With this episode we are pretty much done the inaugural season of Cardfight!! Vanguard V and it was...meh. This episode didn't help bring it home in an exciting way as despite the previous episode giving us a decent looking fight with some intrigue to go with it this one pretty much undermines it with shoddy animation, rigid looking characters and a plot decision that has made me surprisingly angry.
Jury's still out on how good this thing is.
Following up from last week we have more of Kai reflecting on himself as he realizes that he is indeed fighting an opponent equipped with PSY-Qualia which the last time it happened it was against Ren who was obsessed with beating him. Kai ponders why he was fine with losing to Aichi back in episode 2 as he gets smacked in the face by Exculpate into Blaster Blade and remarks at how strong he's become. Kai feels that he is weak now and believes that the match is a forgone conclusion since his opponent has magical plot hax powers when he hears a voice...from his cards...like Aichi did against Kyou. That's right. Kai Toshiki has awakened to PSY-Qualia.
This is literal horeshit.
I don't care if this is what happened in the Manga. The fact that Kai gets PSY-Qualia when one of his defining traits is how much of a badass normal he is is completely and utterly stupid. Kai's been always the character who could stand toe to toe with any character in the franchise now matter what kind of magical plot hax powers they have (and lose mind you) but now you give him those same powers? This undermines what he's been all this time! Someone who became strong on his own and wants to have serious fights. Argh!
*Careless Whisper Intensifies*
With his newfound super chobram plot armour Kai is able to 6th damage Heal against Aichi, rides Dragonic Nouvelle Vague and uses its skill to wipe the board while gaining 20k, -1 drive with trigger sealing on top of it. I hope you got all that because once again the anime didn't tell you this. This whole "just the juicy bits" of detailing card interaction was one of the things that made G's fights so awful and they keep doing it here! Kai flips a trigger and wins and we see that he finally got to have his earnest fight that he'd been wanting...through magical plot hax powers. Good to see that you can't have a good card fight that involves wit and skill to win in this anime!
Card games in space? I think I wrote a story about that.
After the fight we cut to Aichi, Morikawa and people we don't care about graduating from school with the former saying he'll be going to Miyaji High School which is where Misaki attends. Emi and Kamui have also graduated from their schools and Shin decides to hold a shop tournament in celebration. Aichi and Kai sit down for a game of casuals with Aichi winning but weeping. Why? Because Kai was happy the entire time. Kai reflects on this by saying to himself that Aich has managed to turn the lives of everyone around him into something better, himself included and thus he has become everyone's Vanguard. End episode.
Vanguard V is not the return to form that I was hoping it'd be when the announcement of a reboot was made. Turns out that nostalgia pandering via a return to the OG cast/setting alone isn't enough to carry a Vanguard anime! You also need things like good pacing and story structure, good antagonists and notably good card battles!
I bring this up because the fights in V were for the most part very predictable with a given fight being;
Player A Ride to Grade 1. Player B rides to Grade 1 and swings. A Ride to Grade 2 and do a skill and swing twice. B Ride to Grade 2 and do a skill and swing twice, flip a trigger. A Ride to Grade 3 and get a Gift, get a trigger. B Ride to Grade 3 and get a gift and swing with everything, triggers occur. A either Rerides to their super boss monster or just swings and goes for the kill and usually wins via a critical trigger.
Every. Single. Time.
There were a few exceptions to this and the one that I can still remember is Kai vs Koutei. That was one of the few fights in this show where an emphasis on trying to outplay the other came up. Koutei damage denied Kai and baited him into going neg in hand advantage in a gambit to beat him easier and it backfired. Kai won with his usual trigger asspull because of course he does but the fight was thrilling.
V's pacing issues were another problem as story arcs went by way too quickly with the major fights resolving even faster. One fight was all it took for Aichi vs Ren who was the big bad of the season no less! I suspect this has to do with the now common 26 episode seasonal structure that makes up most anime shows now as the card anime that I often compare this show to had it's first season consist of nearly 50 episodes and the difference between the two becomes more apparent. Unfortunately this isn't a thing I see changing anytime soon due to how the anime industry has changed since the time of OG Vanguard's run.
The music is also a huge let down. V has it's moments now and then but this is one aspect that the later G series definitely excelled in as none of the character themes are as good as Chrono Fight, Tokoha Fight or Hayo Fight. Add in the aforementioned shoddy fights and it's not that hard to kill any potential hype the viewer might have felt before watching the episode.
All in all Vanguard V while not as bad as GNext or GZ is definitely not as good as the original and its later seasons (well perhaps it's better than Asia Circuit but not by much) and reviewing these episodes has turned out to be more of a joykill than an actual joy. I'm honestly not sure if I want to continue writing these even with the Miyaji arc coming up. We'll see. I'll review Episode 26 and we'll take it from there. Until then.
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