Dear Vanguardians,
I decided to post about my opinion of the current state of Cardfight!! Vanguard G, my problems and concerns about the series, what went "wrong" with it and what could have been fixed.
Keep it in mind that this will be a long post, so it will be a "series" of posts rather than an incredibly long single article.
So, let's get started!
The main problem with Vanguard G at the moment, in my opinion, is that they don't know what direction should they take. I feel like they are trying too hard to also show character development, having great duels/featuring new cards AND they still want to introduce elements from the upcoming Stride Gate series. It is just too much, and they don't have the capacity to do everything, thus they are either showing us only as much as they have to.
The reason why (in my opinion) Chrono is always winning is to not do what they did with G Season 1, which was really similar to the original Season 1. If Chrono just lost each of his matches until he fought the big bad, it would be Season 2 again and people would complain for that. The only way to NOT do that again is, that Chrono will win. Of course, it is annoying that he wins almost all of his matches, and it is even more annoying how he wins them.
However, there is another reason why he can't lose (and this is actually more important than we'd first think): he has to unlock the Depend Cards. His potential must growth, and he can do only that by winning over and over again. We can all feel that the stakes are high, and in such a case, a protagonist just cannot afford to lose. (On the other hand, we already saw a case where he could easily lose, and he actually lost: against Kamui, or against Kumi in the previous season's finale.)
But the main problem is, that while Try 3 was originally a team, in the latter episodes, it isn't anymore (just formally) and everyone has their own goals they are fighting for, and all they do is travelling to the events together. Tokoha is slowly, but surely becoming the "I'm just standing there, good luck guys!" character that would perfectly fit in YGO, but not in Vanguard, especially not in a series concentrating too much on team work and deconstruction of the original elements in card fight series like transformation and the power of the duelists. This is actually "confirmed" by the fact that her latest ace card, the ultimate triumph card is revealed in a filler episode, and in a "light-hearted" (almost joke) battle. This obviously is a confirmation for downgrading her role and importance in the series.
Luna and Am, while promoted as important characters, are usually aren't even there, and when they are, they are just "placeholders", minor characters that could easily be replaced (aside from Episode 16, which was nothing but a filler episode). I have the feeling that they will have a much more important task in the series finale and/or Stride Gate, but I wouldn't mind seeing them more. They HAVE the potential, they all have goals and needs to not only fight, but to improve as a human being, they all have their own background and the relation with the other characters. Just these traits would be more than enough to qualify them as deuteragonists.
Also, Season 2 is just too short. 26 episode is NOT enough to do so many tasks in the G Quest and have so many "features". All these stuff currently happening could easily be included in one single season. "Shion's Saga", "Chrono's Saga", "Luna's Saga", "G Quest Saga", all of these could EASILY be a stand-alone 26 episode season all alone without any additional plot, with both detailed storywriting AND detailed cardfights. It feels rushed because it is overflooded. It's just too much, too many things are happening at the same time - and all of these are happening too fast.
We have this great event that is currently occuring (G Quest), yet what we see is Card Capital tournament with all the old faces, just because of fanservice. Just check out YouTube: they don't want plot, all they want is to see Kai and Aichi again. I don't give a duck, I don't want to see them, this is a NEW series with NEW plot, let it happen instead of adding old characters just for the sake of adding them!
The only character I actually care about in the series is Shion. He was dumb, he was spoiled, but he's actually learning a lot not only about cardfight, but also about the real way of life and himself. The main problem is (again), that this arc could easily be 20+ episodes ALONE. If he defeats Ace in the upcoming "Shion vs Ace", you can guarantee that it's because of the aforementioned reasons.
As someone previously said to me, "the main problem with Vanguard G that it feels exactly like a fanfiction rather than a professional, official storyline". And while some of the problems are not the fault of the makers, there are indeed errors that are created by them and only them. It feels too episodic, too rushed, and too "over the top" sometimes. The less is more, and some mistakes could easily be avoided just by planning ahead a bit off.
In the next parts, I will not only write about the errors and problems with the series, but also will describe you my own idea about such a show, as if these were fixes for the aforementioned errors.
Kind regards,
Sheo
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