(Links of Happiness) For the Fans · 4:26am May 30th, 2018
WARNING: CONTAINS MECHA.
Quick primer for what I'm about to show here:
The Gundam Build anime series is the Slice of Life arm of the Gundam franchise. Simply put: if you prefer Waifus/Husbandos, Future Corps and the Power of Friendship to Waifus/Husbandos, War and Depression, then this is the Gundam for you! Either way, robots fight and pilots preach about stuff.
In Build, that preaching is about how great it is to be a Gundam consumer! See, the Build shows all basically take place in a world where Bandai won the Franchise Wars, and now all restaurants are Gundam Cafes. Meanwhile, an MMO centered around Gunpla (Gundam model kits) is like the biggest phenomenon ever. Also, everyone is into Gundam as a series and cosplays as Gundam characters all the time. THE ENTIRE WORLD DOES THIS. It's so brain-breakingly that meta it actually rolls back around to being a naive shonen toy commercial. I love it.
Gundam Build Divers is the third in its series (after Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try), and is airing currently for free on GundamInfo (Bandai's Gundam Youtube page). You can watch LOTS of free Gundam there. Like, full series.
And now, finally, THE POINT:
The Build series has always been written by massive, unapologetic dorks on the level of if both Twilight Sparkles, Moondancer, Twist, Silver Spoon, Prancy Drew, Zipporwhill and Juniper Montage all fused together to create some kind of super-dork.
The episode of Build Divers that aired three weeks ago is proof of this, and made my fandom-entrenched self and all my fandom-entrenched friends feel feelings. It occurred to me that such feelings might help more than one of you reading this blog, so here you go. And no, previous episode context isn't really needed. I'm near-caught up and I still barely can retain anything that's going on. I'm sure the actual plot will start sometime in the teens, like always.
Enjoy. Turn on Closed Captioning for the subtitles.
~B
Ah I really need to get back into this
Yeah, Build Fighters actually got me back into Gundam as a series and into Gunpla Model Building.
also its the 4th or 5th. there was a show like Build fighters a few years before it, but i cant really think of its name, or find it anywhere decent.
oh, one last thing. if you like this show, and want to build your own amazing suit, look up Gundam Breaker. the 4th one is coming out sometime soon, and the third game has a Play Asia Import that works on all PS4's (I have it myself and its so much fun...)
for your viewing pleasure:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTd8xr9y5ig
So Yu-Gi-Oh logic applied to mecha. Did the ancient Egyptian mobile suits plastered with Eyes of Horus show up yet?
As for the episode itself, it is a wonderfully heartfelt self-contained story, and resonates wonderfully with those of us who've been sticking with one thing for a while as others have moved on. Thanks for sharing it.
Build Fighters is the reason my shelf is dominated by Gundam models.
What's even better is that the Build Fighters universe is essentially Gundam Valhalla, with well known characters from past Gundam series popping up in the background from time to time.
I really am such a goddammed Easy Mark for shows like this. "Medabots", "Pokemon", "Yu-Gi-Oh!" (kind of)...put a bunch of colorful kids together, give them fancy toys, let them play competitively with those toys against others, pepper it occasionally with Actually A Plot And Also Sometimes Drama, and I will most likely be able to get SOMETHING out of it. XD
so much mecha <3