Well this was…disappointing to say the least.
After the finale of Gundam Build Fighters I was
pumped. Sure there wasn’t a lot
explained as to Reiji’s other worldly origins, how the technology came from the
to here to make Gunpla Battles possible or if Reiji and Aila would ever return
to Sei and China after their sad departure…but I was still satisfied and eager
for more.
I don’t know if it was my high holdings of the first
series that may have proved to be too much for Gundam Build Fighters Try to
live up to. But turns out a number of
things would hold it way, WAY back from being anywhere near as good as it’s predecessor.
But first, the plot.
It’s been seven years since Sei and Reiji’s victory at the 7th
Gunpla World Tournament. Reiji is still
MIA with Aila and Sei has gone on to become a building legend much like his
father. Gunpla Battles have changed in
this time skip. Tournaments now focus on
3 man cell battles comprised of fighters and builders. One such enthusiast, Fumina Hoshino, wishes
to form a team to compete in the Japanese National Tournament, the first step
to the world championship. She finds
additional teammembers in her childhood friend, Yuuma Kousaka, brother of China
Kousaka, and Sekai Kamiki, a martial arts prodigy who bears a strange
resemblance to another mysterious Gunpla Fighter. Together, under the guidance
of legend Ramba Ral, they form Team Try Fighters. But there’s plenty holding this crew back
from being a top notch team and their opponents are some of the most vicious
Gunpla Fighters to step into the ring.
Right off the bat, I was sad to realize that my guess of
not continuing Sei’s story was a reality here.
I was excited to see a female Gundam character at the forefront of the
team as was anxious to see Fumina develop.
But then we got to Sekai aka Reiji 2.0.
Save for not being from another world, Sekai’s backstory is about the
same as Reiji’s: he doesn’t know anything about Gunpla cause he lives in his
own little martial arts mind set but has good instincts especially when he
learns he can apply his Jigen Haoh School style to battle. Sekai went back and forth with me. Mostly I couldn’t stand him screaming his school’s
name before every attack, what 2 or 3 he constantly reuses. I know this is a staple of Anime, Kenshin
Himura does it often but his sound a lot cooler and less bombastic. And why OH WHY do people keep thinking that
bonding with their machines and enduring life threatening damage as a result is
a good idea continues to elude me.
And then there’s Yuuma…f***ing Yuuma. He is set up from the start as a Gunpla
Builder with a dark past. He was trained
by Sei personally, makes sense given how close Sei was and probably still is
with China, that’s never made clear. But
his Gunpla was destroyed horrifically in a battle with a monstrous Gunpla
model. His confidence shot, Yuuma swore
he’d never fight again but finds himself drawn back in by Fumina out of loyalty
to his childhood friend. And yet Yuuma
always has a ginormous stick up his ass.
He’s always brooding and haunted by this battle that broke him as well
as his Gundam and it feels like he never recovers from it, even if signs point
to otherwise at the end.
Actually this is a decent seguay. Watching Yuuma’s Gunpla get ripped to pieces
is a perfect indicator of how much DARKER Build Fighters Try is. Even at it’s darker and more intense moments,
Gunpla Battle looked like a helluva lot of fun and you could see the glint in
every fighters eyes, even when they lost, to do better in the future. Yuuma’s intense depression over losing his
match and the ferocity of the bulk of the Try Fighters opponents almost makes
this pleasant and fun sport extremely depressing and unlikeable. Sei and Reiji would not have gotten into such
a bad funk as when the Try Fighters lose in skirmish matches. Reiji would declare next time their ass would
be theirs. And Sei would be in awe of
the power of his opponents Gunpla and want to learn more about it and how to
make his better. Yuuma is f***ing
terrified everytime he gets beaten.
There’s a point in the series where someone calls Yuuma “The Second
Coming of Sei Iori”. The second I heard
that I pointed to the scream and shouted “You take that back RIGHT THE F***
NOW!!!” Yuuma was a clear indicator that
as long as he was a main character, I wasn’t going to enjoy this show.
