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It's Kamikazetime for Future Card Buddyfight! Review #16!
3 weeks ago
General
There are many different genres of anime these days! So it’s normal to like many different types of anime, and I’m sure you have your own preferences just like mine! One of mine is the monster tamer genre! It covers a lot of stuff, such as Onmyou Taisenki. And it’s easy to argue that it is either connected with or “fused” with other types of anime, such as card game battles anime! You know, stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh! and others. And I’m also into that genre a lot~
It’s easy to understand why, because there are card game battles anime that have a lot of monster cards in them. Some way more than others. Some of those monsters might even come out of the cards and talk and act on their own, as their own characters. Some are barely nothing more than just...cards, like every other card in their respective anime. It really varies a lot and will depend on the anime, and what it decided to do when adapting the card game it’s based on to create an anime based on it.
Today’s subject is about one of those anime! Future Card Buddyfight, one of the many collectible card games created by Bushiroad!
From wiki: “Bushiroad Inc. (株式会社ブシロード, Kabushiki-gaisha Bushirōdo) is a Japanese entertainment company, producer of collectible card games and trading cards, and publisher of mobile apps and games, which was founded in 2007 by Takaaki Kidani and is headquartered in Tokyo. Bushiroad created and owns various media franchises, such as Tantei Opera Milky Holmes. Since 2019, Bushiroad is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and has traded on the TSE since its launch on July 24, 2019.” So, Buddyfight is only one of their many card game IPs though it’s among their most famous ones and also one that has the most kemono.
As for what exactly is buddyfight...”Future Card Buddyfight is the anime adaptation of the manga series based on the Future Card Buddyfight trading card game. It is produced by Bushiroad Inc. This series does not follow the story of manga but features the same original characters and new characters as well.”
“The series takes place during the year 2030, in Choutokyo, Japan. Through the game "Buddyfight", humanity is able to interact with the residents of other worlds: Buddy Monsters. Chosen humans (known as "Buddyfighters") become "Buddies" with Buddy Monsters to play the game. There are those who choose to use the power of Buddy Monsters for evil, but the "Buddy Police" puts a stop to these criminals. Gao Mikado is a student at Aibo Academy and is a very nice guy, even if he doesn't look like it. His life changes when he meets the son of the hero of the Dragon World: Drum Bunker Dragon (whom he nicknamed 'Drum'), whom he drew from a pack in class one day.”
For this review, we will only talk about the first season of the anime and only of the anime. It seems the manga is quite different from the anime, and I would love to know the details. However, as far as I can tell, it’s not available online to read, and I don’t know anyone who has the complete manga to share with me information about it, or who knows, maybe some scans. If you do have it or know someone who does, please talk to me~
Each season of the anime does its own thing with its own plot and such, so it would be very lazy to review the whole anime, ignoring the differences between the seasons, which is why we’re starting with only Season 1. And I gotta say...the anime of Buddyfight has the unique distinction of being both the worst and also the best anime of its kind that I ever watched! That’s how much different the seasons can be from each other, and for good or for worse, this first season is the worst one. Not only of the entire series but among the anime of its genre that I watched! xP
To understand why that is, let’s start by talking about some of the characters, and I mean ONLY some, because this is one of the biggest issues with this season. It’s plagued with many characters, and around 80% of them are useless even for the arc they show up, taking precious screentime from other characters, lore, world-building, and other more important stuff. Even if I were to talk about half the cast, we would be here for the rest of the day, and remember, this is only the first season! Imagine if I talked about the entire series...!
- Gao Mikado: The protagonist, not only of this season but of the next ones all the way until last season! You know that because he has the typical insane hair that all protagonists of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” have, which is very common for protagonists of anime like this to have for some reason~
Since I will talk more about Gao (among, uh...MANY other things...) in the spoiler section, let’s keep things brief for now. He’s a nice boy, though might not look like it, given he’s always dressed as a typical Japanese delinquent thanks to his obsession with The Mighty Sun Fighter, the main fictional character of a comic based on the character written by his brother Yota Mikado. I call it an obsession because it’s really his main thing, even more than the buddyfighting itself. Heck, he even enters “Mighty Sun Fighter” mode when starting a duel like he’s a superhero putting on his costume or something.
He does look the part because he trained in the Aiki-jujutsu Mikado style taught by his mom, so he is physically quite strong. And maybe in part of it, but he loves to be reckless and force his will on others; it’s not hard to make him lose his temper, but he’s a nice kid. Shame he is also a lot obnoxious, and it can be annoying how he really wants to push his agenda on other characters just because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Doesn’t help that he’s also one of the worst examples of main character duelists that I ever seen, as he never lost a duel and always feels like it was due to pure luck or plot armor or a mix of both which when combined with his personality...let’s just say watching this season was hard and he was one of the reasons why xP.
His buddy is Drum Bunker Dragon! That guy is hotheaded, stubborn, reckless, and he can be selfish. So...he’s almost like Gao but in dragon form! That’s why Drum refused to acknowledge Gao as his Buddy for a while (though...he had chosen him, but at the same time he didn’t...? Errr, more on this later in spoilers) and also why they frequently bickered about trivial things such as pudding, Drum’s favorite dessert.
Gao has two good friends with whom he formed the team Balle Du Solei with to compete in tournaments: Baku Omori (the team's deck-builder) and Kuguru Uki (the team’s card analyzer).
- Tasuku Ryuenji: Our deuteragonist of this and future seasons. Tasuku is quite popular among the people, and that’s probably because of his cool personality and his serious work at the Buddy Police...despite, uh, only being thirteen years old. Yeah, a kid is doing police work, and everyone is fine with that. Plus, he has a mysterious past since he just showed up in the mountains and met Jack, who became the closest he got to a family. So, how did a boy who doesn’t know where he came from and who he is work for the Buddy Police? I don’t know, it just happens, and it’s insane, heh. No wonder that he is mature and seems to want to think of himself as an adult already, which is tied to his “arc,” one of the few things we got that can be called a character arc or development for this season.
His buddy is Jackknife Dragon! Like Tasuku, Jack has a strong desire to protect others and is often eager in battle, though he is the buddy with the most stoic personality of everyone from season 1...and others.
He has an extremely strong bond with Tasuku, whom he considers to be his family, and that makes sense given they have been together for years now, but it’s also why what Tasuku did is...eh, better save it for the spoilers section.
- Tetsuya Kurodaki: Tetsuya is a very cheerful, happy, fun-loving kid who enjoys dancing along with his buddy Demon Lord, Asmodai. It seems to be his favorite thing in the world since he tends to do it all the time, and it can be quite annoying and distracting. Even more so when this is a case where his buddy is more interesting than the human partner. If Gao wasn’t around, this boy would be the worst character in the season as far as the main good guys are concerned. Seriously, even his design sucks...why banana hair? Even the anime itself makes fun of his hair...
His buddy is the Demon Lord, Asmodai! This demon is quite the trickster and enjoys playing jokes on people, usually either to teach them a lesson or all in good fun. He knows a lot about Buddy fighting and likes to help Tetsuya with sound advice, and honestly feels that if it weren’t for him, Tetsuya would never have become as good as he did. If anything, it’s insane how quickly Tetsuya became so good to go as far as he did later in the anime duel-wise, which is a mix of plot armor and Asmodai’s teachings. At least make more sense than Gao winning only due to plot armor, heh.
- Noboru Kodo: A classmate of Gao in Aibo Academy, probably because he has a high rank in Buddyfight, he was rather arrogant about his skills as a fighter and the superiority of the Dragon Knights, and also saw Gao's wins as pure luck.
He is also another character that technically has something close to an arc, but...again, I will talk more about him in the spoilers section. And you know what? Let’s just go ahead and say I will do the same about Kiri Hyoryu xP!
There are many other characters that I could talk about, but as I said before, we would be here all day if I had to talk about everyone. One of the biggest issues with this season is the sheer number of characters. Seriously, this has one of the most bloated casts I have ever seen in an anime of this kind! It’s crazy if I never felt this way with ANY of, say, the seasons of “Yu-Gi-Oh!”, but I sure felt it’s a big problem here. For example, Baku and Kuguri are useless; they could easily be removed and their “roles” be passed to other characters.
I’m not going to talk about the card game itself because...come on, guys! I’m just your typical silly tiger you can find in your neighborhood! I lack the deep knowledge to talk or discuss the card games that anime like this are about! I’m only here to talk about the anime itself and the furry characters~
And this season is...quite bad, unfortunately. Easily among the worst anime of its kind that I ever watched, and even among general anime. If you aren’t into card game anime at all, this will NOT change your mind. And if you are, then there are way better ones out there, like future seasons of Buddyfight!
Not only are there too many characters, but the anime tries to give most of them a backstory, a past, and something close to an arc. And not only do they not have enough screentime to develop all of those things for everyone properly, this season even screws up some characters in a very weird way by just...removing them from the series until much later or forever despite developing them for a while. Will elaborate on this later in the spoilers section, and yes, one of those is a certain blue dragon...
Doesn't help that most of the cast is either boring or very annoying, which includes Gao himself. He can be so damn obnoxious! And even more than he normally is with that obsession of his of taking this Mighty Sun Fighter persona before duels, which everyone else pretends is normal and cool. And he never lost a single duel, which is all due to pure plot armor, luck, or thanks to Baku doing all the deck building for him. It's no wonder all the worst duels in this season are the ones involving him, which includes the last duel.
Not that the duels in this season are good, since many of them don't even have real stakes, and that aside, they're barely ok for the most part, with pacing being either too fast or too slow, they were struggling in when to show the action and when to just make Paruko resume stuff with her comments. Plus, it's not a very dynamic card game, except that I guess when the characters can equip weapons themselves and technically do the attack on their own. That's crazy as fuck since just imagine you using a giant sword, jumping all around the arena to attack monsters or your opponents directly! How does that make sense? Do you need to be very athletic to play Buddyfight? x3
Not that it makes more sense if you consider the lore or world-building of anime. Earth already knows about all of those other worlds, and they let monsters come here for whatever reason, and you have the Buddy Police to handle all matters related to monsters and Buddyfighting, and...and it's crazy how, when you try to analyze all of that together, it makes no sense given the way the anime presents it. I will talk about this in more detail, giving two examples, which are Gao's brother and Kyoya and Axia. But let's talk about one aspect of this now, since this issue is maybe the worst thing about this season (and maybe the entire anime), so you guys have some idea what I'm talking about. And it's the monsters themselves. Or, in other words, how monsters are supposed to make sense in this setting.
