Gundam Build Fighters Episode 11
What They Say:
During the final battle of the World Tournament’s first day, a PPSE works team entered the tournament, thanks to the sponsor’s special rules. The name of its fighter is Meijin Kawaguchi, and Sei and Reiji are certain that another friendly rival has appeared. The tournament then enters its second period, a Battle Royal elimination match among all the players. An enormous diorama unfolds, and more than 80 Gunpla begin a fierce battle. Sei and Reiji attempt to survive the battle by teaming up with Mao and Fellini, but a huge shadow is creeping up on them…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Gundam Build Fighters moved fairly well into the World Tournament in the previous episode and gave us a decent fight with some of the characters, though it felt like it was obviously only going to go so far. While they could have come up with a good way for Sei and Reiji to lose and then get back in the game, they instead just went for a good match overall and showed off more of how the whole thing will operate in terms of dealing with the adults. There’s also the secondary story that’s picking up a bit more across the season here about what the Gunpla game may all really be about as we see some of the mysterious adults involved and really getting a sense of the power of the players that are in the game. Which is made all the more so as the real monsters of Gunpla battle are now showing up.
The first couple of matches that play out in the World Tournament overall are decent and we get some mild nods towards who will be power players and what kind of reactions some like Sei and the others have in seeing the adults and others play. It’s not exactly a huge range of players overall, but we also get to spend some time with Kawaguchi, a Meijin or maestro of the game, who is doing his best in order to show Sei and Reiji what he’s capable of. There’s some deeper ties there that obviously need to be explored, but it’s a nice nod towards the larger storyline that seems to be creeping into the series rather well, giving it a more interesting shade than a straightforward card/model battler that it seemed like at the start.
While the show has largely focused on the one on one battles so far, the day two events of the World Tournament brings us a battle royale event. And that puts a lot of people into the mix which makes for some pretty exciting action sequences across the board as everyone gets involved and we see both land and air battles with a lot of movement and some very slick animation. And some great mobile suits and equipment that we haven’t seen in an age, from tanks to bikes and more. It’s a solid match overall if just for the quality of the battles and animation which makes it definitely a great watch as all the different types of mobile suits go at it across the terrain. It’s a marketers dream to be sure as well and even bringing in some of the bigger elements such as the transport jet shows that they want to cram as much in as they can. But we also get the nod while watching the fight from the management point of view of what else is going on and that list minute little tease is definitely fantastic to see as it left me wanting much more.
In Summary:
We’re still in that weird place where it’s hard to tell what the show is really going to do since it’s giving us more and more about where Reiji is from but not quite crossing the threshold. Will it go all the way or will it provide a twist to make it work. I like that the show started out as one thing with an obvious weirdness to it in Reiji and then has grown and shifted from there. With this episode we get more of that but we also get some good material with the action of the battle royale, which is just a lot of great fun to see for fans of so many different Gundam shows over the years. Those that catalog and obsess about the various suits and units are likely all over this episode to see what’s out there and how well animated, but for me it’s just a wave after wave of fun and neat looking things that I’d largely forgotten about over the years given new life.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Official Gundam YouTube Channel
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.