[Gundam Build Fighters Try] - 1
Funny, this is how I get all my friends to watch anime!
I actually enjoyed this opening considerably. It was highly entertaining and the fun and whimsy from the original was present. Wahoo! Try to remember this positivity because I'm going to engage in some criticism which some of you may consider to be nitpicking but I only do this because I turly love
GBF.
When most people think of
GBF the first thing that probably comes to mind is really well animated, well choreographed and exciting fight sequences. However, the original show couldn't have survived on the back of those two ideas alone. It could have simply been a beautiful but hollow marketing exercise in the guise of a TV show. What's worse, it would be a kids TV show! Yet that didn't happen.
Through the grace of decent writing and direction, the core cast of
GBF were all extremely likeable and the show celebrated Gundam while still poking fun at it. It featured two leads who actually featured their own distinct arcs and roles ensuring neither of them were redundant. It was even pretty funny!
Now, it's too early to say anything substantial about the quality of the script or scenarios in
Try but there a few things that I'm not wild about. First and foremost, the original series was extremely confident and sharp in terms of it's writing, editing and direction. It trusted it's audience to keep up with what was going on and it didn't meander and waste your time. This first episode of
Try feels just a tad too slow for my liking, especially with regards to 'How Gunpla Battle Works' sequence which was handled more deftly in the original. This isn't a major indictment of the show, I just wish it was as quick and punchy as the original show.
In addition, I wasn't too fond of the amount of time we spent in school doing school stuff. I know, I know, we're one episode into the show so it's too early to complain about that but the whole "we must save our club" thing is a little overplayed. The original series had a battle-tournament structure but within that structure still found room to be unconventional and creative every episode. You never knew what you were getting. I hope they can keep that freshness up here as well.
In addition, as the workshop and the battlestation are in school I imagine we'll be spending more time here than last season, where Sei's shop served as a base of operations. Basically, I don't want to spend too much time "in anime highschool". Of course, that might not happen and as soon as the introductions are out of the way it might get as varied as the original.
I'm still not in love with the character designs. This episode didn't have particularly good character animation anyway, but Fumina just looked kind of awkward. Sekai looks like a rough draft of Rei, the kind that the designer came up with before he settled on a final design. Blue haired dude is blue haired dude from every anime. Ehhh.
The characterisation, however, seems fine. Sekai does seem a little too much like Rei, except without the quirkiness, but we'll see the dynamics play out as the show progresses. I really won't even attempt to speak to them yet. Except to say that this kind of scene:
]
is something I really don't want to see. One of my favourite parts of the original was seeing all the (obvious) romances play out in their own unique and fun ways. People falling on each other isn't fun, it's lazy and stupid. I can only hope there's no terrible love triangle business.
While the climatic battle sequence was extremely, extremely cool and exciting I don't like seeing super powers in the very first episode of the show. The original series escalated slowly over the course of the series until we hit the point where every fight ended with that God damn knuckle so to see them skip straight to the finisher makes me concerned. I imagine that the team aspect of the battle will actually change the dynamics of combat significantly so that we don't end up with that problem, but we'll have to see. Basically, my favourite kind of combat is ground-based mecha combat. My favourite battle in any Gundam is the street level fight in
08th MS Team and the best battle in the original series was Meijin vs the Snipers. Both of these battles are grounded and feature fairly down to earth weaponry. Hopefully there'll still be a place for this kind of tense, tactical combat in this series because super powers get boring quickly.
Anyway, I remain extremely hopefully for the series and this first episode was far better than I expected. I just hope that the show becomes as confident and unusual as it's predecessor.
