Gundam Build Fighters - Part 1

Mobile Suit Gundam: one of my favorite franchises, and one of the most recognizable in the entire world. Walking around for over 30 years, the face of Gundam is recognizable to any sane man with any shred of dignity in him. A series motivated by great storytelling and selling toys, it was only a matter of time before this series realizes its own selling point, and just sell out. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. It depends on how it’s handled. When a series finally realizes its purpose of selling toys for ages, it can go in one of two ways:

1: Toss it under the rug and not even try to give a reason for the story or even the series. Just make up shit as you go and sell it off to the kids for an extra 10 bucks.

2: Give a damn about the series and the legacy you’re carrying

Luckily, today’s subject has taken the Power Rangers route and is going to honor the history its series has had (well, depending on which company you're under). What are we talking about? Gundam Build Fighters and its sequel Gundam Build Fighters Try.

Sunrise had a little “test flight” with a series before this, Mobile Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G, a 3 episode OVA made in honor of Gundam’s 30^th Anniversary. The concept: Gundam does indeed exist in another universe and through the mystical power of science, the human race has achieved the miracle of bringing the Gunpla to life and battle each other. Build Fighters expands on the 3 episode OVA, and takes the steering wheel with psychotic glee. Today’s little article is gonna be a two-parter; each covering a season.

I’ll be brief, but there will be spoilers ahead.

Let’s get ready and launch into: Gundam Build Fighters

Story:

In this universe, Gundam has become the center of Japanese culture after the discovery of the “Plavsky Particle”; a special bit of science that allows the plastic in Gunpla to come to life. With this new technology, what’s to be done? Well, considering the country of origin, what else? Sell that shit like hot cakes. Say hello to: Gunpla Battle. Builders of Gunpla are now able to fight each other in Gunpla Battle. The higher the quality of your build (nub marks, painting, customized parts, ect.), the stronger your Gunpla.

Meet Sei Iori: the son of a famous Gunpla Battler and an amazing builder who works at a family run Gunpla Store with his mother. Sei is not only a fan of Gunpla, but of the entire Gundam franchise (think that one faboy you meet at conventions who ACTUALLY sensible about liking the series instead of being weaboo trash). He is constantly pestered by Gyan enthusiast Susumu Sazaki to let him pilot Sei’s well built kits. However, Sei refuses out of fear that Sazaki will get reckless and trash them in battle. The problem is that Sei WANTS one of his Gunpla to enter the world Gunpla Battle Championship, but can’t on his own with his weak piloting skills.

One day, he meets a mysterious boy named Reiji at a park. Reiji seems to know next to nothing about Gunpla or even anything about the world or society, which perplexes Sei. After clearing up some cultural confusion about thievery with a store clerk Reiji stole some bread from, Reiji gives Sei a strange blue gem. Reiji says that should Sei make a wish on it, Reiji will be there.

Later on, Sei agrees to a bet with Sazaki in a Gunpla Battle. Should Sei lose, Sazaki gets to use his newly built Build Strike in the tournament. Sei gets trounced, but just as he’s about to lose, Reiji appears to help. While finding difficulty at first, Reiji defeats Sazaki and saves the Build Strike.

Sei finally realizes that with Reiji’s incredible skills at fighting and his own skills as a builder would make them unstoppable. Reiji however has little to no interest in Gunpla Battle; he only fought to repay Sei. When the two are forced to battle alongside each other again at Sei’s school, the president of both the student council and model building club Tatsuya Yuuki challenges them to perfect their Gunpla and fight him again at the championship. Afterward, Reiji finally agrees to fight with Sei during the tournament in order to settle the score.  

And so, the story of Gundam Build Fighters and the journey to the World Championship has begun! 

…Shortly followed by Reiji vanishing into thin air.

So…that happened.

The story IS fairly basic. If anything, it’s a sports-anime disguised as a mech anime for all things considered. I’d like to think of this more like Battle B-Daman if you could remote control the bots (Congrats to the 5 people who got that reference). But honestly, while the story is your basic “journey to the tournament” basic ala Dragon Ball, it’s the filling of this series that makes the journey so much fun. Each episode is evenly paced with the right amount of character development and fair amount of Gunpla battling to give the Gundam fans their mecha-boners. While there is a battle for EVERY episode, each battle is unique and well choreographed enough to keep you invested and not be bored by the constant fighting.