We see all the time that when people duel, they use cards to summon monsters, and those monsters talk and stuff. So they must clearly be "alive". So...what the heck is this? Are those guys like...slaves or something? So that's acceptable in this setting? Do the card monsters live outside of the cards or...what? And this gets even more complicated because of the very existence of the buddy monsters! Like Drum!
Those are the monsters that "pair up" with humans, becoming their buddies, allowing them not only their cards but their buddyskill which is a power that humans can use outside of duels. 99% of the time, the buddyskill just allows the human to fly anywhere without worrying about spending the monster's energy or something, but...that's it. So, all things considered for this anime, it's a useless skill lol. They didn't give a fuck about this, which is probably why I think we only see two monsters that had different buddyskills. It's just there to make the characters look cool as they fly around instead of being peasants and having to run somewhere.
If they didn't care about the buddyskill stuff, they also didn't care about the setting itself, since it makes no sense. Just think about it...the only way to get a buddy is to draw a rare card that technically lets you summon a buddy. But how does that work? Is the monster "kidnapped" from their world? Imagine if they were in the bathroom when someone pulls their card! What if they don't want to partner with a random human to win battles for them? Or does this thing only work for monsters that somehow come to Earth but avoid buddy police until someone draws their card, and now they can be here without any issues? So, only monsters that are living on Earth can have this happen to them? This gets even more needlessly complicated when you think of duplicate cards. And even more when you involve Drum in it...
We see him STALKING Gao, watching him from his own world to see if he wants to pair up with him because apparently that's a thing dragons can do. And then Gao draws his card, making Drum show up there immediately. So...what just happened?! Did he SOMEHOW make Gao draw his card with his "soul" on it or whatever? But...he was watching him and all, so was it a coincidence that Gao got his card? Or Drum shows that at least some monsters can stalk some humans and make them draw their card? What is going on here?! I mean, what was Drum's plan if Gao only decided to buy new packs in a couple of months from the time he began stalking him? xP
Not only does the anime have those issues, but it has some of the worst villains I ever seen in anime. Not only are there too many of them to develop them all properly, but they're either annoying, useless, or just...terrible people that deserve to be locked in jail forever, if not get the electric chair right away. And yet, Buddyfight loves to make sure its villains never get punished for their vile actions, which are too many and too evil. I will, once again, talk more about this in the spoiler section.
There’s barely a plot to discuss until later when “Disaster” stuff happens, and yet, it all sucks, especially combined with the issues I mentioned. It’s one of those “this happenss and then this happens” kind of main plot. This season didn’t need 64 episodes; it could have been around half if you cut lots of the filler or just bad stuff. Sigh...
I know, reading all of this makes you think this anime must suck a lot. And it does! Not only because of one or two of those issues, but all of them together. But there is some good news: not only do things get slowly better with each season, meaning this is already the worst it will get, but Buddyfight has some of the best monsters you will ever see in anime! I'm sure that's the main reason the anime was quite popular back then! Before we talk about the monsters, though, it's time we talk about...
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME
- Let's start by talking about some characters like Noboru Kodo. As mentioned, one of the issues with this season is the absolutely bloated cast. And they still tried to give them backstory, lore, and stuff, which includes Noboru. If anything, at the beginning of this season, you would be excused to think that this 12-year-old boy was going to be one of the main characters. He got quite a bit of screentime, including his own arc and such, where he got his buddy, learn about himself, and all that! And then...he just...randomly leaves in episode 15 to live in the USA? And he also randomly returns by episode 47! And now he's just kind of there.
Why did we waste so much time with a character who left during almost the middle of the series, only for him to be away for over 20 episodes and then just be "there" once he returned? This is nonsense. You could easily cut him from the entire season to give his screentime to other stuff that needed it a lot more. Maybe develop Kiri more, for example. And speaking of him...
- It's a bit hard to talk much about Kiri Hyoru here, given what happens in the second season, which I would think was such a crazy "twist" if it wasn't hinted at in this season. Which, for an anime like this, wasn't a bad foreshadowing, though that's only because everyone in the anime is dumb as fuck.
The twist in the second season makes Kiri's "connection" with the Dark Core just weird, if not a plot hole. But I guess it's better to talk about this in the second season, so let's focus only on the stuff we see in this season!
I think there was some good potential here. The whole "being weak but wanting to get strong" arc isn't a bad thing for a character like him to go for, and even the way he was bothered about being forgotten by a former friend after he moved away was good for this anime's standards. You see the former arc being done a lot, but not the last bit, and it's something that anyone who had to move a lot as a kid can relate to. They could have done a lot with those arcs (if we can call the second one an arc), but...it's buddyfight. So, of course, Gao has to ruin that...
It's crazy how he is just pushing his own agenda on Kiri, not even wanting to see things from his PoV. And, worst, the anime treats Gao as if he is right and Kiri is wrong, and that's it. Want to be strong with the Dark Core? That's wrong because I say so. You're afraid we will forget you because you moved? That won't happen because I said so, despite not giving any evidence or doing anything to establish his PoV about Kiri's issues as the right one. So Gao is always right just because he's the protagonist. Fuck that. He fucked Kiri's arc and even part of Tasuku with that bullshit. And about Tasuku...
- Tasuku Ryuenji had the potential to be the best character, and sometimes it feels like he is the true protagonist of the season. He even has a mysterious past and origin tropes going for him, which are never elaborated or revealed in this season. But his stuff is too sandwiched amongst everything else to really be developed better. Besides, come on...why the fuck is a 13-year-old boy working in the buddy police as an agent?! That's crazy and irresponsible, especially since anime never gave us a good reason for this! "It's because he can use the Future Force!" which is a nonsensical power that only this kid has, yeah, but that doesn't justify putting him to work like that. In the best-case scenario, everyone in the buddy police is irresponsible as fuck to be ok with that, if not criminals to employ a kid to do their work for them just because he has the future force.
Surrounded by shitty adults like that ever since he was found in that mountain with Jack, it's no wonder he started to feel like he should be an adult and not act like a kid, which is part of his arc. And that arc wasn't a bad thing per se, but unfortunately, as so many things here, it's very half-assed. Of course, he's 100% wrong because Kyoya is the bad guy and Gao is the right guy, regardless of whether that was just Gao forcing his beliefs on him. It also just happened that he happened to be right, since Kyoya is just using Tasuku, and yeah, you can tell what they were going for...a kids vs adults thing because adults are corrupt and stuff. But they ruined it. By the season's own logic, all adults are either shitty, dumb, or corrupt lol. So Kyoya should be right!
In the end, it just feels like Tasuku's time as the Purgatory Knight is just his edgy phase. And that's crazy, remember...he was willing to turn Jack into a weapon with the Goldritter stuff. Jack is the closest thing he has to a family. This should be a whole LOT more impactful and important than how the anime handled it. Besides, it didn't even matter by the end, as anime just drops the Goldritter subplot and Jack forgives Tasuku quite easily. The idea of him turning into his SD form by the end of that arc was actually good since it symbolizes not only the repairing of their relationship but also how Tasuku learned not to don't be this "adult" that has to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. The season really should have focused way more on stuff like this instead of filler stuff like whole characters such as Kazane or...maybe just go away with Gao to make more room for that. And speaking of Gao...
- Gao Mikado is one of the worst protagonists I ever seen in anime, and especially in card game anime. People who love to say Yugi and the Pharaoh from "Yu-Gi-Oh!" always win thanks to plot armor and always having the right card at the right moment. I never watched this anime. And not only that, but he's a very obnoxious character in general, and doesn't help the anime go out of its way to make sure he's in the right always.
Besides, he's just too damn impossibly dumb. How on Earth can you, at the same time, never play Buddyfight but also play it enough to know some cards and stuff, and yet you still need to "learn" about basic things like a turner? Not to mention he SOMEHOW never even heard about things that any human alive in that setting should know about, like the Gaen family. It just makes him look like a complete moron who is too dumb to live, and yet he is not only strong physically, but everyone likes him, and he always wins his duels against people who have been dueling for years at that point. You can tell they try to make him be the proxy for the audience to learn about such things as the Gaen family, but it was very, very poorly done, as it made his character look very, very stupid.
And why does he have the power of the future force? How did he get that power, and only later in the anime? He got that power completely at random, and not only that, it almost always activated on its own! He even uses it to CHEAT and win the last duel of the anime to make a card he absolutely didn't have, which is always "fun" in this kind of anime...
- Tetsuya Kurodake he...errr...oh geez! I forgot what I was going to say about him! Just like how the anime forgot to do much with this character, especially compared to the others. Why was there again? Did they need someone to dance and be annoying? Did anybody really give a fuck about the whole thing between him and Terumi, a chick he barely met?
- There are many human characters in this season, and many of them have buddies, which helps to make the cast quite bloated. It's no wonder most of them are useless, or the anime barely does anything with them, despite introducing them in a way that makes you seem to think that maybe they will be important later or something, which I think the main examples are Demongodol and Drum's father (let's call him Fang).
Demongodol was shown to know Drum before, and his father too, so he's the only character from his past. Yet...they did nothing with him. If he were a complete stranger, it would have changed nothing for the entire anime sooooo what was the point in introducing this monster and giving him this connection to Drum?
Fang's main issue, aside from being this legendary hero in their world, despite us never seeing that strength of his being put to good use, is how he's a terrible father. Imagine "banishing" your son to an alien world just so he can...grow or something? Is that a thing dragons do? Why only happened with Drum then? But fine, let's assume this makes sense. Even so, he's still a terrible character since we saw that he can open portals to other worlds at will. And he absolutely can spy on his son as Drum could on Gao. So we have to assume he saw the situation with the invasion of the Darkness Dragon World. And yet, despite his son being in that world HE had sent him to, he did absolutely nothing to help. He bothered to show up to "help train" Drum in a way in that episode, he temporarily joined Gao's father's deck to buddyfight him and Drum, but couldn't be bothered to be there during the invasion?
