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James reviews Vanguard.
11 years ago
General
ScottishFurHi all and welcome to a new review :D
ATTENTION: this review is silly and for fun so have fun!
Today its....another card anime....yay!
I really find these anime fascinating in a way. Oh not that they're entertaining or funny, but I find them interesting in just the myriad of ways they can desperately shove their product placement. Some like Digimon aren't as blatant; sure the main protagonists come across a new creature every episode which is basically a showcase for how many merchandise they can make, but it has a flowing narrative and some interesting elements.
But not the show we're looking at, OH NO! This one was made by the same company that made Buddyfight and honestly this one might be a tad worse. Its not a Garbage Pail Kids terrible, but its definitely nowhere near any greats. Its called Cardfight Vanguard, but I'm just going call it Vanguard for short. It was shown from 2011 on YouTube and is still ongoing...its like Uranium, it takes a long time to decompose
What's the plot? Well there's this kid who has silly blue hair who really really likes this card game their advertising and has a super duper rare card! Whoo
and then he gets attacked by 2 bullies who later become his friends and there's a lone cardfighter aka an emo, and then they come across a girl who runs a shop selling cards and they want to enter a competition and, yes this is basically the plot to YuGiOh, minus 99% of the fantasy elements.
And that's the biggest issue; its just like YuGiOh. The main character is the same, a wimp who finds out later he has a secret power of the cards! ooooh, whatever.
There's the four comic relief characters who start off as rivals and then become friends and there's also the two supporting female characters one of whom is a love interest for one of the comic relief.
this is odd because YuGiOh wasn't good, in fact it was rather laughable in how dumb it was with some ridiculous hair and fashion sense and how the some of the characters attempted to do each other because of some dumb Ancient Egyptian curse thingamajig. In fact I shall just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CardGamesFTW
its the YuGiOh abridged series. It is really funny and the humour can be brutally honest. Even if you don't like anime, you can still have fun and laugh at these videos :D My favourite joke is:
Yugi: "Hello, we're Japanese highschool kids"
Shop Owner "You want to buy some porn disguised as visual novels?"
Yugi: "What? No!"
Wonderful! :D
But the abridged stuff aside, the problem still stands that Vanguard is just an imitation. It has smoother animation and isn't as crazy looking in the hair department, but that's it. The humour is dull and just basically:
I AM SHOUTING WHICH IS FUNNY YES?
No, no its really not funny :o
Oh and also there's later on a villain; a red haired fellow with an OH SO TRAGIC STORY, who has special mind reading card powers. Kind of a specific super power :o
Also he has red hair, which is a change from the usual silver or white haired villains. I know they do it because in Japan witches have white hair, but come on, its kind of obvious after a while; the guy or gal with white hair is evil.
So props to you Vanguard for going after gingers this time
His plan is to take over the world using...*sigh* card games. Imagine him waltzing up to a government and proclaiming he is their ruler while waving a pack of playing cards at the governors he's be arrested on the spot.
The biggest complaint though for me is just the sheer desperation they get to. There's one episode where you find out that one of the female character's parents actually die in a car crash. Yes they have parent death in this anime
And her parents got her into the card game and because they died she distanced herself, but now she realises by playing the game she feels like she is with them again and yada yada.
Now whether you find this touching or dumb is up to your interpretation.
For me, it was a bit disturbing
Death isn't uncommon in media aimed at children and the death of a parent or a main character is a big thing for a child. Littlefoot's mum dying in the Land Before Time, Mufasa's death in Lion King, Kira being stabbed in the Dark Crystal and Bambi's mum being shot, these all have one thing in common; you got to know the character.
Now Kira in Dark Crystal is a bit of a cheat because she does come back to life, but she does get a lot of screen time and when I was a little 5 year old watching Dark Crystal, it really shook me .
The parents in Vanguard are there just to advertise cards and say
"Hey kids this is a fun game! Get your parents to buy it!" OR ELSE!
surprisingly they also do this in Buddyfight too. This is one bloodthirsty company!