The biggest gripe some folks might have about this series is: why is everyone taking this so seriously? They have a slight point; these are all just models you build and fight each other with. If anything, its kinda counterproductive that you spend all of that time building these kits, but then have them all smashed to pieces in fights. Luckily, an old soldier has something to say about that.

“Gundam plastic models... Gunpla. Building them or fighting them, it all depends on you. Unlike the Mobile Suit Gundam story, we're not in a state of war, and we don't have to put our lives on the line. It's just played for pleasure. But... No, for that very reason... People can be enthralled by Gunpla and Gunpla Battle. Because it's a game, they can take it seriously!”

Spoiler Alert: Favorite character, right here.

And that’s a GREAT way to summarize Gundam Build Fighters: passion. This show is all about the passion of being a Gundam fan and living in a world where not only is that accepted, it’s embraced. Everyone has a passion, and these fighters are no different. The story of this series takes that concept very seriously and shows that you should be passionate about what you like and what you do.

And even then, the tournament isn’t the main plot line. Two other stories rear their heads in the middle of all of this. The first is the investigation of the mysterious Plavsky Particle by a boy genius named Nils Nielson. It seems that the exact ORIGIN of the Plavsky Particle is a mystery to everyone but the makes, and it takes a 13 year-old son of a detective and a martial artist to ask “So what exactly ARE these particles, anyway?”.

I mean, I get that businesses are money-grubbing asshats, but did ANYBODY think about the ramifications of a particle that allows you to essentially bring plastic models to life and use them as deadly weapons of mass destruction?

“I just discovered this particle that can bring these super robots we make to life!”

“Can they be controlled?”

“Of course! With this unique control system, you can manipulate the Gunpla to fight like in the show!”

“….AIKO! GET ME THE P.A. TEAM! WE’RE GONNA SPAM THIS SHIT!”

“Like the Strike Freedom?”

“….”

Seriously! With how many Gunpla we see throughout this series, Gundam Build Fighters is one asshole spilling coke on a computer away from turning into the Gunplanator.

…Actually, that sounds freaking awesome!

Among other plots in the story, there’s a romance sub-plot of Sei Iori and the local nice girl China Kousaka. It’s actually well done and not overly rushed or dragged along like a dead corpse like just about EVERY. SINGLE. ROMANCE in anime history. There’s mysterious aces, legendary pilots, it’s just full with a lot of plot here. Of course, there are some plot holes. The above mentioned “Plavsky Particle” issue is the biggest one by far.

The only other glaring plot issue I have is the whole concept of “Reiji”. It becomes fairly obvious near the beginning of the series that Reiji is from another world, but that kinda ruins a few things for me. The idea of the character having no idea about Gunpla would allow some room for exposition and serve as the audience surrogate, but the whole “mystical” element to everything just feels so out of place. Yes, I’m complaining that magic seems out of place in a world where plastic models are shooting mile long lasers at each other. There’s suspension of disbelief, and then there’s ass pull. I mean, had they made him from some made-up ass country in the middle of Russia or freaking PERU, then I’d have not as much hate for this plot line.

Otherwise, the story is VERY solid and engaging. On to the next subject.

Characters

This series has a semblance of a shonen series more than a mech series, so there are PLENTY of characters to around. Let’s go over just the main ones we care about.

Sei Iori – Our deuteragonist . Sei is a timid and shy kid, but very passionate about Gunpla and Gundam as a whole. His piloting however makes him a crap shot as he’s subconsciously scared of damaging his Gunpla. He’s a well written representation of fans of Gundam as a whole; intelligent about it, cohesive, and willing to speak to others about his passions. He even serves as a decent straight guy to Reiji’s antics. He even gets the most development towards the end of the series when he starts piloting every so often.

Reiji – Our audience surrogate. Reiji itches for a fight and is very much a temporal fish out of water. He does decent as a surrogate, but it becomes rather pointless when he makes random spouts about his home world and its mysteries when WE don’t even know about it. However, while not exactly bright by any means, he is every honorable and willing to understand WHY there are people so excited about watching toys fight each other. He is a bit on the flat side in terms of development, but he is more of the brawn rather than the brains. Luckily, he does share one thing with all Gundam fans: the need to attract mentally damaged waifus (later).