- Azi Dahaka is clearly a ridiculous, overpowered monster that is not only another example of how useless or terrible at their job the buddy police are, for not knowing about him and his deal all this time, but we see he has the power to casually open a "tv screen" that allows him and Kyoya to spy on anyone anywhere. Just think how powerful this power on its own is, all the things Kyoya could do with it. And yet, we only see it being used once. Azi spends more of his time making Kyoya's hair even more fucking ridiculous than it already is when they are buddyfighting than using his powers for something more smart and useful for their scheme. Azi sucks, but not as much as Kyoya. And speaking of Kyoya...
- Among all characters of this season, the worst ones absolutely are the villains. Everyone from Disaster sucks major ass, every single one. They are the perfect example of how the characters in this season suck. Useless, filler, terrible, annoying...you name it. All of them deserve either to be thrown in prison or the electric chair for their crimes. That's why it's so damn frustrating that NOT A SINGLE ONE of the Disaster members pays for their crimes. They did whatever they wanted and then...that's it. None of them will be punished, no consequences, no repercussions at all. What kind of message is this anime trying to teach your kids? Can you do bad things, and in the worst-case scenario, even if you are caught, nothing will happen to you?
Before we talk more in detail about three of those shitty excuses for human beings, let's do something else to elaborate on my point. I was inspired by a certain YouTuber who did an amazing review of the Nickelodeon series iCarly! So, we will do what I'm calling...buddycrime! It's simple, we will mention all the instances that we see those guys doing something that certainly would be considered a crime. Now, we don't have access to the laws of Japan of 2030 in that setting, so we're going with common sense here...which is something that clearly the cast of this anime lacks xP!
Do keep in mind I might have missed some buddycrimes, if so please make sure to let me know~
BUDDYCRIME 1 and 2: In episode 12, we have quite the situation already! Not only did Genma get his deck stolen, but he is also imprisoned by Shido and Sofia. And didn't seem they even bothered to leave him with water and food, Jesus!! Heck, they didn't even bother to check if Genma didn't get hurt after that massive fall! We barely started, and those villains already show they don't give a fuck about another human being. We don't need to show them any mercy, so let's count this as two crimes for the price of one!
BUDDYCRIME 3,4 and 5: In episode 14, Shido and Noboru's shady deal is enough to get another buddycrime to us, given that buddyfighting is serious business in that world! Not to mention, Shido and Sofia do the same thing to Totsuo Dai that they did to Genma! So, three buddycrimes in a single episode!
BUDDYCRIME 6 and 7: In episode 17, Sofia forces the dark core on Totsuo, which kinda brainwashes him? And if she can do that, why don't just try this with everyone, though if Totsuo is supposed to be compatible...ah, let's talk about that later. Now, we need to focus on all the buddycrimes!
Not only that, but later, when Genma escapes and tries to warn everyone about Shido's crimes, Shido somehow not only tricks everyone into joining the tournament, which he already lost a duel, so he shouldn't be able to participate in it anymore, but Genma stupidly never mentions what Shido did to him and Totsuo ever again...for some reason. That means we can count two buddycrimes here!
BUDDYCRIME 8: In episode 21, Shido is about to STAB the buddy he used in the duel against Genma, and you can see the poor monster scared in his card form! The only reason he didn't do it was that Sofia stopped him, which was very out of character for her since she's a monster even worse than Shido, as we will soon see.
BUDDYCRIME 9,10 and 11: In episode 22, Kyoya Gaen makes his buddy Azi Dahaka "attack" the ship he and others are in, which certainly must have caused some chaos, panic, and injuries. And he did that just to bait Tasuku into using the future force...I wonder what he would do if Tasuku didn't fall for that bait. Would he use Azi Dahaka to destroy the iceberg and reveal his buddy to everyone, or what?
The whole thing with Axia, which I will talk more in detail about later. Urgh...
Sofia somehow captures Axia ridiculously easily and was just about to BURN AXIA ALIVE for no reason at all. The only reason she didn't was that Gao was there and stopped her. But then she just throws Axia out of the ship!
...
wait...
That shouldn't be an issue! We see in this very episode that, as a card, Axia can float in the air just fine. So there was no need for Gao to risk his life and jump to save him as he did! But we will still count this as a buddycrime too since a bitch like Sofia deserves no mercy!
BUDDYCRIME 12: In episode 31, Sofia is caught by Gao being a bad girl, so she uses disaster force to teleport Gao and Drum into the sky, where they would fall to their deaths! Even Rouga Aragami, who's an asshole (and only a moron like Gao would keep trying to befriend him...), is horrified. He mentions that Drum can't use his buddyskill (which, btw, insinuates it's like he knew Drum's skill was to let Gao fly, but how he knew that?) and Sofia just...SMILES! She really didn't give a fuck! The only reason Gao and Drum didn't die was that he was able to "force" himself to use his skill, and like 90% of the rest of the buddies, it allowed his partner to fly, so lucky. The only thing more insane than this attempted murder is how neither Gao nor Drum did anything about it later, not even calling Sofia out for her crime. I mean...buddycrime!
BUDDYCRIME 13 and 14: In episode 37, Iron Claw Ikarino kidnaps the students of Gao's class, and either Gao defeats him, or they can't leave, WTF! And that guy is supposed to be one of the good guys!
Elf Kabala takes over the role of teacher, and we have no idea what happened with the previous teacher. In the best-case scenario, he was fired; in the worst, he was killed. Either way, another buddycrime to our list.
There are some things I'm not sure if we should count as buddycrimes, like all the crimes committed by Rouga. Rouga was technically groomed or something like that by Kyoya for years and gaslighted by him with his "friendship" nonsense. Besides, by the end, he did help the good guys, which is a lot more than we can say for other members of Disaster, so not like he was a full villain until the end at least. I thought I should mention this now since I didn't count anything done by characters like him, but I did for Ikarino. That being said, I'm sure I'm still losing some buddycrimes...those characters are so nasty! -w-
BUDDYCRIME 15 and 16: In episode 38, Kyoya uses his charm over Terumi Kuchinawa to make her try to brainwash Gao into using the dark core and joining them. The more this brainwashing power comes up, the less sense it makes. Why don't all of you guys just go around brainwashing buddyfighters you like? Heck, why don't you go and do it yourself, Kyoya? What are you so busy that you can't bother, despite Gao being someone who interested you enough that you want him brainwashed? You wanna play your fucking organ today or something?
Either way, this has to count for at least two buddycrimes!
BUDDYCRIME 17: In episode 42, Davide Yamazaki tried to kill Gao with his weapon using the power of disaster force. In front of a lot of witnesses, most of them being kids! He only failed because, at completely random, the power of future force activated itself to protect Gao with a blue shield! And, just like with Sofia, despite this happening in front of so many people, nothing happens with Davide.
BUDDYCRIME 18, 19, and 20: While this isn't something that only happens in episode 45, let's count the kidnapping and technically brainwashing of Tasuku as one buddycrime and all the kidnappings of the monsters as another. And add one more, since those psychopaths are making them fight and kill each other.
BUDDYCRIME 21: In episode 47, Shido traps Terumi in the hidden underground chamber of the school, as he did with Genma and his friend. Just because he didn't want her to be in his team. And as far as we can tell, he never went to check on her!
BUDDYCRIME 22: In episode 49, because she lost her duel, Kyoya asks Sofia to erase her memories related to buddyfighting. Not to mention they took her dark core and buddy from her as well.
BUDDYCRIME 23: In episode 56, Sofia is sent by Kyoya to "silence" Seiichi Nobari because that complete idiot, despite taking control of the entire buddy police, somehow let people like the previous boss Commander I, still work there. So it was obvious that they would do something one day to fuck him up, and it happened here. It is implied that she was going to kill him, but he was saved, arrested, and became the ONLY villain related to disaster to face the consequences of their vile actions.
So, as you guys saw, we have AT LEAST 30 buddycrimes committed during this anime! That's a lot and...hmm? What? Why 30 if I stopped at 23? Oh, that's because...
-Magoroku Shido and Sofia Sakharov are two of the worst members of Disaster, which is saying a lot. And I mean that in the sense that both are terrible characters and also monsters; they only deserve death or prison, as you guys saw by their crimes. To make things worse, Shido's dad is someone in a very high position of power and is also Kyoya's bitch, doing whatever he wants, so he also deserves to be punished for his crimes, and yet, while Nobari was caught...he was never arrested or anything.
But there is one character that is worse than all of those guys, and it's Kyoya Gaen. All things that the characters related to disaster did were all because of him after all. So, not only as the mastermind, he has his big share of responsibility for many of their crimes, but we can't ignore the crimes he WANTED to do and didn't because Gao stopped him.
First of all, how the fuck does this 15-year-old boy have all this power? He acts as if he is already in charge of Gaen Financial Group! Did he kill his parents already or something? Maybe he did, given we never even heard about them and how he seems to dislike adults...
We do know he's an asshole from birth since we saw him in that flashback with Rouga that he was buddytighting with street kids, and that's how he met him. Obviously, a spoiled brat like him would have any cards he wanted, so no way any of those street kids even had a chance. We have to assume he was doing this just to feel good about winning and also rub on their faces the money and power he had.
As many other things, the anime did a terrible job with this "arc," but it seems that Kyoya (and his family?) kind of adopted Rouga or something. Unless Kyoya stayed friends with that random street kid, which I find hard to believe. And that's how he started to manipulate Rouga to do his bidding as he would with so many others later. That would be the first crime he committed in his life. But a few years later, things would escalate, and a lot given what he wanted to do with Disaster!
It's insane how this 15-year-old kid was willing to let some evil monsters from Darkness Dragon World invade Earth, and we assume, destroy everything, so Kyoya can finally fulfill his ambition: to unite the world by removing people of their individuality. In other words, he's on a big power trip. This terrible, TERRIBLE teenager isn't satisfied with the luck of being born in the richest and most powerful family of the anime that can get anything he could possibly want. A massive overpowered buddy? A hidden cave where he can hang out with his other evil partners? A massive organ he can play whenever he wants? Any card that exists? He already has those things, but not enough...he wants MORE. No matter what he has to do to get that, as we see plenty of times during the anime.
And remember, he was only stopped thanks to Gao and only because somehow Gao's future force let him cheat by creating a card so he could win.
After that...Gao still wants to befriend that monster and Kyoya, AND HIS PALS JUST WALK FREE. And that's after Gao tried to befriend him!! WTF. After all the terrible things they did, heck, after what Kyoya tried to do, it's insane that they suffer no consequences at all. What kind of lesson is this anime trying to teach a kid watching it?!
