Post by Agai Lazen on Apr 8, 2015 16:39:44 GMT -4
THIS is what mecha should be, my friends. I seriously have never had this much fun watching Gundam ever before.
Though, that's mostly because all of Gundam up until Build Fighters was pretentious, self-indulgant, and unintelligent. Granted, Build Fighters is also all of those things, but in all the right ways as opposed to all the wrong ways. Like Pacific Rim is stupid and racist in all the right ways, while Michael Bay's Transformers movies are stupid and racist in all the wrong ways.
Before Build Fighters, Gundam has always tried to be a realistic war story, and it's failed every single time. Only in G Gundam, by far the most beloved series in the franchise, did they throw aside all of that pretentious bullsh*t for the sake of dumb fun. Build Fighters can get even stupider and even more fun, so if you like G Gundam you will LOVE Build Fighters.
The story of Build Fighters focuses around Sei Iori, a part-timer at his family's hobby store, and Reiji, a mysterious boy that claims to be from a magical kingdom. Yeah, right away you can tell that this isn't your average Gundam series, because Reiji is telling the truth.
Sei's talent is in model building, specifically Gunpla (a portmanteau of "Gundam" and "Plastic," obviously referring to famous Gundam model kits). He wants to play Gunpla Battle, a game where the kits are brought to life through mysterious Plavsky particles so that they can do battle. However, any damage a Gunpla takes during the battle will affect the kit, so if your Gunpla gets sliced in half you'll have to repair it if you want to fight with it again. Bit of a high-stakes game, for one so popular, IMO.
Customized Gunpla are the strongest in this game, because their stats are based on how well the model is built. Structural integrity, plastic quality, even paint apps are taken into account when a Gunpla's stats are calculated. This is where Sei shines, because he's a master of building and customizing, his father being the second-place world champion of Gunpla Battle. However...he lacks his father's fighting skills. While he can build Gunpla with great skill, he doesn't have the skills to use them in battle.
One day, he meets Reiji and gets him out of trouble with a store clerk. Reiji says he'll return the favor. Lo and behold, Reiji takes control of Sei's gunpla during a losing battle and snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. They decide to team up and with their custom Gunpla, the Build Strike Gundam, aim to be the best that no one ever was.
What I love most about this series is how it portrays competitive gaming, or at least the ideals of competitive gaming. You have to respect your opponent and give them your all no matter what, because they're going to fight you the same way. Villains often disregard this, and poo poo on their opponents even after the match. Imagine if you're playing Soul Caliber online, and you beat your opponent with just a sliver of your own health remaining...and then some punk comes in with a full bar and steals the win from both you and your opponent. That's the kind of villains we have in Build Fighters.
Would I reccommend this series? Only if you're willing to watch something very, VERY silly.