China Kousaka: A classmate at Sei’s school who is a very talented painter and shares a mutual crush on Sei. While pegged as the typical “nice girl”, she does get her own development and gets into Gunpla Battle through Sei’s influence and starts piloting and adorable teddy bear version of the Acguy. She’s harmless on her own, and her romance with Sei is a welcome change to the long running pattern of anime romances that either go nowhere, end ambiguously, or leave it up to the hope of a second season with a lame, half-assed harem ending.

Tatsuya Yuuki (Meijin Kawaguchi III): Our Char-clone for the series. While on the outside, Tatsuya is a calm and rather mild-mannered member of the student council and model building club. However, once a Gunpla Battle starts, a hot-blooded warrior comes out and dishes out all kinds of pain with a goddamn smile on his face. If Sei is the “good” representation of Gundam fans, Tatsuya is the good “EXTREME” end of that multi-spectrum. Tatsuya earns the title and guise of “Meijin Kawaguchi III”, a representative of Plavsky Particles System Engineering (the Plavsky Particle Creators), who hopes to bring fun and joy back to Gunpla Battle; something disregarded by the previous Kawaguchi. He is honestly a joy to watch and see development through this entire series. He even stands as having one of the best fights in the entire show. While it does come off kind of odd why he’s such a dick at the beginning of donning the title, it is well made up by just how enthusiastic he is about this entire ordeal.

 

Ricardo Fellini: The reigning Italian champion.  Named “The Italian Dandy”, Ricardo is a VERY fun character. He’s described as a playboy. How do we see proof? He picks up women…with Gunpla. And…it works. I don’t know about you, but the last time I tried using a robot to impress a girl, I got quickly steamrolled by a good laugh and heartbreaking speech. We learn later on that he is just as passionate about Gunpla Battle as Tatsuya and Sei, but he has a “special” end of the multi-spectrum. At one point in the series, we get a flashback of him playing and using his Wing Gundam from since he was a little boy and ALWAYS using just the one and upgrading it as the years went by. I may be overanalyzing it, but I believe Ricardo is a representation of Gundam being a big facet to our childhood. The flash back of him going through the years with this one Wing Gundam is honestly heartbreaking to see how much love and care he has for this one little model and the passion he’ll go to prove its greatness. Hell, this even got some foreshadowing with Sei proclaiming in the first episode how GREAT the Wing Gundam is to a customer.

Granted, this could be fanwank to all the Wing-fans, but honestly it really is touching how much he cared for his Gunpla. Granted, its kinda ruined when it receives a “Last-Second-Selling Upgrade” in the final episode, but the story prior to that was decent. It helps that the character IS very charming and funny. Flat as well, but a good kind of flat.

Mao Yasaka: The student of the Gunpla Shingyo School in Osaka, Mao has a bit of an ego and hopes to succeed in the school from his current Master Chinan. As his master feared Sei’s father’s talents, Mao had hoped to become a rival to Sei. However, the two actually became friends with their mutual respect for the other’s building abilities. Mao is a very hyperactive character, and is entertaining enough to back it up. He even foreshadows a bit how the Plavsky Particles play an important part in great battle tactics. A running gag of the show is that he has no money and instead pays for things by building high quality Gunpla. Much like Ricardo’s way of picking up women, this somehow works.

I’m pretty sure that even if Gundam became A HELL of a lot more recognizable and famous in the world because of the Plavsky Particles, but I highly doubt that everyone is willing to bend over backwards just to get a Gunpla. Then again, most of the aforementioned antics happen more in JAPAN than anywhere else in the world, so….okay I buy it now.

Nils Nielson: The “Early Genius” with a PhD, a black belt in karate and judo, as well as the son of a famous detective and martial artist, Nils is everyone’s favorite Gary-Stu OC. It doesn’t help that he’s the only black guy I’ve seen in an anime. By god did he luck out in the genetics department. Nils is more interested in learning about the secrets of the Plavsky Particle, and joins the tournament solely so he can investigate PPSE. While he comes off as single minded and flat as door, he developes GREATLY as a character through his interactions with Sei and other numerous characters. Soon enough, he becomes just as passionate about Gunpla. He even gets his own romance sub-plot with a pre-pubescent princess dominatrix. Kinda fitting, actually.

