GundamReviews

Gundam Build Fighters Try Ep. 10: Gunpla Collection

0
Summary

Following G-Master’s loss, Sudou has no regrets over what happened. Ral and Mirai run over when they see that Sekai has collapsed. The Meijin sees that Sekai was assimilated by Gunpla as much as he and Sei were, which he hasn’t seen in some time. Later, Sekai visits Fumina’s apartment and gives her the tournament trophy since she’s the club president and leader of the Try Fighters. Fumina’s nosy mother Marika introduces herself and asks if Sekai is Fumina’s boyfriend. He misunderstands and answers that he is because he’s a friend of Fumina’s who is a boy. Sakai takes the Shinkansen back to Osaka and recalls Sudou apologizing for losing with the Mega-Shiki. However, Sakai believes that the fault is his own for underestimating Yuuma. Yomi angrily eats ice cream and drags Akira along to shop with her. They run into Sekai and Fumina, and Akira congratulates them on their victory. Sekai asks Akira where he’s encountered Jigen Haoh before, and Akira cryptically answers that he’ll find out during the nationals. At the modeling agency, Mirai is informed that she’s been selected to represent them at Tokyo Gunpla Collection, an event fusing fashion and Gunpla. It’s noted that the Hollywood star Mihoshi started out as a Gunpla idol, and Mirai protests that she doesn’t know anything about Gunpla Battle. She explains the situation to the Try Fighters, and Yuuma is too eager to lend his assistance to her by picking out a Gunpla at G-Muse. Yuuma fantasizes how they can go shopping, eat dinner and end up on a rooftop like Kamille Bidan and Four Murasame. The next day, Yuuma takes Mirai to G-Muse and shows her several kits, but the only one that grabs her attention is a Beargguy II. Yuuma helps Mirai with the building, painting and customizing of the kit into the Beargguy F. Yuuma gives Mirai a Petit-Beargguy, which he describes as an ace in the hole. Mirai thanks Yuuma for his help, but he thinks he should thank her because he’d forgotten the joy of building Gunpla just for fun. Mirai tells Yuuma that he should do his best at what he loves.

The Gunpla Collection event begins on a beach with models carrying Gunpla while cosplaying as Gundam characters. After the fashion show, Mirai tells Sekai and the others that the battle portion is actually a Gunpla Rally. Famous rock singer Taku of SGOCK III walks in and starts hitting on Mirai, but she’s not interested in him. Taku wants to take her out after dinner, and when Yuuma suggests that he’s too pushy, Taku counters that he can be as pushy as he wants because he’s a celebrity. Sekai tells Taku he can take Mirai out if he wins the Gunpla Rally, and Taku answers that he loves Gundam more than anything. Later, Taku and the models gather at the large simulator for the Gunpla Rally. The winner must reach the finishing line without using any flight functions. Yuuma knows that the Beargguy-F is more powerful than the Gunpla used by the other models, but Taku’s Turn A Gundam is a complete unknown. When the race starts, Mirai quickly pulls ahead of the pack. The other contestants all open fire on Mirai because Taku offered to take whoever destroys her on a date. The attacks force Mirai into the water, but Yuuma notes that this is to her advantage because her Gunpla is based on an amphibious unit. However, Taku uses his shield as a surfboard to catch up with Mirai and attack her on a sandbar. Mirai asks why he’s attacking during a race, and he answers that attacking is a strategy for winning. Taku fires his beam rifle at the Petit-Beargguy, but the Mama-Beargguy takes the shot and goes offline. Mirai switches controls over to the Petit-Beargguy and knocks Taku away. As the Petit-Beargguy glows, Mirai comments that she can sense Taku’s evil feelings from his fists. The Petit-Beargguy then powers up and uses Soten Guren-Ken to punch the Turn A Gundam in its crotch and destroy it. Yuuma and Fumina are shocked, so Sekai explains that Mirai took Jigen Haoh lessons when she was younger. The Petit’GGuy blows a bubble and hops into it to speed across the water. Just as the Petit’GGuy reaches the finish line, it trips on a rock and allows a Zaku I to win. During a fireworks show at night, Yuuma thinks it’s a shame that Mirai lost, but Mirai doesn’t think so because the winner was simply racing. Mirai excites Yuuma when she asks him to join her for dinner, but his excitement disintegrates when Fumina and Sekai invite themselves along. At the Gunpla Academy, Allan and Kijima discuss G-Master’s loss in West Tokyo. The arrogant Saga Adou comments that Akira is just a weak substitute for when he’s not around.

Commentary

With the qualifiers over, the show takes a break for a beach-themed episode, not unlike the first series. This time, it’s for a weird Gunpla fashion show, because I guess Gundam is the entire core of this world, much like Pokemon is in its own world. We do get mention of Mihoshi and find out that in the last seven years she became a Hollywood star, so she fulfilled her dream. This episode is full of callbacks, including Yuuma fantasizing about Four and Kamille’s famous rooftop scene from Zeta Gundam. The models cosplay Gundam characters like Lalah Sune and even the infamous bikini bazooka girls from Victory Gundam, and the nerdy imagery around Taku includes Tem Ray’s famous “upgrade” junk module. His black Turn A Gundam looks pretty cool, but ultimately it accomplishes nothing. It’s certainly not cool for Sekai to put up his sister for a date with Gunpla Battle, but thankfully she can fight for herself thanks to his training and old Jigen Haoh lessons. On another note, it’s fun to see Yuuma’s continued infatuation with Mirai, even though he has no hope of ever getting anywhere with her.

Overall Rating
3.5/5

Build Fighters Try Info

Director:
Shinya Watada

Writer:
Yousuke Kuroda

Mechanical Designer(s):
Kunio Okawara
Kanetake Ebikawa
Junya Ishigaki
Junichi Akutsu
Kenji Teraoka
Shinya Terashima
Susumu Imaishi
NAOKI
Fumikane Shimada

Character Designer:
Kenichi Ohnuki

Musical Composer(s):
Yuuki Hayashi
Asami Tachibana

Format:
25 episodes

Airdates:
Japan 10.08.2014 – 04.01.2015
Streaming 10.08.2014 – 04.01.2015

Comments

Comments are closed.