Gundam Build Fighters Try

Episode 22

Who would win in a battle between a Super Robot and a Real Robot? The answer should obviously be the Super Robot. After all, fantasy robots aren't restricted by the laws of physics. This episode of Gundam Build Fighters Try answered that question once and for all, by depicting the full power of Gunpla and their builders in a universe with limits.

Early on in my reviews of Gundam Build Fighters Try, I gave Minato Sakai a hard time for not living up to the idealized Osakan rival standard in Yasaka Mao. However, through a stunning Gunpla build and increasingly difficult-to-ignore dorky overtures toward Yuuma, I've grown to like him. This episode brought the culmination of Sakai's attempts to make Yuuma his rival, with a wall slam that Fumina instantly recognized as an aggressive romantic gesture. This scene is a juxtaposition between a move that the audience recognizes as sexual, and whatever is going on inside Minato's brain—probably the belief that this makes him look cool. The hand injury afterward is good continuity for Minato's continued attempts to reenact the awesome rival interactions in his head that look plain weird and painful when he carries them out. Anyone rooting for Minato will enjoy the ending, though not in the way that you expect.

Even though I call everyone else by their first names in my reviews, I am sticking with Minato for Minato Sakai because 22 episodes in, I'm still not able to keep Sekai and Sakai straight. This episode made it worse with Meijin Kawaguchi's pun on Sekai's name, which means “world,” and the upcoming World Tournament. It's been hinted for a while, but now it's been unavoidably foreshadowed—they're going to the World Tournament, probably in the form of a second season. I'm calling it now that Alex Nemesis is going to be their major opponent, since he's European and they haven't had a chance to fight him yet.

I'll just focus on the fight that did happen, between Team Try Fighters and Team Build Busters. You can practically see the animators' heartbeats racing whenever it's time to animate Gundam Tryon—the quality increases dramatically whenever it appears. It was impressive and a little silly that Gundam Tryon got its very own Super Robot Transformation theme, and the musical score certainly hearkened back to early Super Robot shows in the genre. The rivalry between Minato and Yuuma has been foreshadowed more carefully than almost any in the show (perhaps Fumina and Shia are a close second), which puts a lot of emotional emphasis on this battle even though we know our protagonists are going to come out on top. It's impressive that it still seemed unlikely in the buildup. After all, Tryon is a Super Robot, which ought to be more powerful than any of the Real Robots on the show. However, all the suits in the show, “Real” style or not, were limited by the same restriction: the amount of particles they were capable of outputting.

From the epic battle music to the final strike at sunset, this battle had great choreography and a compelling atmosphere. However, this reliance on particle output seems to be becoming the Great Equalizer of the show's plot. “Oh, these suits are all mega powerful, but one of them ran out of particles first.” There seem to be generally good explanations for why suits ran out of particles, but I'm concerned it's becoming a crutch that keeps the show from fully naming one fighter as more powerful than another.

Rating: A-

Gundam Build Fighters Try is currently streaming on Gundam.info.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.