I wasnt expecting much from any follow up of Build Fighters. I had already heard that Try and the original Divers were failed attempts to recapture the magic of the original. So the next thing I thought to do was skip ahead to the next best thing. Could Re:RISE be the show to stand above its mediocre followups? It certainly does but it takes far too long for the show to become comfortable telling its own unique story. Im sure many are super familiar with the isekai genre as it pertains to MMOs. Sword Art Online started the whole fad in 2012 and plenty of anime are still actively attempting to dethrone it despite its divided quality. Re: RISE uses this virtual space format to feature Mobile Suits in but nothing ever feels fully realized in its medium. Sure Gundams were always a tool for warfare but when youre given lots of creative freedom to go nuts why is does Re: RISE to play it so safe with its worldbuilding? It took me a while before I finally was endeared by the anthropomorphic dog people especially Freddie who I began to adore. My main issue is why have halfcat people like Parviz? The thing that comes to mind is that its to pander to the Otaku crowd and its a seriously lazy attempt to really expand the number of scifi possibilities. Sure its representative of many Eastern MMOs that have this like Final Fantasy XIV TERA AION etc except I cant help but think about the unexplored potential to come up with something more creative. Hell even aliens or elves wouldve sufficed. Besides that the other huge thing is that many of the usual gamified elements of an MMO are hardly there say for a few segways that act as transitions to their next mission. This is where SAO does the game thing right by constantly reminding the viewer that theyre playing a game through small UI elements like an inventory XP bar and the dialogue boxes. When you have a character like Kazami constantly reiterating that theyre watching a cutscene it just detracts from the moment that I was originally invested in. the least the creators couldve done is add some letterboxing whenever the NPCs were talking in a dialogueheavy segment or thrown us a bone with a dialogue box of choice. Having characters establish that theyre a game through exposition is just lazy worldbuilding that makes it all the less memorable and has me question a lot of things. I guess theyre driving home that the fact that these NPCs are supposed to feel like real characters for later on though. Ironically the most real part of the show was that it was a VR game without a story that focused mainly around small skirmishes which is something many Early Access VRMMO titles are dealing with right now. A lot of titles are focusing on perfecting their gameplay base and then gradually rolling out a proper story and this is one of the things the show does accurately. Sorry for the side tangent I just had to get that out there. Basically the characters within Build Divers become beta testers for a larger more expansive experience for Gunpla Battle Nexus Online. If there one gaming thing they did get right its how similar it mimics the current VR landscape of testing a game with very minimal features where it starts to show off its potential later on which almost seems like a metaphor for this first half. Was I just we just beta viewer watching some filler episodes while the developers began writing an actual plot in the background? Just something to think about during your viewing was it intentional or not? 220https://www.kitguru.net/wpcontent/uploads/2017/10/unnamed.jpg R.I.P. HAWKEN PC or any chance of VR support In all seriousness though there are just too many missed opportunities for the creators to do anything new for the MMO anime genre or even a Gundam spinoff. Im not a fan of the dragon Mobile Suit piloted by Parviz because it looks so distant from a Mobile Suit reminding me of a Bakugan toy. It might be a small complaint about aesthetics but there are other examples like Mobile Doll May that looks like a character from Expelled from Paradise where you could argue against it being a Mobile Suit at all. Even Mays design is super uninspired in that regard and the same could be said for a majority of our main cast. We couldnt have got them dressed in familiar garb donned from familiar characters from the Gundam series? Its weird to me that they limit the fanservice so much where it seems like background dressing instead of a fun jab at the Gundam legacy. It makes me wonder why they didnt give our protagonists more standout garb to wear thats more in sync with something from its own genre besides looking like Mikazuki Augus from IronBlooded Orphans. Given that theyre in an MMO I just dont get why they wouldnt have small nods to other series with our main cast. I wouldve been superokay if they had modified some of the uniforms of past Gundam pilots. Hell it doesnt even feel like any of the characters themselves are superfans of the series either just gamers and Gunplaonly builders. On the surface they barely even mention Gundam besides the obvious points that theyre Mobile Suits. A lot of the actual Gundam fanservice is underutilized as it seems to just exist without any context besides being absolutely basic at least compared to the original Build Fighters. I recall Kazami saying in an episode that this was nothing like Gundam which made me scoff. I had no clue if that joke was ironic or not but it did get me thinking. Nothing that appeared on screen really as fanservice had me hyped a lot of the cool nods felt almost felt like they were checking off a box to include at least one Gundam reference per episode. Many of the fan specific jokes werent very layered at all nor did they satisfy any itch