Iron Knight: Unedited Audio

Completely unedited audio and recording notes from our Iron Knight episode

Manga Details

• Author: Yagi, Tomohiro
• Author’s other works: red sprite
• Run dates: Dec 2, 2013 to Mar 31, 2014
• Based on a one-shot
• Chapters/Volumes: 17/3

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Ushizume Teppei is the young child of a police officer. He goes to school, lives with his aunt and uncle, and even plans on marrying his cousin, Himegawa Tsubasa. One night, however, his world is turned upside down when Japan is overtaken by Goblins, humans who have transformed into demons. Teppei himself grows into the iron knight, a big, black, hard, horned bull-shaped goblin with fire powers, and resolves to become a hero for humanity.
  • After almost losing control he meets a bunny goblin with ice powers named Yuki who is able to calm him down enough to meet with survivors of his town. They had been imprisoned in a slave camp by the goblin Numazawa who spits acid with his tongue-penis. Teppei fights him off but his goblin form scares the refugees so he runs off and runs into Yuki, who helps him come up with a way to take down Numazawa for good. After they succeed, the refugees immediately accept Teppei and Yuki as the heroes they are just in time to fight off an army of goblins with fucking guns.
  • Teppei and Yuki are saved from defeat by Kikuta, a sniper with the remnants of the National Defense Force, who takes them to meet his commanding officer, Major Sakurayama. They ally themselves with the Defense Force to rescue a large group of civilians, including Teppei’s cousin/wife Tsubasa, from a military stronghold which was captured by the Three-eyes, a hive-minded goblin army controlled by one leader. Kikuta suddenly betrays his comrades and reveals that he is that leader, fusing all of his forces into one giant goblin which teppei barely manages to defeat.
  • One year passes and the refugees populate a nearby city with Teppei as their guardian, but Tsubasa is traumatized and mute. The defense force tells Teppei that they must defeat their actual arch nemesis Amachi Zenjiro. Zenjiro transforms into a giant immortal bull demon determined to wipe out humanity so Teppei pretends to go beserk and scares everyone away while they fight. Yuki reveals she was an assassin created out of Tsubasa’s soul sent to kill Teppei but instead helps teppei sacrifice himself to trap Zenjiro underground forever.
  • Don’t worry tho there’s an epilogue far in the future where people live in harmony with furries and it’s implied that yuki helped tsubasa and teppei live together for a brief time after the series. Also there’s a new kid named Teppei who wants to be a hero.
• Characters
  • Ushizume Teppei (Uh-shi-zoo-meh Tep-pay)
    • Sleepy boy
    • MC
    • Dad’s a detective
    • 10 years old
    • Lives with family friends (we must assume they are aunt and uncle cuz the author gives us nothing to imply anything else)
  • Himegami Tsubasa (Hi-meh-gah-me Soo-bah-sah)
    • Family friend
    • Forward about her feelings
  • Yuki (You-kih)
    • Very smart
    • Ice bunny powers
    • Secretly an assassin?
  • Kikuta (Kee-koo-tah)
    • Military man
    • Bad guy
    • Thought he was good haha you fool he is not
  • Amachi Zenjiro (Am-a-chi Zen-gi-roo)
    • Big bad
    • Ugly asab
    • Is the goblin representing the classical element of immortality

Why it failed

• Sometimes the action is hard to follow like who headbutted who in the first chapter
• Def can be rough overall understanding what’s going on as the writer is trying to organically fit details in covo but it doesn’t quite work
• The art looks a bit rough it’s almost all white-tone with minimal backgrounds
• Chapter 1 is a super slow start almost nothing happens in the first 20 pages
• I dislike the 1 jump skip in the second chapter showing his survival would have been cool
• This series just doesn’t work as a shonen, it can’t show the brutality it needs
• It never really builds up any sort of overarching plot we get no seeding about anything
• Post timeskip is just garbage, they literally say who the big bad is
• It’s weird af the MC is 10 years old, like they’re having an 11 yo (after the TS) do a sniper assassination

What it did well

• The art is a little underdeveloped but you can tell the artist has talent and very good use of color
• The characters feel kinda real, like drinking coffee and putting shoes are nice little details
• It tries to have organic exposition like character details in conversation like having someone mention he’s 10 vs having a text box say it
• Doesn’t fuck around with the romance between the MCS
• I appreciate the series having critical thought about using the powers of the MC like using the cast off iron to make weapons

Where it could have gone

• Would have been cool if the MC had to team up with the murderer because literally it’s the only person he’s found
• I really wanted to see more of him trying to survive on his own
• Imagine if legit only terrible people could transform and the MC has like suppressed memories of killing someone or something
• I really think a dark fantasy manga would have been fun, like berserk for kids but things keep going to well for people

Misc Thoughts

• This reminds me of devilman crybaby
• You can tell the artist budged his time to focus on specific parts
• Talk about one shot

Final Verdict

• Six-Word summary
  • If digimon tried to be berserk -Jordan
  • Melts once out of the mold
  • Fan six words
    • Tucker: DevilMan, but with...no, just Devilman
    • T Wolfwood: Goblin Slayer's mecha fights Goblin Titans
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead
    • Digimon Tamers
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about