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(Warning: Some light spoilers ahead)
Accelerator is great, the manga is not… yet. At least, its potential haven’t really been fully realised since there’s so few chapters of it out so far (as of this writing, 27 chapters have been translated into Chinese.).

Story-wise, it is technically still in its first arc. Yeah, the story pacing is really, really drawn out. And interestingly enough, there is magic introduced into a manga that was supposedly about the really dark parts of Academy City, since that is what Accelerator is associated with. It takes place right after Accelerator gets nerfed in the novels. (So really, you shouldn’t be ... reading this unless you at least know the Raildex early storyline since it starts off after the 5th novel, or aka after episode 20 in the first season of the Index anime.)

But even while nerfed, Accelerator is still obviously the most badass powerful guy around, so he easily finishes off his opponents once he appears on the scene. It kind of takes the tension out of his battles. But it makes up for it by bringing in enemies that corner and threaten everyone else except Accelerator (the he’s-safe-but-everyone-else-isn’t idea), mostly using bombastic machines. And by bombastic machines I mean your giant robot machines that are just cool to see on paper.

This leads to another problem in the manga: The artist wishes to show off the machines so much that they take up too much screen time. Very often, there would be huge picture spreads of the machines gearing up or firing stuff at the characters and whatnot, causing devastating damage that is also given full picture spreads. Like multiple pages of just showing what the scene looked like, and sometimes even after all the pictures I still feel confused over what was happening. It contributes to the slow plot progression, and readers who prefer following the storyline instead of marvelling at the ‘beauty’ of the destruction, would end up feeling bored and think that the chapter was far too short. It’s like the author is trying to cover up for a lack of plot to progress through by filling up the pages with just pictures.
But if you like to go into the nitty gritty details of how the robot moves, probably to draw fanart of, the manga’s presentation style may be appealing to you since it gives very detailed views of the robots.

While I sound rather irritated about the manga, it’s actually quite decent when you put aside the amateurish-looking art and the excessive focus on the machines. There are new, unique characters introduced into the manga that later on has its repercussions in other parts of the franchise. (Although they still get their ass kicked so bad by Accelerator.) The main pull of the manga as of now is really just for Accelerator… who doesn’t really appear a lot to be honest. That new mage character Estelle does take up substantial screen time instead, and offers a different perspective on the relationship between magic and science. There is some fanservice (like full blown naked women) in the manga as well, but it logically makes sense in the plot so it’s fine.

So as for now, it’s still too early to tell. It’s also the mangaka’s debut piece, so cut him some slack, and it’ll be quite enjoyable to read through after filtering through the flaws. It’s also been improving exponentially over time with the art and pacing, so only time will tell if it’ll really become a great side-story that value-adds to the franchise.

I happened to look around and realised that out of all the seasons of Vanguard, somehow this has no reviews at all. And I have somewhat of an opinion on this season, so I figured why not?
…
Ok, ok. I know the score looks bad for a series which got a 7, but hear me out a little.

Warning: Light spoilers ahead but it won’t ruin your experience. Maybe. I assumed you’ve watched the first season, because there’s no reason for you to be watching the second season if you haven’t.

I’m not someone with extremely high standards like some ‘professional anime critique’ out there ... who likes picking apart themes and abstract stuff like that. When I watch a show, I just want to enjoy the process, and boy did I enjoy the first season of Cardfight Vanguard.

For someone who does not play the card game, I strangely enjoyed the first season as a teenager when it was clearly a show targeted at kids. It was cheesy to the extremes, but at the very least, there was some sort of development for Aichi. He went from a shy weak boy to a confident one with the card game, something that is pretty commonplace in this kind of show and happens to be a troupe I like, so I was fine with it. Specifically, what I liked from the last season was how Aichi actually went down the wrong path for a while in his pursuit of getting stronger. It was a common storyline, but at least Aichi went through some hardship and reflection before finally emerging stronger and victorious. Aichi changed over the course of the series, and noticeably became a lot more mature. The ability Psyqualia was also hinted to be much more than being able to see or control what was on Cray, which the first season left off on a cliffhanger.

So here I was, all hyped up for the second season, especially when it included ‘visiting’ some Asian countries which included my own, which was an interesting concept. I was curious as to how they would portray my country in an anime, I mean, who else wouldn’t want to see anime characters getting all excited at a tourist attraction and the great food in your country? Plus my country isn’t featured prominently and reused over and over again in any medium whenever characters ‘go overseas’ (Ahem Paris, ahem USA. As if they were the only places in the world to go.). And admittedly, that part where they were just being tourists hanging around was the only part of this second season I enjoyed, because the story continued spiralling downwards into a cheesier mess, so much so that when I reached the end of the season, I was really mad at myself for getting excited in the first place.

