Cardfight!! Vanguard: will+Dress

I recommend to whoever likes Vanguard would take a chance to watch this new sequel anime and for newcomers as well. The third season does indeed improved from the first season in terms of showing more of the card fighting. It’s a little strange to tell newcomers to watch a sequel to only be confused but due to the complaint from many people that the first season has less fighting, I do suggests going onward with the third season which felt more like a fresh start from what the anime studio has been doing for the previous seasons. Let’s just say we have some new ... characters joining in the series that showcases one of them being a new player with a tutorial on how to play, and a new tournament arc. However, if not, do go watch the first two seasons so you won’t be confused if you don’t mind the lack of card fighting; although, the second season does show a bit more than the first season. The art-style and animations are still great but I believe they rather downgrade the art-style a little which is whatever since it still looks good. I’ve read that some people wanted the former characters from the original anime such as Aichi and Kai to make a come back which I don’t think will happen in this sequel due to it being a new era after all. It’s time to start fresh with new characters and a new story.

If you like Vanguard the card game, you will like the 3rd season.
If you are like me, who walked into this series w/o knowing any of the card game rules (and actually don't care for the vanguard franchise at all), you wont like it.

I praised the first two seasons of the show because of its ability to write an emotionally gripping narrative despite using a card game that I didn't know anything about as a vehicle for the story. I think the third season really suffers from focusing on the card game itself and being self absorbed in this tournament thing. That was never the ... interesting part of the show... so, I am quite disappointed.

This arc was extremely weak in terms of characterization of the new main cast. The new girl, Urara, is just a genius and that's it. She's shy and gets super focused while playing the game but it is super lacklust the way they characterized her. Other participants are also very boring with the exception of Michiru and Raika. I like the fact that they have some sort of connection to each other that does not involve the main character!

The other thing that I really liked is Yuuyu and Mirei's heart to heart about representing their teams and being a leader. I thought that was rather good. She's the best character in the whole show imo....

Anyways, Vanguard fans, you got what you wanted. A show about the card game itself.

After a great season like Overdress season 2, we get announced Willdress. And this was doubly impactful cause not only was the tournament happening in show, it was the brand name for a tournament series in real life too. Many star actors were announced to voice characters in the animes Deluxe. They get Chrono's VA to be a Brand Gate guy?? This is gonna be hype!!

And yet what we got was the most boring season yet. Obviously theres IS some good in this season. New character Urara acts in some way as an audience surrogate for new watchers and makes some good faces and seems ... fun as a new Blackout recruit. Mirei is in the tourney, so it will be at least 1 good fight.

However, thats about it.

While Yu-yu did good showing last season, frankly its unwarranted he became Blackout leader now with a bit more grown design. And on top of that the Deluxe makes up terms to split serious and casual players in Front Fighter and Counter Fighter, all to have a rather snooty "rival" in Raika who Yu-yu is supposed to overcome, and he's got a case of the Megumis in that he's an admirer of another cardfighter named Michiru. Oh and theres supposed to be this mystery plot in the background a la early GX season 3, with Danji out of the picture because he's doing a favor for Michiru, who is his friend.

And from the fact I score this lower than last season, you can tell they did not succeed at all. Yu-yu gets a new deck and it sounds cool at first because of how he obtains it, however in practice the writers themselves are confused. There are no developments in this season just a extremely simple tournament plot with some setup for the following two seasons, because we were already informed Willdress would be 3 seasons. And all I could hope there it payoff
and well.........