Future Card Buddyfight

Yay! I have the honor of being the first review! Future Card Buddyfight is a brilliant TCG anime that never takes itself too seriously. I find this show a lovable mesh of Pokemon meets Cardfight!! Vanguard. STORY: In contrast to other card-based animes, the characters can actually "fight" in the battles instead of only shouting commands. The characters keep one partner only (exception: Gao), so no time-consuming episodes of them trying to fill their fighting rosters. FCBF constantly uses the word "buddy" in any sentence possible. This could potentially annoy you (along with Gao's victory one-liners), or it might make you laugh at the sheer cheesiness. In my case, it made me try to count all the 'buddies' used in one episode. This is a kid's anime so it's lighthearted, but the battles can become dark when the (dun dun) dark cores arrive. One of the characters has a dead brother who is fondly mentioned as well. There are few fillers in this anime unless you count the two cliché tournament arcs. CHARACTERS: I think this is one of the few animes where I liked all the characters and their magical creature friends. My favorite characters were Zanya, Gao, Jin, Asmodai, and Noburu. My least liked would be Tetsuya who is annoying for the entire first season. Still, I found his character evolving from the annoying dance guy entertaining and sad. You can honestly sympathize with any of these characters! There is a serious lack of female characters and only four to five girls buddyfight in the show. The show slowly introduces its main characters and lesser ones appear often. FCBF never forgets its side characters because ALL the characters have a purpose. At some point, they reappear and contribute to the plot usually in a “Gao gains a new friend/foe" way. This characteristic of FCBF has me eager for its sequel! I can't wait to see them expand my favorites' story-lines even more. Concerning Gao Mikado, our main character, he is an actually intelligent lead. He is childish and eats a lot, like so many leads before him. He understands when the villain or one of the antagonists is trying to hurt him and OUTSMARTS them... By buddyfighing! Well, this is a TCG show! Some may find him too perfect due to his many wins and use of OP moves, whether you like or dislike him for that is up to you. Personally, I find it different having a character who is ungodly good the first time he plays a game. Almost every TCG or shounen anime has its main lead start out losing before becoming the best in the game. FCBF sets that trope ablaze and stomps and spits on it. You can argue other characters get more development than lovable Gao. SOUND: I have seen the dub version, and I can say they did an excellent job casting! Bushiroad is well-known (or notorious) for reusing its actors. You will recognize their voices in more than one role. I feel like one VA played at least five different characters! All of the voices sound professional and unique. I enjoy three characters' voices in particular: Kyoya, Shido, and Genma. Although, all of the voices are satisfactory to my humble ears you could be disappointed by where the directors assigned them. Genma and Rouga, middle school students, have the voice of grown men. Another character, Zanya, who has an actual boy voicing him, takes time to like. Initially, his voice was too amateurish. Zanya is considered the cool character, but his VA tried too hard to achieve that effect. I began to like his voice as the episodes progressed though. I think Zanya's VA really grew with his role until his voice became comfortable. His voice shines in the hilarious moments when Zanya freaks out! Kyoya's voice is my absolute favorite! His voice is angelic. It's like beauty in the form of sound. Ha! MUSIC: I LOVE the soundtrack! As soon as it is released, I am adding it to my music library. The music is rock-based and uses ample guitar solos. They also have some songs with electric bagpipes and organs! So cool! All of the music is not upbeat, there are even slow songs where piano is used. The theme song is catchy! It is one of those “either you love or you hate it” type of things. I don't think it has a neutral ground. The ending theme (Season One) is horrendous. It is just bad. I thought it was too cutesy and had a bad melody. You will have to skip past it or suffer for 20+ episodes. However, the second and third ending themes are wonderful! They could fall under the “too cutesy” trope, but unlike the first, I don't find them grating. The BGM works well to convey any of the scene's feelings. 10 out of 10! ART: I love the style and the character designs. Gao's design has a lot going on because he's extra special! OVERALL: Please watch this anime! I love spending Friday nights or Saturday mornings watching FCBF. All of the episodes are on Youtube, so go binge-watch it! “Can YOU open a buddy rare card?”

