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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.

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Sevens is, as the name implies, the seventh instalment in the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise. Quite frankly, if you want my opinion summed up in a flash, it's a breath of fresh air from the otherwise stagnant state previous anime found themselves in.

As such a statement implies, Sevens is radically different from its predecessors. To give you a list, it's: Slice of life focused, got tight knit 12 to 15 episode arcs, good about not forgetting plot points and, most importantly of all, it's light-hearted. It takes a more comedic angle of attack compared to the more traditionally heroic predecessors. This means that Sevens has a ... lot of jokes, puns and catchphrases in it; this may be off-putting to some. In my opinion, the show was hitting all the right spots with its comedy. Mileage may vary, however, as I recognize it's not something everyone is going to appreciate or enjoy. Naturally, even for those who do enjoy the comedy, not all of it is going to land for every person. To me, though, the quality of gags is consistently high enough to be an entertaining ride start-to-finish.

That being said, while Sevens likes to goof around a lot, that doesn't mean there's no story to be found. We follow our main character, Ohdo Yuuga, as he tries to change the rigid world of dueling by installing his new "Rush Duel" format of rules. He has all sorts of misadventures trying to protect his new format, together with the help of some friends he picks up along the way of course. There's always a new antagonist out to destroy rush duels once and for all. As you may have guessed, Rush Duels play a very important part in the story. If you're not familiar with them, though, you may ask this: what *are* they? I'll give you a rundown, but I'll be assuming you know how the original game works. To be short about it, it's a completely separate format with its own card pool made up of largely new cards, separate from the main game of "Yu-Gi-Oh!". You can normal summon any number of times in the turn. The player for their turn draws until their hand is up to 5 cards. There are only 3 monster and spell/trap zones and, finally main phase 2 is entirely gone. It goes straight from the battle phase to end phase.

With the quick explanation of *what* rush duels are out of the way, one thing you're going to have to live with in this show is that EVERY duel is a rush duel. Master duels are not the focus here, and won't be for the forseeable future of the franchise... and unfortunately for Sevens, if it falls short in any department, then its duel writing would be that. Most duels in Sevens are only one episode and during that time last only four turns. With the format being entirely new, this doesn't help its early duels to stand out. While the latter half of the show can keep things exciting due to building on mechanics established earlier, the first half of Sevens will feel painfully slow (which is ironic, given the nature of the duels) as plays are overly simplified for the sake of easing new players into a new game. Duels can also feel incredibly... rushed. As stated, however, this problem is mostly resolved in the back end of the show. There are also other aspects that stand out as much, much stronger.

For one, the character writing in Sevens is positively charming. While it's true that most characters have a gimmick to them that they refuse to drop at any point in the show, they still manage to be more than -just- their gimmick. Almost everyone you'll meet, even the one-shot characters, is endearing in their own unique way. The cast bounces off each-other well and the core cast of characters, especially our protagonist Yuuga, are all incredibly likeable. You genuinely want to root for these kids as they try to fight and work towards their dreams, especially as their goals are often innocent and very admirable. Sevens' character writing is incredibly optimistic, with very little cynicism to be found. It makes for a refreshing breather from how miserable some of the other shows could get at their most dramatic.

The story is also a positive, as while not always the most complex, it does keep building on itself. Not a single plot point is forgotten and even a character who's only shown up once in the first 10 episodes can suddenly make a quick reappearance to help out in the final arc. There are some signs of rushing the plot near the end, but overall you get the sense that the writers knew what story they wanted to tell and kept building to their intended climax. Sevens takes a slight mystery aspect to it, where it leaves the audience guessing as to what the bigger picture is. It helps draw an interconnected thread throughout the various mini-arcs and, overall, these elements work incredibly well to tell a coherent and consistent tale across its 92 episodes. While Sevens doesn't pretend to get dark for even a moment, there's still an incredibly fun ride to be had.

As you may have guessed, I personally really like the show. It's charming in so many ways and so very, very different from everything else in its franchise. If you go in with an open mind and don't expect the traditional "Yu-Gi-Oh!" experience, you might find a lot to like here. Even if you don't, there is no world in which sevens could be considered a bad show. There are certainly more issues you could raise with the characters and story writing than I presently have, this is true. That doesn't mean that its lows are awful by any means, though. Its quality is consistent, for better or worse, and if you like the first few episodes even a little, there is no doubt you'll enjoy the rest of the show as it only gets better over time.

Build Divide: Code Black is weird to judge; at least when it comes as an entry into the general "card game anime" genre. Speaking of that: This is a show about card games! I'd say "don't dismiss it out of hand" but whether or not you can suspend your disbelief as to all kinds of fights in the universe being resolved through the power of trading cards is pretty make-or-break for a lot of people. I can say that Build Divide: Code Black at least tries to do a slightly more mellow, less adventurous and overall slightly more serious plot than your average Saturday morning ... cartoon, but it's still about card games in the end. Consider this your formal warning.

