What the Hell? Gundam Build Fighters

Strike!

The latest entry in the Gundam franchise.

Where people of all ages fight with Gundam Models. They even have tournaments and virtual reality stuff.

Like Yugioh only with Gundam Models instead of Card Games.

Now, I went into this feeling hopeful. Sure silly premise and all, but who cares about that? We get Gundam Fights!

And that’s the most important thing.

I was bitterly disappointed. But first the positive!

Good Things

This is no Ramba, boy. No Ramba.

Ramba Ral.

That’s just so… I am grinning. You don’t see it but I am grinning. I love stuff like that.

Also, the battles were kind of nice.

Plus, the new Gundam.

What Went Wrong?

I must haz this

Lots of things.

Average kid who sucks at GunPla battles despite being awesome at building them was okay. This is anime, you learn to expect and deal with that type of protagonist. Setting-wise there is no big problem.

The issues start when purple kid appears.

See, the guy wants to team up with Main Character, because His Skills+MC's Gunpla making skills would so win the tournament. Naturally, the way he chooses to prove MC this is an awesome idea is by repeatedly humiliating him in Gunpla matches.

Shounen is bad for your kids.

Now, the real problem starts when MC refuses because he “doesn’t like the way Purple Kid treats his Model”.

…

Yeah, from where I am standing the only difference between you and him is that his Model ended the fight in one piece while yours was wrecked MC.

Now as things usually go in this type of anime, it all comes down to one final fight with a huge bet on the line. 

Now this is the part where MC mans up and manages to win his first fight ever.

Not.

Instead, the weird, red kid MC helped earlier magically appears and kicks Purple’s kid ass for MC…

…

…

Okay… isn't that totally cheating? And pretty blatant at that. I mean, getting temporarily possessed by the spirit of an Ancient Pharaoh is one thing, but the other kid is right there! There’s no way to miss him! Fight should have been invalidated right there and then.

For another, MC decides Red Kid is perfect for piloting his super, awesome Gundam…

Yeah so, again, what?

Kid acknowledges he sucks and is going to let this new guy fight all his battles for him? Is this a cultural thing I am missing here?

Gundam is a pretty big franchise and this show didn’t even need to try hard because it had a built in “See all the cool Gundams fighting each other” angle. You can’t mess that up.

Except it sucks. It really does.

Now I may be jumping the gun on judging the series as a whole, but this is a horrible first episode in either case.