Gundam Build Metaverse Then, Now That Ive Finished Watching It.

Gundam Build Metaverse then, now that I’ve finished watching it.

Well, that was shit.

That’s kind of my opinion in a nutshell, but unlike Gundam Breaker Battlogue, I actually want to talk about this one. I’ve mentioned previously that I hold up Build Divers as an example of what I don’t want to see, but while Build Metaverse shares some flaws, it’s a whole new level of failure.

I do want to acknowledge beforehand though that, as with the rest of the build series, Gundam Build Metaverse is aimed at a younger audience and is pretty blatant about its intention to sell toys. Perhaps this precludes it being seriously analysed as a work of entertainment. However, I quite like the original Build Fighters series so I at least want to compare it to that. Gundam Build Metaverse also has the air of: “we’re not doing anything else with this series, ever” about it, simply because it’s almost a reunion of prior characters from the series. As such, I’d like to consider it as the end of the series (because I likely won’t watch any future instalments).

Alright so, the plot as it is; Rio Hojo is joining the Gundam Metaverse in Hawaii and wants to impress his mentor, Seira Urutsuki. Unfortunately she’s sworn off Gundam Metaverse due to a falling out with her sister Maria, in which her Maria used her Gunpla parts without permission in a battle and still lost, revealing her insecurities about not being as good as her sister in the process. Rio eventually challenges Maria and defeats her, healing the rift between the sisters. Along the way Rio meets and interacts with past series protagonists and characters. It’s about as insipid as it sounds.

I want to specifically focus on Maria, the antagonist, because the reveal of her motivation was essentially the point I realised it wasn’t going to get better. The usage of somebody’s Gunpla parts without permission is exactly as dumb of a motivation as it sounds, but the feelings of inadequacy actually has some weight to it, since it’s the sort of topic Build Fighters has touched on before. What bothers me about Maria is that she presents this cool, unbothered persona for her early encounters, but the second Rio mentions her sister, she basically has a breakdown with zero prompting. Over an event that happened two years ago. But wait! It’s typical Gundam protagonist style to talk female foes in giant mobile suits (Maria’s Typhoeus Gundam even incorporates psycho Gundam Mk-II parts), surely Rio can get through! And what does he say?

“But you kept buying the toys, right?”

Real classy there Hojo. And this actually works too, so it just underlines how stupid this entire conflict was.

It bothers me more, because in the original Build Fighters, Aila Jyrkäinen was essentially being forced to compete against her will due to her extraordinary abilities in the field, so Reiji helping her escape that had actual meaning and stakes. But Maria’s grievances are so stupid that it’s just meaningless, moreso that she’s apparently been holding onto this for two years.

Unrelated point, but everyone’s the same age in this, despite the fact that time was pretty clearly established to have passed in the older series. It’s possible that everyone’s using younger avatars for some reason, but both Reiji and Aila show up in crowd scenes set in the real world with their original designs, despite being established as having a child together. I know no-one really cares about chronology in the build series (myself included), but it’s still notable.

There’s two new designs I haven’t discussed yet that I also want to talk about;

First, the Gundam Typhoeus.

I like the Raphael Gundam, I think it’s a nice unit, but the Typhoeus is just grossly overbuilt. I’m used to the build series having gigantic mobile armours to communicate a sense of threat, but when the Typhoeus showed up I genuinely thought “How the fuck is that legal?” It just one-shots three suits with zero effort. I don’t really like designs that are just a bunch of weapons and systems crammed on to make something appear strong, and the Typhoeus is undeniably that. I understand that its model kit gives it a proper loadout when its just in its mobile suit form, but the additional armour is just unnecessary.

The Amazing Barbatos Lupus. As a design, I kinda like it. It’s a reasonably solid update to the Barbatos Lupus and I like how the backpack resembles a Pluma (or indeed, a mini-Hashmal). The mace also reminds me of the shot lancers from Gundam F91, so it feels like a natural “fit”. The new horns are also lovely. My only real criticism of the design is that I feel more could have been done to make it feel “Amazing” - the legs and front skirt for example, are pretty much unchanged. The shoulders I mind less, since the backpack compensates for their plainness, but the lower half just feels lacking.

However, I feel it had a very poor showing in series.

Part of this is because of a wider issue - while the Typhoeus and Maria are very well-animated, the rest of the series seems to have a very limited budget for animation. Many of the fights were short and I spotted instances of recycled animation. Even the first episode with the 00 Diver Arc, which I would say is the best fight in the series (though that isn’t saying much) feels distinctly wooden. I don’t rate the fights, in a nutshell. Furthermore, despite me gushing over Mask Lady’s design last time, we never get to see her properly animated - she’s in two cockpit scenes, largely static, and another where we only see her head and shoulders. It’s a shame.

But the Amazing Barbatos Lupus seems to have been designed to get around this. It’s virtually always seen in static poses - the only time it’s shown to attack is raising its mace and shooting (allowing the rest of the suit to remain still) or firing a beam cannon out of its mace (while the rest of the suit moves in a single pose). So I’m just thinking this the whole time:

So the Barbatos, a suit defined by its approach to melee combat, just flies about shooting a beam cannon out of its mace. The only dynamic shot it actually has is when it pulls out it’s claws to fight Kyoya Kujo, a fight which we do not see. Speaking of Kyoya Kujo, it’s built up that Meijin Kawaguchi III is finally going to have a climactic battle with Sei and Reiji, then Kyoya (who is, and always has been a nothing character) just shows up out of nowhere to challenge him and prevent the fight (to save them having to animate it, presumably).

