Build series spoiler discussion

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takenoko
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Build series spoiler discussion

Post by takenoko »

Show's done. Go rate it: viewtopic.php?f=236&t=22731

Characters
With the exception of Sento, I feel like I like all the characters in the show. Banjou's rough and crude. Grease is dumb and hilarious. Misora's the emotional heart and a very good actress. Souichi's a scene chewing villain. Even Gentoku came around. Even the three prime ministers were pretty interesting.

So why don't I like Sento? The show treats him like this big charismatic center, which I never felt myself, so that felt unearned. I think the writer was trying to set him up as a goofball that liked to crack wise, but it just made him seem flippant and never truly invested in anything he was doing.

In general, while I liked the characters, I didn't like how passive and reactionary they all were. From day one it felt like Stark was pulling the strings and it never stopped feeling like the heroes were just rushing to put out one fire while Stark lit another two or three. Utsumi had a lot of potential but was wasted.

But aside from Stark, not a lot of real villainy. I guess Midou and Nanba were villains up until they got rid of them, but they were still being manipulated by Stark, so it doesn't feel super strong? The cog brothers were a waste of space.

No real guest stars, although they do bring back that one lady with the boat? There were a decent amount of regulars, which was nice, but for the most part the world felt empty except for the civilians dying in the background during the wars.

Story and fights
Didn't feel tight? Again, it's the hero passivity. The action scenes guide the story instead of it being the other way around. I mean, that's how all toku shows go, but when you go from one war to the next, or one repetitive robot fight to fighting the same 3 dudes for the majority of the arc, it really shows the seams?

The deaths never felt like they were earned. No, that's not fair. When the first crow dies and Sento is wracked with guilt, that was pretty good. Or when the likeable father of Gentoku dies. Those worked for me. But a lot of the deaths felt like "the drama fire is going out, better throw another body on top of it to keep it going".

Think about the deaths on Game of Thrones. They affect the audience because those characters are built up and you grow to like them and their removal from the world leaves a ripple effect on the characters who are left. In Build, the three crows were barely characters, and Grease ends up mourning them for the majority of the series.

Banjou, Grease, and Rogue didn't have enough to do. Kill all the robots first. If there's two villains, two of the three heroes will fight, one guy will get knocked down or incapacitated for the fight. If it's just Stark, everyone will fight him till they get knocked down, then Sento will arrive and fight him. The fights in Build are laaaaaazy.

Final Thoughts
What happened with this show? No money? No monsters of the week so save money by fighting robots and the same 3 dudes. No guests, so just have the same people appear every week. No plot, so let's turn one war into two wars. (Then into three wars?)

I guess the thing that annoyed me most about the series was the lack of any sort of justification for anything. Nothing in this series even pretends to make sense. Here's the Build plot summary "Kamen Riders fight an alien guy, except the alien guy chooses the most convoluted way of doing anything and so do the heroes."

They ultimately beat the bad guy by... beating the bad guy! In a fight! The combining two worlds thing is superfluous and just sets up the stage where the fight happens.

Why didn't they just do some convoluted time paradox stuff instead? It makes more sense than assuming two quantum realities can be combined by smashing them into each other like an angry kid with two balls of playdoh. I keep asking this, but how does it work? Do both realities contribute some part of their reality? Is this just a copy and replace from the good reality to the screwed up one? Like I said in the final episode post, if Sento and Ryuuga had decided to just flee the old world and let it be destroyed, it would have had the same result. That old reality basically doesn't exist anymore.

Finally. What's in the box?!
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Re: Build series spoiler discussion

Post by takenoko »

I've just been made aware that this thread isn't in a public forum. It is now! Have at you!
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Re: Build series spoiler discussion

Post by Catastrophe »

Build is pretty good IMO. I've done write ups in other threads. Its worse offence was having the two war arcs back to back and have the same plot points beat for beat.
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