Aila Jyrkiainen – As with all Gundam series, there always has to be a Super Soldier Tyke Bomb. Luckily, best grill Aila is here to provide it. From the Flana Institute (get it?), Aila is their representative in the tournament who defeated last year’s champion…with a Jegan. She’s just THAT good. On the surface, she’s emotionless and cold. On the inside, she’s actually a very emotional character with a DEEP love of food. She’s actually fairly entertaining and dramatically written well. Though she does become the typical tsundere with Reiji eventually, it is done in the most hilarious way possible and I can forgive that.

Chairman Mashita: The founder of PPSE and the creator of the Plavsky Particle. As the head of the company hosting the tournament, he has free-reign to do as he pleases. A very childish man, he seems to have a history with Reiji and seeks to rid him from the tournament out of some mysterious fear. His assistant, Miss Baker, does everything for him and calms hi down during his out bursts. I guess he’s supposed to be our antagonist for the series, but he’s not exactly useful seeing as Baker does everything for him and he doesn’t ever think to arrange the freaking Meijin to just go up against Sei and Reiji when the two have LOST to him before TWICE (technically). He’s more for comic relief, than anything.

Rinko Iori: The milf. Always energized and pushing for China and Sei to get together. Seriously, you go to google images to look her up and you will be stunned by the amount of porn on her (safe search off, don’t be a bitch). She’s the object of many men’s affections. She is there for side-line comedy and fanservice, but she’s not exactly useless. If nothing else, she just adds to the list of reasons why our next character is such a boss.

Here were my results. Post yours!

Alright, enough dancing around. Bring down the mic! It’s time for a proper introduction.

Introducing…from parts unknown! Weighing up to an XL Hawaiian shirt, at 35 years old…it’s the Blue Giant, the Lieutenant, the GODDAMN Gouf Troop…!

Mr….RAL!!!!!!!

Mr. Ral – A Gunpla veteran, Mr. Ral serves as the aging fan of the Gundam series. A regular of the Iori Gunpla shop and the Battle Bar, Mr. Ral serves as a coach of sorts for Sei and Reiji. He even gives exposition on certain models, story lines, or abilities from Gundam when Sei is unable to. Mr. Ral is flat as well, but by god is he just fanwank. Everything about him is just quotes from the original Ramba Ral from Mobile Suit Gundam, but its freaking awesome because it’s RAMBA RAL. This guy is a veteran of Gunpla Battle, is the top dog of a bar dedicated to old Gunpla veterans fighting each other, and is infamous in the Gunpla Battle circuit in its entirety. He even has his own running gag where his butt itches any time there’s a “shipping scene” between characters. This guy is like the parallel universe version of Segata Sanshiro. All he needs to do is beat the shit out of people and by god, the transformation is complete. 

Hell, he DOES get a fight scene with a guy called “C” who works for the Gunpla Mafia. No, I’m not even kidding. There’s a fucking mafia dedicated to illegal Gunpla activity that gets its own counter-police force to fight against it. Can we just get our own prequel show about how Mr. Ral became so much of a badass? I’d buy that for a dollar!

Hell, the guy is even a BRO. What do I mean? Well, it becomes obvious early on that he’s got it bad for Sei’s mother Rinko. He’s always trying to flirt with her, and swats away competition. But do you know what he does when Rinko’s husband comes back after being away for a long enough time for there to be a slight hole? He steps aside and lets the two be happy. This man cares enough for this woman to recognize that she’s happy and lets her be happy with the man she chose. Mr. Ral single-handedly said to every “nice guy” to shove it.

Just the greatest character in this series. So naturally, the second series wastes him. But that’s a story for another day.

Production

Went a little long on the characters; my bad. This section will just cover the animation and the music as a whole. The soundtrack is actually pretty good. It’s upbeat, catchy, and gets you into the fighting spirit. My favorite track of the OST has to be “Rival”. It’s just the kind of second-wind type of track to rev up your spirits. The first opening song is one of my personal favorites, just right behind “Sono Chi No Sadame”.

