Cardfight!! Vanguard V - Episode 3 Review

They're not even trying to hide the Ho Yay anymore.

Episode 3 I dare say is where we start seeing significant changes from how this anime will play out from the original.  Mind you it starts off in a similar manner to "Welcome to Card Capital" with Emi Sendou trailing Aichi after noticing something is up with him and stumbling into Card Capital as a result...but after that we jump right into the plot of an entirely different with the debut and first fight of Kamui Katsuragi.  Kamui didn't appear until Episode 6 of the original series!

Resident Butt Monkey at 5 O'Clock

I have to give props to the writers as what they do here is clever; Emi's debut episode when you boil it down just consisted of Aichi smacking Morikawa around while the rules of the game got explained so subbing him out for Kamui while covering the same bases as his debut episode allows for at least one less episode of filler later in the season.

Kamui challenges everyone in the shop to prove he's the strongest fighter and Kai volunteers Aichi who agrees after a bit of convincing.  Kamui is disappointed that he's fighting someone other than Kai but immediately changes his mind when he sees Emi (and immediately becomes smitten with her) conversing with Aichi and vows to take him down while the latter shows that he's manned up since the last episode and gets completely serious in this fight.

"Aichi's deck is more than just Blaster Blade."

The fight is a back and forth affair as Aichi wows the world with his "rare card" Blaster Blade once again while Kamui rides up and reveals the skill of Custom Raizer (who never seemed to land a hit this fight) before to my surprise Aichi rides up to Alfred Early and goes on the offensive.  Kamui gets pushed to 4 damage and counters with Perfect Raizer and we finally get to see the Accel Gift in action as he shits out a full board and goes ham, hitting (and showing off for the audience) double Front Trigger while getting 2 Rearguard stands off his Vanguard swing.  However to his (and my own) surprise Aichi survives his push at 5 damage as he revealed he had 2 15k shields in hand to stop his 42k Ashura Kaiser lane, calls Stardrive Dragon on his turn and flips a crit to win.  Keep in mind that when Kamui and Aichi fought in the original, Aichi lost!  He actually lost a fair bit in the beginning now that I think about it.

Let me tell you about this "Chrono" guy...

Kai asks Miwa if he still thinks Aichi beating him in the last episode was a fluke as he explains that Aichi had his deck built for a long time for the specific purpose of playing against him and as such he likely had an image in mind when constructing it and has also gotten better with every subsequent fight he's had.  I keep having to tell myself that the Kai in this series is not a dickbag as he repeatedly said he believed Aichi would be fine fighting Kamui and was smiling in a "cool" way throughout the episode.  You can tell that this iteration of him is much more sociable what we're used to (or at the very least around the people he's comfortable with) and honestly it makes the character more likable.  Kai's remark also tells us that Aichi already understands the fundamentals of proper Deck Building which is something that I don't think he had a grasp for I want to say about 30 episodes (the cast's deck building sense was shit).

After the fight Kamui finds out that Aichi is Emi's brother and declares him his brother as well while Misaki does a poor job of hiding her interest in playing the game.  The episode ends with Emi asking to be taught how to play in which Shin volunteers Kamui to do much to his delight.

All in all I have to say I liked this episode.  Definitely a step up from the last one in most areas.