You follow the story of one Kurabe Teruto, an amnesiac waking up in the mysterious city of Neo Kyoto. He meets with a girl his age, Banka Sakura, who fills him in on how the world works; there's one "King" that rules the city, and people who want to have any one their wishes granted participate in what's called a "Rebuild Battle": A city-wide tournament where only a single person gets to have the right to challenge the king to a match. In this city, being good at Build Divide makes or breaks a person, and via collecting twenty-three casino chips they will earn the key to the king's lair. Sakura tests Teruto on whether or not he has the strength to reach this goal and, ultimately, set out together to take the challenge.

Depending on who you are and the type of anime you've seen, this might sound like the best plot hook in the universe or cliché beyond belief. As an avid card game enjoyer myself, and someone who barely has exposure to shows with similar setups, it's a breath of fresh air to have the story hook essentially being a PG-13 death match. What it definitely is not, is Yu-Gi-Oh, despite comparisons you may or may not have heard. Yu-Gi-Oh, even at its most mature, still falls into that Saturday Morning Cartoon Adventure feeling. Even if they don't start out that way, all of them end up feeling it by the end. They're overly long plotlines that take 100+ episodes to tell, which Build Divide is most certainly not trying to do. It has a focused plotline which it wastes no time in telling (except for when it does) which could be exactly what you want, or leave you wanting for more. The story also aims at a slightly older audience, which you can see shining through in its less colourful setting and general character writing.

On the topic of character writing, to give you the short of it; it's a mixed bag. To give you the long of it: While most characters in Build Divide are interesting, have depth to them, are cute or have any combination of those three elements, they're woefully underutilized. The story mainly focuses on our protagonist Teruto, who, while not a bad character, does take a while to kick into gear and can come off as very one-note until the final stretch of episodes where his character arc finally comes into play and resolves about as quick as it came. Other characters are left either the same as they start, or show up once to then never come around again. The only exception to this would be the main lead Sakura, who gets a lot of intrigue and depth over the course of the show. You'd question if she were the main character, but with Teruto getting the vast majority of card battles in the show, there's no doubt that it is his show in the end.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the card battles themselves are not for the inexperienced. In discussion around the show you'll often find people complaining they don't understand the rules of the game. While I wouldn't call the show unclear by any means, it seems to expect the viewer to have at least a basic knowledge of how a battle-centric card game works. It tries its best to rush through a tutorial on the first episode, and slowly trickles in some concepts as it goes, but it generally goes through its battle extremely quickly and never slows down to re-explain anything. Thus, if you're not immediately up to speed with the rules from the first episode, you're going to have a hard time following. Therefor, even though it might be counter-intuitive, I recommend either making sure you understood what happens in the first episode or look up a rule video ahead of time so you can follow along with the action. The battles, for what they are, seem very reasonably scripted and are easy enough to follow if you know said rules. They're also pretty, which is a not-unimportant aspect to mention. There's a good amount of tension in them, though one complaint is that the winner is incredibly obvious each and every single time, leaving them lacking in impact by the end. If you're a fan of upsets, this isn't going to be the place to look.

As for the overall plot of Build Divide, it's totally okay. The plot goes in a radically different direction to what I'd personally expected/wanted, and I wish Teruto had dealt with more obstacles and pushback than what he eventually got, but the story is perfectly serviceable on a surface level. The only issue is that the pacing is incredibly weird around the middle part, having what I can only describe as "filler episodes" despite its 12-episode runtime. It almost feels like they wanted to do 8 or 9 episodes, and honestly feels like they wasted a bit of time with pointless diversions. The episodes in question are by no means horrible, they just end up feeling pointless in the grand scheme of things.

If you're a fan of good music by the way, well, even there, I can only give a resounding "It's okay". The score they have is utilized well and nothing sounds bad, but there's nothing in the track that I'd consider an "absolute banger" as they say. You won't walk away hating it, but it does end up being pretty forgettable by the end. Mileage on the opening and ending may vary.

Overall I would say I enjoyed my time with Build Divide well enough. It has a very strong opener and I do think it sticks the landing on the ending too, but the entire stretch of episodes 5-8 are mediocre enough to me to where I can't honestly recommend this as a must-watch. It's a shame, as I had high hopes for this, but ultimately it comes down to a "worth checking out if you're a fan of card game anime" type of deal and a "go in with tempered expectations if not a card game fan" on the other end of it. If you want a more traditional card game anime akin to the ever-popular Yu-Gi-Oh, you're in the wrong place. This show is much more akin to Wixoss, though even that is not a full one-to-one comparison. Build Divide is very much its own thing and stands on its own merits in the genre, even though those merits may not always be that impressive.

