By Ral is impressed by the Gunpla showroom at Yajima Trading and meets with Nils Yajima. They sit down for a drink, and Nils explains that he can’t participate in the championship because he’s the chief Plavsky engineer and knows everything about the system. Nils knows that Ral is coaching a new team for the national tournament and thinks it’s about time for them to head to a training camp. He then realizes that Ral wants them to train at the Nielsen Labs and is serious about having them win the national tournament. The team rides with Ral in his Jeep, where Sekai and Fumina annoy Yuuma by singing “Anime Janai” repeatedly. Yuuma asks where they’re going, and Ral tells him it’s the industry’s top facility. Everyone is impressed by the Labs, and Ral shows them the Gunpla workshop and state-of-the-art Gunpla Battle facilities. They witness the start of a battle between a Zaku Alvadi and Zaku Kraken against a computer generated Patulia and Hi-Mocks. The two Zakus are able to take on the Hi-Mocks and destroy the massive Patulia mobile armor to win the battle. The battlers, Minoru Koshiba and Yoshiki Uzuki, see the Try Fighters and ask who they are. Fumina introduces the team and mentions it’s their first time going to the national tournament, which makes Koshiba and Uzuki laugh at them. They explain that the Labs are only for regular national teams, not newbies like them. Sekai thinks that people who boast about how great they are to others are just bluffing. Uzuki challenges him to a hand-to-hand fight, but he panics when he realizes that Sekai actually knows martial arts. Fumina tries to intervene, but the argument ends when White Wolf team leader Kenshou Matsunaga steps in and berates his teammates for picking fights. Matsunaga recognizes the Try Fighters as having beaten Miyazato Institute, and his teammates boast about having beaten Miyazato last year. They then boast about having entered the national tournament four years in a row, and Sekai asks how many times they’ve won. They point out that the Gunpla Academy has won three years in a row, but he doesn’t know what that is. Fumina and Yuuma explain that the Gunpla Academy has dominated the nationals for six years. Its previous incarnation belonged to PPSE, but now it’s run by Yajima with former PPSE engineer Allan Adams as the team coach. Koshiba and Uzuki laugh at Sekai’s desire to beat the Gunpla Academy, and Ral proposes a practice match in an hour. Back at their room, Sekai can’t find the Build Burning in his bag, which makes them late. When they reach the battle room, they find Ral in shock over White Wolf having lost a battle against a single opponent. Yuuma sees the face of Saga’s Gundam The End and recognizes it from his embarrassing defeat two years ago.
Saga laughs at the White Wolf team and mocks their skills. He quickly dodges when he comes under sudden attack from Yuuma’s Lightning Gundam. Saga dodges and fires his revolvers, with Yuuma shouting that he came back to Gunpla Battle to defeat him. Fumina recalls what Yuuma said when he joined the team and realizes that Saga is the opponent who defeated him years ago. Saga demands to know who Yuuma is and doesn’t remember him, which angers Yuuma further. Saga unleashes multiple fangs, so Yuuma transforms and fires missiles to take them out. Yuuma takes out the fangs and states that he’s spent two years thinking of how to fight Saga. However, more fangs appear and damage the Lightning Gundam, causing it to crash into the ground. Saga moves in to finish him off, but Sekai intervenes with a Seiso-Geri kick, followed by an attack from Fumina’s Winning Gundam. Sekai then uses a Seiken-Zuki punch that Saga dodges. Saga deploys more fangs, so Sekai uses a Senpu Tatsumaki-Geri whirlwind kick to scoop them up, but the fangs combine and break free to hit Sekai. The combined fang attacks Fumina, but she separates and gives Sekai the Winning Knuckle. The Build Burning turns orange as Sekai performs a Ryusei Rasen-Ken punch, which Saga counters with his Dead End Finger. The damaged Build Burning crashes into the ground, and Saga tells him that he has a good fist, but not good enough. Saga prepares to strike Sekai down, but he’s interrupted by the arrival of the Meijin’s Gundam Amazing Red Warrior. Allan watches and sees that the students battling must’ve gotten the Meijin excited.
Old rivalries are reignited, and old characters make a return appearance. It looks like Caroline Yajima wasn’t joking about making Nils Nielsen her husband, since they’re now married and he’s taken on her surname. He seems to have done well for himself after reinventing Plavsky Particles in the first series and designing a new battle system. There was quite a bit of exposition here on the Gunpla Academy, and I think too much time was spent with the White Wolf team trash talking when they turned out to be nothing special. Their team’s name and that of their leader are obviously references to MSV pilot Shin Matsunaga, nicknamed the White Wolf of Solomon. There are other obscure references, such as the scale model Hi-Mock’s cockpit resembling that of a Scopedog from Armored Trooper VOTOMS. We learn that Saga is indeed the opponent who defeated Yuuma two years ago and scared him off from Gunpla Battle. The dude’s an arrogant jerk, but he definitely has skills. Yuuma is too enraged to fight properly, but even Sekai and Fumina intervening isn’t enough to win. It’s good to see that gimmicks like the Winning Knuckle don’t always work, because so far it’s helped Sekai win every battle he’s used it in.
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