Kyoya and all of his actions alone justify the addition of seven more buddycrimes to our counter, if not more! That's why we're at 30!! It's already annoying when we have a boring villain that's just evil for the sake of being evil, and anime tries to justify his actions. But it's even worse when nothing happens to the villain after he failed.
-Now it's time to talk about Axia and the two main aspects I believe destroy the lore and world-building of maybe not only this season, but also hurt future seasons as well.
Axia is not only the most interesting character of the season but also among the best in the series! I will just copy what we have from the wiki since it tells the situation about this dragon in perfect detail: "In the Japanese Version, she is a trans woman.
However, due to rampant transphobia in the original Japanese version from Drum and Asmodai (remarks such as calling her "manlady" and Drum stating a flaw of hers is that she "doesn't understand gender" being particularly egregious examples) as well as it simply being very challenging at the time the show was localized to show trans characters for US and European broadcasts, her character was changed to instead be a campy gay man, with a flamboyant and slightly nasally voice to show this attitude compared to the original's more regal feminine take.
Regardless of gender, Axia is depicted as having a romantic attraction towards Drum in both versions."
You don't see that every day, eh! I will refer to Axia as a male from this point just since it's what I'm used to for this character, but technically both male and female are correct when it's about Axia xD!
It's just insane that they preferred to show a full male GAY dragon in the dub than a trans female! But that's exactly what happened. Thanks to that, you can argue that Axia is technically among the first canon male gay furry characters in the story of anime/manga. As far as I can tell, the first one is a certain dog from Kekkaishi! If there's more that did show up before him and you guys are aware of them, please do let me know~
Now, while that aspect of Axia is quite interesting on its own, it's not the only reason why we're talking about him now. It's because his existence as presented in the anime just breaks the lore entirely. Why's that?
This is a world that is all about buddyfighting, where you can even become buddies with a monster. Someone alive, with their own will and all, and they came from another world to live with you and all that. That's already a mess to understand when you take into account the cards themselves. Maybe you can think of "maybe they aren't alive, they're just AI or something despite talking or something". The thing is, Axia's existence destroys arguments like that.
Axia was apparently being held back against his will by Kyoya! So much so that he escaped! He never hides that he wants to be buddies with someone, like how Drum is Gao's buddy, and it's even why he left anime later (more on this soon...). This means that it's pretty obvious that Axia isn't just a card. He is a monster with his own will and desires and all!
So, why in the fuck was ok for Kyoya to just...offer him as a prize? Like, he was just a rare card? Like he was nothing more than an object to be given away to someone? And why was everyone on the ship ok with it, including Tasuku? So, that means that some monsters are ok to be trafficked and others aren't? What the heck is going on here?!
Not only that, but anime never bought Axia back. I don't mean in this season, I mean ever. He went to look for a buddy and completely disappeared from the anime. A fate worse than death, since none of the characters, especially Gao and Drum, even wonder what happened to him. It was like Axia was cancelled for grooming someone or something! That's a terrible way to treat one of the first canon gay furry characters!
- The other thing that I believe just breaks the lore is the whole situation with Gao's brother. Now, the whole Yota Mikado stuff on its own is...kinda ok, I guess? It could have been done better, but for the standards of the anime, it wasn't half-bad. IMO the worst aspect of it is that everyone, including Gao's family, being ok with Gao's obsession with a character created by his dead brother years ago.
What I wanna question is...what exactly killed Yota Mikado and why? Just think about it. This isn't like, say..."Yu-Gi-Oh!" and other similar card game anime. This is Buddyfight. You have beings such as a dragowizard. A very powerful demon. An extreme overpowered dragon deity. All of them are just right there. And many more! And not only do you have those very powerful monsters with crazy powers, but in this setting, humans know and have contact with monsters from other worlds all the damn time, which means they have access to things like skills and technologies only available there. Are you telling me that NONE of that could cure whatever had killed Yota?
I have to call bullshit on that. Unless they explained in a way that makes sense, like those monsters coming here also meant they brought diseases and other problems that they couldn't just cure even in their own worlds. That sort of thing would add a big layer to the relationship between humans and monsters, which could be fun to explore, but, nah. Just kill the brother of the main character with some disease you can't bother to name, so he can have a tragic element to his past to make him look less of a Gary Stu. So, yeah, unless you're a human that died of something like demonic cancer or hyperstellar flu, it makes no sense for a human to die of any disease in buddyfight.
KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT
Now that we put that out of the way...it's KAMIKAZETIME!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoaZXYVvkkc
Usually, you see quite a variety of kemono in anime based on card games. Buddyfight isn't an exception to this rule, but as you watch, you will notice that for whatever reason, they prefer to focus on one kind of kemono. And it's dragon characters!
It's no wonder that Drum, the buddy of the MC, is a dragon. They tend to be the most common type of monsters that you will see in this anime. There are other monsters, of course, and some of those are quite good too! But make no mistake, this anime was made for fans of dragons or reptile kemono! Their designs are so good that most of them could be main characters in other anime!
We can say the same about some of the other non-dragon monsters, though that's assuming we're talking about the 2D ones. Unfortunately, they tend to use 3D for some monsters like Cerberus's "true form" and...I will be nice and say the 3D probably looked better at the time x3.
In Buddyfight, all monsters can show up in their true forms, but they can "change" themselves into their SD forms, which are like them in a cuter/chibi form. The excuse of the anime is that this is done so as not to scare people, and it's also why, sadly, we only see the SD forms of the buddy monsters since they're not in card form and hanging out with their human partners. And not all of them. I really wonder what the SD form of someone like Duel Sieger would look like, but unfortunately, we never see those. And, no, they never explain how the monsters can turn into SD forms. Is that...magic or something? How exactly is that a thing that all monsters from all those different worlds can do? Anime didn't bother to address that.
Still, that means we're getting two monsters for the price of one in some cases! Let's take a look at them now, including some monsters that only show up as cards during battles:
Axia reference: https://imgur.com/a/btwuVf7
Axia SD reference: https://imgur.com/a/fHEXmTC
Cerberus SD reference: https://imgur.com/a/hR56BXN
Cerberus has a true form, but this is a case in which the SD form is a lot better than the 3D one, so I didn't bother with screenshots of it lol.
Demongodol reference: https://imgbox.com/g/F4pyRUowAC
Demongodol SD https://imgur.com/a/XXGve2k
I still can't believe they teased that they would do something with this monster, given his connection to
Drum, but never came out of it!
Demios Sword Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/VwEjS5kGA6
Double Sword Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/CCxLjgksh0
Drum reference: https://imgur.com/a/0AynMLX
Yes, for whatever reason, Drum alternated between 2D and 3D, and it's shocking, I know, but he was always better in 2D!
Drum SD reference: https://imgur.com/a/AwV4O94
Drum's father reference: https://imgur.com/a/4IgnxNy
Extreme Sword Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/80lrAXAWZj
Fortune dragon Forbolka reference: https://imgur.com/a/lZus9L6
One of the few good feral monsters we got, especially one that is small and cute. And not only is it one of the cutest monsters, but it's a dragon!
Ironchain Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/4obGjyHth7
Jack reference: https://imgur.com/a/p3IzuLd
Crazy that Jack is the only monster whose SD form was used in a meaningful way.
Jamadhar reference: https://imgbox.com/g/KaynLh5xa0
Pile Bunker Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/u92YhDSo9n
Silver Staff Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/LbUSSnCl7k
Sword Raptor reference: https://imgur.com/a/HZ09nzq
Thousand Rapier Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/tOqfBvJnOW
Valefar reference: https://imgur.com/a/0eDBjTY
Yamigarasu reference: https://imgur.com/a/IUbi5Vy
Buddyfight has many monsters, and many of them have great designs. Among the best I ever seen in kemono in anime! The issue here isn't with them but with the anime itself...well, this season.
It's weird and hard to describe, but at the same time, the season is about the monsters as part of the buddyfighting setting; it also has nothing to do with them at the same time. It tries to have too many things at once, like too many characters, and it wastes valuable screentime on things like useless filler. The first tournament, for example, has no stakes at all for anybody participating lol!
And because of things like that, I feel the season is not only wasting but fucking up the monsters that this whole thing is supposed to be about. I mean, look, for example, how this setting treats them as cards, like what happened with Axia. Or how they fucked up with poor Jack.
But, among all of the issues I have with Buddyfight, I believe the worst one is how it avoids as hard as it can to punish its villains. It's disgusting, and it's sending a terrible message to any young kids watching it. That's such a serious and annoying issue that I'm baffled how they thought that was ok to do. Ehh, but it's fine. This is still the first season! I'm sure that they will learned their lesson and in the next season they will make sure to punish all villains for their evil deeds! Right guys? :3
...RIGHT??
Because of all those reasons, especially all the issues this season has, I believe it deserves a...
*turns around and points dramatically at the cartoon*
A TWO OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!!
There are too many issues here to ignore, like how the anime "ignores" all of the villains. All of that together brings the whole thing down hard. I think I can see how a kid at that time could have enjoyed it, but watching it today...yeaaaaah...
Even if there are many kemono with amazing designs, the rest of the problems get in the way. And it's not like it focuses on many of those monsters anyway. There are only two "important" monsters, and they are Drum and Jack, and that's it.
Besides, as explained earlier, the setting itself works against it in ways that make no sense. That's why normally this could easily get a 3 if not a 4 in the scale, but nope. A 2 is more fair for this season.
If you are curious to check it out, I recommend giving the first 5 episodes a chance and see what you think. For fans of anthro dragons, I guess it's still easy to recommend this. For fans of anime card games, it will really depend on your taste for the card game itself here because there's barely anything else good aside from it. And for other people, it will really depend on what you're expecting to get from this! Personally, I would only recommend this season for big fans of anthro dragons and anime card games!
Do remember this is a review of ONLY the first season of the anime! Fortunately, things will improve from this point until they become quite great, but... it will take a while before we get to that point xP!
The best furry character this time is...hmm, think it's a tie between Axia and Jack!
The "kemono in the refrigerator" this time is...Axia! And we could even argue he's THE kemono in the refrigerator, not only for this season but for the entire anime! Poor Axia...;w;
Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about Future Card Buddyfight if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out, thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!
