The Official Gundam Build Fighters Try Anime Thread Mk-IV

[AmuroNT1]

Well, if you want a counter to the negativity, I suppose I could offer my take on the episode. Frankly, I thought it was fantastic. But to do a point-by-point breakdown...

[Wall of Text, incoming!]

Lukas' performance was great, and everything I wanted out of the Full Cloth's animated debut. I came away feeling like it was obvious why he got as far as he did: not only is he a talented fighter and builder, but he's extremely clever and managed to use his Gunpla's abilities to their fullest, whether it was parrying a back attack with the foot heat dagger or stealing Adou's revolvers with the scissor anchors.

Celestial Sphere's performance was likewise excellent, and did a perfect job of clearly delineating their roles as a team. We've seen them all fight as individuals before, but this episode was the first time all three had fought together, and showed exactly why the Gunpla Academy's students are so feared and respected.
-Wilfred was shown to be the core of the team, not just because of his connections but because he lead them with competence and coolness no matter what happened. For me, his defining moment in the fight was when he nearly tagged Lukas' Full Cloth with his partisan beam not by spamming, but by logically figuring out its speed based off of his knowledge of Gundam canon. This really put a new spin on him, beyond simply showing him as a fighter powerful enough to take on Sekai evenly.
-Adou reinforced his aggressive nature by playing a berserker role in the battle, rushing in with strong and relentless attacks. We already had a fairly good idea of him from his previous battle, but this time around gave a better showing by having him keep going even in the face of a challenging enemy and not just getting cartoonishly angry as many "brute" characters would.
-Shia really came out looking awesome IMO, as this battle really emphasized her nature as an excellent builder. Some have complained about the Haro repair drones, but I thought it made perfect sense (and in fact, I'm pretty sure at least one Gundam 00 model came with scale replicas of those little guys). While she doesn't have a major stand-out factor like Adou's aggressiveness, she's cool-headed and persistent even in a crisis.

Regarding the complaints about Lukas' teammates being useless...honestly, even if they were effectively batteries, they still did TONS more than a lot of other nameless pilots so far. We've already discussed the complaints about the 3-on-3 format before, so it'd just be going over well-trodden ground. The simple fact is that in this series, teams break down one of two ways: three aces, or one super-ace with two nobodies. Since Lukas was the only Von Braun member we ever heard about, it was obvious they were going with the latter, but their performance was still better overall than, say, Shimon's friends, or Matsunaga's dopey wingmen from White Wolf.

For that matter, their performance outshines a real fan favorite: the Tryon 3. Yeah, I'm gonna cut some steaks from that sacred cow real quick. The bare fact of the matter is, Minato is the ONLY member of Build Busters who matters. The others have gotten a little development, but in the scheme of things, they're totally irrelevant outside of being his motivation. I mean it: I challenge anyone here to tell me, from memory and without outside references, what are the names of Minato's teammates. You can't, because even though their names have been said in the series, all they really are is "Minato's Teammate A" and "Minato's Teammate B". Maybe it's just because of the classic dichotomy of the combining Super Robot: as cool as it may be, the lead pilot gets all the glory while the poor saps stuck in the left foot are only there to pilot the components pre-gattai. But that's really my point: people gush all over Tryon 3, but it's really just a solo machine because Minato's teammates don't matter. Lukas' teammates at least got to do something and get in a few swings on Celestial Sphere.

The fuel issue wasn't introduced well, but from a logical standpoint I understand it. After all, what's there to keep some jerk from just making the ultimate beamspam Gunpla, covered in VSBRs, satellite cannons, buster rifles, and maybe even those stupid dwarf rifles from Glory of Losers, and just turning the battlefield into a sea of plasma? There has to be some kind of limiting factor to keep high-power Gunpla from just rampaging all over everyone else, and the idea of a fixed "fuel" reserve works in that regard.

For the people complaining that Von Braun should have at least gotten to "kill" one Celestial Sphere member...well, they did. It got said in the episode that the damage to the G-Portent should have taken it out of the fight, but Shia's emergency repair got her going again, and as I said before, served to emphasize her role as the master builder.

For the people who wanted an upset...come on. You KNOW that was never going to happen. We've been over this a million times: we know how this is all going to end. There's no way they were going to have the team that has rivalries with all three Try Fighters lose to a character they've never even heard of. It'd be an anticlimax of the highest order. Yes, it'd be a surprise, but not a good one. Having a surprise just for the sake of a surprise is a terrible way of writing a story. To quote RD Reynolds' book "Wrestlecrap", on the subject of Vince Russo, a wrestling promoter famous for that kind of twist: "Sure, it was a surprise, but it didn't make much sense, nor did you want to order from them again. But it sure fooled you, didn't it?"

The team shuffle scene amused me because when everyone got into their little "No, it is WE who shall be victorious!" posturing, it was Adou of all people who told them to put a sock in it. That, and the fact that you could see the error screen caused by his thumping the computer with his fist to get their attention.

One tiny element that bugged me was how SxDxR and White Wolf were shown to already be back at their respective homes. In most tournament situations, the competitors stick around until the very end. Or is there something I'm missing.

I kind of feel like Meijin's "This battle needs no commentary" was meant to be a wink-and-nod to the people who complained about past episodes' use (or overuse) of onlookers giving battle commentary.

On the whole, I feel like this episode was meant to be a throwback to the first season. Lukas was the type of fighter we saw extensively there, one who used a fairly orthodox Gunpla without any "out there" gimmicks like the RG System. On top of that, we have his being a returning character with ties to the plot of the first season, one whose role was to emphasize a lesson expounded in one of the more memorable episodes. Not to mention the scene of Yuuki dropping his "Meijin" mask and interacting with Allan as a friend for the first time in the series.

[balofo]

So Xi and the other 3 contest winners will appear for seconds in the ep before the final, that's the only explanation possible

This ep was really bad animated, a shame.