A ‘Gundam Build’ series premise basically involves some mechanic to make Gunpla Battle possible. ‘Fighters’ was your standard tournament format mechanic along the lines of Beyblade while ‘Divers’ is their take on the fantasy RPG-slash-isekai genre that’s the staple of seasonal anime nowadays. So what could the next series be? Well, they decided to go the Japanese drama route and go live action with the next installment: Gundam Build Real.
The premise is similar to Gundam Build Fighters with Gunpla Battle being the next big thing following the heyday of e-sports competitions. You build your Gunpla, scan them, and have full scale projection battles in virtual reality. In a very youth drama fashion, our protagonists are high school students and members of Team Bright, each having specific roles. We have a pilot, builder, programmer, tactical commander, and weapons specialist. Together, they dream of conquering Gunpla Battle to win the national tournament. This is basically Robot Wars with Gunpla.
Here’s the synopsis from Crunchyroll:
The protagonist Hiro Suzuki formed Team Bright with his friends in elementary school. They all pooled their money together to purchase a single Gunpla, Nanahachi (RX-78-2 Gundam) and upgraded it, aiming to win the regional tournament. However, the day before the tournament, he loses the Gunpla that was supposed to be in his bag. He is upset and treats one of the members as the thief who stole it, which leads to a fight, and Team Bright is disbanded without participating in the tournament. Four years later, Hiro is a freshman in high school, reunites with his fellow members, and aims for the national championship again.
As for the actual Gunpla, they’ve revealed two. Funny enough, both are based on Real Grade kits because you know, Gundam Build ‘Real’. First is Team Bright’s RG RX-78-2 Gundam, the aforementioned “Nanahachi” nicknamed after “78”. It looks like a standard RG Gundam but uses a different bazooka, called “Armageddon” and is apparently twice as powerful as a regular hyper bazooka. The rival team’s Gunpla is an RG Char’s Custom Zaku II which has an RG Tallgeese shield attached to its left shoulder.
Therefore, we are getting reissues of these two Real Grade kits as the variants based on this series.
Overall, I’m quite interested that they’re going the Japanese youth drama with the third ‘Gundam Build’ installment. I was curious of what concept they’ll tackle next when Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE ended and this totally caught me by surprise. They might go full tokusatsu for all I know. In any case, Gundam Build Real is set to premiere on March 29 at Gundam Channel on YouTube.
