What They Say:
As the World Tournament finals begin, Sei and Reiji find that their opponent in the first round is Mao Yasaka. When they met in Tokyo, they swore to fight in the World Tournament, and now that promise will finally be fulfilled. But Mao senses a threat from the Star Build Strike, which was more than an even match for Fellini. With Sei’s rapidly advancing building skills, and Reiji’s control technique, he is likely to lose. Desperate to win, Mao goes to visit Master Chinan of the Gunpla Shingyo school of modeling arts and ask to be taught new secrets. On the day of the battle, a worn-out Mao appears before Sei and Reiji. Now begins a life-or-death battle between the Star Build Strike and the Gundam X Maoh…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While we had a largely predictable episode the last time around, it was a decent bit of needed growth and understanding that had to take place for Reiji in order to understand Sei more. The two have gotten along well, if superficially, since they first met each other and got caught up in the whole Gunpla thing. With them now moving into the finals for the World Tournament, those kinds of bonds have come across a bit stronger and with a kind of fun and simplicity that comes from how two young men can just hang out with each other and become completely comfortable. Of course, a little parental influence isn’t bad as they need to get in gear for making it to the finals on time and discovering that their opponent is Mao.
Mao has had his regular appearances in the show so far so it’s not a surprise that things would come to this for the first bit of the finals in order to make it a touch personal. And as expected, a good chunk of the first half focuses on Mao and what he’s done in the past in order to do different kinds of training under his grandfather in the countryside, which leads to some simple fun and the like that helps him become more focused and fluid. We get to see a variety of different things and all of it works to paint a nice picture of Mao to be sure as someone who really loves the game and loves to learn about it, but we also get to see where he gained some real skill through what his grandfather taught him. This jibes well with Sei himself considering his own family history in the game and his connection to it that we understand so far.
There’s some decent material to this as it goes on, so that when they do get to the actual match itself, you have just enough of Mao in order to really root for him to do well, though obviously not enough to win. The match itself is a lot of fun as it takes place over the surface of the moon for the visuals and the two opponents definitely have a lot going for them in terms of style and skill, making for a pretty exciting match even if you do feel like it’s pretty much written on the wall before it even started. What’s nice about the way that the post-game match plays out is that we get more of it from Mao than from Sei and that means some good emotions on how to handle a loss and move forward. That cements Mao in the right way and while it doesn’t make him terribly engaging considering his age, it does sit right for the audience.
In Summary:
Gundam Build Fighters tournament work is admittedly pretty predictable and having a few episodes with these elements is a given considering the nature of this part of the arc. What’s helped salve that a bit in previous episodes were the teases of what may be going on in a grander scale that worked for me. We don’t get anything like that here as the focus is squarely on Mao as even Sei and Reiji come across as secondary in order to achieve the goal of humanizing and fleshing out Mao more. Which is good because we want to have opponents that we can root for in some way, and if the game turns in some interesting fashion later on, we want to have people standing by Sei and Reiji that we know and like. Mao definitely fits in there and has a potentially interesting future in front of him.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Official Gundam YouTube Channel
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