Shadowverse(TV) is a shallow 48-episode commercial made to sell a Nintendo Switch game. I feel the need to stress this, because the amount of corporate apathy towards storytelling can be felt at every point while watching this anime.

At first it may seem like Shadowverse(TV) isn't too terrible starting out; its first episode is a bit bland, but a poor first episode does not make for a bad anime as a whole. Unfortunately, it showcases a few key problems the anime will have throughout its entire runtime. The first of these problems is with the battles themselves; while they're not too hard to understand, there's a ... major flaw in how they're presented. Several turns are often cut out from the middle of the fight. Normally this isn't such a big deal if it only happens once in a while, but having a full-length battle you follow start-to-finish is *not* the rule with this anime. It is the exception. What you are left with, then, is an extremely unsatisfying big picture, as the writers will magically conjure up whatever specific game state they need with no regard for how the characters involved would actually get to this. It feels like they did not care to write around the limitations of Shadowverse as a game and instead opted for the most lazy way out as to save themselves some work.

The second problem this anime faces is that of extremely shallow characters. While it attempts to have character arcs for a select few side characters, most of them are either derailed or resolve in ways that don't actually solve their own problems. Further, the main character, Hiiro, is extremely shallow. He has one dominant character trait, that being loving Shadowverse and proceeds to spend the next 48 episodes learning to care about absolutely nothing else. Somehow Hiiro seems to act like a friendship magnet, with everyone around him captivated by his charisma after just one battle... only this does not work, as Hiiro never actually attempts to emphathise with anyone he meets. He talks around people rather than with them and selfishly superimposes his own belief unto others. Somehow the writers let him get away with this each and every time, convincing the other character to see things in Hiiro's way even when this is absolutely not deserved and Hiiro is completely in the wrong. Only one character in this entire show seems to independently fix his own issues with the world, but said characters is not part of the main cast. This makes the seven we are supposed to care about and root for feel extremely underwhelming.

The third problem Shadowverse(TV) faces is that it is extremely generic. Everything is resolved through card games. The power of friendship prevails in the face of overwhelming odds. The main character is a prodigy at the game he is playing, the entire works. Just playing it by the book is not an issue by itself, but the problem for Shadowverse(TV) is that it not only plays it extremely safe, but also poorly executes on these elements. Almost every episode there is something that will leave you wondering 'Why did they do it this way? This could've been good if only it had been a little different' and it proceeds to become extremely frustrating to, as a veteran of the genre, watch the producers fail to grasp even the basics of storytelling.

The story as a whole is also underwhelming. Without going into spoiler territory, it is split into four roughly 12 episode chunks which I consider to be arcs. The first arc is slow and highly focused on our main character meeting the cast of side characters, while the second arc has them split up to do their own things... only even in the second arc, most episodes are focused on our main character as others barely get the screen time they need. Even keeping this in mind, the second arc's overarching plot will make your head scratch as to why the first needed to happen to begin with. The third and fourth have a more consistent and interesting plot going on with them, but the villain motivations are shallow and predictable. Also, the main characters have almost entirely stopped developing past one extra episode dedicated to each, but half of those episodes don't actually develop the featured character either. You're just being strung along for the ride as you watch these one-note personalities repeat the exact revelations you've heard a million times before and only save the day because of course they would. Even the very climax of the show suffers from poor pacing and character writing as the final villain, while not coming out of nowhere, was barely relevant even when they were hinting at his villainy throughout the show.

The only thing Shadowverse(TV) has going for it are some okay visuals, which are serviceable but not spectacular, and some alright soundtracks. Several themes are pretty good and stand out above the rest, but a lot of recycling and having some very generic tracks make the soundtrack as a whole mediocre at best. Shadowverse(TV) does manage to make some hype moments, but this is mostly achieved through a mild uptick in animation budget and by blasting energetic music into your ears. It is an extremely shallow form of hype not backed by any good character payoff, as there is no payoff to be had. Still, credit where it is due, in terms of presentation there is not much to complain about. It is absolutely not worth watching this show for as it's not spectacular and cannot carry its horrible writing, but if you are deadset on watching this, then the animation and soundtrack will not bother you in the least.

The animation and sound being what it is makes the show get an overall rating of 2/10 for me, if only because of that slightly redeeming quality. Had this been any worse I would not have hesitated to give it a 1/10 and I do not recommend anyone to watch this. Yu-Gi-Oh has, at the time of writing this, 6 completed shows and even at their worst they are all still much better to watch than Shadowverse(TV) is. With other franchises like Battle Spirits and Vanguard you will no doubt also find everything Shadowverse(TV) has to offer, but better.