Awesome / Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE

Combining Mecha at it's finest.

Episode 1

• Hiroto is quickly established as a Combat Pragmatist, shown by how he uses two of the surviving players to both lure out the Boss of the Survival challenge, but to also gauge its strengths. He shows this side again when he hangs back as the other three fight the Eldora Army suits, determining what the enemy is capable of before moving in, finishing two of them himself.

Episode 4

• Captain Zeon all the way. The man is Heroic Ham in a good way. Despite being quite powerful, he doesn't just outright pummel them but instead battles them and tries to force those who do wrong to repent, only resorting to a Colony Drop when they refuse.

Episode 5

• This episode's spotlight goes to the Valkylander, with Parviz fighting his fears enough to unleash his cute Gunpla's fearsome power, tearing through Eldora Brute types that were giving the rest of his team trouble.

Episode 7

• Kazami finally gets his head on straight as he gets a Heroic Second Wind watching the rest of a Captain Zeon episode which suggests he would lose, only to see that he was saved by the Three Gaza Brothers, who had pulled a Heel–Face Turn. This leads him to pummel the One-Eyes with his bare hands and finally getting his first kill.
• The real MVP here is the Seltsam, who nukes the Resistance Base with utter ease and wipes the floor with our heroes, the only thing saving them is Hiroto sacrificing his armor pieces to serve as a distraction.

Episode 9

• The team finally getting their act together, coordinating their tactics to completely rip apart the One-Eyes' aquatic mobile armor.
• May pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to shield Hiroto from the Seltsam's Wave-Motion Gun, and blowing her cover as an El-Diver in the process.

Episode 10

• May demonstrates her piloting prowess by being the only member of BUILD DiVERS to put the Seltsam in an unfavorable position and force it to retreat. Her Mobile Doll moved as if it were her own body (which it kinda is).

Episode 12

• Kazami gets kills! Sure, they're all grunts, but he gets kills! More than one! Too bad the rest of the episode was just depressing.

Episode 13

• Realizing that they may suffer the same fate as Masaki Shido, the BUILD DiVERS resolve to return to Eldora and continue the fight.

Episode 14

• The majority of the episode is How We Got Here, showing how Freddie managed to call and summon the BUILD DiVERS in Episode 1. It turns out that he spotted the Eldora Army units heading for his village and managed to get their attention to draw them away from there, explaining his panicked state then.
• Cutting to the present, sometime after the events of Episode 12 from Eldora's side, Freddie gets snapped out of his Heroic BSoD by Asha, crying that the One-Eyes will come for them soon, but this time, their brother and the Resistance are now gone. He runs back to the temple ruins and, over the course of several days, manages to clear the rather large rubble away from the entryway to find the surprisingly-intact altar. History Repeats: he falls asleep in frustration from initially failing to get the tablet to activate, but after a dream of Hiroto, in new armor, saving him from the Seltsam, manages to find the screen with our heroes. If the kid didn't get respect before, he most certainly does now.

Episode 15

• Hiroto and May's fight against the Windam squadron is a showcase on just how far these former lone wolves have come with them decimating the enemies in a incredible display of teamwork. And Hiroto shows he's not just a expert Mobile Suit pilot but also an expert fighter pilot with his Core Gundam II's flight mode.

Episode 16

• A villainous example in the reveal of the Alus Core Gundam, being shown easily overpowering May And Hiroto. Especially when it Core Changes into Alus Earthree Gundam, paralleling the first Earthree Core Change from Episode 1.
• Sacred Beast Cuadorn is shown to be capable of creating massive storms that repel Alus, even while injured.

