idk how to take good pics of minis but i got the tyranid half of the leviathan box in january and have been chipping away at little dudes and stuff ever since. i think they look ok for my first minis 👍 this counts as art so i can post it here

Gundam Build Divers

While there were many elements I liked about this show and could praise it for, it was certainly a mixed bag. There were plenty of ups and downs watching this series over the past half-year. However, when I try and think about it from the perspective of a reviewer, I can’t help but compare it to the two seasons that have come before it, Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Build Fighters Try. As such, we’re going to be doing this a little different from usual. Instead of doing The Goods, Bads, and Uglies of this show as it stands on its own, we’re going to be seeing what it did better and what it did worse than the two seasons that came before it on the four categories I think are the most important for these shows: their characters, stories, fight scenes, and Gunpla.

The Bottom Tier: When compared to GBF and GBFT, the one thing GBD does worse than the other two is its story. That’s not to say that GBD doesn’t have some great episodes, and that what story it does have doesn’t sometimes lead to something good. I’ll start by saying that when GBD focused on doing one-off episodes it was at its strongest. The fight against the 7th Panzer Division, the Lotus Challenge, 00 Sky VS Jiyan Altron; these are all great episodes, and ones you can enjoy without having the grind through the rest of the series to enjoy. The first storyline also lead to what might be arguably the best fight in this series, 00 Diver VS No-Name.

Positives out of the way, the overarching stories of this show were not so great. Actually I was groaning through most of them. The first overarching story was the Break Decal Arc. It inserted itself into what would otherwise be good standalone episodes, was heavily centered on this “liar revealed” subplot with Ayame that didn’t add anything new to the formula, and was essentially 5 episodes in a 25 episode series, taking up literally a fifth of the show. I’ll also say that I thought that it was doing this because it was going to be the finalé. Wrote up an entire review for episode 15 and everything. It felt like the show was ending, and I’m glad it didn’t since it gave us some good episodes afterwards, but it was a really odd mood that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out of an Anime that didn’t actually stop for three months between its seasons.

Then there’s the El-Diver Arc, which is a little better since its less intrusive, again outside the last five episodes, but is extremely hampered by the fact that a very prominent part of those penultimate four episodes is just very terrible things happening to Sarah, our main cast not being able to do anything about it, and several previously likable characters saying they’re going to kill her for the sake of a video game. I signed up for Gundam, not .Hack.

GBF had a great story, being relatively simple but having some mystical elements to add a bit of mystery to it, and while I know not a lot of people like GBFT I personally like how focused its plot was, not needing any of the mysticism usually present with TCG-like Anime. GBD tries to be like GBF with a more grounded mystical element, but seems to miss the mark.

The Mid Tier: Moving back to the positives, GBD has some really great fight scenes. Actually, a lot of the episodes I mentioned that I thought were good centered around a fight. Almost all of them were fast paced, had more forethought and planning put into them than previous seasons, showed better examples of teamwork than GBFT, and were often good at showing how a character had progressed, usually showing off new techniques or strategies developed through previous battles.

As much as I, and I know a lot of people, like GBF, its fights aren’t great. It has a single really good one, that being Star Build Strike VS Fenice, but a lot of the other fights are slow paced to pad them out and don’t usually amount to much. Star Build Strike VS Sengoku Astray is literally just three punches. Even GBD’s worst fights are better than the majority of those in GBF. GBFT on the other hand has great fights, having much better pacing and action due to the more Super Robot nature of the show. The final tournament battle between Try Fighters and Celestial Sphere is amazing, especially the one-on-one fight at the end, and the overall quality of its fights feels a bit higher than GBD. As such, GBD falls right in the middle, being better than GBF but not as good as GBFT, though I will add it’s by a pretty small margin.

