Cardfight!! Vanguard Movie: Neon Messiah

Honestly, I forgot almost all the rules to the game even after watching the first two seasons of the original animation many years back. But because of quarantine, I just recently got back to casually watching Cardfight!

And oh boy. I have a lot to say after finally watching the movie for the first time.

Many characters from the original show appeared in the movie: Ren, Leon, the OG Q4 members, the three idols, Emi, Nagisa, Morikawa, and many others. I thought it was sort of cool to see all of them. Sadly, many of them held very little role in this movie. I do think it’s ... kind of understandable though, since a movie (compared to a show) doesn’t have as much time to flesh out characters. However, in my opinion, it would have been better to show only the characters that have slightly-significant to significant roles in the movie to leave more room for strong characterization.

This leads me to wondering about the target audience. I’m pretty sure someone who hasn’t watched the show at all would probably have a difficult time enjoying Neon Messiah because of having little background knowledge on all those characters as well as the game itself.

So, of course, we would assume that the target audience is people who are fans of Cardfight! Vanguard’s animated show or manga.

Assuming that a fan was watching the movie, we would expect that the fan watches not only for the characters themselves, but for the great cardfights between the characters. Of course, that’s where a huge chunk of the action lies in the many seasons of Vanguard. Not only who the winner is, but also the process of how the winner wins the cardfight. The show holds an advantage in a way; in a story form that is long-running, it’s not always easy to guess who would win a cardfight and how the person would win.

However.

When there are multiple gameplays in a single movie, it’s expected that the characters will not be able to defeat the antagonist until the end of the movie (if there is a happy ending). It’s very hard to shock a watcher by only showing who wins and loses since it’s easy to predict.

So, to tackle this, one would assume that the storytellers would show the crazy process to how one player will win.

I think this would be the place in the movie that needs the most improvement.

I noticed that in the movie, there was a lack of talk about critical triggers, strategy and specific moves, number of points to a card, abilities of the cards, etc. Basically, there was a lack of the stuff you would normally expect to see when watching a cardfight, especially when seeing the new cards the antagonist has and the card that made its way to the name of this movie.

Neon Messiah.

It was like watching a game that you know how to play, yet not understanding exactly what’s going on on the game board. All you know is that there are two people going against each other and who wins in the end. Why this person won, you don’t know.

The actual cardfights were replaced by well-animated scenes of the cards and the players taking the form of their cards, physically fighting each other and flying around and stuff. As much as I appreciated how badass the cards and characters looked in those scenes, I wish there was more talk about the actual gameplay and process to victory to give the battles the protagonists face more substance and meaning.

There were also a few other things I felt could have been expanded on, since for me, it’s easy to miss out on small details and bits of important info that’s only briefly mentioned.

I would have liked to know more about where the antagonist acquired the power to wreak havoc and just more about that power in general.

What exactly happened to Leon, Misaki, and Ibuki in the rain when they could have ran indoors?

Why did only certain people get “the dreams”?

Why was getting knocked out a side effect to losing?

Why didn’t the antagonist strike earlier instead of only just now?

What sort of powers and secrets does the prized grade 4 card hold?

But because this is a movie with limited time compared to a show, it’s understandable how the makers of the movie couldn’t cover everything, including the cardfights. However, I think it would have been nice to see at least one cardfight where the players actually demonstrated strategy.

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I talked a little earlier about the animation. I actually think the animation is one of the strongest points of the movie.

From what I saw, the lines were very clean, and the color palette was very vibrant. This really made the characters and backgrounds pop. The characters’ faces and bodies had good proportions and remained consistent throughout the movie. The animators also added some, I don’t know what to call it, light spots and shadows to each panel which made the characters appear more 3D-ish (I don’t mean CGI. I know that “3D-ish” is probably not the best word, but basically they didn’t appear “flat”) compared to the original show. I think it’s easier to simply see it by comparing a shot from the film to a shot from the original show from 2011.

In terms of animation alone, one of my favorite scenes would have to be the little snippet of the battle between Ren and Ibuki, where Ren is falling and destroying buildings. And after the cardfight, I thought the animators did a great job with animating Ren’s reaction and facial expression. This scene gave off some sort of mature vibe that wasn’t in the original show.

There is one other scene in the movie I really liked.

As the audience, we see this scene through a young kid’s eyes rather than in third person.

The kid is on the floor with cards scattered all over the floor while above him there are other boys frowning at him, saying mean things, and walking off. We see the slow movement from the kid’s hands as he’s crawling on the floor begging for the other kids to not leave.

This scene really stood out to me from this movie. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think seeing through the slightly blurred eyes of the victim increased my empathy for the character. I thought it was a very tasteful choice the animators made.
Other things I liked about the movie were all the flashback scenes. This really gave some more interesting background to the characters, especially Kai.

It was also fun to see Aichi and Kai interact in the first half of the movie. But speaking of interactions, it would have been nice to see Kai interact more with Ibuki than he did in the movie.