But the most damming thing about this and Buddyfight is that they do nothing for kids. Its just "Oh look at our cool cards and the 'thrill' you get from playing, BUY THEM!"
I can get defensive with kids and we shouldn't just treat them like bags of money nor should we pummel them up like some people I met on FA said so.
We should treat them like mature beings, they're the future generation after all you can show in media how to behave; that kindness is a strength and that you should treat everyone equally because deep down we're all the same no matter what our likes and dislikes, our race, our appearance or our voices and languages.
I know I may sound like I'm pile driving this in, but I do get passionate about the subject of what media we show to children and that we shouldn't just make it sloppy, we should take care with what we make. These new shows like Buddyfight especially (cause Vanguard was pretty much dead in the water) made me start thinking again on what future generations will think if they look back on the shows of 2013 and 2014. Its basically like us looking back at the commercial shows of the 80's and 90's; some with fondness like He-Man and some less so Maybe some people will like it, but I doubt it.
Overall Vanguard isn't worth searching for. Its dull and tedious and the parent death thing is distasteful; It will never be on par with Land Before Time, even if it tries to.
Anyways enough of that thanks for reading!
I was planning on doing a running commentary on Buddyfight....but that's died out because of my lack of interest; the show makes you careless!
Just know its got a relative death, more shining products in your face and also no plot yay!
ATTENTION: this review is silly and for fun so have fun!
Today its....another card anime....yay!
I really find these anime fascinating in a way. Oh not that they're entertaining or funny, but I find them interesting in just the myriad of ways they can desperately shove their product placement. Some like Digimon aren't as blatant; sure the main protagonists come across a new creature every episode which is basically a showcase for how many merchandise they can make, but it has a flowing narrative and some interesting elements.
But not the show we're looking at, OH NO! This one was made by the same company that made Buddyfight and honestly this one might be a tad worse. Its not a Garbage Pail Kids terrible, but its definitely nowhere near any greats. Its called Cardfight Vanguard, but I'm just going call it Vanguard for short. It was shown from 2011 on YouTube and is still ongoing...its like Uranium, it takes a long time to decompose
What's the plot? Well there's this kid who has silly blue hair who really really likes this card game their advertising and has a super duper rare card! Whoo
and then he gets attacked by 2 bullies who later become his friends and there's a lone cardfighter aka an emo, and then they come across a girl who runs a shop selling cards and they want to enter a competition and, yes this is basically the plot to YuGiOh, minus 99% of the fantasy elements.
And that's the biggest issue; its just like YuGiOh. The main character is the same, a wimp who finds out later he has a secret power of the cards! ooooh, whatever.
There's the four comic relief characters who start off as rivals and then become friends and there's also the two supporting female characters one of whom is a love interest for one of the comic relief.
this is odd because YuGiOh wasn't good, in fact it was rather laughable in how dumb it was with some ridiculous hair and fashion sense and how the some of the characters attempted to do each other because of some dumb Ancient Egyptian curse thingamajig. In fact I shall just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CardGamesFTW
its the YuGiOh abridged series. It is really funny and the humour can be brutally honest. Even if you don't like anime, you can still have fun and laugh at these videos :D My favourite joke is:
Yugi: "Hello, we're Japanese highschool kids"
Shop Owner "You want to buy some porn disguised as visual novels?"
Yugi: "What? No!"
Wonderful! :D
But the abridged stuff aside, the problem still stands that Vanguard is just an imitation. It has smoother animation and isn't as crazy looking in the hair department, but that's it. The humour is dull and just basically:
I AM SHOUTING WHICH IS FUNNY YES?
No, no its really not funny :o
Oh and also there's later on a villain; a red haired fellow with an OH SO TRAGIC STORY, who has special mind reading card powers. Kind of a specific super power :o
Also he has red hair, which is a change from the usual silver or white haired villains. I know they do it because in Japan witches have white hair, but come on, its kind of obvious after a while; the guy or gal with white hair is evil.