Episode 18

• In the Uraven Gundam's sniper battle with the Alus Earthree Gundam, Hiroto accurately predicts what Alus' target is and intercepted it with his shot. He shot a beam at another beam. He then very quickly triangulates Alus' position and destroys the AI's rifle with an immediate follow-up shot.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that Hiroto shot a split second early, meaning he was working off of nothing but prediction
  • After that he changes to the Earth Armor and proceeds to have an intense close quarters battle that ends with the Earthree's left arm destroyed and the Alus Earthree with its head blown off courtesy of the Uraven Gundam's rifle, which Hiroto fired at point-blank range.
  • How Earthree's arm is destroyed bears mentioning. The Alus Earthree had disarmed Hiroto of his beam sabers, so he allows it to skewer his Earthree's left arm, stalling long enough for the Uraven Flyer to launch its rifle at the Alus Earthree's head like a harpoon, ripe for the finishing blow.
• Kazami has definitely shown improvement now that he ditched his showboating. He destroyed 2 enemies in a single blow, downed another one with his Shot Lancer, and saved Freddie and Stola by blocking the dispersed shot from the Alus Earthree.
• Stola himself has shown his own Character Development, having gotten rid of his need to be on the frontlines, and focus on coordinating the evacuation of the villagers to the ruins.

Episode 19

• Hiroto's battle in his local GPD farewell tournament. He beats a 1/60 scale Perfect Grade Strike, with a snap-built RX-78-2. A Speed Grade (less than High Grade), 1/200 scale RX-78-2. Specifically, after failing to damage the PG Strike and losing an arm, Hiroto notices the leftover remains of the previous Gunpla the PG Strike defeated. He then:
  • Grabs onto a Crossbone Gundam's Core Fighter and rams it into the Strike's Beam Rifle, destroying it.
  • Rides a Gundam Maxter's surfboard and bombards the Strike with a Zaku's bazooka and the shoulder missiles of a Heavyarms.
  • Tosses Shiguru Blades from an AGE-1 Spallow into the Strike's eyes to take out the cameras and bypass the Phase Shift Armor.
  • Replaces the RX-78-2's lost arm with that of a Unicorn Gundam's to use the Beam Magnum, taking out the Strike's head and winning the battle.
  • This leads to Hiroto being inspired to build the Core Gundam, exploring the unique possibilities only available to small builds.

Episode 22

• BUILD DiVERS' final fight to save Masaki, all to the exciting second theme, HATENA, something that hadn't been done since Transient Gundam vs. the kit-bashed Try Burning Gundam way back in Gundam Build Fighters Try
  • Kazami kicks it all off with his Aegis Knight's KING MODE!, creating a massive beam sword similar to Captain Zeon and blocking the beam shot that, episodes ago, took May blocking it with her WoDom Pod just to survive.
    • Making this even better is something revealed in the Aegis Knight's instruction manual. According to the manual, King Mode isn't a Super Mode, but a bit of flair before Kazami uses his beam sword. This isn't extra power, but 100% Kazami with a tad bit of showboating!
  • Then we go full Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as Hiroto and the Satursix clash with the Seltsam with drills that Hiroto overpowers with, complete with lava bursting from the ground as he succeeds in that. And for the final touch, he finally rips off the Seltsam's fake arm, restoring it and Masaki to normal.

Episode 23

• Magee has taken the liberty of helping the BUILD DiVERS team, showing them all the help other GBN users have been offering. He's even set aside a special mission to help them train for the battle, and everyone wants to help. This includes Force Avalon and the OG Build Divers!

Episode 24

• It wasn't just Force Avalon and the OG Build Divers that came to lend a hand. Ogre and his force, Rommel and his, Tigerwolf, and Shahryar are among those that came out to lend a hand as well!
• Many of the named characters giving BUILD DiVERS so much hell in battle is such a sight to see, especially if some of these characters are your favorites!
• Hiroto and team just keep on trying to reach the last stage of the rehearsal was quite the sight. As they have to restart from the beginning if one of them dies since they need the whole to team succeed in it. Took them 40 tries to finally figure out a strategy for it. Such tenacity.
  • Keep in mind that they would have likely battled every other Diver over and over again. And since they're up against an army of highly skilled human opponents, it's very likely they couldn't use the same tactics each time. That they managed to keep getting through the Coalition of Volunteers 40 times with so much changes in factors each time is itself amazing.
• The duel between Hiroto and Riku alone is proof of the former's ingenuity and persistence. In particular, the brief sequence where he faces off the 00 Sky Moebius in Trans-Am Infinity Mode, with just the Core Gundam II.
• As the BUILD DiVERS continue to make more and more attempts to succeed at their rehearsal challenge, Hiroto begins fielding his Core Gundam II without using any of his Planets System packs, as though he expects the final confrontation with Alus to be fierce enough to make him ditch his armor.
• Despite still being low-ranking (though they clearly don't mind), the original Build Divers shows why they are divers to be taken very seriously. Even Momoka, the arguable bottom of the totem pole of the force, manages to show how dangerous she's become in the last two years with her unorthodox tactic.
• May's Gratuitous English description of Kyoya in his new Gundam TRY AGE Magnum is an understatement. His showing is a reminder that he's Champion for a reason, and that he's the guy who Riku barely won against, and only with Ogre's help.