Speaking of Nothing Characters, basically every returning character’s bereft of personality in this. They’re just here “to fight”. There’s no motivation or anything, they just want to fight in the Gundam Metaverse. So they feel like cardboard cut-outs. (For the record, I liked Magee in Build Divers, but in this they’re just…. Stereotypical? I think?). Speaking of a cast of cardboard, pretty much all the female characters get pushed aside in this. I’m not going to dwell on it, since I don’t find it surprising given the shows demographic, but none of the female characters are shown with any agency, they lose pretty much every fight they’re in and Maria ascends to the title of “Lady Kawaguchi VII”. So, the seventh Lady Kawaguchi, despite no-one having dethroned Meijin Kawaguchi III in all this time, you’re telling me there’s been six Lady Kawaguchi’s? Almost like the position’s disposable? (You could maybe say Gyanko’s an exception to losing every fight, but that feels like grasping at straws, since she’s barely a cameo).

Gundam Build Metaverse - a show that really wants you to be excited for the Metaverse, and has a plot almost as sufferance.

I feel like the fact that my highlight of the show was seeing 0.3 seconds of the Schuzrum Gallus probably illustrates how little I liked this show.

EDIT: I somehow made this entire post without remembering the name of the series protagonist, Rio Hojo. Instead, I mixed him up with Wistario Afram, the protagonist of Urdr Hunt. So yeah, the protagonist is pretty forgettable, because I literally forgot him.

I’m gonna be honest, I like the Star Wars Expanded universe as much as the next person, but honestly I enjoyed it a lot more once I realised it’s not all worth it.

(a third evil Shaak Ti Knockoff? Well’s running a bit dry there, huh?)

Don’t get me wrong, there’s good stuff in there (I have a particular fondness for some of the Han Solo Novels), but there’s a lot of schlock too. It’s a big universe and they can’t all be winners.

Once upon a time, I felt like it was a reasonable goal to read all the Star Wars tie-in comics, they only came out like 3-4 per week, they're just 23 pages, it's totally doable! But I have realized, no, I just fundamentally do not care about certain sets of characters or parts of the Star Wars galaxy. "You could still do it for completion's sake!" my brain keeps whispering in a coaxing voice. "You could look for fun little gems like 'swearing in the gffa' that way! Just 3-4 comics a week, that's easy to get done!" And I have to tell that voice to shut up, because that half hour or 45 minutes I spend reading those comics and roving my eye over the panels to see if there's anything funny in the background might not be a lot of time, but I could be spending that time every week watching a TV show I liked or reading a fic I liked. And most importantly I am freeing myself of this prison. COMPLETIONISM IS A PRISON. IT IS ONLY FUN IF YOU ACTUALLY LIKE ALL THAT STUFF. COMPLETING IT JUST TO COMPLETE IT DOES NOT ACTUALLY MAKE YOUR BRAIN HAPPY THERE IS NO SATISFYING "I SCRATCHED THIS ITCH" FEELING AT THE END OF IT. IT IS LIES. IT ONLY ENDS IN EXHAUSTION AND "WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS WORTH IT?" FREE YOURSELF OF COMPLETIONISM FOR COMPLETIONISM'S SAKE NOW.

Finalists of the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Dispute by Jacek Stankiewicz from Kraków, Poland: 'I caught this scene while watching birds in the Bialowieza Forest. Young greenfinch was still fed by parents. However, from time to time birds looked like having argument. My friends interpret this scene in two ways: A young naughty kid is arguing with a parent. Or one kid is reporting to the parent that its brother did something wrong: "Look he has broken the glass in the window"'

'Excuse me sir but I think you're a little too young to be smoking' by Dakota Vaccaro from Victor, United States: 'While I was working deep in the Virginian woods, a family of grey foxes took up residence under the deck of the abandoned cottage next to my work housing. One day while practicing their hunting skills on bits of moss and branches, one of the kits lunged at a small chunk of wood and started rolling around with his prize. Tired after his hunt the kit lounged on his belly still holding the wood in his mouth which gave the strong resemblance of a cigar. I was very envious of the kit at this moment cause who wouldn't want to just lay around all day relaxing'

The Rainforest Dandy by Delphine Casimir from Brussels, Belgium: 'This picture was taken in the monkey forest in Ubud, Bali. This place is a crazy place where monkeys are king! Sometimes they give a show, sometimes they climb on you to look for fleas or steal the piece of biscuit you are trying to eat'

Otter Ballerinas by Otter Kwek from Singapore: 'An arabesque smooth coated otter'

Picture me! Picture me!! by Dikla Gabriely from Yokneam, Israel: 'A brown bear in Finland who definitely did everything to make me pay attention to him and focus on him and not the other bears'

Boing! by Lara Mathews from Melbourne, Australia: 'Taken at Westerfolds Park, a beautiful and surprisingly wild pocket of land in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, famous for its kangaroo population. The mob was enjoying some morning sunshine when this joey decided to get silly and try his hand at boxing'

Living the Moment by Kawing Chiu from Staten Island, United States: 'Relax, lay back and enjoy the warm sun... This seal is scratching its face and it is seen lying on the side while his head is supported by his flipper. This image makes the seal like the reclining Buddha statue'

Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand Of Darkness (1981) (Tim White)

So if, like myself, you’d been wondering what happened regarding the announcement of that HG Gundam Hajiroboshi 2nd Form, the answer is that it’s a P-Bandai and will be releasing in December.

I went on a tirade about P-Bandai and Ibo when I talked about the Oltlinde, so I’m not gonna do that again.

This is just where the Hajiroboshi 2nd Form’s at.

The Famicom/NES port of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (the first game in the series) was co-developed and published by ASCII Entertainment (aka Nexoft) and released in 1987. Jun Suemi designed the monsters for this port and his illustrations grace the trading cards shown here (a partial set only). From my understanding, one random card was included when you bought the game in Japan.