[DreamSword]

Now up through episode 33 of Build. I feel like the wiki has very much mislabeled the start and end points of these arcs.

Anyway, the Rogue miniseries was literally just torture porn, so not my thing at all, and even from a storytelling perspective, it doesn't tell us anything the show itself doesn't already, so watching it felt like a waste of time.

As for the arc itself, I felt that, for the most part, that it was basically just a repeat of the previous two but on fast forward. Fighting the other country, the other Crows dying off(so now all I have is Grease, thanks), more bottles being brought in at lightning speed, etc.

Which, by the way, I've noticed that this show is really bad at handling its forms in general. Every new suit it introduces is effective for maybe three episodes at max before getting completely outclassed. Heck, even the FullFull Bottle is stonewalled by Hard Guardians a mere episode after it gets done making a joke of Rogue who was previously making a joke of every other suit beforehand and etc. Like, look, I get it, there's an arms race going on, but it doesn't exactly make for compelling storytelling the way it's presented. Atleast not for me.

Side note here: My headcanon for Tsukasa was that he had short-term memory loss. My headcanon for Sento is that he is actually delusional, given how often his actual behavior clashes not only with his alleged "smart guy" position as well as how even the plot kinda undermines any sort of characterization he does get. Such as his dumb stunt about "betraying the country" so he can steal Pandora's Box, which is two minutes later rendered meaningless.

Character dynamics are definitely weird in general for this show. I've already voiced my feelings about how this show favors its plot more than its characters, a recent example being Gentoku's' complete 180 towards the end of the arc for like no reason, but the biggest point of confusion for me is actually Grease/Kazumi. I noticed that, when it comes to the "lesser" scenes involving the characters simply interacting, which in turn gives development, all of those are with him and Banjo. Meanwhile, all of the "major" scenes, which do nothing but advance plot and/or action sequences are between Kazumi and Sento. It's such a strange imbalance and really, I have a way easier time believing that Kazumi and Banjo are close friends rather than Banjo and Sento, which in turns makes the big scenes between Sento and Kazumi feel really forced(like the action scene where the spirits of the Crows are cheering them on).

Tying into that, the rare times this show tries to do humor feels incredibly off-tone due to just how much drama is going on with every episode, which is not helped in that it really doesn't match my sense of humor. The couple of fourth wall breaks especially feel out of left field in a show like this.

But back to character specifics, Banjo's' stuff also kinda confuses me in terms of thematics. Him being an alien and using that to pose the question of if he qualifies as human feels like another repeat, given that the show already posed this question in terms of the Nebula Gas experiments, of which alot of people in the cast have already gone through(him included). And when it comes to Cross-Z Magma, while it is a cool form, shouldn't Grease be the one with the fire-focused form, given that he all the time talks about how his passion and soul are ablaze? Feels like a misstep.

In the end, it's clear that this show's' primary focus is just on being a geopolitical war drama, and really, I can get much better example's' of that in the average entry of the Gundam franchise. Is Build out and out horrible? No, but outside of Grease, it just really hasn't been doing much for me. Might take a break from it to watch Black Sun, since that dropped recently and has my interest piqued.

But hey, to give the plot some credit, the Sky Wall finally has some sort of real purpose, so there's that atleast.