Episode 25

• Par analyzed the Dubious Arche Gundam's attack patterns with Sharyrar, KO-1, Tigerwolf, and Ogre and figured out how to exploit Alus's Attack! Attack! Attack! tendencies. When Par fights the Dubious Arche for real, he predicts its moves and exploits its inability to turn-off Trans-Am to trick Alus into overloading the Arche.
• Kazami is initially overwhelmed by the Fake-Nu Gundam's funnels, but then decides to "become a funnel" himself. He transforms the Aegis Knight into mobile armor mode and uses its speed to grab and destroy the enemy Gundam.
  • What makes this doubly awesome? This is the same stunt Athrun tried to use on Kira during their fated duel, but couldn't as the Aegis ran out of power. Kazami redeemed Athrun and the Aegis with this shot!
• May confronts the Reverse Turn X. She ejects her Mobile Doll May and then remote controls the WaDom Pod to restrain the Turn X so it can't split up and then blasts the Turn X into smithereens.
• In general, after a brief moment of being caught off guard by the Reverse Turn X and the giant Eldora Daughtress, the heroes, Alus' other forces quickly fall to BUILD DiVERS. After all, as Kazami and Par note, they went toe-to-toe with the best of the best GBN had to offer 40 times, and none of the One-eyes could ever hope to match them.
• To stop Alus's Kill Sat, May, Kazami, and Par combine their Gunpla into a new armor for the Core Gundam, forming the Re:Rising Gundam. Hiroto uses the Re:Rising Gundam's Grand Cross Cannon to deflect the Kill Sat's laser back, ending the threat to Eldora. It's not a simple sharing of parts. It's a full-on Combining Mecha sequence with a voice command and Theme Song Power Up!!!
• Concluding the "People of the Gunpla" are intruders to Eldora and therefore a threat to his task to "protect" the planet, Alus decides to lead an assault on GBN to attack them directly. Turns out he royally screwed himself over, because his arrival was met with countless players, including Magee and Karuna, who easily outnumber and surround his forces. Best part: this wasn't a random scramble. This was a trap that the heroes prepared, and Alus walked right into it!
  • Even better, as one of the ways this episode is a direct contrast to the first moon battle, the heroes then were met with a force of One-eyes so massive in number that their radars had to stop counting. Now, Alus is the one unprepared in facing insurmountable numbers and odds he has no realistic hope of winning or surviving against.
• Hinata deserves some love as well. Most of the times she's seen practicing archery and preparing for the ritual, she's shown to be missing most of the time. During the time of the actual ritual, however, juxtaposed with Hiroto firing the Grand Cross Cannon, Hinata takes the shot and nails it dead on!
• Points also to Masaki and Cuadorn's Big Damn Heroes moment. Just when it seems like Hiroto and team are being overwhelmed, the pair come soaring in to even the odds, effortlessly tearing through the hordes of Grunts like they were made of paper. Just goes to show how these two were able to hold back Alus' attacks before the start of the series.
  • Mind you Masaki has been a coma for six months, only recently recovered and most likely didn't have a lot of time to prepare before hand yet he still kicked butt.
• Overall, the episode is a complete 180 to episode 12, where this time, the heroes have everything going for them.
• The day after the episode premiere, a trailer for the final episode was released on Gundaminfo, showing where the cast started and where they are now, naturally set being to HATENA. As many in the commenters noted, this was unprecedented; no other Gundam finale, at least those that premiered on Gundaminfo, got such a special trailer for its final episode. It clearly shows how well-received this show has been, and especially after episode 25, itself having been monumentally received by the fandom.

