Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich (Post 724670)

https://i.imgur.com/xLFeJRT.jpg

Sento,where the f*** have you been keeping that thing the past 19 episodes?! You could've at least driven it down a wall or something for old times' sake. Come on, one last chance for a bike screencap and this is all I get?

Well, bike action or no, Build's finally over, and I... er... well, I kind of have some mixed feelings, and they're exactly the feelings I was worried I was going to have.

For the most part, this episode left me feeling like...

https://i.imgur.com/nlYcyjN.jpg

But then other parts of it made me feel like...

https://i.imgur.com/AIVEsJg.jpg

...and, having watched the episode twice now, I think I've had enough time to process it all, so in the spirit of full-circle storytelling, I'm busting out the bullet-pointed list for the first time in months:



- The pacing here was on point, since the episode starts at the climax. The crazy reality rewriting nature of the ending called for a lengthy enough epilogue, and we got that.

- The actual fighting part of the final fight was rather underwhelming, but the emotion of it hits perfectly and does an admirable job of distracting from things like shoddy CG and the fact that the whole fight is just two dudes smacking each other around in the dirt. I especially appreciate the callback to episode 3 because those lines from Sento were always hugely important to the show even without it dwelling on them afterwards.

- Likewise, one thing I'll say upfront is that ending the show on Sento and Ryuuga is the way to do it. This series was always about them at its heart and anything else just wouldn't have felt right.

- I love Katsuragi saying goodbye and the symbolism of him fading out like a ghost to drive home that, having finally set things right, Sento is no longer haunted by his past. It's a simple bit of visual storytelling that goes a long way.

- Sento pulling out a script and doing the narration at the end was beyond adorable, and the simple fact that they ended the series on a meta gag like that speaks volumes about Build's sense of humor. The fact that it can pull off ending on a gag like that speaks volumes of its quality.

- That melancholy scene in the cafe with the oddly appropriate music playing was neat. It's like a glimpse into what it would be like if they decided to play this conclusion as more of a downer than it actually was.

- Unfortunately, that brings to the part where I complain about alternate realities for half the post. I'm seriously shocked how alone I seem to be in feeling like I do, so if there's some secret to how this works that I'm missing, please tell me. But as far as I can tell, aside from the presence of Sento and "our" Ryuuga, it would've made no difference whatsoever whether this plan to merge two worlds succeeded or failed. This "new" world seems to be identical in just about every way to what "World B" was presumably already like anyway. This whole final showdown was supposed to the ultimate confrontation between Evolt's destruction and Build's creation, an almost mythological conflict between two diametrically opposed beings with everything on the line, but when it came time for Build to actually build something, he basically just stole something that already existed instead. And those people screaming in fear as giant math equations send chunks of the Sky Wall raining down on them don't exactly look like they're being "saved". It's extremely frustrating because this ending, wild though it may be, is actually super thematically appropriate, but because of the way it was executed, it also feels like the exact opposite of that. There's all these questions being raised that aren't important to the story, but still manage to detract from it.

- Why does having Evolt's DNA make Ryuuga want to dye his hair?

- More seriously, if the reason there's two of him around is because "World A" him is different from "World B" him, well... doesn't that apply to just about everyone? Especially poor Misora, considering she played host to an alien being too.

- Similarly, the show DOES realize Sento Kiryuu and Takumi Katsuragi aren't actually different people, right? Because if it does (and I know it does), that only furthers supports my idea that there should be two of everyone. Mind you, the show could've easily avoided all of this by just saying Ryuuga and Sento are the only ones still around because they were at the center of the whole mess or something.

- Of course, if the scene at the cafe WAS meant to hint that it might be possible for people to remember "World A", then that goes a good way toward mitigating my complaints. But one, it comes off super ambiguous, and two, that still begs the question why "World B" is like the default setting for the "new" world if the whole point was to put them together. Still, I'm probably going to hold onto this idea in the future to preserve my sanity.

- Or maybe the Cross-Z V-Cinema will clear this all up retroactively? I mean, the plot is liable to follow up on "other" Ryuuga, so...

- Oh, and speaking of things to be cleared up later, I'm not going to whine about the Ride Watch because I have a feeling Zi-O is going to directly explain it in a few weeks.

- Not that any of those last two points do anything to help Build stand on its own.

- Also, why does having Evolt's DNA make Ryuuga want to dye his hair???