It’s easy to understand why, because there are card game battles anime that have a lot of monster cards in them. Some way more than others. Some of those monsters might even come out of the cards and talk and act on their own, as their own characters. Some are barely nothing more than just...cards, like every other card in their respective anime. It really varies a lot and will depend on the anime, and what it decided to do when adapting the card game it’s based on to create an anime based on it.
Today’s subject is about one of those anime! Future Card Buddyfight, one of the many collectible card games created by Bushiroad!
From wiki: “Bushiroad Inc. (株式会社ブシロード, Kabushiki-gaisha Bushirōdo) is a Japanese entertainment company, producer of collectible card games and trading cards, and publisher of mobile apps and games, which was founded in 2007 by Takaaki Kidani and is headquartered in Tokyo. Bushiroad created and owns various media franchises, such as Tantei Opera Milky Holmes. Since 2019, Bushiroad is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and has traded on the TSE since its launch on July 24, 2019.” So, Buddyfight is only one of their many card game IPs though it’s among their most famous ones and also one that has the most kemono.
As for what exactly is buddyfight...”Future Card Buddyfight is the anime adaptation of the manga series based on the Future Card Buddyfight trading card game. It is produced by Bushiroad Inc. This series does not follow the story of manga but features the same original characters and new characters as well.”
“The series takes place during the year 2030, in Choutokyo, Japan. Through the game "Buddyfight", humanity is able to interact with the residents of other worlds: Buddy Monsters. Chosen humans (known as "Buddyfighters") become "Buddies" with Buddy Monsters to play the game. There are those who choose to use the power of Buddy Monsters for evil, but the "Buddy Police" puts a stop to these criminals. Gao Mikado is a student at Aibo Academy and is a very nice guy, even if he doesn't look like it. His life changes when he meets the son of the hero of the Dragon World: Drum Bunker Dragon (whom he nicknamed 'Drum'), whom he drew from a pack in class one day.”
For this review, we will only talk about the first season of the anime and only of the anime. It seems the manga is quite different from the anime, and I would love to know the details. However, as far as I can tell, it’s not available online to read, and I don’t know anyone who has the complete manga to share with me information about it, or who knows, maybe some scans. If you do have it or know someone who does, please talk to me~
Each season of the anime does its own thing with its own plot and such, so it would be very lazy to review the whole anime, ignoring the differences between the seasons, which is why we’re starting with only Season 1. And I gotta say...the anime of Buddyfight has the unique distinction of being both the worst and also the best anime of its kind that I ever watched! That’s how much different the seasons can be from each other, and for good or for worse, this first season is the worst one. Not only of the entire series but among the anime of its genre that I watched! xP
To understand why that is, let’s start by talking about some of the characters, and I mean ONLY some, because this is one of the biggest issues with this season. It’s plagued with many characters, and around 80% of them are useless even for the arc they show up, taking precious screentime from other characters, lore, world-building, and other more important stuff. Even if I were to talk about half the cast, we would be here for the rest of the day, and remember, this is only the first season! Imagine if I talked about the entire series...!
- Gao Mikado: The protagonist, not only of this season but of the next ones all the way until last season! You know that because he has the typical insane hair that all protagonists of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” have, which is very common for protagonists of anime like this to have for some reason~
Since I will talk more about Gao (among, uh...MANY other things...) in the spoiler section, let’s keep things brief for now. He’s a nice boy, though might not look like it, given he’s always dressed as a typical Japanese delinquent thanks to his obsession with The Mighty Sun Fighter, the main fictional character of a comic based on the character written by his brother Yota Mikado. I call it an obsession because it’s really his main thing, even more than the buddyfighting itself. Heck, he even enters “Mighty Sun Fighter” mode when starting a duel like he’s a superhero putting on his costume or something.
He does look the part because he trained in the Aiki-jujutsu Mikado style taught by his mom, so he is physically quite strong. And maybe in part of it, but he loves to be reckless and force his will on others; it’s not hard to make him lose his temper, but he’s a nice kid. Shame he is also a lot obnoxious, and it can be annoying how he really wants to push his agenda on other characters just because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Doesn’t help that he’s also one of the worst examples of main character duelists that I ever seen, as he never lost a duel and always feels like it was due to pure luck or plot armor or a mix of both which when combined with his personality...let’s just say watching this season was hard and he was one of the reasons why xP.
His buddy is Drum Bunker Dragon! That guy is hotheaded, stubborn, reckless, and he can be selfish. So...he’s almost like Gao but in dragon form! That’s why Drum refused to acknowledge Gao as his Buddy for a while (though...he had chosen him, but at the same time he didn’t...? Errr, more on this later in spoilers) and also why they frequently bickered about trivial things such as pudding, Drum’s favorite dessert.
Gao has two good friends with whom he formed the team Balle Du Solei with to compete in tournaments: Baku Omori (the team's deck-builder) and Kuguru Uki (the team’s card analyzer).
- Tasuku Ryuenji: Our deuteragonist of this and future seasons. Tasuku is quite popular among the people, and that’s probably because of his cool personality and his serious work at the Buddy Police...despite, uh, only being thirteen years old. Yeah, a kid is doing police work, and everyone is fine with that. Plus, he has a mysterious past since he just showed up in the mountains and met Jack, who became the closest he got to a family. So, how did a boy who doesn’t know where he came from and who he is work for the Buddy Police? I don’t know, it just happens, and it’s insane, heh. No wonder that he is mature and seems to want to think of himself as an adult already, which is tied to his “arc,” one of the few things we got that can be called a character arc or development for this season.
His buddy is Jackknife Dragon! Like Tasuku, Jack has a strong desire to protect others and is often eager in battle, though he is the buddy with the most stoic personality of everyone from season 1...and others.
He has an extremely strong bond with Tasuku, whom he considers to be his family, and that makes sense given they have been together for years now, but it’s also why what Tasuku did is...eh, better save it for the spoilers section.
- Tetsuya Kurodaki: Tetsuya is a very cheerful, happy, fun-loving kid who enjoys dancing along with his buddy Demon Lord, Asmodai. It seems to be his favorite thing in the world since he tends to do it all the time, and it can be quite annoying and distracting. Even more so when this is a case where his buddy is more interesting than the human partner. If Gao wasn’t around, this boy would be the worst character in the season as far as the main good guys are concerned. Seriously, even his design sucks...why banana hair? Even the anime itself makes fun of his hair...
His buddy is the Demon Lord, Asmodai! This demon is quite the trickster and enjoys playing jokes on people, usually either to teach them a lesson or all in good fun. He knows a lot about Buddy fighting and likes to help Tetsuya with sound advice, and honestly feels that if it weren’t for him, Tetsuya would never have become as good as he did. If anything, it’s insane how quickly Tetsuya became so good to go as far as he did later in the anime duel-wise, which is a mix of plot armor and Asmodai’s teachings. At least make more sense than Gao winning only due to plot armor, heh.
- Noboru Kodo: A classmate of Gao in Aibo Academy, probably because he has a high rank in Buddyfight, he was rather arrogant about his skills as a fighter and the superiority of the Dragon Knights, and also saw Gao's wins as pure luck.
He is also another character that technically has something close to an arc, but...again, I will talk more about him in the spoilers section. And you know what? Let’s just go ahead and say I will do the same about Kiri Hyoryu xP!
There are many other characters that I could talk about, but as I said before, we would be here all day if I had to talk about everyone. One of the biggest issues with this season is the sheer number of characters. Seriously, this has one of the most bloated casts I have ever seen in an anime of this kind! It’s crazy if I never felt this way with ANY of, say, the seasons of “Yu-Gi-Oh!”, but I sure felt it’s a big problem here. For example, Baku and Kuguri are useless; they could easily be removed and their “roles” be passed to other characters.
I’m not going to talk about the card game itself because...come on, guys! I’m just your typical silly tiger you can find in your neighborhood! I lack the deep knowledge to talk or discuss the card games that anime like this are about! I’m only here to talk about the anime itself and the furry characters~
And this season is...quite bad, unfortunately. Easily among the worst anime of its kind that I ever watched, and even among general anime. If you aren’t into card game anime at all, this will NOT change your mind. And if you are, then there are way better ones out there, like future seasons of Buddyfight!
Not only are there too many characters, but the anime tries to give most of them a backstory, a past, and something close to an arc. And not only do they not have enough screentime to develop all of those things for everyone properly, this season even screws up some characters in a very weird way by just...removing them from the series until much later or forever despite developing them for a while. Will elaborate on this later in the spoilers section, and yes, one of those is a certain blue dragon...
Doesn't help that most of the cast is either boring or very annoying, which includes Gao himself. He can be so damn obnoxious! And even more than he normally is with that obsession of his of taking this Mighty Sun Fighter persona before duels, which everyone else pretends is normal and cool. And he never lost a single duel, which is all due to pure plot armor, luck, or thanks to Baku doing all the deck building for him. It's no wonder all the worst duels in this season are the ones involving him, which includes the last duel.
Not that the duels in this season are good, since many of them don't even have real stakes, and that aside, they're barely ok for the most part, with pacing being either too fast or too slow, they were struggling in when to show the action and when to just make Paruko resume stuff with her comments. Plus, it's not a very dynamic card game, except that I guess when the characters can equip weapons themselves and technically do the attack on their own. That's crazy as fuck since just imagine you using a giant sword, jumping all around the arena to attack monsters or your opponents directly! How does that make sense? Do you need to be very athletic to play Buddyfight? x3
Not that it makes more sense if you consider the lore or world-building of anime. Earth already knows about all of those other worlds, and they let monsters come here for whatever reason, and you have the Buddy Police to handle all matters related to monsters and Buddyfighting, and...and it's crazy how, when you try to analyze all of that together, it makes no sense given the way the anime presents it. I will talk about this in more detail, giving two examples, which are Gao's brother and Kyoya and Axia. But let's talk about one aspect of this now, since this issue is maybe the worst thing about this season (and maybe the entire anime), so you guys have some idea what I'm talking about. And it's the monsters themselves. Or, in other words, how monsters are supposed to make sense in this setting.
We see all the time that when people duel, they use cards to summon monsters, and those monsters talk and stuff. So they must clearly be "alive". So...what the heck is this? Are those guys like...slaves or something? So that's acceptable in this setting? Do the card monsters live outside of the cards or...what? And this gets even more complicated because of the very existence of the buddy monsters! Like Drum!