Episode 26

• Despite being outgunned, Alus easily has the upper hand, blasting away numerous fighters and giving our heroes a tough time fighting. Not to mention, he figures out the electronic nature of GBN, so he starts blasting away at the server itself.
• Alus then fires an even bigger Wave-Motion Gun. While it doesn't work, seeing Ogre, Shahryar, Tigerwolf, Magee, and Yukki combine their strongest barrages to try to negate it is still awesome.
• Hiroto keeps his cool despite having the armor parts for his Earthree configuration stolen by Alus. He only sports an Oh, Crap! face when Alus is about to outgun him, but Mr. Matsumura comes in with a Gunperry carrying Hiroto's other armors to block the hit, though he's taken down and some of the pieces are implied to be damaged. Regaining composure, he inputs a command, then proceeds to mix pieces of his Planet System armor packs together as he parries Alus with the fins of the Mercuone left gauntlet, follows up with a swift kick with Marsfour legs to force him back and get some room to move, then uses the arm-mounted cannons from the Veetwo right gauntlet to counter a beam rifle shot and cancel it out, throwing up a smokescreen. He uses this concealment to continue assembling his custom configuration, then lunges out of the smoke with the Saturnix drill, taking out the Alus Earthree with a strike to its face (The rest of the armor can be seen in a dramatic shot, showing that he used the V-Fin from Jupitive, mixed shoulders from Jupitive and Saturnix, and the body armor from Uraven). Even though his planned reinforcement armor delivery was intercepted by Alus, he was still able to quickly adapt and improvise a solution.
• Just when Alus has the ambush fleet beaten, The Cavalry comes in, bringing in even more divers that weren't already there, including:
  • Nanami saving Momo from One-eyes drones. Even better, we finally see the result of the Zakrello she was shown wanting to work on before she became Out of Focus in the final arc of the original show: a Powered Armor!
  • Rize brings in the Anima Rize and his friends, along with the Alex and GM Sniper II from the first episode. It's even better as the very first chapter of Rize actually reveals that he was there when Hiroto took down that giant boss in the first episode.
  • Katsuragi and Ms. Tori also join in and especially deserve praise. Despite the serious number Alus was doing to the servers, they quickly got to work resolving it and patch the extensive damage in a matter of minutes! And they implement it via going out on the frontlines in Katsuragi's Transforming Mecha Gunpla and then shooting the barriers, undoing all of Alus' damage instantly.
  • Mu Dish arrives to exclaim their pride in the matured Kazami.
  • Momo is picked up by the Umi Tryon (whose pilot, named Mr. MS in the Build Diver Rize manga, may or may not be Minato Sakai...somehow) and they take down a few grunts.
  • Captain Zeon arrives and asks Kazami to team up with him. The younger diver is all but overjoyed to be fighting alongside his idol. Even better when we now know it's Rommel, who left the battlefield earlier as soon as Kazami and the others arrived to change accounts. He also brought the Gaza Brothers along.
  • The fake Shahryar and his assistant from early in the last show come back to help. Even better, along with being funny, their Vagan-based Gunpla are a Shout-Out to fellow mecha/plamodel franchise Zoids, given their Iron Kong and Gojulas Mk II-like appearances. They even make fun of Alus' units for being Gunpla knockoffs.
  • It turns out that the Astray-ish Gunpla with the shoulder cannons is co-piloted by both KO-1 AND Tsukasa, handling artillery and vicious melee, respectively. Tsukasa even heralds the Reborns-like mode change with Allelujah's "I have control!!!". Also, he praises the BUILD DiVERS, showing that Tsukasa has truly pulled a Heel–Face Turn.
• With the arrival of millions more Divers, the tables are quickly turned on the rampaging AI. Par, Kazami, and May once again destroy the general units they beat last time (permanently this time), and then destroy the ships with the help of Shahryar, Captain Zeon, and the duo of Tsukasa and Koichi, respectively.
• Alus tries once more to fire a Beam Spam to damage the servers, but Sarah uses her Moonlight Butterfly wings to block them all. It also shows she's now in full control of her power, the very same power that was so out of control, it caused bugs that Eve could only absorb so much of. It's also poetic that this power that itself once damaged GBN itself now protects it.
• Kyoya takes out the last ship in the most ridiculously awesome way possible. His BFS' brackets turn into a card reader of sorts, in a direct reference to the Gundam arcade game Gundam TRY AGE, which summons a giant holographic AGE-1 Titus fist FROM THE CLOUDS, which punches both the Alus Core and the command ship into the ground!
• Alus tries to pull a Last Villain Stand by using the wreckage of his last ship and the Alus Core by fusing them a la Devil Gundam, but only succeeds in taking Sarah out of the fight, along with May who tried to block the blast. Forced to revert from their Gunpla bodies into their avatars, the two simply call Riku and Hiroto to catch them, which they do no problem. Together, they deal the finishing blast, finishing off Alus once and for all!
• Overall, it becomes pretty clear that while Alus did surprise his ambushers with his firepower and ability to damage the system with his shots, that was his lone advantage. However, this is the same cast that experienced the one-two punch of the Break Decal and EL-Diver incidents from two years prior, so of course, after regaining their composure, they quickly showed that they learned from two years prior, with how easily the entirety of GBN was able to counteract everything Alus had, undoing all of the damage he was causing, and how fast he went down.
• In the epilogue, Kazami has since rose to GTube stardom, endorsed by Captain Zeon himself, and has a collaboration with him and Patrick Colasour!
• The Eldorans have made significant progress rebuilding their lives now that the threat of Alus is gone forever. Cuadorn plants his dwelling place where Seguri used to be.
• The BUILD DiVERS flag flying proudly on Eldora shows that their Force Base is the entire world of Eldora. Some teams have an entire server to set up their Force Base. Our protagonists? They have an entire alien planet.