as a Gundam fan. Many of the cool onscreen jokes are just there to exist for a quick I saw reference from Gundam series before cutting to the main shot. 220https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gundam/images/6/62/Valkylander28Front29.png/revision/latest?cb=20191031120823 If you told people this was a Bakugan theyd probably believe you. In fact I still cant believe its not one The biggest glaring issue during my watch of the first half of Re:RISE was that the characters just werent compelling from the getgo. However the biggest surprise to me was that they receive actual development around episode 6 where I was actually starting to give a damn. At first Hirito seemed like the standard overly cool OP protagonist who reminded me of Kirito. During Hiritos backstory episode we come to find out why hes changed and acts the way he does now I started to see him as an actual human. Hirotos personality even differs from the one inside the VRMMO space and his reallife that makes sense thematically. In a way Hirito almost feels like the antiKirito SAO because of how flawed he is. As soon as Hirito openly admits that he is incapable of achieving his goals alone to his online friends it threw me for a loop because I wasnt expecting him to be written like that. I found myself relating Hirito quite a bit more than Id like to admit as he exemplified traits that were quite similar to mine. I was finally given a reason to sympathize with the stoic character beyond their power levels and Hirito is a prime example of this inside and outside the game. This whole idea of flawed characters is something I dont often see in Isekai protagonists as they usually aim to play up the usual power fantasy for nerds. Hirito was a breath of fresh air from the usual mary sues that usually overshadow any meaningful development that Im accustomed to in many Isekai titles. For as overly loud as Kazami can be his plot focused episode really stuck with me and I started to really jive with his character after that his character reminds me of Ryuji from Persona 5. Parviz was the same too who at first was very shy and timid but having Hirito confront him about his issues really added to both of their character dynamics. May is the stereotypical cold calculated female with dark hair but because of spoilers I wont go into why I can somewhat make an exception to this. Im just glad we have a mature human character like Hirito to balance the usual overpowered types that plague MMO anime. In fact the whole cast really begins to show their true colours as you progress further along the series that almost seem like it refutes their cliche archetype presentation. 220https://i.redd.it/k3bcsytrfbf31.jpg Its literally just Mikazuki and Atra...but Im somehow ok with this Its a real shame that the show doesnt begin showing off its wellrounded cast until later on especially way after the 3episode mark for people who have dropped it. As for the production value the presentation is fairly adequate. Theres a lot of good moments where the music does pick up I just never found myself intensely staring at my screen as I did in Build Fighters. Theres never a breathtaking moment nor is there a Mr. Ral that has me cheering on the sidelines for the group. I mean all of this is a given since the original director and composer went off to work on My Hero Academia instead of more Build Fighters sequels. Many of the pulsepounding action segments dont start happening until the first season is halfway done when you actually start to feel the weight of the character conflicts and it was especially true for their back story episodes as well. There is one particularly familiar rock track I am a fan of and that often appears during emotional moments that had me rooting for the cast but its far and few between. There are a lot of reused scenes for transformation segments and I noticed a lot of smaller establishing shots that were repeated in a few episodes. The first batch of episodes are easily forgettable sideadventures that dont really amount to much. They feel like wasted time as the show goes on. Despite watching them quite recently Im finding it really difficult to remember what happened in them because of how insignificant they were to the overall story. There are some modernday developments with Hirito and Hinata who I ship fondly that kept me wanting to back in with each passing episode. Re: RISE manages to balance its two worlds fairly well where its not jarring to switch between the two like it would be in something like an Assassins Creed game. There are some very interesting elements to the reallife characters and their virtual counterparts as you come to learn more about each. The characterdriven episodes with the backstories were well done and subverted what I was expecting from an anime like this. The show definitely begins hitting its proper strides near the end as it throws you for a loop. Re: RISE had won me over as the plot began to kick into overdrive alongside my interest in the story. I just wish it wasnt so late into the game pun intended when many have disregarded the series. As a whole Im extremely lukewarm about the first half of Re: RISE where I just found the characters better handled than everything else about the actual show. I just wish it didnt pick up the slack so late because I find that there are plenty of redeemable elements of Re: RISE that shouldnt go unmissed. If theres one thing I can say confidently its that the show has me completely on board for whats to come next in the second half so theyre doing something right in keeping my attention. https://www..com/watch?v=68pyALUv10I It aint Gundam Build Divers but its the closest thing we got in VR so far