Those are the monsters that "pair up" with humans, becoming their buddies, allowing them not only their cards but their buddyskill which is a power that humans can use outside of duels. 99% of the time, the buddyskill just allows the human to fly anywhere without worrying about spending the monster's energy or something, but...that's it. So, all things considered for this anime, it's a useless skill lol. They didn't give a fuck about this, which is probably why I think we only see two monsters that had different buddyskills. It's just there to make the characters look cool as they fly around instead of being peasants and having to run somewhere.
If they didn't care about the buddyskill stuff, they also didn't care about the setting itself, since it makes no sense. Just think about it...the only way to get a buddy is to draw a rare card that technically lets you summon a buddy. But how does that work? Is the monster "kidnapped" from their world? Imagine if they were in the bathroom when someone pulls their card! What if they don't want to partner with a random human to win battles for them? Or does this thing only work for monsters that somehow come to Earth but avoid buddy police until someone draws their card, and now they can be here without any issues? So, only monsters that are living on Earth can have this happen to them? This gets even more needlessly complicated when you think of duplicate cards. And even more when you involve Drum in it...
We see him STALKING Gao, watching him from his own world to see if he wants to pair up with him because apparently that's a thing dragons can do. And then Gao draws his card, making Drum show up there immediately. So...what just happened?! Did he SOMEHOW make Gao draw his card with his "soul" on it or whatever? But...he was watching him and all, so was it a coincidence that Gao got his card? Or Drum shows that at least some monsters can stalk some humans and make them draw their card? What is going on here?! I mean, what was Drum's plan if Gao only decided to buy new packs in a couple of months from the time he began stalking him? xP
Not only does the anime have those issues, but it has some of the worst villains I ever seen in anime. Not only are there too many of them to develop them all properly, but they're either annoying, useless, or just...terrible people that deserve to be locked in jail forever, if not get the electric chair right away. And yet, Buddyfight loves to make sure its villains never get punished for their vile actions, which are too many and too evil. I will, once again, talk more about this in the spoiler section.
There’s barely a plot to discuss until later when “Disaster” stuff happens, and yet, it all sucks, especially combined with the issues I mentioned. It’s one of those “this happenss and then this happens” kind of main plot. This season didn’t need 64 episodes; it could have been around half if you cut lots of the filler or just bad stuff. Sigh...
I know, reading all of this makes you think this anime must suck a lot. And it does! Not only because of one or two of those issues, but all of them together. But there is some good news: not only do things get slowly better with each season, meaning this is already the worst it will get, but Buddyfight has some of the best monsters you will ever see in anime! I'm sure that's the main reason the anime was quite popular back then! Before we talk about the monsters, though, it's time we talk about...
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME
- Let's start by talking about some characters like Noboru Kodo. As mentioned, one of the issues with this season is the absolutely bloated cast. And they still tried to give them backstory, lore, and stuff, which includes Noboru. If anything, at the beginning of this season, you would be excused to think that this 12-year-old boy was going to be one of the main characters. He got quite a bit of screentime, including his own arc and such, where he got his buddy, learn about himself, and all that! And then...he just...randomly leaves in episode 15 to live in the USA? And he also randomly returns by episode 47! And now he's just kind of there.
Why did we waste so much time with a character who left during almost the middle of the series, only for him to be away for over 20 episodes and then just be "there" once he returned? This is nonsense. You could easily cut him from the entire season to give his screentime to other stuff that needed it a lot more. Maybe develop Kiri more, for example. And speaking of him...
- It's a bit hard to talk much about Kiri Hyoru here, given what happens in the second season, which I would think was such a crazy "twist" if it wasn't hinted at in this season. Which, for an anime like this, wasn't a bad foreshadowing, though that's only because everyone in the anime is dumb as fuck.
The twist in the second season makes Kiri's "connection" with the Dark Core just weird, if not a plot hole. But I guess it's better to talk about this in the second season, so let's focus only on the stuff we see in this season!
I think there was some good potential here. The whole "being weak but wanting to get strong" arc isn't a bad thing for a character like him to go for, and even the way he was bothered about being forgotten by a former friend after he moved away was good for this anime's standards. You see the former arc being done a lot, but not the last bit, and it's something that anyone who had to move a lot as a kid can relate to. They could have done a lot with those arcs (if we can call the second one an arc), but...it's buddyfight. So, of course, Gao has to ruin that...
It's crazy how he is just pushing his own agenda on Kiri, not even wanting to see things from his PoV. And, worst, the anime treats Gao as if he is right and Kiri is wrong, and that's it. Want to be strong with the Dark Core? That's wrong because I say so. You're afraid we will forget you because you moved? That won't happen because I said so, despite not giving any evidence or doing anything to establish his PoV about Kiri's issues as the right one. So Gao is always right just because he's the protagonist. Fuck that. He fucked Kiri's arc and even part of Tasuku with that bullshit. And about Tasuku...
- Tasuku Ryuenji had the potential to be the best character, and sometimes it feels like he is the true protagonist of the season. He even has a mysterious past and origin tropes going for him, which are never elaborated or revealed in this season. But his stuff is too sandwiched amongst everything else to really be developed better. Besides, come on...why the fuck is a 13-year-old boy working in the buddy police as an agent?! That's crazy and irresponsible, especially since anime never gave us a good reason for this! "It's because he can use the Future Force!" which is a nonsensical power that only this kid has, yeah, but that doesn't justify putting him to work like that. In the best-case scenario, everyone in the buddy police is irresponsible as fuck to be ok with that, if not criminals to employ a kid to do their work for them just because he has the future force.
Surrounded by shitty adults like that ever since he was found in that mountain with Jack, it's no wonder he started to feel like he should be an adult and not act like a kid, which is part of his arc. And that arc wasn't a bad thing per se, but unfortunately, as so many things here, it's very half-assed. Of course, he's 100% wrong because Kyoya is the bad guy and Gao is the right guy, regardless of whether that was just Gao forcing his beliefs on him. It also just happened that he happened to be right, since Kyoya is just using Tasuku, and yeah, you can tell what they were going for...a kids vs adults thing because adults are corrupt and stuff. But they ruined it. By the season's own logic, all adults are either shitty, dumb, or corrupt lol. So Kyoya should be right!
In the end, it just feels like Tasuku's time as the Purgatory Knight is just his edgy phase. And that's crazy, remember...he was willing to turn Jack into a weapon with the Goldritter stuff. Jack is the closest thing he has to a family. This should be a whole LOT more impactful and important than how the anime handled it. Besides, it didn't even matter by the end, as anime just drops the Goldritter subplot and Jack forgives Tasuku quite easily. The idea of him turning into his SD form by the end of that arc was actually good since it symbolizes not only the repairing of their relationship but also how Tasuku learned not to don't be this "adult" that has to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. The season really should have focused way more on stuff like this instead of filler stuff like whole characters such as Kazane or...maybe just go away with Gao to make more room for that. And speaking of Gao...
- Gao Mikado is one of the worst protagonists I ever seen in anime, and especially in card game anime. People who love to say Yugi and the Pharaoh from "Yu-Gi-Oh!" always win thanks to plot armor and always having the right card at the right moment. I never watched this anime. And not only that, but he's a very obnoxious character in general, and doesn't help the anime go out of its way to make sure he's in the right always.
Besides, he's just too damn impossibly dumb. How on Earth can you, at the same time, never play Buddyfight but also play it enough to know some cards and stuff, and yet you still need to "learn" about basic things like a turner? Not to mention he SOMEHOW never even heard about things that any human alive in that setting should know about, like the Gaen family. It just makes him look like a complete moron who is too dumb to live, and yet he is not only strong physically, but everyone likes him, and he always wins his duels against people who have been dueling for years at that point. You can tell they try to make him be the proxy for the audience to learn about such things as the Gaen family, but it was very, very poorly done, as it made his character look very, very stupid.
And why does he have the power of the future force? How did he get that power, and only later in the anime? He got that power completely at random, and not only that, it almost always activated on its own! He even uses it to CHEAT and win the last duel of the anime to make a card he absolutely didn't have, which is always "fun" in this kind of anime...
- Tetsuya Kurodake he...errr...oh geez! I forgot what I was going to say about him! Just like how the anime forgot to do much with this character, especially compared to the others. Why was there again? Did they need someone to dance and be annoying? Did anybody really give a fuck about the whole thing between him and Terumi, a chick he barely met?
- There are many human characters in this season, and many of them have buddies, which helps to make the cast quite bloated. It's no wonder most of them are useless, or the anime barely does anything with them, despite introducing them in a way that makes you seem to think that maybe they will be important later or something, which I think the main examples are Demongodol and Drum's father (let's call him Fang).
Demongodol was shown to know Drum before, and his father too, so he's the only character from his past. Yet...they did nothing with him. If he were a complete stranger, it would have changed nothing for the entire anime sooooo what was the point in introducing this monster and giving him this connection to Drum?
Fang's main issue, aside from being this legendary hero in their world, despite us never seeing that strength of his being put to good use, is how he's a terrible father. Imagine "banishing" your son to an alien world just so he can...grow or something? Is that a thing dragons do? Why only happened with Drum then? But fine, let's assume this makes sense. Even so, he's still a terrible character since we saw that he can open portals to other worlds at will. And he absolutely can spy on his son as Drum could on Gao. So we have to assume he saw the situation with the invasion of the Darkness Dragon World. And yet, despite his son being in that world HE had sent him to, he did absolutely nothing to help. He bothered to show up to "help train" Drum in a way in that episode, he temporarily joined Gao's father's deck to buddyfight him and Drum, but couldn't be bothered to be there during the invasion?
- Azi Dahaka is clearly a ridiculous, overpowered monster that is not only another example of how useless or terrible at their job the buddy police are, for not knowing about him and his deal all this time, but we see he has the power to casually open a "tv screen" that allows him and Kyoya to spy on anyone anywhere. Just think how powerful this power on its own is, all the things Kyoya could do with it. And yet, we only see it being used once. Azi spends more of his time making Kyoya's hair even more fucking ridiculous than it already is when they are buddyfighting than using his powers for something more smart and useful for their scheme. Azi sucks, but not as much as Kyoya. And speaking of Kyoya...