Battlogue

• While all the battles are amazing here, the shout out here goes to Kyoya Kujo vs. Hiroto. Both are piloting two of the more broken Gundams in the mainstream lineup — the Strike Freedom and the Barbatos Lupus Rex — both know their suits cancel out their main strength (Barbatos has its beam-negating Nanolaminate while the Strike Freedom has the Phase Shift Armor) and they both go at it. Special nod goes to Kyoya, who pulls out one of his Strike Freedom's Super DRAGOON and uses a beam blade function to stab the Barbatos!
  • Specifically he tried to stab the shoulder joint of the Barbatos, one part that is not protected by Nanolaminate Armor. Unfortunately for him he ended up hitting the shoulder pad instead, but points for trying.
  • The Battlogue ends at the dramatic high point where Kyoya has SEED Mode active on top of the X-Rounder flash'' while Hiroto has engaged the synchronization boost of the AV system to even the odds. So yes, GBN can simulate the super modes of most of the mobile suits featured in it.
• Speaking of the other battles, Hiroto's teammates prove they're no pushover when it comes to Gunpla battles.
  1. Parviz goes up against Ayame. How does Parviz defeat the female ninja Diver? He uses a decoy trap, specifically a figure of Heero Yuy. Ayame is awed by this figure...which leaves her open to Parviz's Wing Gundam Zero's twin buster rifle.
  2. Rommel (as Captain Zeon) eliminating Parviz with his God Gundam before engaging Kazami piloting the Destiny Gundam. The two fight to a draw. Oh, and Zeon's impressed by Kazami's chivalry, obviously proud of Kazami's own growth into his own desired hero. Awwwww...
  3. May versus Magee. First up, May's still piloting her mobile doll, albeit with a new colour scheme, while engaging Magee's Gundam Bael with twin pistols. Where May lacks in weapons she makes up for it in agility against the bigger, bulkier mobile suit. Then she brings the much bigger II Neo Zeong with its laser cannon fingers and cabled arms...and claps the Bael and Magee flat between the palms of its "hands".
  4. Kyoya barging in with the Strike Freedom docked with the METEOR unit. May's response? Charge towards the Champion by sealing the mobile armour's mobility to take him on up close. May fully utilises the II Neo Zeong's weapons, especially its double axes, and would have greatly crippled Kyoya's chances of winning at worst had he not dodged the axes.