Then there’s the show’s characters. This might seem a little weird, but I don’t think any of these shows have overall great characters, but I don’t think they’re overall subpar either. GBF has good characters, but because it’s a Japanese kids show with characters from all over the world, it can get a little stereotypy in places. Not as bad as G Gundam, thankfully. GBFT has a lot of boring and one-note characters, but at the same time has a fair number of strong characters, and since the majority of them are from Japan they avoid the stereotype issues from GBF. Like GBFT, GBD avoids the stereotype issue since most of the characters are from the same Japanese server, but the in-game character versions of off server characters avoid it as well. The only character I can think of that may actually fall under a stereotype is IRL Shahryar, AKA Ruck Arge, but even that feels purposeful and played for laughs as nothing about his character could be construed as mean spirited either intentional or not. GBD also continues the trend of not having any villains. True, near the end some intentions feel misguided, but they’re able to admit their faults and help each other in the end since it’s just a scuffle between friends and beliefs. Basically, all three seasons have mid-tier characters. Not the best, but not the worst either.

The Top Tier: Far and away, GBD has the best Gunpla of all the Build series. GBF’s Gunpla are very basic, with new backpacks, weapons, heads, and maybe a few other minor details. GBFT, being in the same timeline, has the next logical conclusion you’d expect after seven years, original Mobile Suits. There are a lot of interesting ideas, best being the Winning Gundams, but since they’re all original designs and not customized versions of existing MS like in GBF it kind of takes away from the whole idea of “custom Gunpla.”

Then we get to GBD. GBD’s Gunpla are amazing. There’s probably no better example of this than the flagship Gundam 00 Diver, which is an almost entire sculpt change from its previous version. Then there’s crazy things like the Momokapool and Jiyan Altron, mixed builds like the Ogre GN-X or 00 Sky, a new SD/RM in the RX-Zeromaru, rebuilds in different styles like Galbaldy Rebake, amazing gimmicks like the Seravee Scheherazade and Grimoire Red Barret, and so much more. The amount of variety displayed in this show, especially in comparison to GBF and GBFT, is staggering and does a good job of showcasing the build styles of many different people, both Fighter and Builder.

Overall, I feel like what season you want to watch depends on what you’re feeling at the time. If you just want to watch a Gundam Lite story, you watch Gundam Build Fighters. If you feel like watching some intense Gunpla Battles, you watch Gundam Build Fighters Try. Gundam Build Divers, to me, is a series I would go back and watch if I was thinking of making a new custom Gunpla. If you’re a Gunpla Builder, then I think this show will help you look at your Gunpla in ways you wouldn’t have imagined before. It may not have the best story or the best characters, but it does something far better than either Build Fighters or Build Fighters Try ever did. It inspires you. And I will never be able to fault this series for doing that.

Spiritual Successor: How Build Divers misses the most important parts of Fighters AND VR “Isekai” at the same time

So we’re about 10 episodes into the newest Gundam series, Gundam Build Divers, the third Build series (not counting the Gunpla Builders OVA) and a bit of a departure from the previous series.  Directed by Shinya Watada, director of Fighters Try with experience across much of Gundam recently, and written by Noboru Kimura.  Kimura has little experience with Gundam or mecha in general (mostly contributing to AGE), but he does have experience in a wide variety of works from sports anime to harem and isekai series to varying degrees, including the divisive Accel World (which I do like despite it’s flaws).  On paper, these two seem like a solid choice to follow up on Build Fighters Try, directed by Watada and written by Yousuke Kuroda of Gundam 00 and My Hero Academia fame.

Unfortunately, that isn’t how things played out at all.  The Prologue to GBD, released a few months before the series, is very much in the style of the various Fighters anime that had come before, and honestly feels like it could be the finale to a Fighters series we never got to see.  However, from the first episode of the main series run, it’s clear just how far away from that series we really are.  In fact, until episode 6, there are no real mentions of anything close to the more physical model fighting from the previous series, placing Divers in its own continuity until further notice.  Thus, not a sequel but a spiritual successor.  Going into the minutia of how fundimental things are different, like being in a VR game, creating a hub from a mix of Gundam Breaker and Phantasy Star for all the players, mission selection, video game stuff... all irrelevant to the Fighters comparison.  Instead, we need to look at character and the sense of stakes.  Or, moreover, the serious lack thereof.

