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Gundam Build Fighters Try Ep. 18: Snibal-Drago-Gira

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Summary

Toshiya recalls when he and his brothers used to build Gunpla for fun and he entered the U-13 tournament. However, he was rejected by the Gunpla Academy and his admiration for the school was twisted into hatred and a desire for revenge. At the tournament venue, Mirai interviews Couch Suriga of the Granada Academy, and an employee tells her she can leave to watch Sekai fight. Mirai mentions to Suriga that Sekai is in the Try Fighters, and Suriga recalls that it’s the team coached by Ral. Mirai runs into the stadium and finds the crowd stunned in silence after the reveal of the Snibal-Drago-Gira. Toshiya tells his brothers to attack, and two of the dragon heads fire beams that the team barely avoids. Fumina wonders why there are so many beams, and Yuuma explains that it comes from the particles stolen from him and Sekai. Sekai rushes forth and gets knocked down. The Snibal-Drago-Gira blocks the small hole that Fumina entered from and fires dark energy that encases all three Gundams. Sekai starts to resist via assimilation and breaks free completely through willpower. The Try Burning glows orange and attacks with a Soten Guren-Ken on the cave ceiling. Toshiya attacks Sekai, but Fumina uses her bits to protect him. Sekai smashes through the cave and allows everyone to escape. Fumina and Yuuma then fire all their weapons and destroy the castle, causing the whole thing to cave in on the Snibal-Drago-Gira. Kaoruko watches in the audience and wonders if Sekai won, but just then the dragon emerges unscathed from the rubble. Sekai attacks with Ryusei Rasen-Ken, but his lowered particle output allows the Shikis to easily block him. He then senses something and feels pain in his right hand when the Try Burning’s arm is damaged. The dragon starts charging all three heads, but Sekai stands up and holds out his hand to stop it.

Toshiya can’t understand how Sekai can still fight after the assimilation backlash. Sekai says that he felt Toshiya’s soul through his fist and asks why he feels so much hatred. He thinks Gunpla Battle should be fun and asks if Toshiya is enjoying himself. Sekai activates the Burning Burst and unleashes the phoenix attack, which smashes the dragon’s particle shields. Sekai then passes out, and Fumina uses the Star Winning‘s secret trick, which is to transform into a real size Gunpla. With its generators charged, Fumina fires the Winning Beam and damages the dragon. Yuuma then combines the Lightning Gundam Fb‘s rifles and snipes two of the heads, leaving only Toshiya’s intact. Toshiya charges another attack and vows that he won’t lose until he defeats the Gunpla Academy. Fumina counters that if Toshiya is fighting with hatred, she’ll fight with glee. She then rushes in and loses her real parts as she stabs the dragon with a sword. Toshiya recalls the joy he used to feel when he built Gunpla for fun. The Snibal-Drago-Gira explodes, thus ending the match with a victory for the Try Fighters. Sekai feels intense pain in his right hand, so Ral tells the others to get him to the dispensary. Junya watches and wonders if the master chose to pass on Jigen Haoh’s innermost secret to Sekai rather than him. Wilfrid approaches Toshiya and says he doesn’t know why Toshiya was rejected by the Academy, but he built an excellent Gunpla. Wilfrid wishes he could’ve fought Toshiya directly in a battle without any ill feelings. Wilfrid says he doesn’t want Toshiya to hate Gunpla, and Toshiya answers that if he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t feel this disappointed. Lucas speaks with Suriga, who decides to keep him in reserve until the battle with the Gunpla Academy. At the dispensary, Fumina blames herself for making Sekai overdo things, but Yuuma counters that Sekai would overdo things anyway. He decides to head back to the room to start repairing their Gunpla while Fumina watches over Sekai. Shia approaches Fumina and asks if Sekai is OK. Shia asks if Fumina built that beautiful SD and is relieved to hear she did, because she thinks they can have a great battle. Yuuma examines the Try Burning and worries that he can’t repair it because his skills aren’t at Sei’s level. He then gets a call from China and rushes to the airport with Ral after hearing she’s in Japan briefly. Yuuma meets China at the Shizuoka International Airport, where she gives him a briefcase that Sei asked her to deliver. Yuuma is surprised to find it full of Build Burning spare parts, and China mentions she has a message from Sei as well. He’d created the Build Burning for a precious friend and sealed it away, but was happy to see it being used. Sei wants Sekai to know that the Try Burning is his now, and someday he hopes they can play Gunpla Battle. Yuuma rushes back to the dorm with the spare parts, but he’s stopped by a gang of punks who demand he hand the case over. Nearby, Junya watches the situation from the shadows. Yuuma refuses to hand over the briefcase.

Commentary

The cliffhanger from last episode is resolved here, but not in a particularly satisfying way. Toshiya was established last episode as having a deep hatred for the Gunpla Academy due to an earlier rejection, but this sort of came out of nowhere given that the Shikis have been showing up since Nielsen Labs. The cool-headed data analyst of that episode doesn’t seem like the same person as the one totally consumed by a desire for revenge. And yeah, I know Gunpla Battle is serious business in this universe, but after all, it is just a game. This battle was needlessly stretched across two episodes and wasn’t even some epic thing that took up the majority of either one. The Snibal-Drago-Gira did essentially nothing but fire some beams and was taken down by Yuuma’s sniping and Fumina’s gimmick of showing of the Star Winning’s real mode. Still, it was nice to see her get the winning kill for once instead of Sekai. China makes a quick appearance at the end to deliver spare parts to Yuuma and a message from Sei, which confirms that he made the Build Burning for Reiji. That’s no surprise since Reiji fought with the same reckless abandon that Sekai does. It was a nice scene, but overall the episode just padded out the battle rather pointlessly. It all should’ve been a single episode or staged in a way to justify stretching it to two episodes.

Overall Rating
2.5/5

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

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