All of that being said, I should really stress again that I did love the episode, I still adore Build, and if I were any good at organizing favorites lists, Build would be very high up in my favorite Rider series. Like I said early on in that rant, it isn't actually the job of a good story to bog itself down explaining the minutia of the universe, and while I do wish Build had done a better job directing my attention where it needs to be, it's a hell of a long way from a bad finale.

This show was great, and if Zi-O is even half this good, we're in for another fun year.

Originally Posted by VoidinToku (Post 724671)

Well, idk if it would be better if it was just sento because the alternate version of them aren't the original even if they gain the memories of the original. Banjo is just going to accept his girl going out with another version of him. Are we sure shouichi wasn't awake during the early coffee shop owner episode? We never dealt with that along with katsuragi's mom reunion. Is katsuragi's half just sento imaginary consciousness? There got to be a katsuragi's family here. Dealing with scifi multiverse, parallel universes, time and imterdimension travels are all too confusing to over think.

Originally Posted by zenstrive (Post 724677)

This is a good finale. The main characters literally work together to crush the main evil. The main evil really the main evil since the start, not the dragon that is Gamedeus.

I still have problems with the new world though.

If the new world really is ALL NEW PEOPLE and it was pulled from other universe, than that universe LOST its earth. That is slightly catastrophic to the solar system there.

What I think happen is that that Earth is created as a clone of the build earth, the whole information of it, people, geology, temporal imprints, warts and all, but removing EVOLT's influence to the information. As if it was a pre-quest save.

Why Sentou and Banjou can still exist in that universe is because THEY WERE IN THE GAP when the information from the Build Earth was merged with the Clone Earth. They were not rewritten.

Now for build team on the clone earth, they all have merged memories, kinda like when you combine two layers on photoshop. The resulting image is fixed, that's why you can still see everyone is kinda the same but doesn't have evolt influence. Really, Misora's dad is an ASTRONAUT for god's sake, that fact can't be erased since it's pre-Evolt, so why is he running a cafe?

Why on earth Kasumi still end up with this three friends/underlings?

And why on Earth Sawa is still a journalist?

That's because the new Earth is made from the memories of the old Earth Pre-Evolt combined with selected memories and extrapolated projections from Build Earth.

Like, what if there is no Evolt but Sawa still exist? What will her projections be?

The merging process make her still a spy/journalist but not chasing Kamen Rider's story. Gentoku is still a government officer but with more flirt and less evil plan.

With Sentou retaining memories of the two layers, maybe he can reconstruct their Build memories if the need arise.

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich (Post 724670)

- Unfortunately, that brings to the part where I complain about alternate realities for half the post. I'm seriously shocked how alone I seem to be in feeling like I do, so if there's some secret to how this works that I'm missing, please tell me. But as far as I can tell, aside from the presence of Sento and "our" Ryuuga, it would've made no difference whatsoever whether this plan to merge two worlds succeeded or failed. This "new" world seems to be identical in just about every way to what "World B" was presumably already like anyway. This whole final showdown was supposed to the ultimate confrontation between Evolt's destruction and Build's creation, an almost mythological conflict between two diametrically opposed beings with everything on the line, but when it came time for Build to actually build something, he basically just stole something that already existed instead. And those people screaming in fear as giant math equations send chunks of the Sky Wall raining down on them don't exactly look like they're being "saved". It's extremely frustrating because this ending, wild though it may be, is actually super thematically appropriate, but because of the way it was executed, it also feels like the exact opposite of that. There's all these questions being raised that aren't important to the story, but still manage to detract from it.

- Why does having Evolt's DNA make Ryuuga want to dye his hair?

Originally Posted by barnstenchfartface (Post 724688)

You're definitely not alone in this. Me personally, friends I've talked to and some other losers on other sites have all expressed some deep ambivalence towards this ending for exactly these reasons. The merge feels like it's largely in name only, as everyone we knew is essentially gone forever, and there is no indication or reason to believe the versions of the characters we see weren't already that way to begin with. Especially in regards to "our" Misora and Sawa, who were essentially completely overwritten by our hero's own hand. It's particularly troubling because it's clear no one really had a clear idea of how the merge would actually work, and Misora herself brings up earlier whether merging the worlds won't just mean one version of them disappears. I guess the idea is that that didn't "actually" happen, but functionally, from the viewer's perspective, there isn't a meaningful difference. That's basically what we got.

As for Banjou's hair, I think the idea is just Banjou's DNA made his hair lighter to begin with, which hey, may even tie to Evolt-Sento's white hair. Probably not because he possessed plenty of other people with no similar changes, but eh.