Riku and Yuki both like Gundam, so there’s the minor point of having no newcomer in episode 1 to serve as the justification for explaining stuff to any new audience.  Since Divers is clearly trying to stand on it’s own, this is a bit of an error.  The bigger problem is in terms of motivation.  Riku is on a quest of self-improvement, to become strong like the champion.  His limitation is a basic lack of experience.  That’s a far cry from Fumina’s inability to be supportive while still possessing her own strength, or Iori’s mental blocks preventing creativity in design or focus in battle.  Yuki is basically a partner with not any real motivation, Momo is playing to have fun with her friends, and Koichi is working his way through finding love of Gunpla and Gundam after having lost it when his former hobby group fell apart.  Of all these characters, Koichi is the one with the most interesting motive, and it’s basically solved by the episode after he joins the team.

Built into these motivations are the characters’ personal stakes, but this is where the series crosses between Fighters and VR Isekai, failing both completely.  In Fighters, the main struggle shifted from the duo of Sei and Reiji getting better and proving their strength and growth, to actual antagonistic characters fighting them and hurting people significantly.  There are stories of corporate manipulation, brainwashing, de facto slavery, and even the existence of criminal mercenaries who specialize in crimes with toy plastic robots.  That last one is a bit ridiculous, but hey, where there’s money to be made, right?  Try is more of a standard sports anime, a team of underdogs rising up through the building of their skills and their friendship.  Each character goes through a personal arc, and the antagonists are more personal foes or even just the player’s own emotional limitations (see the Fumina point above).  It’s a different kind of show in some ways, but the focus on character growth and realistic stakes works, even if both stories pull a fast one by way of absurd final battle to save the world maybe because magic rocks.  Diver’s main thread is regarding the Break Decal, a physical chip attached to a model kit as it is scanned that overpowers the unit activating it while causing massive system instablity AND wiping out the central data records of cheating to cover its tracks.  Also it self destructs in the real world after being used.  Huh.

So, in VR Isekai stories, much of the gravity of the narrative comes from the idea of questioning the divide between reality and virtual reality.  I mentioned .hack in the prelude post to this, and the character of Sara does appear to be a low-quality version of Aura from that franchise, but I’m gonna give the show the benefit of the doubt on her.  My issue is in regards to the lack of any serious gravity to the Break Decals.  Basically, someone is encouraging the use of cheat devices to mess with the game and break it, going so far as to hire mercenaries (at least that seems to be what’s happening with the Throne trio), and so far, it doesn’t seem like the series is gonna really pull the trigger on real world consequences.  As much as SAO is ragged on, and as much as I would love to see that series in OVA form from the perspective of the outside world dealing with a mass crisis of decentralized terroristic violence through VR headset, there were stakes in SAO for the real world characters and their lives.  It may have been poorly communicated, but there were lives destroyed by that event, moreso than we could really have ever seen on screen.  In .hack, the world exists in the aftermath of a computer virus that resulted in deaths and hacking is a capital crime, casting a greater weight on the incidents of people going comatose while playing a video game.  In GBD, there is neither precedent for concern, nor real world weight to what is happening.  The biggest issue I can see at this point is that it’s a bit late to start hinting at real world consequences now.  We’re 10 episodes into a 25 episode series (based on the recent seasons of Gundam), and it feels almost like the Break Decal stuff is coming to a head without feeling like there are any real stakes in the story.  It’s basically all virtual, no real, which really fails on the VR Isekai front.

So, yeah, the Divers are boring and there are no stakes to their story.  Thus, by extension, the action has no weight and is a bunch of pretty lights and explosions, sound and fury signifying nothing.  On the plus side, the mechanical design is nice, with seeing the AGE suits decoupled from that horrendous series being a real highlight to me personally.  Chalk up another mecha design win for  Takayuki Yanase.  Additionally, the varied character designs do sell the MMO feel of the show, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t really love Rommel’s design as a Zeon cosplaying ferret with a seeming love of Votoms.  Magee, on the other hand... well, I’ve been here long enough but let me point out that Magee is the first example of the “Okama” archetype/stereotype in Gundam history.  And considering that it’s a pretty awful stereotype, I’d have really preferred they not do that.

I guess one could say that I should give the rest of the show a chance, but I’m a firm believer in the idea that you can tell how good a series will be, in most cases, by the first episode, and the rest of the show isn’t exactly challenging my expectations from that.