Gundam Build Metaverse - Tumblr Posts

Okay, so we gotta a bunch of information on Gundam Build Metaverse this week, and I got opinions on it.

I’m also gonna just quickly preface this with two things for context.

1. If you’re new to Gundam (since there’s always a bunch of new people with any new show, and Witch from Mercury is no exception), then know that the Build Series has massively lower stakes. The general target demographic is a lot lower, and it typically patterns itself a lot of Pokemon - the whole shonen-y vibe, the whole “to be a master” thing. I personally also like this, but it can be a bit of a tone whiplash going from “mainline” Gundam to the Build Series.

2. As above, I generally like the Build series for both the Anime and the model kits, with both Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try having some of my favourite fight scenes in the entire Gundam series. However, I absolutely loath the first season of Build Divers (I might do a post on it later), and as such a lot of what I don’t want to see is directly cribbed form that.

In a nutshell, though it’s lower-stakes, I’m usually here for the fights and the model designs, and a lot of what I focus on is gonna be those.

I’m trying to stay away from long posts unless it’s analysis or me gushing about something, so I’ll follow this up momentarily.

I have also just found out it’s only going to be three episodes, as opposed to a full series.

The protagonist, Rio Hojo, is essentially standard energetic boy, his design reminds me of Wistario Afram’s a lot, and I’m liking the style of protagonists we’re getting here. He’s also Hawaiian, which is cool. It’s a nice contrast to his avatar, who while I don’t dislike, I do think looks kinda generic in comparison (it’s probably the black hair).

I don’t really have any strong opinions on the mentor, Seria Urutsuki, other than the fact that she’s probably gonna be Mask Lady, the Char. However, Mask Lady?

Is that an Ippei Gyoubu lady? I freaking love it so much. Yeah, it’s a lot like his other work, but his other work is good and we get to see this one animated. I absolutely adore the jacket. It’s always wonderful to see the similarities between how he designs people and how he designs mechs, which elements are common, and which are not.

And now; the mobile suits.

The Lah’s just fine. I don’t really dislike it or anything, I’m inclined to believe that a lot of the design choices are due to it wanting to be an Entry Grade, and thus needing it to be based of a suit that already has an Entry Grade model (this being reinforced by the Build Strike Exceed Galaxy also being an Entry Grade). I do like the RX-78 design and it is justifiably iconic, It’s just we see a lot of them, and it gets routine.

The aforementioned Build Strike Exceed Galaxy looks lovely, and I’m sure it’ll make for some wonderful poses and designs, especially with all the effect parts.

I honestly don’t have much of an opinion on either the F-Kunoichi Kai or the Plutine Gundam. I’m not that interested in Cross Silhouette as a line, and Gundam Build Divers re:rise wasn’t that long ago. I would hope that if they’re releasing the Plutine that we may eventually get kits for the Dubious Arche Gundam and Reverse Turn X from the finale, but I wouldn’t expect it. Though I will admit I would love to Display the HGBF Plutine and the HG00 Plutone opposite each other now.

And now the two I’m actually looking forward to. The Shin Burning Gundam and the 00 Diver Arc. The Shin Burning looks to have such a dynamic pose, and it’s precursors were all typically suits that had an emphasis on Martial Arts, so it’ll make for some cool poses even before considering the wings or effect parts. I do think that the legs look a little odd though, probably the roundedness. The 00 Diver Arc is an odd one, since while I very much disliked the 00 sky, I had basically no feelings on the regular 00 Diver. This one looks to have a fancy energy sword system like the AGE FX or 00 Quanta, which I’m very much interested in (as well as those little sword bucklers on the arms). However, I do find the chest quite boring. Sticking a gun in the chest isn’t an alternative to actual visual design.

Finally, I don’t actually have a stake in the “Metaverse” as a concept, in series or out. I think that someone at Bandai just realised they’d accidentally created advertisement for such a thing in the form of the build series. I should probably also mention that due to the massive amount of MMORPG’s and similarly massive, all-encompassing online things in Japan at time of writing, it’s quite possible that it’s a very different climate to that of the western world in regards to how feasible a metaverse’d actually be.

Okay, so we gotta a bunch of information on Gundam Build Metaverse this week, and I got opinions on it.

I’m also gonna just quickly preface this with two things for context.

1. If you’re new to Gundam (since there’s always a bunch of new people with any new show, and Witch from Mercury is no exception), then know that the Build Series has massively lower stakes. The general target demographic is a lot lower, and it typically patterns itself a lot of Pokemon - the whole shonen-y vibe, the whole “to be a master” thing. I personally also like this, but it can be a bit of a tone whiplash going from “mainline” Gundam to the Build Series.

2. As above, I generally like the Build series for both the Anime and the model kits, with both Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try having some of my favourite fight scenes in the entire Gundam series. However, I absolutely loath the first season of Build Divers (I might do a post on it later), and as such a lot of what I don’t want to see is directly cribbed form that.

In a nutshell, though it’s lower-stakes, I’m usually here for the fights and the model designs, and a lot of what I focus on is gonna be those.

I’m trying to stay away from long posts unless it’s analysis or me gushing about something, so I’ll follow this up momentarily.

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.

While I’ve already given my opinions on Gundam Build Metaverse the series (tl:dr, it’s shit), I would like to give a small update on two of the model kits:

The 00 Diver Arc is (surprise, surprise) based on the 00 Diver kit, which is itself based on the original 00 Gundam Kit. While you can’t swap to the original chest parts (since they’re not included) you should be able to exchange the outer shell of the head for that of the original 00 (they share the face, but a lot of the outer parts are new so it should be a simple changeover). Though of course, this assumes that the 00 runners aren’t replaced (I’ll update this post if I find out they are).

What I’m trying to say is; It’s still a build fighters kit, so you can probably change a few parts around if you want to.

The other kit is the Shin Burning Gundam (Left), because I realised it’s literally just the Kamiki Burning Gundam with wings and a new V-fin slapped on. So if you missed out on the Kamiki, the Shin’ll probably scratch that same itch. (We’ve had four Build Burning Gundam’s now, wild). Though it may come with different effect parts.