Puzzle & Dragons Cross

Okay, since most of the reviews about this show are negative, here's my counter claim.

For starters, when seeing the trailer for this anime, I originally thought it would be another Pokémon clone. Now, after seeing about 17 episodes into the series, I don't see much of a similarity besides that they live in a world inhabited by monsters.

THE STORY: The story is pretty average. The main character is a dragon caller in training , who works with other dragon callers to help balance the world, and stop drop impacts(which are huge monster attacks). I like the story, but it's not what I'd call the best ... plot ever.

THE ART: The art style of the show is very good. Most of the monsters don't feel to over designed, and I like the character models. I also like the way Vienna City, and the regions of Dragoza Island look. The animation is good, but I don't like how at times, there is little animation. There are some scenes in episodes that just consist of the characters just standing around talking, which just gets boring.

CHARACTERS: I honestly like the characters in this series because they have good personalities. The only one I'm not too fond of is Ace(the main character) because he's really boring. I know other Animes like this have pulled something off like this(Yo Kai Watch and Digimon Universe: Appli Monsters for example) but in both shows, these characters boring personalities are used as importance in the show. Here it isn't. Besides that, I like the rest of the characters' personalities. My favorite character would probably be Charo, because of his dark past and his 'never giving up' attitude.

SOUND: The show's soundtrack is probably one of it's best parts. I never skip over it's opening when watching subbed or dubbed episodes because of how good it sounds. Hell, I love listening to its ending song, because it's pretty catchy(though I don't know what it means). The soundtrack music in episodes is also really good, and I find myself listening to it outside of the show.

THE VERDICT: Personally, I enjoyed watching this show, and I do recommend it if you're interested. My Rating: 8.2/10

This is basically Pokemon 2.0.

The main character, Ace, is trying to become a strong Dragon Caller. Yeah.. That's basically the whole story >_>"I don't understand what's going on" was my first thought of this anime. The cringe was too real.

But the art wasn't bad. It was just.. Um, fluffy? I really don't know how to describe it. I've watched up to episode 5 and "fluffy" is all I can say about it. The characters were also.. very young-looking. In a bad way. How old are the characters supposed to be? They look like 11 year old kids.

The sound was.. Uh, I'm not an expert on ... sound but it was okay. Probably the only thing that I liked. The opening wasn't really to my liking, but I get where it's going at.

The characters were just.. eh. First, the main character Ace is all "Oh wow that Lance guy is just a show-off blah blah blah", then later he's the one showing off and I'm sitting here like.. "What the heck is going on?"
No characters actually had a really decent personality. They're just your typical, everyday people who show off too much. Ace was just too much for me.

I really did not enjoy this at all, I'm sorry. It's basically Pokemon, but more advanced. There's D-Gears, which, you put a monster drop in. Say "Release" and out pops the monster. Sound familiar? Yep.
The only main difference is that in order to launch powerful attacks, the monster user/owner/whatever you want to call them needs to summon "drops" and make combos. Um.. a little too original.

Overall I really just couldn't continue watching this. Sure, I agree this anime was.. okay. But I think this show is meant for kids. I do recommend this anime for the younger viewers. But as for the teenager/adult viewers, I don't think this will be your cup of tea.

What can I say about this besides .... boring.

I mean maybe it will pick up later but unless this is going to be a new long running series it's running out of time.

Nothing about this series is "bad" in the sense they did anything wrong. But it feels bland to the extreme and feels unpolished.

First off it's execution of "drops", which appear to the the primary game mechanic , is half assed. They litterally just have magic spheres that you do combos with. While translating game mechanics into an anime based on a game is okay it feels like the writers put no effort into ... making it feel natural and just expect you to accept it as common sense because the characters do.

The MC is your typical naive child with a heart of gold and boundless spirit. Then he meets the cool guy who doesn't like to talk much or smile as well as his plucky but generally useless side kick who is just there so the MC has someone to talk to regularly.

I will say the dragons were animated well and look nice but the rest just feels so bland it's hard to sit through just for the dragons.