Saturday 4 August 2018

Cardfight!! Vanguard V - Episode 14 Review


Oh boy.  It's the moment I've been dreading since the reboot was announced; the reintroduction of PSYQualia and with it the addition of supernatural/fantasy elements to the Vanguard anime.  While the concept of a person having the ability to communicate with their cards and manifest it in the form of "controlling the flow of the fight" (or in other words, plot armour) the problem is at least with how the OG anime handled it was that the fantasy stuff started taking up more and more of the plot until we got to the point that the world of the card game itself and the real world were linked which would lead to several crises for the duration of it and G's run while making each of those seasons a worse version of whatever Yu-Gi-Oh! show was airing at the time.  Thing is I don't want to watch a discount Yu-Gi-Oh! season.  I want to watch Vanguard!  The card game anime where people play against each other at locals, regionals and maybe even a trip to nationals like the people who play the game itself do!  That was what drew people into the OG anime and when the later seasons focused on the tournament play the show was good.  Even the parts of G that focused on the simple aspect of the card game itself and none of the fantasy were fun to watch (the Kanzaki arc of Season 1 for instance) but just like the OG series once we started getting into the supernatural stuff such as the Stride Gate or Diffriders things went to shit.  The best parts of later G was honestly Shion getting his fortune back and Henri trying to save the Fukuhara Vanguard Club as they were the most grounded plot threads which led to high stakes fights that we cared about. 

Kyou realizing that after last week he is now back to being a jobber like the series before this.

That said I'm not going to completely shitcan this show yet as they might be able to make it work this time around.  I hope.

In any case the episode picks up right after last week with Aichi and Kyou having their fight.  Aichi riding Blaster Blade causes Kyou to freak out internally as the card is "rare" and it reminds him of "his deck" which prompts him to get more aggressive.  Remembering how the ZANBAKU combo works Aichi opts to ride Alfred Early so that he can call out Blaster Blade to retire one of the Arrestors as he mounts a counterattack but can't close it out.  Que Kyou drawing an Arrestor and riding ZANBAKU to complete his combo that puts Aichi in a bad position.

As an OTT player I'm actually concerned about my ability to deal with ZANBAKU cockblocking me from re-riding Imperial Daughter.

Aichi gets pushed to five damage and is severely strained at this point from the pain caused by his VF Glove.  To make matters worse he can't stand his Vanguard, Normal Ride and has no cards in hand.  He contemplates giving up when he starts hearing a voice call out to him which comes from Blaster Blade.  This goes on a couple times much to Kyou's annoyance as he's certain that the match is in the bag.  Aichi meanwhile is in a world inside his mind where he's talking to Blaster Blade who tells him to "call" which is followed up with him trying to imagine how this fight will play out.  He draws for turn and calls Sage of Guidance Zenon which causes everyone to lose their mind as Zenon has the ability to look at the top of the deck and if the card you check is the same grade as your Vanguard you ride it, thus screwing over the ZANBAKU combo.  Naturally Aichi does this and he rides Soul Saver Dragon.  Holy shit I legit thought he was never going to use that thing.

Not nearly as epic as SSD's debut in the OG anime.  A pity the Soul Blast scene isn't on YT anymore.

Soul Saver Dragon does its thing and Aichi crushes Kyou with it's overwhelming power thus saving Card Voyage from Team Asteroid.  Kamui, Gouki and Nagisa are happy while Kyou keeps his word and picks up the former's cards while asking Aichi if he was able to speak to his cards that game.  Aichi says yes which Kyou remarks that he likely has PSYQualia just like another person he knows but before more information can be divulged the other Asteroid members beat the shit out of him while kicking him out of the Team for losing.  They decide that the next person to beat Aichi will be made a member of AL4 but they decide not to try it as Kamui and Gouki step in.

Let the bullshit begin!

Aichi remarks on how the VF Glove seems to be intended to let the wearer harmonize with their Vanguard better which Kamui scoffs at and I want to say Gouki seems to ponder.  Aichi mentions to himself that the gloves were made through a person's love of the game.  This is interesting as we saw a couple episodes ago that Kai hates the gloves so we might see some kind of difference in opinion leading to a fight between the two later?  The episode ends with Tetsu and Asaka looking for the Megacolony player from said episode and ask who beat him.  When he says it was Kai the two freak out as neither knew he had returned to the city which I'm sure will not lead to anything happening immediately.  No Asaka appearing at Card Capital next week where we will likely see Miwa get bodied which will lead us to Misaki stepping and thus reestablishing their rivalry from before.  Totally not going to happen.

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