Cardfight!! Vanguard V - Episode 4 Review

My apologies for the delay on this post.  I was Judging a Yu-Gi-Oh! Regionals yesterday and didn't get the chance to watch this episode until today.  The wait was worth it as Episode 4 was pretty solid as we finally get to see Misaki do something other than yell at people for being loud and make a strong argument for best girl right out of the gate.

The episode begins with Misaki leaving school and refusing her friend's offer to hang out due to having to work.  The friend notices how unhappy she looks as we cut to Card Capital with Kamui asking Aichi for help with his deck while the latter tries to back out of it due to still being extremely timid much to the chagrin of Emi.  A regular customer comes into the shop asking for a fight and Kamui ends up taking him on while Aichi and Emi discuss him not wanting to fight people he doesn't know before a loud commotion can be seen from the aformentioned fight.  Kamui is outraged that his opponent stole his Perfect Raizer (bruh, the card's not even 1000 yen) who subsequently denies it before Misaki steps in, examines the deck and tells him the card isn't his.  The man argues that she's wrong as Misaki goes into detail that she has seen and memorized the contents of his deck while stating he doesn't need Perfect Raizer before giving the card back to Kamui.  The man flips out over this and begins to rant before being cut down down physically and verbally by Misaki.

 Kaiba wishes he could do this.

He flees the shop while everyone looks at Misaki in awe as Kamui is impressed by her bluff of knowing his deck which she says isn't a bluff.  Aichi and Kamui ask if she is a fighter then which she denies as she's never played the game but having watched everyone fight she is aware of how it functions.  Aichi challenges her to a fight which surprises her given his established shyness but agrees to it after noting how much the game has changed him which causes Shin to flip his shit, give her a deck and set up the fight.

Guess we gotta give Oda something to work with, right?

Misaki kicking people in the head is a running gag of the manga btw.

After this the fight pretty much plays out as it did in the original.  Aichi and Misaki go back and forth in an even manner which takes Kamui by surprise given how much she denied playing the game while Kai comes to the conclusion that she has a photograpic memory which came from her trying to cope with the death of her parents.  The real difference here is how Emi is used as the audience surrogate to explain how OTT and Protect works as she wonders when she'll find the best deck for her (spoiler alert, it's probably next summer).  Kai remarks that something about the game is bothering Misaki as a flashback of her father beating Shin down and telling her he really likes the game while Aichi mounts a counterattack with Alfred Early.  Misaki contemplates this as well as she uses her Protect Gift to block Aichi's Vanguard swing as well as a Perfect Guard on the Blaster Blade he put his two crits on.  Aichi is impressed at her skill as she decides that if Vanguard can change him this much then maybe it can do the same for her as she rerides Imperial Daughter to gain its full effect and calls down a board with the intent to kill him.  She swings with the VG and Aichi guards for a two pass which she breaks through and kills him with a 4 crit swing.  He dead!

Misaki has seen the prices for OTT in Japan by the looks of it.

The fight is over and Kamui remarks that she sacked him but Aichi says it wasn't that, she's just really good.  Kamui balks at this before Misaki challenges him to a fight having had a fire lit in her now that she's faced her issues regarding the game and the episode ends with her leaving school and turns down her friend's offer due to hang out due to work.  While she walks away her friend notices that this time she seems to be happy and wonders what happened.

Overall the episode does a solid job of actually introducing the Misaki character and explaining her backstory but with considerably less drama compared to the original (for now).  The nod to the manga running gag was a nice touch and I'm also happy she won her fight here as I really wasn't looking forward to the possibility of the writers making Aichi never drop a game except against Kai or Ren which was a major issue with Chrono.  I'm also surprised that King of Knights Alfred wasn't shown in this episode as Set 1 is out now and we haven't seen the cover card of the set (or Dragonic Waterfall) yet.  Next week we get Aichi vs Katsumi though he doesn't appear to be playing Spike Brothers so I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer before Juggernaut Maximum or Siegfried are spoiled.  Until next time.