Shadowverse Flame

Oh okay, this is strange. While this anime is technically finished, it's really only one season of a plot that finished midway, with the continuation scheduled a few months as of the time of writing this review. Therefor, while I can pass judgment for what we have up to this point, keep in mind the anime as it stands isn't the whole story, and won't be until Seven Shadows releases.

But where are my manners? You came here to read some thoughts on Shadowverse Flame and whether it was worth watching or not, yeah? With the usual disclaimer of "If you can suspend your disbelief on ... card games being what drives the plot" being present, I can say that, yeah, this is a pretty good watch. Compared to the previous show in this continuity, Shadowverse(TV), its shored up a lot of its issues, though not without introducing some new ones. Still; 8/10 ain't a bad score at all. I'll spend some time comparing the two, and why Flame's worth checking out where the original wasn't.

I'll start us off with an easy one; the characters. While the cast of the original wasn't completely irredeemable, a lot of them felt very one-note and gimmicky with arcs that went nowhere or resolved in a backwards manner. The cast was bland even if it could be fun at times, with its main offender being a bad protagonist. Flame shores this up by giving more depth to its cast and allowing more screen time to everyone besides just our MC, Light. But while we're on the topic of him, while Hiiro was a stock shonen invincible protagonist, Light takes on a different role in the plot. He's a complete airhead who came to the main setting, Shadowverse College, because a stranger told him it was his destiny, with Light going "Yeah, checks out." and deciding to follow up on this despite never having played a game of Shadowverse in his life. Unlike Hiiro, though, who seemed a natural at the game, Light is a complete goofball. He starts out from scratch, having to learn the basics and even losing his first match on screen, just to drive home he has a lot to learn. Light's win record gets shored up a little bit after his first loss, but unlike Hiiro the writers aren't afraid of making Light's defense drop to 0 when the narrative calls for it. He loses a lot, but aside from one or arguably two matches he has, it never feels like they were matches he particularly deserved or needed to win, and Light always seems to learn a lesson coming out of them. Just on the game sense it would make him a much more realistic protagonist, but there's a lot more to him besides just his card game prowess. He's an airhead, but has a good read on people. He tries to empathize and understand them, and always does his best to reach out to someone in trouble. Unlike Hiiro who seemed to force his values without listening to others, Light tries to listen and understand before offering a personal rebuttal to each opponent, and everyone both in and out of universe seems to adore him for his earnest straightforwardness and overly blunt personality.

While I spent a lot of time on our main character, I'd be remiss not to mention the side cast as well. Once again we're split into having a main representative of each of Shadowverse's main 8 crafts, portal excluded, but despite this, each of the main cast has a unique deck that doesn't quite play entirely like how their craft clasically would, with the exception of maybe Itsuki. Even if you've no interest or knowledge of Shadowverse as a game, though, there's plenty to like about them. Every character feels like they have multiple facets to their personality, such as Subaru's social demeanor being undercut by his self-loathing, Shion's denying of her desire for friendship and companionship because she doesn't know how to not be rude to people, or Itsuki's kind and gentle demeanor not getting in the way from his raw determination and willingness to stick up for people. Even the glimpses we get of the old cast returning from Shadowverse(TV), whether they be a side or a main character from that show, seems to be while all of them grew as people and grown beyond their initial gimmicks. Except for Kazuki, but him being static was kind of the point even in the original, so he gets off scot free. For now.

To my mind, the plot's also improved compared to (TV), though it takes on a radically different turn. While the original snorted several lines of illegal powdery substances and proceeded to speedrun a 150 episode plot in a third of that time, Shadowverse Flame seems to want to take the exact opposite approach. When Light gets to Shadowverse College, he meets an Itsuki handing out flyers on the way to school. Apparently Itsuki's club, Seventh Flame, disbanded and he's trying to rebuild it. Light promises to help, dragging his new friend Subaru along, and the three of them have about a week to find three more members before the club officially shuts down. With the first episode not even having a battle to check out, Flame decides to take its time slowly introducing both the main and side cast, even going so far as to give Itsuki and Subaru the spotlight within the first 12 episodes and allowing them a focus episode by battling against two recurring side characters. When the club recruits the mysterious virtual rabbit Gentleman, the peppy wannabe hero Ren and the fashionable-yet-slightly-apathetic Tsubasa, our core 6 become assembled. Rather than immediately throw us into a tournament arc, though, the cast first gets to spend several episodes fleshing out their backstories and becoming friends, before then being thrown into a do-or-die tournament to defeat the first half's main antagonist, Hazeura Haruma. After he's defeated, we're thrown into another few episodes of the cast allowing to relax and build friendships. After this, the second arc then takes up the entire back half of the show, but throughout all 50 episodes the show's slowly been bubbling up to a greater subplot involving the virtual world and a mysterious figure known as "Arc Ruler" who seems to have stolen something from the Genesis corporation, as well as the endgoal of the enigmatic 7 Shadows antagonists. Unfortunately, this isn't expanded on within Flame itself, as all of these plot threads are that which is set up to be explored within the next season.

While I've high praises for the show, I can't say it always executes on everything flawlessly. Some characters feel underutilized and the cast as a whole seems almost too big for its birches, even throwing in some recurring characters from the first season who didn't get enough screen time there and got even less now. Recurring characters as a whole are utilized very weakly, even; unless you have actually seen the original, many of them seem to be treated with far more pomp and grandiose than you'd reasonably expect them to have. You wouldn't know what their deal is, or why they'd be a threat to the main cast. Even the previous show's main characters don't escape this curse; Mauro shows up briefly for a single episode, acts a bit mysterious, and then vanishes completely. His appearance served little to the plot of Flame and at best acted like a small distraction, but his 'involvement' seems to only be so far as they could check off everyone of the main cast having been shown once in Flame.

While Flame's battles are also better than the original, they're still not perfect. Some of them fall in the trap of being extremely repetetive. While it's not as bad as Hiiro's insistence on winning every match with Ignis Dragon, we still get things like three battles of Mikado Vs. Light, which barely differ between themselves, and even end with the same few cards being played for the finishing turns in each of them. Some deck concepts are also much more boring to watch in action than others. While most battles are enjoyable, fresh and fast-paced, it's still the weakest part of the writing for me, and I hope the writers can shore up their battle choreography for the upcoming Seven Shadows.

Overall despite some minor issues, the pacing and characters make for a wonderfully enjoyable show. Unlike the original I heartily recommend checking this out for anyone who's a fan of card game anime like I am, as it's up there as one of the better ones in the genre. You could do much worse than Shadowverse Flame, and despite a recurring cast, I don't feel one needs to have watched the original to have a good time with this anime.