Spoilers for Iron Blooded Orphans below.

I watched the one 'except' that OP has listed there "Iron Blooded Orphans". It's the only Gundam I've ever watched and I really liked it, to be honest. It was full of subversions of anime tropes. There's a prophecy, a stoic soldier like none other, a charismatic leader playing a dual role, another heroic leader trusted by his people. And there's the instrument of the establishment, playing the establishment role. And spoiler spoiler spoiler,

spoiler spoiler spoiler the establishment wins, the charismatic double-role leader dies trying to fulfill the prophecy which isn't real, the stoic soldier is cut apart in the final battle, and the remainder of the loyal band either gets their people rights in parliament or gets picked off in violent engagements over time in the denouement.

Fantastic story. You don't see that kind of thing very often. Western shows are all about the "you don't have to sacrifice anything to win" and Eastern shows are all about the "you're the chosen one" but this one was "the establishment is the establishment and most of the time it wins".

IBO is super interesting. "The establishment is the establishment and most of the time it wins," is the final outcome, but the road there is actually rather fraught for that establishment, and it's alternately almost damned and just barely saved by aspects of its rule and operations. The winning agent of the establishment wins, in part, because he skillfully threads through the requirements of his station while strategically breaking taboo (but only once he's certain to have the political backing to do so). On the other side, the rebels are

>driven by the circumstances the establishment has forced them to contend with for the entirety of their short lives (they're all child soldiers, btw)

>are only able to find their successful path by rejecting establishment and forging what seem, at the time, to be canny ties with other groups on-the-margins

>...right until they follow that path off a cliff.

The "heroes" and "villains" remain who they are at the end not just because of affinity bias (having spent more time with the rebels than the establishment), but because there's a tangible disconnect between the former feeling forced into the poor decisions that they make, and the latter's rather cold, and unforced, determinations.

Spoiler

So when Shino almost takes Rustal's bridge out, I am, of course, cheering, even while I know I'm watching him commit a war crime and sign his own death warrant. When Rustal orders atmosphere-braised pilot skewers, it still feels incredibly unfair, even when I know why he made that decision. They threaded the needle.

> Western shows are all about the "you don't have to sacrifice anything to win" and Eastern shows are all about the "you're the chosen one"

This probably has more to do with the type of content you are consuming. If you watch things for young adults, it will probably follow "the Heroes Journey" - wether it is LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars etc. (the West) or Naruto, Pokemon, Dragon Ball/Journey to the West (the East)

The subversion of tropes goes back all the way to the original Mobile Suit Gundam, though a little more subtle due to the studio wanting to make a show to sell toys and the director wanting to make something with a actual message. It has: -a 'good army' that could easily be the 'bad army' in a more optimistic show -the protagonists dealing with callus military leadership -sympathetic enemy soldiers dealing with their own incompetent and callus leadership -the war taking a huge psychological toll on the protagonist and all of them end up worse off for having been a part of it

> Western shows are all about the "you don't have to sacrifice anything to win" and Eastern shows are all about the "you're the chosen one" but this one was "the establishment is the establishment and most of the time it wins".

What's sorely missing is the very rare theme of "the establishment wins, and for a good reason, and it's actually a good thing".

You have to be more specific because "Eastern" here does not include Chinese thematic tropes.

https://x.com/xlr8harder/status/1962768298153521202

Sun Wukong is the original "normal guy who grinds to greatness", which was the original plot of Dragonball before it turned more into Harry Potter (you are the chosen one).

> Western shows are all about the "you don't have to sacrifice anything to win" and Eastern shows are all about the "you're the chosen one" but this one was "the establishment is the establishment and most of the time it wins".

I think this is why The Wire captivated me. I'd been raised on a steady diet of hero's journey stories and then suddenly I ran into David Simon's buzzsaw of contravening those expectations.

In those years I'd just I started my working life and unfortunately the parallels were uncannily accurate.

War in the Pocket is also pretty good, if you haven't seen it. A bit dated now but I always thought of it as a "Business as usual" war story when I was young.

gundam is probably one of my favorite pieces of media ever created, and yeah id say you nailed it! BUT this is pretty much true for almost every gundam show. They will usually end with a "but at what cost" or with 75% of the main cast dead and the protag in a worse position then they started. but yeah what you said rings true, it really is a special piece of media that is more than the genre/anime its made in but can only exist with anime if that makes sense.

Anime was probably my first introduction to "Heroes can both sacrifice and still lose. "Winning" may not be worth it but may be the only option."

I'm trying to think of the earliest "Western Literature" that you get introduced to that has the darker side of humanity and not coming up with anything until you hit 11th or 12th grade while I bumped into anime at something like 7th grade.

Hmmm, perhaps something by O'Henry or Roald Dahl would qualify. I hit them in 7th grade and liked them very much, too.