Storywise, there were many things I feel could have been worked on before the movie’s release, mainly the cardfights. However, I personally didn’t hate the movie. I think lots of stuff from the movie would make good GIFs!

tl;dr: If you liked the four seasons of cardfight vanguard and liked it, it's very likely you will dislike this movie. + oversaturated confusing camera shots and tricks

So, after four seasons of a great anime about a card game called Cardfight Vanguard, comes this movie. After watching all 4 seasons of CFV, I watched this movie and honestly, this was one of the biggest let-downs I had with any series so far.

But, let's start with the good stuff:
1. Characters - Most of the characters from this movie were taken directly from the series and have complex designs and unique personalities. While very little of ... it can be fleshed out with a time restriction like in this case, the characters are represented well. There is ofcourse a new character, Ibuki Kouji. His character is well designed (not so much his cards), his backstory well explained and he, as a villain, represents a real threat, which makes him relevant.

2. The ending - If any of the CFV season had at least one thing in common, that would be a satisfying ending. This movie is no exception. While I won't spoil it for now, I'd say that it does redeem the movie a bit.

3. Voice acting - While this is hadrly its own topic since it mostly belongs under characters it might be worth noting that it is on point and well acted.

And that's pretty much all I can come up with for the good stuff. Next comes the stuff that makes me feel that 3 is a very generous score for this movie.

1. The cardfights - Oh wait,... this is wrong,... there are no cardfights! Oh, yeah, that's what I actually meant. "The lack of cardfights" would be more appropriate. This is why people who liked the series might not like the movie. And one of the main reasons I didn't like it. So, what basically happens, CARDFIGHTS GET REPLACED by weak Half-CGI BATTLES, that will make your head spin an make you wonder wtf just happened. Also lots of gore-like stuff, ripping through people's stomacks with one's hand etc. (tons of unneccessary violence, in my oppinion)

So, no points of power, no trigger checks, no clever skills, basically nothing that make vanguard special as a card game. Instead, we get our character's avatars flying around cray clashing weapons and smashing into their enviroment at nausiating speeds with weird camera angles, even weirder camera angle transition and just in general cluster**** action. If you like that kind of stuff, then great, but in my oppinion, slapping the name "Vanguard" on it is an insult to the original. Especially since the villain is apparently so overpowered that noone can defeat him without an actual miracle (minor spoiler), yet there is no explanation how he does it or what makes his cards so strong. Sure, the word "delete" gets thrown around, but unless you'll go read the game rulebook it won't help you at all.

2. General cinematography - It seems to me that the director of this movie just went a bit crazy and tried to squeeze every camera and perspective tric he could possibly imagine. Some of them look really cool, but when the cool shot lasts for two seconds only to immediatly and awkwardly transition into a new camera gimmick, the good shot loses most of its appeal. Most certainly not one of Shin Itagi's finest works.

Personally, this ruined my viewing experience the most if I ignore the lack of cardfights. Lots of potential wasted.

3. Nagisa - That annoying little girl that won't stop obsessing over Kamui. Well, at least they can't make it worse, right? Wrong. Now she also showers the screen with imaginary hearts everytime she appears.

I'm gonna stop here. I could go on, but I'm too lazy and many things might not apply to everyone watching this. And in the end, it's just my oppinion. I hope you don't waste time on this bad excuse for a vanguard show, but if you do, I hope you'll at least enjoy some of it.

Story - 7/10: because it tell the part of Aichi Sendou missing in Legion Mate Season.

Art + Sound + Character - 7/10 all together.

Enjoyment - 1/10: there's no way that I can enjoy this movie. I hate it. the reason is well to tell the truth, Cardfight!! Vanguard is a card game anime, Not Dragon Ball Z. but this is wrong. There AREN'T Any Card fighting in here in this movies at all. I should call this Dragon Ball Z Vanguard.

A little talk like telling your unit skill and flip the card over for attacking would be more appropriate. but here, you are transform into ... unit itself, and I saw Aichi Sendou and Kai dodge the attack and counter the attack. not even mention about there are a few tons of unneccessary violence like GORE in the movie.

in cardfight rules, for each attack from your vanguard attack. you'll be able to pull card(s) for triggers. in this movie, I witness no trigger checks, no skills reveal to activate it. basically this movie is not a vanguard card game. I heard that Ibui use Deletor deck which allow him to delete opponent vanguard. which is flip vandguard face down and its text and power are lost. I didn't see it in the movie. Daunting Deletor, Oksizz I love this card so watch. I was hoping to see how the card works by counter blast 3 and put card in RG into soul and delete opponent vanguard and unit get +10000. um.. I didn't see that stuff mention in here.

Overall: 4/10 to be honest. I can't enjoy this movie. the way our character flying around and slashing and dodging is not really a cardfight. if this movie call Dragon Vanguard Z Movie Neon Messiah then I have no problem rating 10/10 lol