The animation for the human sections is pretty decent, all things considered. All of the main characters have unique looks and are very distinctive. Luckily no real stereotypes show up for the non-Japanese characters, which is a bloody miracle. I could complain that the character Greco Logan is generalization of the American fanbase with his mannerisms and choice of Gunpla (A Wing Gunpla, for that matter) are typical of American fans, but that’s just a shot in the dark.

The action scenes however are FANTASTIC. In fact, everything revolved around the Gunpla themselves is great. Every design is unique and shows of traits of the character’s personality. Ricardo’s Fenice is fancy, graceful, and cool (it has a freaking motorcycle), Aila’s is twisted, intimidating, and fierce, and other examples. Some designs were a little odd. I.E. the Kampfer Amazing, while cool, is just a regular Kampfer with better weapons and symmetrical shoulders. In addition, as much as Mao is praised for his building ability, his Gundam X Mao is not really…different from the regular Gundam X.

The actions scenes are fantastic. Each and every battle has a unique twist to it that allows the audience to feel refreshed when the enemy has a new tactic our protagonist of the episode has to battle against. By far the best fights are either Ricardo in his Fenice against Sei and Reiji or Meijin against an enemy known as the Renato Brothers, the latter being the best out of them all. The only disappointing thing is that Sei creates a booster for the Build Strike that manipulates the Plavsky Particles to use new attacks. While useful and creative for the fights, it reduces A LOT of his fights to just super robot antics that are a complete ass pull. At least it’s handled in that he only has three abilities and each are at least hinted at early on. But it does get ridiculous when the enemy gets smart enough to take out one of his unique abilities, but then it’s followed up by Sei pulling another new power out of nowhere. It just becomes straight super robot territory and ruins the fun.

Granted this IS a Gundam series; super robot elements can’t always be avoided.

Fanwank

Oh boy…is there A LOT of fanwank in here.

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh man, you have no idea how funny this actually is.

Anyone else smell burnt hamburgers? 

It’s not just the constant references to the show that the characters make or that some characters are just staples of Gundam series themselves. It’s the cameos. It has long since been debated as a fan theory that the universe Gundam Build Fighters takes place in is a sort-of “Valhalla” for every Gundam character who ever lived. When they pass on, they end up here. And honestly, I’m behind to believe it. It seems odd, but I actually don’t mind the cameos of the other Gundam characters. While Mr. Ral is a cameo in it of himself, he at least serves a decent position in the plot instead of just getting fangasms from the audience.

One could compare all of the cameos as like a bad video game movie: all of your favorite characters are here! Only they don’t really do anything beyond just show up to get more fanboys to buy tickets. This time however, while Mr. Ral serves somewhat of a cohesive purpose in the series, should any other of the Gundam characters show up and be involved in the story, it would just get ridiculous. Hence, why I think this show avoids that video game movie trait and exceeds in pleasing fans in the just the right way.

Plus, some of them are actually hilarious and can make a decent drinking game (if you’re brave enough). Sadly, like Mr. Ral, this will also disappear somewhat in the following series. Or, so I had thought…

Conclusion: 

Gundam Build Fighters, as a whole, is a love letter. It’s honoring the 30+ of history that the Gundam franchise has had. We've had our good times and our bad, and it doesn't deny any of it. And I do mean…any of it.

Overall, even if you’re not a Gundam fan, I would still recommend this series to any anime fan. While some of the references will go over your head, you can just laugh at everyone taking plastic models as series as these characters do. The animation is good, the music is catchy, the fights are astounding, the designs are unique and colorful, its just a great ride.

I would say its mandatory that every Gundam watches this show, but that would be stretching it a bit too far. There are some reasons to avoid this show. As it is a giant product placement to re-use old model designs with some unique twists, it does suffer from technically NOT being a true Gundam series with the lack of deeper plot, developed characters, and connection to the franchise. It’s a love letter, and that’s what’s important. I give this series an A-; good enough to keep me invested, not enough to stand up to better series.

A-

Well, with this, Gundam Build Fighters – Part 1 is complete. Next week, we’ll take a look at its sequel series, Gundam Build Fighters Try. Can the sequel hold a candle to the fan storm that came before it?

…..Pray for a colony drop.