Cardfight!! Vanguard V - Episode 41 Review

Following our edgy conclusion to last week's episode this one kicks off with Kamui barging into the shop that Aichi, Ibuki and Kyou are in.  I'm a bit surprised that Kamui found Aichi so easily which in turn kills some of the storyline tension that I mentioned in the last review but on the other hand Ibuki completely shreds Aichi's character so that's a plus.  He realities that the guy has PSY-Qualia like him but he's basically a non factor in his eyes due to how he fights.  TL:DR Aichi isn't fighting seriously enough in his opinion because all he does is fight out of habit or obligation but never out of a fierce desire...which is actually a valid point.  If you compare Aichi's fights in the reboot compared to the original up to this point you'd notice that OG Aichi had multiple fights that he felt that he had to win because there was something integral on the line.  V Aichi has had maybe one fight where he legitimately felt that losing wasn't an option (and it wasn't the Ren fight might I add) but I also attribute this to the surprising lack of apocalypse fights in the series so far.

Even in a dream Kyou is misplaying.

Kamui and Kyou are both displeased by this and the latter challenges Ibuki to a fight while Rekka sics Zombie Shingo on the people in the room.  We immediately skip to the Grade 3 turn and Ibuki pushes Kyou to 5 damage vs his 1 which leaves him open to getting hit by the full Zanbaku lock followed by a rush turn that puts him to 5 as well.  Kyou gets a PSY-Qualia vision that shows him the rest of the game where he'll win by riding Dueling Dragon, Zangeki and smashing Ibuki's face in but this gets turned on its head by him calling Lie Down Deletor, Givun and anyone who is familiar with the original Deletor deck nows shit is going to go down now.  Ibuki presses a now Deleted Kyou with big beats and uses Givun's skill to stand his Vanguard to win the fight and erase his opponent's attachments to the game much to the shock of the others.  Kamui is upset while Ibuki makes a grand gesture about Vanguard being a curse and freeing people from it via his ability should be seen as a good thing but Aichi flat out snaps at him with a level of anger not seen since his first fight with Kyou.  Everything is set for the big showdown between the two most powerful PSY-Qualia users in this show...except Shingo appears to completely kill the mood.

"Why didn't I play the Shirayuki engine!?"

Aichi immediately deduces that he's been Zombie'd based on his new behaviour and the rest of the zombies join in on the hunt while Rekka bails.  Everyone else follows suit by choice or force and after a fierce conversation between Aichi and Ibuki we cut to what's going on with Kai's group which of course consists of Ren fan service.  I guess after multiple Misaki leg shots up until now and seeing Kourin's ass in spandex during first ED of this season this show was overdue for some fan service for the 3 women who watch this show.  It lasts too long before we cut back to Aichi beating Shingo followed by the two meeting up with Misaki as they exchange information.  Aichi is worried about Kourin since they haven't been able to keep in contact with her and what's even worse is that Naoki has gone missing.  Okay now you've got my attention.

Metal Gear Rekka.

Over at Fukuhara Tetsu is surprised to see all of the club members back to normal including Suiko who fills him in on what's happened.  When asked about why she's doing this given that she'd kind of one of the bad guys she more or less says that she's out of the fight now and to grab some popcorn to watch the shitshow that is this anime...I mean this arc...I mean the situation.  Shit.  The epsisode mercifully comes to an end with Aichi, Shingo and Misaki coming to Miyaji's Cardfight Club only to find a Zombified Naoki challenging our hero to a fight which gets accepted.


This episode was horrible.  One of the worst ones to come in a while and it honestly drives back home that at the end of the day this reboot anime is fucking garbage and good episodes are the exception than the norm.  Whenever I've blasted this show people have said to me that "well it's better than GZ so that's something?" to which I have to ask how fucking low have your standards become if you're willing to accept this steaming pile of shit.  OG Season 1-3 set the standard, half of G raised the bar in retrospect and GZ blew it.  This however is not that much better than it in fact I'd say that V is on the way to being worse than GZ as that season failed because it couldn't live up to the hype and derped all of its good ideas.  Vanguard V is just a bad rehash of the original series and everything that it did that the OG series did V managed to do worse.  The fights are terrible, the animation is substandard for 2018-2019 and I know this studio can do better, the plot is card game anime trope as all hell, the characters are considerably less developed and fleshed out as their OG counterparts (which makes a comment someone said on here a while ago hilarious because he said the OG cast was dry and the V cast hit the mark) and I don't give a shit if the manga its based off of is inspired by Yu-Gi-Oh! because the writer was involved with Yu-Gi-Oh! R.  That just means its a shitter Yu-Gi-Oh!  How is it that this show exists at the same time Buddyfight Ace is a thing?  I haven't watched the show personally but people I've talked to unanimously praise it for being one of, if not the best Card Game anime airing at this time with Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains just behind it.

God and there's still 9 or more episodes left of this letdown of a season.  The much vaunted "PSY-Qualia Zombie Arc" that is a "better Reverse Arc" that people said to me.  HAH.  What a load of drivel.  Remember in my review of Episode 27 that going into this arc that V's incompetent writing staff had the potential to ruin this storyline by trying to cram everything into a 25 episode season filled with shitty fights, bad pacing and blatant fanservice?

Now how does the saying go?  Oh yes.  I believe it goes like this: I expected nothing and I'm still disappointed.