Cardfight!! Vanguard: Shinemon-hen

Cardfight !! Vanguard: Shinemon-hen now tells the story of the card capital manager but the thing is the same as the previous season if you already saw the first version it would be a waste of time to see it since there are some facts only the difference is that it changes some situations add others that considerably affect the plot since you don't know what to believe.

In the case of the story, it is simple and has nothing remarkable, you only know Shinemon's past because of everything he had to go through to become what he is today (what we see in the anime) ... with the inclusion of characters that at the end of accounts end up discarded and without importance in the story you only know that they are there but nothing more.

While with the development of the characters in my case it seemed a little better and more because it takes you to know the story of misaki but in a slightly more serious and a little better written of the others it is known throughout of the anime (but in the same way without highlighting you only know that something happened to them and that's it)

Overall Cardfight !! Vanguard: Shinemon-hen is a good story but not a big deal since you may take this anime as the direct continuation of G but if you pay attention (to be exact in chapters 29 and 30) you will know that the stories and the facts that each one narrates (especially the first chapters of G) but in general it is enjoyable only for the simple fact of knowing the past of someone who has always been there when you need it (if you follow the series you will know what I mean)

I didn’t bother with V reboot as a whole and it looks like I didn’t miss out on much. Especially considering Shinemon is considered the best season, what kind of trainwreck does a series have to be if this is it’s apex.

The titular main character has compelling motivations and personality but man, did he need to have a harem and perfect winstreak? Speaking of the latter, the fight design leaves a lot to be desired on the MC’s end with most of his fights ending on quintuple crit sacks. Shin makes Chrono look like a fraud that’s for sure. Jokes, the quality of this ... anime hinges on it’s cardfights so I don’t think having half of them involve a nobrain critsacker was a great play. It also bogs down what would’ve been a decent MC otherwise.

The story starts off as a mediocre comedy revolving arounds Shin is trying to prevent his brother’s shop from being acquired by this conglomerate. There’s something good in there, Shinemon learning to grow up and become responsible instead of irrationally acting out + a certain reveal about the antagonist making them a lot more likeable but it’s so repetitive and boring overall.

Then the story abruptly shifts into this G prologue involving summoning cardfight units and death with no worldbuilding or setup outside of Rive going ‘I need to head to my (mysterious) job, see you later guys!’ here and there. Vanguard always had issues with bad worldbuilding and poor setup of supernatural/sci-fi elements but the tonal dissonance on top of this takes the cake. The final antagonist’s motivations are understandable enough to the point I question why he acts so villainous with generic wicked smiles and laughs when he isn’t trying to do anything particularly insidious (it’s just self-sacrifice). Overall this part of the story was just rushed and out of place. Going from comedy slice of life to sci fi thriller is so weird, Link Joker’s tone shift was bold but it at least preestablished PSYqualia/Cray and compensated for it by being a chaotic wild ride full of epic fights, character development and wild units.

I don’t have a problem with the cast but the poorly paced dissonant story and obnoxious cardfight design on top of general issues with V series (production values fell off a cliff going into V despite the standards already being low beforehand + abhorrent soundtrack worse than even G’s, cringey script plagued with catchphrases such as ‘That’s my Vanguard!’ or ‘Yes, my Vanguard’) made Shinemon a chore to watch.

The fact that even after a reboot, V Series wound up having the same issues as the original series is very telling. We even got this whole flashback arc that went full circle back to Prime and even to G. This series floundered with an uneven number of episodes, very confusing backstory that we didn’t need and annoying characters that make watching this extremely painful. I think the fact that Cardfight Vanguard only got good after Akira Ito stepped away for D Series is very telling… telling in the way that it was Ito-sensei’s writing that was the problem this whole time.