The word is out: for GBN to survive, Sarah must be
eliminated. Unwiling to let that happen,
Riku and the Build Divers go rogue to protect their cherished teammate. In the process, this makes them Public Enemy
#1 and all of GBN is gunning for them.
Rivals become allies. Mentors
become adversaries. No matter the
obstacle, Riku will risk it all to find a way to save both Sarah and GBN. It’s the ultimate challenge that will signal
the end of GBN as it’s know, or herald the dawn of a new age for the digital
world of Gunpla and cement the Build Divers in the pages of history.
I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty peeved at the end of the
penultimate set of Build Divers episodes.
Sarah’s revealed origins weren’t the problem though, nevermind that they
were all answers to questions that no one had ever bothered to ask about
her.
No it was the reaction of the Game
Master and the Administration as to how to deal with Sarah and her
unintentional causing of new game breaking bugs that could bring down all of
GBN.
Things went from fun and enjoyable
to heartless and depressing pretty quickly and it made me worry about the
finale of this series that I had been enjoying despite its flaws.
And while some of those issues persisted, so
did Riku and the Build Divers, who showed that no matter the odds, hope never
dies and it’s the perfect encapsulation of everything this show has been
emphasizing since the first episode.
I’d
call it a bit of a miracle win but let’s see how everything turned out during
this Series Finale.
I’m surprised all of GBN was on the manhunt for Sarah
after the Game Master outed her to the world.
I actually don’t think the finale did enough with everyone suddenly
learning that GBN had given birth to a new kind of living, feeling being.
Instead, we focused squarely on the
characters we’d always been following and their different approaches to
handling Sarah’s situation.
Riku
continued to search for her but Kyoya got to Sarah first.
I really wanted to see how Kyoya would be
positioned in this finale.
He’s the big
hero of GBN, the Champ.
If the whole of
GBN was at stake, would he have to bend to the Game Masters wishes to just off
Sarah without a second thought or would he let his close mentorship with Riku
drive his emotions?
Thankfully it was
more the latter.
Kyoya kept Sarah safe
at his Force Base and even pushed Riku to go to war to give the Build Divers a
chance to get her back.
As much as I’d
like him to tell the GM to screw off, this was the best way to circumvent his
demands for a little while longer…plus we needed an excuse for a big end of the
series action event too.
Still, while
others caved to the pressure of losing GBN forever, Kyoya really surprised me
and stayed true to his beliefs while being a final test for his protegee Riku
and you could tell he wasn’t giving up on the kid, even if he had to pummel him
senseless sometimes.
Speaking of pummeling, the finale gave us all the big
match ups we’d been waiting for.
Riku
faced off with Ogre.
Tigerwolf fought
Sharyar.
And Riku and Ogre had a 2v1
against Kyoya.
The fate of all of GBN
was at stake but these three duels were at the heart of it all…ok not so much
the Tigerwolf v Sharyar fight because that one felt forced and Shary even
admitted to joining the Coalition just so he could fight Tiger without
limitations.
The other two battles were
great and some of the best in Build Divers.
Ogre thoroughly trounced Riku but just kept pushing and pushing to get
Riku to test his resolve to save Sarah.
It was a good primer for the nearly unbeatable wall of power that was
Kyoya, so much
that Ogre came to Riku’s
aid, if only so he could face the Champ himself.
Flashy, fast paced and plenty brutal, these
bouts were just straight up fun and it was equally fun watching the Game Master
pout since unless these were resolved, he couldn’t have his way and just delete
Sarah.
Indeed, the Game Master has been the source of a lot of
my frustrations with Build Divers since the moment he was introduced in his SD
Gundam Force form.
The more he kept sputtering
on about his duty to protect GBN at any cost, the less I believed he was
honorable and was less worried about GBN and more about getting his way.
The guy is so single minded he refused to
open his mind to possibility that both Sarah and GBN could be saved.
He wanted to save one over the other without
realizing that doing something so heartless could destroy GBN in a whole other
way.
Even Magee pointed out to Rommel
that no one would ever be able to play the game without thinking of Sarah being
erased.
There was a lot of “the needs of
the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” speeches being flung around
by a lot of characters.
But lest we Star
Trek fans forget that the opposite is sometimes true as well, “The needs of the
one outweigh the needs of the many.”
Thank Goodness there’s players like Riku and the Build Divers out
there.
They deserves to run the Administration
more than the Game Master and his attempts to try and jump in on the final
battle with the Raid Boss felt less like he was apologizing and more like he
was just saving face.
Here’s hoping we
don’t see much of him, if at all in Re: Rise.
With all the emotion being through into the fight to save
Sarah, the Raid Boss battle felt like an unnecessary final addition to the
series.
It was good to see GBN come
together to protect the world they love and for Riku to acknowledge he might’ve
been a bit hasty in some of his actions.
But there was little love lost between friends, even Rommel apologized
for being a douche to protect his second in command…who we actually don’t see
what their RL situation is like and why Rommel was so desperate to help
him.
That said, everyone meeting IRL at the
end was fun and something I didn’t think the show would do beyond the core
Build Divers.
Kyoya, Magee, Tiger and
even Shary all popped up though it would’ve been fun to see Ogre and Doji
appear too.
Sarah showed up too, her
consciousness now uploaded to a tiny Gunpla body that she can freely move
around in and even log into GBN through without any risk to the system.
The body kind of looks weird and its hard to
question how it really works…but Sarah got a happy ending after the Game Master
gave her so much hopeless grief so I’ll allow it.
And that just about covers it for Gundam Build
Divers.
How was it?
It was good for the most part.
I felt like I was enjoying Build Fighters all
over again on a digital stage and the world of GBN seems to have no limits to
its imagination or list of activities…when the Game Master and the
Administration weren’t involved that is.
I liked the core cast of die hard Gundam fans who were seeking out
friendships and adventures with their shiny Gunpla built with love.
The Sarah mystery reveal and the Game Master’s
antagonistic character felt unnecessary and only as a way to force a new
conflict into the second half of the show that threatened to make GBN as
depressing as Build Fighters Try made GP Duel.
But the unshakable bonds and spirit of Riku, Yuki, Momo, Ayame and
Koichi carried this show and turned enemies into friends, won the respect of a
fun supporting cast of Veteran Players and, more importantly, reminded me why
Gundam is such an important part of my own personal life and Anime history.
This is a 25 episode long toy commercial, you
wont hear me argue otherwise.
But it’s a
fun toy commercial and it definitely does its job cause not only do I wanna
build more Gunpla, I really wanna play GBN too.
Gundam Build Divers gets a 7.5/10
But we’re not done with Gunpla Battle Nexus Online just
yet.
We’ve only reached the halfway mark
of our Extended Summer Series Review and Next Week, we’re back in the game with
a new cast and new mission.
Gundam
Build Divers Re:Rise launches This Monday right here at the Gundam Anime
Corner.
READY? GO!!!!!
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