Gundam Build Series - 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.

So I’d been meaning to talk about the Gundam Build Series for a while, since I mentioned a while ago that I’m quite fond of it. I should mention that I haven’t watched either Build Fighters or Build Fighters try in over a year, so I may get some details wrong.

I really like both shows, and I think they’re about the same in terms of overall quality.

I will get one quick elephant out of the room first though. These series exist to sell toys, even moreso than the other Gundam series. This is basically the thesis statement of the entire series, and this is the main reason why they’re so very different than the “regular” Gundam series. It’s…… not too bad? Since they’re generally preaching to the choir when it comes to the actual model kits, and the designs for the show are essentially a showcase of some really cool custom models based on existing ones. Like, yes, thesis was to sell cool robots, but you can’t really accuse them of skimping on the cool robots.

At its core, it’s a story about “to be the greatest there ever was, wholly distinct from those before you” with a good sprinkling of personal growth.

The very general plot of the original Build Fighters is: Sei Iori (left, blue) is a bookish nerd whose parents run the local model shop, Sei dreams of entering the Gunpla Battle World Championships (essentially where Gundam models are animated by special particles so they can duke it out amongst each other; think fighting game tournaments but with physical objects) but though he’s really good at building them, he’s absolutely terrible at fighting with them. However, he meets Reiji (right, red sunglasses), a mysterious boy who’s really, really good at fighting with the Gunpla Sei builds, and together they form a two-man team to take on the other competitors.

It’s a pretty solid premise, and it works well. There’s a revolving cast of characters (Sei and Reiji make many rivals, who are pretty well-rounded) and the stakes start low, but get steadily higher as time goes on, giving the series a natural progression and allowing them to introduce darker elements as it goes on. Gunpla battles provides a nice, solid core for the ancillary elements to move around (though the show is still very much about the Gunpla battles).

So how are those Gunpla Fights?

They’re pretty damn good. Honestly, I’ve watched a little over half the shows they’ve made for Gundam, and I still count several of the fights in Gundam Build Fighters as my all time favourites. I’ll admit I usually like a little bit of philosophising with my giant robot fights, but you can definitely see the influence of this series on later ones, simply through the fight scenes.

Character wise? Yeah, solid. The show does wring a lot out of the “rival” template (The Main Rival, Mentor Rival, “Cool” Rival, The one who starts off goofy but is actually just as determined as the leads, etc), but there’s other side characters with their own goals. Build fighters does create a very believable world around its premise, since the rest of the world is pretty contemporary, it’s played almost like a sporting thing - fans and other people in the know can look at it and get passionate about it, but the works isn’t exclusively built around it. Due to this, a lot of the characters - even the bit ones, can feel very fleshed out. Gunpla Battle is a thing they do, it’s not there entire personality. To expand on that a little, I’m going to swing back around to the protagonists. Sei is a Gundam nerd, yes, but as above he has other aspects to him. He has friends and relationships through Gunpla Battle but they rely on who he is, not just on him being a nerd. Reiji is sorta the “cool idiot” he doesn’t really have an arc in the story, fundamentally because he’s the catalyst for Sei’s, triggering his growth as a person. Reiji just wanders about triggering other people’s character growth (other than the episode when the duo split up, but that doesn’t really change Reiji as an individual, it’s more about Sei) and seeing how other characters interact with him. It goes in well with the conclusion of the series (which I shan’t spoil) because it basically ties all that up really rather well.

The mobile suit designs are honestly pretty good across the board with this one. It’s smaller than on average, both due to the smaller series (25 episodes) and the fact that other series mobile suits get used as grunts.

Gundam Fighters Try is the sequel series, set several years later, with a different cast. I’ll probably do a separate post on it some other time, but pretty much all the points I made above that aren’t related to the protagonists also apply to it.

In a nutshell: Gundam Build Fighters: To sells toys, but the fight scenes are amazing and the characters are pretty solid.