Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Ep. 2: Unknown Mission

Having landed the waitress job, Hinata serves Gundam-themed dishes to customers at the G-Cafe. She freezes up when a customer mentions that his fries don’t have enough salt, but another waiter steps in and picks up the in-joke by impersonating Bright Noa and yelling at the chef about the salt. Hinata then serves a parfait to Matsumura, and Hiroto asks her if she can manage this and her club activities. She answers that she can, and although she doesn’t know Gundam that well, she’s studying with a book that Hiroto lent her. Hinata notes that Hiroto has been coming in daily and asks if he’s taking up Gunpla Battle again, but he answers that he isn’t really. In GBN, May visits Magee in his bar and tells him about the secret mission. He says he’ll ask the administration and find out the reentry conditions. Elsewhere, Kazami is annoyed to find out that the mission had no title rewards. Parviz watches a video of the battle and says that everyone else is so good. Hiroto logs in to GBN and immediately gets a message that he’s moving to the mission area. He then appears in the temple again, joined by Parviz, Kazami and May. Freddie asks them to save him, and Kazami angrily demands to know where his title reward is, but May thinks it’s pointless to ask a Non-Player Diver (NPD) because they run off a limited script and can’t give out rewards directly. Hiroto pulls up the mission and sees that it hasn’t been cleared yet, and Parviz wonders if it’s a Serial Battle or Story mission, a new format where you have to complete multiple stages that are part of the same story. He wonders if it’s an early release that put Build Divers as the default name. Freddie asks them if they’re the Build Divers and if they’d visit his village. Hiroto flies everyone there in the Earth Armor, and while Freddie is amazed by flying, Parviz is scared. Hiroto thinks of Eve and notices smoke in the distance from multiple locations. In the village, three children named Asha, Towana and Hulun bring vegetables to their older sister, Maya. She asks if they’re going to hand them out, and old man Jiric answers that they have to help people in times of need. Hiroto’s Earth Armor lands nearby, and Freddie introduces the Force to his father Tonoi, who is also the village leader. Tonoi thanks them for saving Freddie, which Kazami takes credit for.

Outside, the village children gawk at the Core Gundam and notice that it has two eyes. Maiya bonks Freddie on the head and mentions that she told him many times not to go to that temple. Freddie explains to his sister that he was touching the stone tablet and then the Creators came, but Maiya dismisses that as an old myth. Hiroto leaves the house, and Tonoi mentions the village to the east that was attacked by the One-Eyes – the enemies they fought in the last mission. Tonoi explains that the surrounding villages have taken in refugees and are divided on whether to abandon the village, wait for help from the Resistance or rely on the Build Divers. Tonoi explains that the Resistance base is far away, so they can’t offer any help soon, and the village has no weapons. Asha, Towana and Hulun sneak into the mission briefing and start playing with Parviz’s tail, and Kazami gets bitten by Towana when he tells them to scram. Asha asks about the Core Gundam, and Parviz explains that it’s a Gunpla. Hiroto thinks about when he first met Eve and she told him that the Core Gundam was thankful to him for building it and was eager to go on adventures. May pulls up the data so far, which is that the One-Eyes have 10-20 machines and attack every three days, which means the next attack is tomorrow night. Hiroto returns to the house, and Maiya offers everyone tea. Kazami thinks that 20 machines is a lot, so planting a bomb to take them out at once would be easier. Maiya yells at him that doing such a thing would leave them nowhere to live, but Kazami dismisses her concerns. She declares that they’re not Creators, and Kazami snatches the tea from her. The Force meets by themselves, and Kazami notes that this isn’t a very Gundam-like mission. May asks everyone if they want to go on or give up since they were all drawn into this accidentally. Kazami wants to continue and get a rare reward, and May doesn’t object to continuing. Parviz doesn’t feel confident about it and thinks he might be a burden to them. May notes that they need to cancel as a party, and Parviz admits that last time was his first battle ever. Kazami offers to cover for Parviz and teach him how to fight. Kazami asks Hiroto if he’ll continue, and Hiroto answers that he will because he’s interested in this Dimension. Parviz mentions that he doesn’t know their names, so everyone introduces themselves. In the GBN lobby, the Force discusses their battle plan to protect the village, and Hiroto suggests splitting up to cover the two routes the One-Eyes will attack from. Hiroto wants to do a simulation in a Created mission, where Divers battle in their own map. Hiroto intends to recreate the terrain from memory and put the enemies in hard mode. He creates a map with Leo NPDs standing in for the One-Eyes as enemies. Kazami attempts to take on a Leo and is blocked, and Parviz randomly fires in every direction out of panic. As a result, the team loses. They switch pairings and try again, but the end result is still failure. After multiple simulations, every battle ends in failure, until the final one where they finish with one percent defensive power left. Hiroto recalls a tough battle that ended with Eve crying over a flower. After logging off GBN, Hiroto walks home with Hinata, who notices that he seems to be down. He tells her it’s no big deal and that he just has to clear the mission. Hinata is sure that he can do it because of his ingenuity when they played as kids. At home, Hiroto opens his closet and pulls out the box containing the Mars Armor.