Well time to review something different for once. Back when I was a teenager, I was re-introduced to card games thanks to little series called Cardfight Vanguard. The first season of Cardfight Vanguard was a pretty great show. I really adored the more grounded feel of the series as most of the Cardfight were won by still rather than lucky draws. It had great theme exploration such as not running away, communication, teamwork, redemption and understanding one another. The characters were the most part were nicely developed and likeable in they own way and the soundtrack while a bit repetitive at times was nicely executed. The only problems that I had with Cardfight Vanguard Season 1 were the gags, Kamui's junior love triangle BS and the limited animation other than that I really liked the first season of Cardfight Vanguard and I consider it to be one of the best children animes I have seen along with the first season of Gundam Build Fighters. However, notice I said the first season of Cardfight Vanguard. Why because after the first season the series started to lose a lot of charm that made the original season as it became another soulless cash grab by Bushiroad to sell cards. The series got worse quality wise to a point where they are now rushing the Cardfights themselves... When the series got to Cardfight Vanguard as well as G completely lost all respect of Cardfight Vanguard as the series along with the G saga is nothing more but a pretentious fanfic written mess that doesn't even respect the viewer. It was that point where I decided to find another card game anime that I watch weekly along with other seasonal anime and the first thing that pooped up was Future Card Buddyfight a fairly new card game anime that was meant to be a more enjoyable, entertaining child-friendly series compared to Cardfight Vanguard. At first, I was put off by the title of the series as it seemed too childish for my tastes however despite that I deiced to give the series a chance and after watching the first season of Future Card Buddyfight I have to say this. Future Card Buddyfight season 1 is a great and fun card anime. While it was it not in the same league as Yugioh 5ds and at times Cardfight Vanguard Season 1 in terms of quality and writing Future Card Buddyfight was still one of the more enjoyable anime I have seen in a long while. Now with that said let's begin. Story. The story follows Gao Mikado an eager young martial artist who becomes Buddies with the Hot-Blooded Drum Bunker Dragon. Receiving a Core Deck Case from Tasuku Ryuenji, a Buddyfight prodigy working for the Buddy Police, he takes his first steps into the fantastic world of Buddyfight. I really enjoyed the story of Future Card Buddyfight. Yeah, the story may be cliched and predictable in nature but the least the journey towards the destination was a fun one. For starters, this show is easy to follow as the show goes a great job at established its own setting as well as its characters to the viewer especially kids. The one thing I really liked about Future Card Buddyfight is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. One of the things that plagued Cardfight Vanguard is that after season 1 the series went off rails where it devolved into an over-dramatic and contrived show series to itself too seriously. Future Card Buddyfight docent do any of this as the show from start to finish stayed true it's good roots which are being a light-hearted card game anime. The show did have some serious moments every now and then but it never went off rails. The comedy in Future Card Buddyfight is for the most part hilarious as they not only they are very funny but the comedy itself plays along with the shows lighthearted narrative. Some of my favourites include Zanya getting scared by girls, Shido failing his evil antics to Testua's gags. I will admit the comedy did somewhat repetitive as it progressed but never got annoying compare to Cardfight Vanguard comedy with the Morikawa Grade 3 stuff and Kamui's comedic love triangle antics. Despite Future Card Buddyfight being a more lighthearted show compare to Cardfight Vanguard the series did have some good theme exploration however unlike Cardfight Vanguard I thought the themes explored in this show were better executed here compared to Vanguard. One of the series recurring themes is adult corruption where the adults in the series seemed to have more power than the children an, as a result, the kids would only feel powerlessly unable to do anything. The theme also plays along into certain characters in the series manly Tasuku. Other themes that Future Card Buddyfight explores is friendship, confidence, pride and superiority. My favourite arc in this Season 1 of Future Card Buddyfight is the ABC cup arc due to engaging and entertaining it was. Most of the Buddfights in that arc was not only fun to watch but it's filled with good engaging strategies and smart plays. My favourite fight in that arc was Rouga vs Jin. That fight was such a joy to watch as both fighters battle out it restrive settings that they both set themselves. Some other notable fights include Tetsua vs Sophia, Zanya vs Rouga, Gao vs Gremlin and Noboru vs Genma. Now with all the good out let's talk about things some of Future Card Buddyfight flaws. First up is the pacing in the Sengoku Academy arc. While the series is indeed being very well paced through most of it run the pacing in the Sengoku Academy arc was too slow for its own good to a point where some of the Buddyfights drag on especially when all of the characters that were introduced in that arc were not all that interesting. Now if I think about it the Sengoku Academy arc was the weakest arc in the season. Minus the good character building for Rouga and Kiri, the arc didn't all that much to the overall plot. The second and final problem I had with Future Card Buddyfight is Gao's plot armour. It's such a shame because I really enjoyed Gao personality/development as well as his relationships towards characters. I just thought of his wins felt more like asspulls rather than legit victories thought I would admit it's not as bad as some of the asspulls from the Yugioh series as well as Cardfight Vanguard G. Overall, despite the show flaws, I thought the story of Future Card Buddyfight to be solid. 7.5/10 Characters. The characters in Future Card Buddyfight were easily the shows biggest strength. First, we have Gao Mikado. I actually really liked him. He may appear as this generic shounen hero at first but he's actually a pretty interesting character. Unlike Aichi Gao already has an established background His backstory was pretty interesting as he before used to be this ruthless guy who would do anything to win even if hurting others in the progress. However in order to make friends at all he to change his mind where he doesn't use ruthless techniques to hurt others in both martial arts and in Buddyfight. This really gives a pretty good insight about Gao's character as a whole as his actions were pretty reliable as he simply wants to escape from being a person that he used to be. Besides the backstory there's a bit more I have to talk about Gao's as a character. I really liked his character interactions and relationships towards the other characters as he wanted to support and help his friends take the right path but when he fails he gets pretty upset and he will end up doing anything just to save his friends from corruption and evil. The one cool thing about Gao is how he's able to use and master different decks and worlds. It really makes Gao think twice about the moves that he's going to play against set opponents using set deck. Now as much I enjoyed Gao as a character I have one problem with him and it's not about the character but rather how the plot treats him. You see despite Gao being a solidly written character who has character flaws there was a couple of instances where the plot wanted him to be this generic overpowered pr…

this anime is very underrated and no one talks about it at least in my opinion story 7/10:the best aspect of the story is the information about The cards and categories and abilities of them and it has also a compelling plot but in the other hand it lacks depth or plot twists or mystery or philosophical ideas it is just a feel good story with decent world building and a complex power system [cards]. art 7/10: nothing much to say very good animation with decent art but nothing impressive or amazing. sound 6/10: okay, don't remember it tho :] characters 7/10: i like several characters in this anime and there motivations and some characters surprisingly has very good character development for example [kiri}. villains not so unique your standard ''I want to destroy/control the world just because" but at least i liked there personalities. enjoyment 8/10: I just really enjoyed it and had fun and that's why I felt the obligation to make this review but overall i had to give it a lesser score because it had problems and that brings us to. overall 7/10.