- Among all characters of this season, the worst ones absolutely are the villains. Everyone from Disaster sucks major ass, every single one. They are the perfect example of how the characters in this season suck. Useless, filler, terrible, annoying...you name it. All of them deserve either to be thrown in prison or the electric chair for their crimes. That's why it's so damn frustrating that NOT A SINGLE ONE of the Disaster members pays for their crimes. They did whatever they wanted and then...that's it. None of them will be punished, no consequences, no repercussions at all. What kind of message is this anime trying to teach your kids? Can you do bad things, and in the worst-case scenario, even if you are caught, nothing will happen to you?
Before we talk more in detail about three of those shitty excuses for human beings, let's do something else to elaborate on my point. I was inspired by a certain YouTuber who did an amazing review of the Nickelodeon series iCarly! So, we will do what I'm calling...buddycrime! It's simple, we will mention all the instances that we see those guys doing something that certainly would be considered a crime. Now, we don't have access to the laws of Japan of 2030 in that setting, so we're going with common sense here...which is something that clearly the cast of this anime lacks xP!
Do keep in mind I might have missed some buddycrimes, if so please make sure to let me know~
BUDDYCRIME 1 and 2: In episode 12, we have quite the situation already! Not only did Genma get his deck stolen, but he is also imprisoned by Shido and Sofia. And didn't seem they even bothered to leave him with water and food, Jesus!! Heck, they didn't even bother to check if Genma didn't get hurt after that massive fall! We barely started, and those villains already show they don't give a fuck about another human being. We don't need to show them any mercy, so let's count this as two crimes for the price of one!
BUDDYCRIME 3,4 and 5: In episode 14, Shido and Noboru's shady deal is enough to get another buddycrime to us, given that buddyfighting is serious business in that world! Not to mention, Shido and Sofia do the same thing to Totsuo Dai that they did to Genma! So, three buddycrimes in a single episode!
BUDDYCRIME 6 and 7: In episode 17, Sofia forces the dark core on Totsuo, which kinda brainwashes him? And if she can do that, why don't just try this with everyone, though if Totsuo is supposed to be compatible...ah, let's talk about that later. Now, we need to focus on all the buddycrimes!
Not only that, but later, when Genma escapes and tries to warn everyone about Shido's crimes, Shido somehow not only tricks everyone into joining the tournament, which he already lost a duel, so he shouldn't be able to participate in it anymore, but Genma stupidly never mentions what Shido did to him and Totsuo ever again...for some reason. That means we can count two buddycrimes here!
BUDDYCRIME 8: In episode 21, Shido is about to STAB the buddy he used in the duel against Genma, and you can see the poor monster scared in his card form! The only reason he didn't do it was that Sofia stopped him, which was very out of character for her since she's a monster even worse than Shido, as we will soon see.
BUDDYCRIME 9,10 and 11: In episode 22, Kyoya Gaen makes his buddy Azi Dahaka "attack" the ship he and others are in, which certainly must have caused some chaos, panic, and injuries. And he did that just to bait Tasuku into using the future force...I wonder what he would do if Tasuku didn't fall for that bait. Would he use Azi Dahaka to destroy the iceberg and reveal his buddy to everyone, or what?
The whole thing with Axia, which I will talk more in detail about later. Urgh...
Sofia somehow captures Axia ridiculously easily and was just about to BURN AXIA ALIVE for no reason at all. The only reason she didn't was that Gao was there and stopped her. But then she just throws Axia out of the ship!
...
wait...
That shouldn't be an issue! We see in this very episode that, as a card, Axia can float in the air just fine. So there was no need for Gao to risk his life and jump to save him as he did! But we will still count this as a buddycrime too since a bitch like Sofia deserves no mercy!
BUDDYCRIME 12: In episode 31, Sofia is caught by Gao being a bad girl, so she uses disaster force to teleport Gao and Drum into the sky, where they would fall to their deaths! Even Rouga Aragami, who's an asshole (and only a moron like Gao would keep trying to befriend him...), is horrified. He mentions that Drum can't use his buddyskill (which, btw, insinuates it's like he knew Drum's skill was to let Gao fly, but how he knew that?) and Sofia just...SMILES! She really didn't give a fuck! The only reason Gao and Drum didn't die was that he was able to "force" himself to use his skill, and like 90% of the rest of the buddies, it allowed his partner to fly, so lucky. The only thing more insane than this attempted murder is how neither Gao nor Drum did anything about it later, not even calling Sofia out for her crime. I mean...buddycrime!
BUDDYCRIME 13 and 14: In episode 37, Iron Claw Ikarino kidnaps the students of Gao's class, and either Gao defeats him, or they can't leave, WTF! And that guy is supposed to be one of the good guys!
Elf Kabala takes over the role of teacher, and we have no idea what happened with the previous teacher. In the best-case scenario, he was fired; in the worst, he was killed. Either way, another buddycrime to our list.
There are some things I'm not sure if we should count as buddycrimes, like all the crimes committed by Rouga. Rouga was technically groomed or something like that by Kyoya for years and gaslighted by him with his "friendship" nonsense. Besides, by the end, he did help the good guys, which is a lot more than we can say for other members of Disaster, so not like he was a full villain until the end at least. I thought I should mention this now since I didn't count anything done by characters like him, but I did for Ikarino. That being said, I'm sure I'm still losing some buddycrimes...those characters are so nasty! -w-
BUDDYCRIME 15 and 16: In episode 38, Kyoya uses his charm over Terumi Kuchinawa to make her try to brainwash Gao into using the dark core and joining them. The more this brainwashing power comes up, the less sense it makes. Why don't all of you guys just go around brainwashing buddyfighters you like? Heck, why don't you go and do it yourself, Kyoya? What are you so busy that you can't bother, despite Gao being someone who interested you enough that you want him brainwashed? You wanna play your fucking organ today or something?
Either way, this has to count for at least two buddycrimes!
BUDDYCRIME 17: In episode 42, Davide Yamazaki tried to kill Gao with his weapon using the power of disaster force. In front of a lot of witnesses, most of them being kids! He only failed because, at completely random, the power of future force activated itself to protect Gao with a blue shield! And, just like with Sofia, despite this happening in front of so many people, nothing happens with Davide.
BUDDYCRIME 18, 19, and 20: While this isn't something that only happens in episode 45, let's count the kidnapping and technically brainwashing of Tasuku as one buddycrime and all the kidnappings of the monsters as another. And add one more, since those psychopaths are making them fight and kill each other.
BUDDYCRIME 21: In episode 47, Shido traps Terumi in the hidden underground chamber of the school, as he did with Genma and his friend. Just because he didn't want her to be in his team. And as far as we can tell, he never went to check on her!
BUDDYCRIME 22: In episode 49, because she lost her duel, Kyoya asks Sofia to erase her memories related to buddyfighting. Not to mention they took her dark core and buddy from her as well.
BUDDYCRIME 23: In episode 56, Sofia is sent by Kyoya to "silence" Seiichi Nobari because that complete idiot, despite taking control of the entire buddy police, somehow let people like the previous boss Commander I, still work there. So it was obvious that they would do something one day to fuck him up, and it happened here. It is implied that she was going to kill him, but he was saved, arrested, and became the ONLY villain related to disaster to face the consequences of their vile actions.
So, as you guys saw, we have AT LEAST 30 buddycrimes committed during this anime! That's a lot and...hmm? What? Why 30 if I stopped at 23? Oh, that's because...
-Magoroku Shido and Sofia Sakharov are two of the worst members of Disaster, which is saying a lot. And I mean that in the sense that both are terrible characters and also monsters; they only deserve death or prison, as you guys saw by their crimes. To make things worse, Shido's dad is someone in a very high position of power and is also Kyoya's bitch, doing whatever he wants, so he also deserves to be punished for his crimes, and yet, while Nobari was caught...he was never arrested or anything.
But there is one character that is worse than all of those guys, and it's Kyoya Gaen. All things that the characters related to disaster did were all because of him after all. So, not only as the mastermind, he has his big share of responsibility for many of their crimes, but we can't ignore the crimes he WANTED to do and didn't because Gao stopped him.
First of all, how the fuck does this 15-year-old boy have all this power? He acts as if he is already in charge of Gaen Financial Group! Did he kill his parents already or something? Maybe he did, given we never even heard about them and how he seems to dislike adults...
We do know he's an asshole from birth since we saw him in that flashback with Rouga that he was buddytighting with street kids, and that's how he met him. Obviously, a spoiled brat like him would have any cards he wanted, so no way any of those street kids even had a chance. We have to assume he was doing this just to feel good about winning and also rub on their faces the money and power he had.
As many other things, the anime did a terrible job with this "arc," but it seems that Kyoya (and his family?) kind of adopted Rouga or something. Unless Kyoya stayed friends with that random street kid, which I find hard to believe. And that's how he started to manipulate Rouga to do his bidding as he would with so many others later. That would be the first crime he committed in his life. But a few years later, things would escalate, and a lot given what he wanted to do with Disaster!
It's insane how this 15-year-old kid was willing to let some evil monsters from Darkness Dragon World invade Earth, and we assume, destroy everything, so Kyoya can finally fulfill his ambition: to unite the world by removing people of their individuality. In other words, he's on a big power trip. This terrible, TERRIBLE teenager isn't satisfied with the luck of being born in the richest and most powerful family of the anime that can get anything he could possibly want. A massive overpowered buddy? A hidden cave where he can hang out with his other evil partners? A massive organ he can play whenever he wants? Any card that exists? He already has those things, but not enough...he wants MORE. No matter what he has to do to get that, as we see plenty of times during the anime.
And remember, he was only stopped thanks to Gao and only because somehow Gao's future force let him cheat by creating a card so he could win.
After that...Gao still wants to befriend that monster and Kyoya, AND HIS PALS JUST WALK FREE. And that's after Gao tried to befriend him!! WTF. After all the terrible things they did, heck, after what Kyoya tried to do, it's insane that they suffer no consequences at all. What kind of lesson is this anime trying to teach a kid watching it?!
Kyoya and all of his actions alone justify the addition of seven more buddycrimes to our counter, if not more! That's why we're at 30!! It's already annoying when we have a boring villain that's just evil for the sake of being evil, and anime tries to justify his actions. But it's even worse when nothing happens to the villain after he failed.
-Now it's time to talk about Axia and the two main aspects I believe destroy the lore and world-building of maybe not only this season, but also hurt future seasons as well.
