It’s been seven years since Sei Iori and Reiji’s victory
at the 7th Gunpla World Tournament.
Gunpla Battles have changed.
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.
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.
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.
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 segue. Watching Yuuma’s Gunpla get ripped to pieces
is a perfect indicator of how much DARKER Build Fighters Try is. Even at its darkest 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 continuously 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 shout several obscenities.
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. 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.
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 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 Fighters. Sekai and Fumina singing “Anime Janai”, the
theme from Gundam ZZ, was cute until Yuuma told them to shut up. 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. 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.
2.5/10
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