And that was super early on. I tried really hard to hope that I would feel
the same sense of awe, wonder and excitement from Build Fighters…but I just got
more frustrated with each episode. I
think by the mid point I really didn’t care what happened to the main three
characters. Win or lose, it didn’t
matter, I had no interest in their future.
Actually, I couldn’t find a single character to give a crap about. Even the return of familiar faces Ramba Ral and
“Meijin Kawaguchi” Tatsuya Yuuki, never do anything to really breathe ay
familiar levity as both characters are made more serious to match the tone of
the series. Tatsuya’s even given a
female counterpart who isn’t much in terms of just that, a female counterpart,
she’s basically Tatsuya with blonde hair and boobs.
Indeed the cast of Build Fighters Try makes Gunpla Battle
so unappealing it’s practically scary.
One of Sekai’s many rivals in this show appears towards the end and
turns out to be a f***ing terrifying person whose soul purpose in the show is
to shout his will at Sekai while producing facial expressions that are
nightmare fuel (this isn’t made better when you find out that their mutual
master is Domon Kasshu from G Gundam, aka the King of over dramatizing
something so series as Gundam Battle).
It doesn’t help matters, also, that every single team that the Try
Fighters takes on is practically the same through and through. The show doesn’t have a world tournament
setting so the diversity that helped make Build Fighters great is gone. And as I said, what makes Gunpla Battle so
unlikeable is every team is do or die about Gunpla Battle. They may preach about finding it fun to battle
an opponent but everyone has adopted a win at all cost method that’s just way
too dark.
Did I like anything about this series? Honestly the best parts of the show are when
we got some levity that made me feel like when I was watching Build
Fighter. Sekai and Fumina singing “Anime
Janai”, the theme from Gundam ZZ, was cute until f***ing Yuuma told them to
shut up (YOU SHUT UP YOU UN FUN A HOLE!!!).
The G-Muse was amazing with the long history of all that Gundam. And I did like the last half of the final
episode, when everyone joined into a massive free for all Gunpla Battle, not to
win but to have fun. That was the show I
was looking for, that’s the kind of scale and enjoyment I wanted Build Fighters
Try to produce. The first opening theme
was pretty awesome too with Back-On returning to the series…the others were ok
but by that point I was associating them more with my dislike for the show than
any enjoyment.
And honestly, I was hoping Sei and Reiji would appear in
more than just mention. But both heroes
are totally absent, their story pushed to the side in favor of three less than
successful characters. China and Nils
make brief appearances and it was good to see them and I wanted to know more
about what there were up to more than whatever the hell the Try Fighters were
up to. I did hold out some hope that
Fumina and Sekai would hook up, but I guess that was me trying to find small
comfort in this series and not really finding any.
What happened to Sei and Reiji? Did they ever meet again? Did Sei battle some more powerful opponents
who inspired him and in turn he may have inspired? What about Mao and Felini? Where was all the goodness and joy that made
me love Gunpla Battle?
The answers to those questions may never be revealed
since as of right now, I have heard nothing about a third season of Gundam
Build Fighters. But honestly, after the
disaster of a season that Build Fighters Try was, im not sure I want to even
watch a third season. They tried to
follow the sequel rules with Try: up the action, intensify the characters and
the world they live in, make it feel older and more mature. But in the process they sucked out the heart
of what made these battles and the characters behind the models so
likeable. In a way I wish Sei and Reiji
would return for a three on one duel with Fumina, Sekai and Yuuma (especially
Yuuma) so that they could put these three characters in their place and show
them what it means to enjoy a battle, not just saying it (cause I never bought
it even in the end when the Try Fighters said they loved Gunpla Battle) but
feeling it, which I always did watching Sei and Reiji fight on the battlefield.
This show was Gundam Seed Destiny all over again. It was a series I desperately wanted to be
good and, in the end, felt like I had wasted the better part of 25 episodes of
time I will never get back. There are
maybe 2 episodes worth of good material that keep me from rating it lower than
Destiny. But if Gundam Build Fighters
was a fresh and loving move in the right direction for Gundam, then Gundam
Build Fighters Try was a huge step backwards.
And that’s just heartbreaking for me.