Axia is not only the most interesting character of the season but also among the best in the series! I will just copy what we have from the wiki since it tells the situation about this dragon in perfect detail: "In the Japanese Version, she is a trans woman.
However, due to rampant transphobia in the original Japanese version from Drum and Asmodai (remarks such as calling her "manlady" and Drum stating a flaw of hers is that she "doesn't understand gender" being particularly egregious examples) as well as it simply being very challenging at the time the show was localized to show trans characters for US and European broadcasts, her character was changed to instead be a campy gay man, with a flamboyant and slightly nasally voice to show this attitude compared to the original's more regal feminine take.
Regardless of gender, Axia is depicted as having a romantic attraction towards Drum in both versions."
You don't see that every day, eh! I will refer to Axia as a male from this point just since it's what I'm used to for this character, but technically both male and female are correct when it's about Axia xD!
It's just insane that they preferred to show a full male GAY dragon in the dub than a trans female! But that's exactly what happened. Thanks to that, you can argue that Axia is technically among the first canon male gay furry characters in the story of anime/manga. As far as I can tell, the first one is a certain dog from Kekkaishi! If there's more that did show up before him and you guys are aware of them, please do let me know~
Now, while that aspect of Axia is quite interesting on its own, it's not the only reason why we're talking about him now. It's because his existence as presented in the anime just breaks the lore entirely. Why's that?
This is a world that is all about buddyfighting, where you can even become buddies with a monster. Someone alive, with their own will and all, and they came from another world to live with you and all that. That's already a mess to understand when you take into account the cards themselves. Maybe you can think of "maybe they aren't alive, they're just AI or something despite talking or something". The thing is, Axia's existence destroys arguments like that.
Axia was apparently being held back against his will by Kyoya! So much so that he escaped! He never hides that he wants to be buddies with someone, like how Drum is Gao's buddy, and it's even why he left anime later (more on this soon...). This means that it's pretty obvious that Axia isn't just a card. He is a monster with his own will and desires and all!
So, why in the fuck was ok for Kyoya to just...offer him as a prize? Like, he was just a rare card? Like he was nothing more than an object to be given away to someone? And why was everyone on the ship ok with it, including Tasuku? So, that means that some monsters are ok to be trafficked and others aren't? What the heck is going on here?!
Not only that, but anime never bought Axia back. I don't mean in this season, I mean ever. He went to look for a buddy and completely disappeared from the anime. A fate worse than death, since none of the characters, especially Gao and Drum, even wonder what happened to him. It was like Axia was cancelled for grooming someone or something! That's a terrible way to treat one of the first canon gay furry characters!
- The other thing that I believe just breaks the lore is the whole situation with Gao's brother. Now, the whole Yota Mikado stuff on its own is...kinda ok, I guess? It could have been done better, but for the standards of the anime, it wasn't half-bad. IMO the worst aspect of it is that everyone, including Gao's family, being ok with Gao's obsession with a character created by his dead brother years ago.
What I wanna question is...what exactly killed Yota Mikado and why? Just think about it. This isn't like, say..."Yu-Gi-Oh!" and other similar card game anime. This is Buddyfight. You have beings such as a dragowizard. A very powerful demon. An extreme overpowered dragon deity. All of them are just right there. And many more! And not only do you have those very powerful monsters with crazy powers, but in this setting, humans know and have contact with monsters from other worlds all the damn time, which means they have access to things like skills and technologies only available there. Are you telling me that NONE of that could cure whatever had killed Yota?
I have to call bullshit on that. Unless they explained in a way that makes sense, like those monsters coming here also meant they brought diseases and other problems that they couldn't just cure even in their own worlds. That sort of thing would add a big layer to the relationship between humans and monsters, which could be fun to explore, but, nah. Just kill the brother of the main character with some disease you can't bother to name, so he can have a tragic element to his past to make him look less of a Gary Stu. So, yeah, unless you're a human that died of something like demonic cancer or hyperstellar flu, it makes no sense for a human to die of any disease in buddyfight.
KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT
Now that we put that out of the way...it's KAMIKAZETIME!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoaZXYVvkkc
Usually, you see quite a variety of kemono in anime based on card games. Buddyfight isn't an exception to this rule, but as you watch, you will notice that for whatever reason, they prefer to focus on one kind of kemono. And it's dragon characters!
It's no wonder that Drum, the buddy of the MC, is a dragon. They tend to be the most common type of monsters that you will see in this anime. There are other monsters, of course, and some of those are quite good too! But make no mistake, this anime was made for fans of dragons or reptile kemono! Their designs are so good that most of them could be main characters in other anime!
We can say the same about some of the other non-dragon monsters, though that's assuming we're talking about the 2D ones. Unfortunately, they tend to use 3D for some monsters like Cerberus's "true form" and...I will be nice and say the 3D probably looked better at the time x3.
In Buddyfight, all monsters can show up in their true forms, but they can "change" themselves into their SD forms, which are like them in a cuter/chibi form. The excuse of the anime is that this is done so as not to scare people, and it's also why, sadly, we only see the SD forms of the buddy monsters since they're not in card form and hanging out with their human partners. And not all of them. I really wonder what the SD form of someone like Duel Sieger would look like, but unfortunately, we never see those. And, no, they never explain how the monsters can turn into SD forms. Is that...magic or something? How exactly is that a thing that all monsters from all those different worlds can do? Anime didn't bother to address that.
Still, that means we're getting two monsters for the price of one in some cases! Let's take a look at them now, including some monsters that only show up as cards during battles:
Axia reference: https://imgur.com/a/btwuVf7
Axia SD reference: https://imgur.com/a/fHEXmTC
Cerberus SD reference: https://imgur.com/a/hR56BXN
Cerberus has a true form, but this is a case in which the SD form is a lot better than the 3D one, so I didn't bother with screenshots of it lol.
Demongodol reference: https://imgbox.com/g/F4pyRUowAC
Demongodol SD https://imgur.com/a/XXGve2k
I still can't believe they teased that they would do something with this monster, given his connection to
Drum, but never came out of it!
Demios Sword Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/VwEjS5kGA6
Double Sword Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/CCxLjgksh0
Drum reference: https://imgur.com/a/0AynMLX
Yes, for whatever reason, Drum alternated between 2D and 3D, and it's shocking, I know, but he was always better in 2D!
Drum SD reference: https://imgur.com/a/AwV4O94
Drum's father reference: https://imgur.com/a/4IgnxNy
Extreme Sword Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/80lrAXAWZj
Fortune dragon Forbolka reference: https://imgur.com/a/lZus9L6
One of the few good feral monsters we got, especially one that is small and cute. And not only is it one of the cutest monsters, but it's a dragon!
Ironchain Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/4obGjyHth7
Jack reference: https://imgur.com/a/p3IzuLd
Crazy that Jack is the only monster whose SD form was used in a meaningful way.
Jamadhar reference: https://imgbox.com/g/KaynLh5xa0
Pile Bunker Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/u92YhDSo9n
Silver Staff Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/LbUSSnCl7k
Sword Raptor reference: https://imgur.com/a/HZ09nzq
Thousand Rapier Dragon reference: https://imgbox.com/g/tOqfBvJnOW
Valefar reference: https://imgur.com/a/0eDBjTY
Yamigarasu reference: https://imgur.com/a/IUbi5Vy
Buddyfight has many monsters, and many of them have great designs. Among the best I ever seen in kemono in anime! The issue here isn't with them but with the anime itself...well, this season.
It's weird and hard to describe, but at the same time, the season is about the monsters as part of the buddyfighting setting; it also has nothing to do with them at the same time. It tries to have too many things at once, like too many characters, and it wastes valuable screentime on things like useless filler. The first tournament, for example, has no stakes at all for anybody participating lol!
And because of things like that, I feel the season is not only wasting but fucking up the monsters that this whole thing is supposed to be about. I mean, look, for example, how this setting treats them as cards, like what happened with Axia. Or how they fucked up with poor Jack.
But, among all of the issues I have with Buddyfight, I believe the worst one is how it avoids as hard as it can to punish its villains. It's disgusting, and it's sending a terrible message to any young kids watching it. That's such a serious and annoying issue that I'm baffled how they thought that was ok to do. Ehh, but it's fine. This is still the first season! I'm sure that they will learned their lesson and in the next season they will make sure to punish all villains for their evil deeds! Right guys? :3
...RIGHT??
Because of all those reasons, especially all the issues this season has, I believe it deserves a...
*turns around and points dramatically at the cartoon*
A TWO OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!!
There are too many issues here to ignore, like how the anime "ignores" all of the villains. All of that together brings the whole thing down hard. I think I can see how a kid at that time could have enjoyed it, but watching it today...yeaaaaah...
Even if there are many kemono with amazing designs, the rest of the problems get in the way. And it's not like it focuses on many of those monsters anyway. There are only two "important" monsters, and they are Drum and Jack, and that's it.
Besides, as explained earlier, the setting itself works against it in ways that make no sense. That's why normally this could easily get a 3 if not a 4 in the scale, but nope. A 2 is more fair for this season.
If you are curious to check it out, I recommend giving the first 5 episodes a chance and see what you think. For fans of anthro dragons, I guess it's still easy to recommend this. For fans of anime card games, it will really depend on your taste for the card game itself here because there's barely anything else good aside from it. And for other people, it will really depend on what you're expecting to get from this! Personally, I would only recommend this season for big fans of anthro dragons and anime card games!
Do remember this is a review of ONLY the first season of the anime! Fortunately, things will improve from this point until they become quite great, but... it will take a while before we get to that point xP!
The best furry character this time is...hmm, think it's a tie between Axia and Jack!
The "kemono in the refrigerator" this time is...Axia! And we could even argue he's THE kemono in the refrigerator, not only for this season but for the entire anime! Poor Axia...;w;
Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about Future Card Buddyfight if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out, thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!
mikenike684
~mikenike684
Honestly, as someone who cites buddyfight as their favorite anime. I kind of agree with most of these points. Fortunately for me the later seasons are what sell it for me, and honestly, i like gao and drum. Are they the best protagonists ever? Probably not, but i like their dynamic
Akamikazetiger
~akamikazetiger
OP
I really want to like both more but...at least anime really gets a lot better with each season, especially the last ones! The later seasons, I think, are the favs of most fans of Buddyfight, just look how Batzz was very popular back then! xD
mikenike684
~mikenike684
Batzz is a little shit and i love it lol
