The story of IBO is very weak. There was simply not enough content in it for a 25 episode series, so they padded it out the ass. They stretched it as far as they could go with enough repetition one could easily devise a drinking game for the series. A lot of people tell me that they're focusing on the characters and that should be appreciated, but look at how many times Kudelia goes on about being useless. How many times the show plays "my long lost brother" gig. How many scenes where Mikazuki does nothing but eat those Mars dates. This is what I mean. A third of the series could easily be cut and nothing would be lost.
And while we're on the characters, let's talk about Tekkadan. Once the series gets into space, the whole child soldier aspect gets reduced to nothing more than "these children can't read" and "they're dirty" on Kudelia's part. Beyond that, they act as normal human beings until Biscuit dies. The twist, that they are damaged emotionally, works because the show spends so goddamn long telling us they're more or less normal. Then we get Merribit crying while everyone shows a cult-like devotion to Tekkadan's future ("If I die, I'll make the cult, I mean Tekkadan stronger"). And then in the last episode they go "Oh, they can return to being normal kids."
Child soldiers do not recover like that, and it's insulting on the show's part to say they do.
But then you get into how black-and-white the show tries to paint itself. Gjallarhorn is bad, just look at what they did to the Dort workers. The colony arc actually got the show into hot water in Japan over how it glossed over the fact the workers were threatening violence (with assault rifles and tanks) if their demands weren't met. That's terrorism, and the show wanted us to emphasize with them. "Oh, they were peaceful," doesn't work when they opened fire when Gjallarhorn tried to arrest them for receiving smuggled weapons. False flag operation or not, they were not innocent.
And let's not forget how Makanai set the entire show's plot in motion because he lied to Kudelia to get her to come to Earth, then blackmailed Tekkadan into being his personal armed escort. Is he ever called out for this, or him using child soldiers to get reelected after he resigned and went into exile (following a bribery scandal according to his bio on the Japanese website)? No. We're supposed to cheer for this guy because he helps Kudelia achieve her dream.
The show is very dumb when you start putting together the implications. There's also a lot of off model animation, including cutting and pasting over assets over and over again. Battles are fueled by many highly detailed panning shots, almost everyone jobs to Barbatos, and are too few in number. This show isn't terrible like Aldnoah Zero, but to say it's one of the best Gundams is a complete lie. It's very flawed and hopefully sees improvement in it's second season.
Which they're no doubt doing considering it's lukewarm reception in Japan (ratings were really, really bad in it's second half).