Gundam Build Fighters 1
Truth be told, I've wanted to watch something Gundam related for a while now, but since there are so many, I didn't know where to begin. Thankfully this one came along and seems to be a fan service show to the franchise. Granted, I won't be able to understand or take pleasures in its fan service, but, it seems friendly enough as a gateway. And honestly, the characters and the actual game interest me.
Enter Sei Iori. He's our series protagonist and is absolutely in love with Gundam. So much so that he builds his Gunpla with the upmost care and quality. As well as that once he starts talking about them, he won't stop unless you ask him. Unfortunately, he sucks at Gunpla Battle despite being so good at building them. His dad is runner up at the 2nd World Championship, but with that seemed to be a five years ago so now he lives alone with his mother as his dad is off... Somewhere. If Sei's dream was an indicator of anything, his father probably hasn't been home in quite a while. He wouldn't be weirded out from hearing his voice in his dream otherwise. Sei also helps run a plastic model shop when his mother isn't around.
Next is Susumu Sazaki, it's way too soon to call him an antagonist, or even a rival. Susumu knows that Sei can create much better Gunpla than he can. As such, he tries to pressure Sei into letting him use one of his Gunpla so they can go and possibly win a tournament together. That being said, he would greatly make up for Sei's lack of actual skill of playing game so it would make sense for them to team up. But unfortunately for him, Sei doesn't want him to use his Gunpla as Sei believes his play style is too rough and trust him because of it.
And now there's this guy, Reji. He was either incredibly sheltered in his upbringing, or he's an alien as he doesn't know about simple things like storefront sales, or soda, or even Gunpla Battle. Granted, its entirely possible to now about Gunpla Battle despite it having world championships. But not knowing about storefront sales, or soda for that matter, is difficult to process without some form of special reasoning. Regardless, when the viewer first meets him he points his finger to the wind and goes in the direction the wind was moving, so he's definitely free spirited.
When Sei meets Reji, Reji had just accidentally stolen some food and when Sei pays the shopkeeper, Reji feels indebted to him and gives him a gem. Reji says that "if you're in trouble, wish on that stone and I'll help you." After saying that, he vanishes. Only to reappear in Sei's time if need during a Gunpla battle (why did Sei's mom and Ral seemingly just stand there and let him help Sei? Especially since they don't know who he is?) and only to disappear once more when the battle was over.
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If I were in his shoes, I'd probably be making that face too.
As a game, these controls seem really overly complicated. Granted, Mech controls in anime never make sense, and this at least attempts to let the viewer see that this isn't nonsense by showing that those two orbs actually do more than go in directions. They actually have notches and have 10 (5 per ball; 1 for each finger) different assigned buttons as well so it could potentially work if you get used to it.
Controls aside I still can't imagine playing a game like this. Spending all those hours if not days making these only for it to break if you lose would kill me on the inside. And I doubt these are inexpensive.
As for the game itself, the rules are seemingly simple as they aren't stated barring ring out. It's a simple fight to death. Other winning conditions are ring out or you give up. There are only 2 skills needed to play the game. One is the skill to actually be able to play the game, while the other is the ability to build the Gunpla. The better the Gunpla is built, the better its performance in battle. Although, that isn't necessarily an advantage to someone that doesn't have good parts. Sei for example, can't play using his own Gunpla. They're literally too good for him. No matter how hard he tries to control his movement, he's always going all over the place which is why Susumu wins every time. It's a weird system in which only the strong get stronger, but it's too prevent newbies from buying their way to victory.
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Overall, I really like this after a single episode. I'd probably think more of it if I payed attention to Gundam. Letting the viewer see what Gunpla - name and even model is used is really cool. I'm sure that's just Bandai trying to advertise and sell more Gunpla though. Might just marathon this tomorrow.