Episodes 19-20
There's so much to like here.The fight itself was super cool with the 1v1 martial arts and the Denial is a really interesting, creative design. The music is firing on all cylinders and is perhaps better used in this fight than it has been the whole series. That little vocal cut-in and the end of the fight, so good. The concept as well is a good one. Giving Sekai a rival from the same martial arts school should, theoretically nullify his Martial Arts hax and give us a rival that's actually a believable threat.
Like much of what happens in this show story wise, though, that doesn't pan out. Instead of having an interesting fight of tactics at the end, Sekai just wins with new and improved martial arts hax. That isn't too bad on its own, the real issue is how badly they misuse the concept of Jun's character. Not only is he only given like half an episode of story setup to make us care, but he's so damn comically evil. The real great thing the first Build Fighters did was give us a set of rivals we could root for. Fellini, Ailla, Nils and Mao were all really likable on there own. It made fights with them mean something, as you could root for them as much (if not in some cases more) than you could root for the main pair. Here, we get almost none of that. Jun, The End's Pilot, and the SD Team, for instance, are all comically unlikable bad guys. You want to see them lose and that's it. That makes their fights inherently less dramatic and interesting than those in the original Build Fighters.
Overall, I still enjoy the show despite the problems. It just could be so much more. As many steps forward as they've taken with the lack of dumb alternate-dimension bullshit, the interesting dynamic of team fights and a greater variety of suits, they've taken backward with story and character. I didn't even love the original that much, but it's even clear to me that there's something missing here. Hopefully in the inevitable Season 2 with the World Tournament they can have the best of both worlds. A great cast mixture from both seasons with a ton of backstory and setup to make us care with the team fight dynamics and suit choices of season 2? Sign me up!