So props to you Vanguard for going after gingers this time
His plan is to take over the world using...*sigh* card games. Imagine him waltzing up to a government and proclaiming he is their ruler while waving a pack of playing cards at the governors he's be arrested on the spot.
The biggest complaint though for me is just the sheer desperation they get to. There's one episode where you find out that one of the female character's parents actually die in a car crash. Yes they have parent death in this anime
And her parents got her into the card game and because they died she distanced herself, but now she realises by playing the game she feels like she is with them again and yada yada.
Now whether you find this touching or dumb is up to your interpretation.
For me, it was a bit disturbing
Death isn't uncommon in media aimed at children and the death of a parent or a main character is a big thing for a child. Littlefoot's mum dying in the Land Before Time, Mufasa's death in Lion King, Kira being stabbed in the Dark Crystal and Bambi's mum being shot, these all have one thing in common; you got to know the character.
Now Kira in Dark Crystal is a bit of a cheat because she does come back to life, but she does get a lot of screen time and when I was a little 5 year old watching Dark Crystal, it really shook me .
The parents in Vanguard are there just to advertise cards and say
"Hey kids this is a fun game! Get your parents to buy it!" OR ELSE!
surprisingly they also do this in Buddyfight too. This is one bloodthirsty company!
But the most damming thing about this and Buddyfight is that they do nothing for kids. Its just "Oh look at our cool cards and the 'thrill' you get from playing, BUY THEM!"
I can get defensive with kids and we shouldn't just treat them like bags of money nor should we pummel them up like some people I met on FA said so.
We should treat them like mature beings, they're the future generation after all you can show in media how to behave; that kindness is a strength and that you should treat everyone equally because deep down we're all the same no matter what our likes and dislikes, our race, our appearance or our voices and languages.
I know I may sound like I'm pile driving this in, but I do get passionate about the subject of what media we show to children and that we shouldn't just make it sloppy, we should take care with what we make. These new shows like Buddyfight especially (cause Vanguard was pretty much dead in the water) made me start thinking again on what future generations will think if they look back on the shows of 2013 and 2014. Its basically like us looking back at the commercial shows of the 80's and 90's; some with fondness like He-Man and some less so Maybe some people will like it, but I doubt it.
Overall Vanguard isn't worth searching for. Its dull and tedious and the parent death thing is distasteful; It will never be on par with Land Before Time, even if it tries to.
Anyways enough of that thanks for reading!
I was planning on doing a running commentary on Buddyfight....but that's died out because of my lack of interest; the show makes you careless!
Just know its got a relative death, more shining products in your face and also no plot yay!
I mean the whole parent death thing was just so tasteless.
So basically we could have had a big epic fantasy against good and evil and instead we have a YuGiOh rip off.
I also wonder what would happen if this was released before YuGiOh
If I was dragged into making a show like this, I'd ditch the YuGiOh characters and concentrate on the characters portrayed on the characters; make stuff about them.
I don't care if it has die hard fans, its still evil.
Transformers, My Little Ponies, Jem and the Holograms, He-Man and She-Ra, G.I. Joe, Captain N, Mario Brothers Super Show... most countries in the developed world I'd argue tend to veer into two types of children's entertainment:
1. Shows used to promote a line of products
2. Branded merchandise used to promote shows
In some cases, it's hard to tell where the original focus lies, and it's not impossible for the original intent of the entertainment to disappear and it all be able "What will sell the best?" And thus, the shows sell the toys, and the toys sell the show.
In some countries, there are actually some laws in place to protect children from being the target of advertisement, however, it doesn't mean that the children won't be exposed to promotional materials from one of the two categories above.
Unfortunately, in the midst of this horrendous promotional campaign used to make money, the quality of children's entertainment is always at risk. Instead of promoting tangential learning and offering really good stories that make you think or teach you something new, you mostly have junk-shows flooding the airways.
But I dunno, the 2 shows I mentioned were pretty darn gross in how they shove family death in their shows
So basically we could have had a big epic fantasy against good and evil and instead we have a YuGiOh rip off.
I also wonder what would happen if this was released before YuGiOh :o
they must be running out of imagination.