Hell: As explained in this article, the series was in development way back in 2009 but it was delayed by Mobile Suit Gundam AGE and Tatsuyuki Nagai's involvement on other projects before work resumed in 2014.
The first season was directed by Chris Cason, who voiced Orlis Strenja and Dexter Culastor.
Lex Lang, the voice of Galan Mossa, took over directorial duties for the second season.
No Export for You: The Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans G mobile app, which features Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Urdr-Hunt game, is only available in Japan.
The Other Darrin: In the English dub, Eco Turbine's voice actress switches from Kira Buckland to Erica Lindbeck for the first half of the second season. Buckland reprises the role in the second half however, and she voices Cookie Griffon and background Tekkadan member Hirume throughout the season.
Kikuko Inoue is known for voicing calm, motherly characters. Here, she's the rather arrogant officer Carta Issue.
Ray Chase as Rustal Elion since he usually plays young men or teens and/or they happen to be good guys.
Troubled Production: Courtesy of an interview translated on a blog, we were able to hear Mari Okada's take on how Iron Blooded Orphans was going, in her eyes, as of around the end of season 1, based on context clues in the interview itself. Some highlights include:
She said that the Iron-Blooded Orphans concept was in production for a "few years" before she was brought on, despite that she was working with this same director on other projects with him at the same time.
It was revealed later that the director, Tatsuyuki Nagai, brought her on because he couldn't manage the script or storyboarding and basically didn't have/want anyone else to turn to, or at least that's easily implied from the interview, because she's surprised herself that she was brought on for this project, considering that she was brought on at least 2 years after initial funding started.
Note: in the interview itself, Okada states that the last Gundam show that she herself watched (on broadcast) was G Gundam, which aired in 1994, a whole 20 years before the airing of Iron-Blooded Orphans. For fans of Gundam 00, SEED and Destiny, it explains why IBO is completely different.
Also in this interview, there is the following verbatim text from Okada talking about the director: "Usually, I’m the one who goes wild without really thinking about how to proceed, and Director Nagai is the one who steps on the brakes and stops me. But this time, he was the one who started dancing in the nude, so-to-speak (laughs)."
On My Anime List, there are a series of production credits, with "Yatate, Hajime", a pseudonym for the Sunrise production company, having either "Original Creator" or "Producer" credit on most/all Gundam shows. While Seed, Seed Destiny and 00 all have "Producer" credits mentioned for Yatate, there are no producer credits given to Yatate here, only "Original Creator", along with Tomino, who as far as the fans of Gundam can tell, had no direct input on IBO.
The animation quality is much improved in season two as compared to season one. There are numerous examples of completely flat mobile workers, faces missing pupils, etc.
This isn't exactly surprising, considering that a normal Gundam show has around 35 studios given credit for 2nd key animation, In-Between Animation, Digital Paint, etc. and IBO has around 50.
A Newtype magazine interview revealed that there were several omitted and/or modified storylines for Season 1, which would have taken the show into a darker route such as Eugene and Naze separately betraying Tekkadan, Kudelia being ostracized for her association with them, the public not trusting Tekkadan for being a bunch of amoral mercenaries, Ein not ending up as the Disc-One Final Boss, and Tekkadan suffering heavier casualties near the end of the season. Interestingly, at least two of those happen towards the end of the second Season.
Apparently, Gaelio was supposed to stay dead after season 1. However, lead writer Mari Okada liked Masaya Matsukaze's performance so much that she decided to keep Gaelio alive and expand his character.
Director Tatsuyuki Nagai wanted the ending of the show to be a Downer Endingwhere everyone in Tekkadan dies including Kudelia, as was suggested by one of the producers. Okada and the rest of the writing staff disagreed and wanted the characters to live. The actual ending as presented in the show itself was a happy one for Tekkadan and the last five episodes were rewritten in order to reach that.
Norba Shino is confirmed to be bisexual by the director since the beginning considering all the hints between him and Yamagi throughout the show.
One interview confirmed that Kudelia and Atra's situation at the end of the series was indeed a same-sex marriage. They also say that had Shino been alive, he could have married Yamagi as well and taken his surname.
, the series was in development way back in 2009 but it was delayed by Mobile Suit Gundam AGE and Tatsuyuki Nagai's involvement on other projects before work resumed in 2014.