Saturday, August 27, 2016

Gundam Build Fighters Try-Island Wars


One year after winning the nation championships, Team Try Fighters is selected by the Neilsen Labs to test a brand new Gunpla Battle System on a beach resort.  As Sekai, Fumina and Yuuma reunite with old friends, the new battle system rages out of control and a phenomena once dealt with by Sei Iori and Reiji begins anew.  With the island and the world in the balance, Team Try Fighters and their allies head into action once again. 

Why did I do it?  Why was I even interested?  Ok so the theme song was really cool, but so were the themes from Build Fighters Try, that’s the only real praise I ever gave that series.  So why the hell did I go back to this one shot OVA that did little more than remind me of why I hated this series with the fiery passion of a thousand suns?  Cause I review Gundam on this blog, it’s its namesake afterall.  And much like Gundam Seed Destiny, I tuned in to see if anything could be salvaged (I still want those 50 episodes of time spent on Seed Destiny back).

As soon as the main cast first appeared, I remembered why I didn’t miss them, especially YUUMA!!!!!!  Sekai is still discount Reiji with even lower intelligence when it comes to girls.  Fumina is still woefully underutilized for having such a prominent position on the series.  She’s cute and the captain of her Gunpla team but it all seems to fall to Sekai and his God Mode Gunpla to fix everything.  And Yuuma…God what a freaking tool.  Blows off his team in his vain attempt to win the heart of Sekai’s sister…granted she is wearing a swimsuit and looks hot but dammit, Yuuma needs to be punched…that’s just me being polite and not wanting to fly off into a rant.  The rest of the supporting cast, I’ll admit, except for Nils, I didn’t remember much of them or care that they were even around.  At least with Nils, it’s good to see a familiar face to remind me that there was a time when Gunpla battle and building was cool and enjoyable.

For being a one shot OVA special, they try to cram a ton into thirty minutes.  They try to up the comedic factor that was sorely lacking in the rest of the series.  But because it involved a cast I don’t like, much of it didn’t stick.  The action was a little epic but again, I didn’t care cause I don’t care about the players.  What I did care about, came in the last few minutes when we discovered the identity of the culprit behind the island catastrophe.  After a whole season of waiting, we finally got some answers as to the whereabouts of some of my favorite Build Fighters characters.  Yep, the nameless girl with familiar silver hair turned out to be the daughter of Reiji and Aila…WOW!!!  Why couldn’t have we just spent time with them raising their daughter and how come they never really talked to her about Gunpla Battle?  There’s so much potential in this revelation but it’s wasted on a less than amazing cast and I flat out laughed when the girl just upped and left them.  Reiji’s daughter has got better things to do than learn Gunpla from a team of rookies who make the sport look depressing and dangerous as hell. 

So yeah, besides the theme songs and a glimpse of Aila, Island Wars was as pointless as the series that preceded it.  The cast sucks (Yuuma can go to hell and stay there), the action feels joyless and any chance of seeing Sei or Reiji in more adventures seems more distant than ever.  I guess it’s one conselation knowing that Reiji and Aila did end up hooking up and having a happy life together.  And even if that had ZERO Gunpla, I would have been more interested in that development than ANY time I spent with Team Try Fighters…such a sad day.

2/10

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