Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G
Gundam has always been about war, what causes it, and human evolution. But it has also been about model kits. In Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G, war is completely ignored and the models become the focus; celebrating thirty years worth of plastic kit building.
The story starts when Haru Irei goes to see the Odaiba Gundam with his father. When he decides he wants to build a model kit, he fails to pick up the last RX-78 and instead stumbles upon a rare model kit; the Beginning Gundam. Upon completing it, he starts to play in the Gunpla Battle video game where his model is scanned into a computer so he can actually pilot it against other model kits. In one of these battles he meets the mysterious Boris Schauer, who shows him how deep the world of Gunpla can get.
The series is a three episode OVA of episodes consisting of fifteen minutes each. It can either be seen as a crass marketing ploy that cuts out the War Is Hell middleman or a cute little show about the culture that has kept Gundam going for thirty years - which seeing as its meant to celebrate the models - not the series, the latter would the optimal mindset to enjoy it. Either way you can view it online here. It also spawn two sidestories manga Gunpla Builders Beginning D and Gunpla Builders Beginning J.
Gunpla Builders Beginning G provides examples of the following tropes.
- An Axe to Grind: Super Custom Zaku F2000's Deadend G heat hawk.
- A Boy and His Gunpla
- Beautiful All Along: In J, when Figlia Contini remove her glasses, both Takeru Nekki and Hikari Arisugawa are quite shock.
- Char Clone: Boris Schauer. One may argue that he might just be a cosplaying Char fanboy, but he still serves a similar role, being Stealth Mentor, and later The Rival to Haru. Oh, and he gets around riding Cool Horse, just like Char.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Saki Mishima of Gunpla Builder D alway dress in Elegant Gothic Lolita costume and she's gunpla builder. When enter Gunpla Battle, Saki switch her contact lens from usual gold to red, just to emulate Red Eyes, Take Warning trope. In 7th chapter, she switch her costume to mobile trace suit.
- Figlia Contini from Gunpla Builder J walk around in military officer costume, keep in mind that she's just Ordinary High School Student.
- The Cameo: A few lesser known suits pop up in this namely the Astray Red Frame which only has a few seconds of screen time before it's carved up by The O.
- Elsewhere Fic: The manga series Gunpla Builder D and Gunpla Builder J tell stories of other kids who get Beginning Gundam, Shingo Asume and Takeru Nekki.
- Expy/Homage ...it'd be easier to list anything that isn't one or the other considering the celebratory nature of this mini-series, between the names, the Char Clone, and the very gundam models themselves...
- Fiery Redhead, Hotblooded Sideburns: Takeru Nekki from Gunpla Builder J has them both. And true to them, his Gunpla modification is more crazy than Haru and Shingo. His vanilla Beginning Gundam is armed with giant Rocket Punch. When upgrade it to Beginning J, he replace the beam sabers with BFS taken from Sword Impulse and later, turn it into centuar-like using Mechanical Horse from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, with Badass Cape taken from Master Gundam.
- He Was Quite a Looker: In Gunpla Builder D, when Shingo found old photo of Mishima siblings, he has no idea who they are (only Daiyu play this trope, young Saki simply wasn't dye her hair nor wearing costume yet).
- Lighter and Softer: Obviously.
- Mecha Expansion Pack / Mid-Season Upgrade: The Beginning 30 Gundam, which is a Meaningful Name when you consider that the OVA was released on the 30th anniversary of Gunpla.
- Mix And Match Gunpla: Super Custom Zaku F2000 was Zaku Type F2 with extra armor and armed with equipments from other Zaku II kits. Many more are appear in D and J.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Figlia Contini's Akatsuki Corleone in Gunpla Builder J is based on The Godfather because she's 1 of the fan.
- Palette Swap: Kenta's White Hyaku Shiki and Sazabi and Kouji's Nu-Colored Hi-Nu Gundam are custom colored versions of the said 3 mobile suits. The sidestories add many more of them.
- Shout-Out: The last scenario in Episode 2, where Boris is creating an upgrade kit for Haru's Beginner, is a direct Shout-Out to Char's intentional leakage of Psycho Frame to Amruo and his Nu Gundam in Chars Counterattack.
- Spiritual Successor: To an old manga called Plamo Kyo Shiro (most notable for being the originator of the Perfect Gundam armor for the original RX-78-2 which has since appeared as an actual upgrade for it in various video games and other media rather than a fanboy's kitbash).
- Split Personality: Tatsu Shimano is Nice Guy and also being one who teach Haru and Kenta about gunpla modification, he become Ax Crazy in Gunpla Battle though. Interesting enough, his main tactic is "using Macross Missile Massacre to lure enemy upclose, then finish them with melee attack" which also used by another character with Split Personality in After War Gundam X.
- Super Prototype: Downplayed. Since Gunpla are commercial modeling kits, most of them are mass produced. Still, limited kits such as the Beginning Gundam are more powerful in Gunpla Battles than generic kits.
- Ace Custom: Ranges from subtle changes as seen in the Hi-Nu Gundam (it's actually built using parts from three separate kits, since each kit only has a pair of fully functional fin funnels), to extreme makeovers as seen in the Forever Gundam, the Super Custom Zaku F2000 and, of course, the Bearguy.
- Three Amigos: Haru, Kenta and Rina.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Haru, matched with his eye color.
- Unskilled but Strong: Haru was just newbie in Gunpla Battles in first episode, but his Gundam's power overwhelmed his enemies even when it was not properly built!
- Zettai Ryouiki: Rina, full stop.
