Gundam Build Fighters (ガンダムビルドファイターズ, Gandamu Birudo Faitāzu) is a 2013 original television anime series directed by Kenji Nagasaki, and produced by studio Sunrise. Staff credits also include writer Yōsuke Kuroda, character designer Kenichi Ōnuki, and music composer Yuki Hayashi. The series aired in Japan in October 2013.
Background:
“The time is the near future. Years have passed since the 1980s, when “Gunpla” — plastic models based on the “Mobile Suit Gundam” animation — created a huge boom.
Now, a new wave is sweeping the world, in what could be called a second Gunpla boom. Its popularity is driven by “Gunpla Battle,” in which assembled Gunpla can be controlled and made to fight. With the introduction of this revolutionary Battle System, its popularity has expanded to the point that a Gunpla Battle World Tournament is held each year.
The main character of the story, Sei Iori, is a young Gunpla builder who loves Gunpla and dreams of entering the Gunpla Battle World Tournament. As the only heir to a hobby shop, he has high Gunpla building abilities, but he doesn’t know how to control them in battle and is continually defeated in the opening rounds of tournaments. When he meets Reiji, a mysterious boy with superb Gunpla control skills, they team up to take on the World Tournament.
Sei, the Gunpla builder. Reiji, the Gunpla fighter. Sei builds, and Reiji battles. They’re the Build Fighters everyone is talking about! Their goal is to enter the Gunpla Battle World Tournament — and win!”
Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, November 2023.
When Mobile Suit Gundam first aired back in the day, toys were one of the reasons why it had done so well for them to make more anime. From there we eventually saw the introduction of Gunpla which allowed fans and newcomers to essentially build their own little Gundams for their shelves and hobbies. It’s surprising that it had taken a few decades later for Sunrise to essentially take that concept and turn it into their own anime series.
After releasing so many Gundam shows like Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Build Fighters is a completely different beast altogether with a more kid friendly approach to the franchise. Set in the Our Century timeline which is basically the real world, Gundam Build Fighters is essentially all about Gunpla to improve their skills. This idea was also carried over onto Gundam Breaker which was a pretty popular series of video games for the franchise (Bandai Namco even localised two of them, one of them was more or less a visual novel so it didn’t receive well by fans).
Gundam Build Fighters did well enough for Sunrise to produce more instalments connected to the series which also included Gundam Build Divers. These were also streamed legally for various regions including the United Kingdom & United States which was another way of introducing people to the franchise. Around the time the series was airing, Rightstuf received a partnership deal with Sunrise to release the Gundam franchise onto home video and one of the first titles to be released was Gundam Build Fighters which was given a complete series Blu-ray release in 2016.
Anime Limited also received a partnership deal with Sunrise for the United Kingdom but their process was very rocky with numerous delays and slow movement across the titles. It’s gotten to a point where we are now finally receiving a UK home video release for Gundam Build Fighters, but this is also a controversial one because it’s being split into two parts, costing twice as much as importing the US release and goes against the model that the previous UK Gundam releases were managed (which were 2-cours worth of episodes per release).
Collector’s Edition Contents:
Anime Limited’s collector’s offering for the Gundam franchise has its own branding called the ‘Gundam Collection’. Gundam Build Fighters follows the same treatment, and while it should have been released as a complete series set, it was split into two parts.
The collector’s edition Part 1 release contains a rigid box to house both parts of the series and an Amaray case for Part 1’s contents. The collector’s edition Part 2 release contains an Amaray case as well as a 60-page booklet featuring character designs and mecha designs from the series.
The artwork is free of any information on all sides of the box and the info sheet covers the BBFC content, information and specification. The Amaray cases will still mention the info about the series but the BBFC logo won’t be there. Each collector’s edition Blu-ray part is limited to 1000 units for SRP £69.99. A standard Blu-ray is expected to follow suit later.
I pre-ordered my copy through Anime Limited’s store during their early bird offer in July 2023 for Part 1 and November 2023 for Part 2 at £39.99 each but with the Anime Unlimited membership the offer is lowered to £35.99 each.
Physical Contents:
- Part 1 CE: Rigid Box with Amaray packaging and clean artwork
- Part 2 CE: 60-page Booklet
- Info sheet with info, specification and BBFC description
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 27th November 2023 (Part 1), 18th December 2023 (Part 2)
The collector’s edition releases for Gundam Build Fighters were released across two parts for the UK. The first part contains episodes 1 to 13 across two Blu-ray discs and the second part contains episodes 14 to 25 across another two Blu-ray discs. As Rightstuf authored theirs on three discs, the UK release won’t be using their authoring and considering how previous UK authored releases were done by Com ‘On Screen I was very personally concerned about the quality of these sets.
The good news is that VDMS were the ones who authored and encoded the UK discs, and the on-disc extras from Rightstuf’s release have been brought over as well as the Rightstuf subtitle translation, effectively avoiding a trainwreck like Gundam NT. The audio options available for the series includes Japanese with English and French subtitles and the Medi-Lan Limited English dub commissioned by Animax Asia. As this is a VDMS disc, you have the option to choose between English & French menu text at the start and can switch back and forth without having to reset the player.
The white subtitles are locked during playback, and the disc regions are locked to B for Blu-ray.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English Linear PCM 2.0 Japanese Linear PCM 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | B |
| Subtitles | English, French |
| Locked Subtitles | Yes |
| Discs | Part 1: 2 BD-50s Part 2: 2 BD-50s |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Part 1 Disc 2:
- Battle Selection
- Clean Opening “Nibun no Ichi” (One Half)
- Clean Ending V1 “Imagination > Reality”
- Clean Ending V2 “Imagination > Reality”
- Preview 1
- Preview 2
Part 2 Disc 2:
- Clean Opening “wimp”
- Clean Ending “Han Pan Spirit”
- TV Commercials
- Home Video Commercials
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Gundam Build Fighters Parts 1 & 2 are available to purchase on Blu-ray by Anime Limited in the UK & Ireland. The collector’s edition Blu-ray parts can be acquired through Amazon UK (Part 1, Part 2), Anime Limited’s store (Part 1, Part 2), and MVM’s Anime-on-Line (Part 1, Part 2).
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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