So maybe now you think it’s a problem of being biased against the series, that it was a problem of having too high expectations. I admit, yes. I don’t deny that I was waiting for ‘evil Aichi’ to appear again because I loved that him in the last season and guess what happened.
Instead, Aichi turns into this goody-goody justice wielding preacher guy who goes about the whole season apparently teaching people what was right and wrong, and stays basically the same throughout the whole season with no development other than random references to the first season. It makes for a very boring character, and the way his lessons are done is by forcing his ideals onto others. Fine, maybe it’s because pushing morals in the face of its viewers is inherently part of a kids’ show. Fine, maybe they were trying to show the ‘now he’s guiding others onto the path of success when they stray off it because he experienced it before’ kind of moral. The absence of evil Aichi pissed me off, but there was something else pissing me even more altogether. The way things progressed.

See, I get that it’s a card game anime, and everything needs to be done through card fights. And yes, the main character is the main character, so he needs to win his way through the fights so that the plot can progress. But at least make it seem natural! The way Aichi played last season was through specific combination of cards that drew out his ace, Blaster Blade, and built on from there. It was rather interesting to watch, because it seemed more like the tactical game it should be. This was shown especially through Misaki, where the way she played was intriguing because all her moves were aimed at getting a killer combo out of the deck through soul charge, and also relied heavily on her observation of the opponent’s cards when he drew them as triggers. It’s a game of tactics, and the last season sold that idea pretty well. The way the games were played from this season and the following seem to imply Aichi has exponentially ten times the luck anyone else has, because almost every fight when he reached the climax of his lessons he would simply need to draw a card and it would be that particular trump card that somehow overpowers everything else. Wow. No tactics, no combinations, just draw a card for the next turn and, of course, he wins in that same turn. It was like he was winning because the plot demanded him to, where the entire universe revolves around getting him to win through a literal asspull so that the plot can progress.

And anyone can tell those asspulls were meant to be commercials for those cards because they have never been seen before in the show, and Aichi had never been shown in between fights buying new cards to improve on his own deck. Way to ruin a decent character, man.
And yeah, on the technical side, the animation of the show is pretty bad, as with basically all other cardfight vanguard seasons. Stiff animations, awkward angles, etc. At least the characters were varied enough so that they were really distinguishable from each other, but that’s about it.

Music-wise, it’s just really generic BGM that fades off into the background and stuff. The opening was nice because JAM PROJECT, and I guess it does work as hyping up anyone who likes watching the show. The endings were rather nice too.

As you can tell, I really did not enjoy this season, and this was what killed any vague interest I ever had in the franchise. If I were to be someone actually playing the game, I would feel really discouraged because the new season basically renders all the cards I had on hand useless. Limit break broke the game. The real surprise to me is how the game still managed to sell well enough to make another three seasons. I guess the kids were frantic enough to buy up all the new cards, and I don’t blame them for that. But all in all, from a storyline perspective this season screwed up so badly that it’s laughable. If you still want to watch this, by all means go ahead, but don’t expect too much. To give the creators some credit, it was a good idea to focus on what Psyqualia was, but the story ultimately turned out to be lacklustre and the plot backfired on itself into a splatter of melted Swiss cheese.

Thanks for maintaining your attention span up until this point, and feel free to inform me on how I can improve =)

Surprised that there isn't a review for this manga yet given it's been running for so long, so here's one. I'll keep it as spoiler-free as possible. Other than the paragraph aimed at anime viewers which is marked by spoiler tags, the rest of the review is meant for people who have completely not touched anything in the Raildex franchise.

Story-wise, it’s great for an action manga. It has cool action sequences, a logical story flow, and of course some great comedic moments. By shounen manga standards, it does stand out as being rather unique for the many different applications of science. Basically, it starts ... off with a utopian-like setting of a technological dreamland, but the darker parts of the city manifest over the course of the story.
However, keep in mind it's meant as a complement to the A Certain Magical Index light novel series. It's a good read on its own, but the manga does not explain a number of things as the novels have already gone into detail for them, or does time skips because that time was apparently filled in the novels. Also, although the synopsis mentions a clash of science and magic, that was the premise for the novels; the manga focuses more on expanding the Science side, Academy City, through the eyes of the protagonist Misaka Mikoto. Basically, expect side stories and a few huge arcs that are impressive in their own right.

(If you've somehow not watched the anime series yet, skip the next paragraph)

Additionally, if you came over to the manga from the anime series, the anime ends at chapter 39 at the end of the Sisters arc for Misaka. However, it's highly recommended to read from the start. The anime changed up some scenes like how Kongo and the gang met, slight changes to the very first scene of the anime, etc. The tone of the anime series is also very different: The anime focus more on the girls' cuteness, while the manga takes on a more serious tone. The Sisters' arc felt very different from what was expected of the anime, because for that arc it followed the manga more closely and conveyed the tone and atmosphere pretty well, or in fact better in my opinion because it had the advantage of animation and sound. Also, the anime tends to 'glorify' Misaka as an altruistic absurdly good natured saviour of justice especially in its filler arcs like Silent Party and Big Spider etc, so if you found that unbelievably cheesy or cringey like I did, the manga's Misaka may be more preferable or tolerable. Shirai and the rest were given a lot more spotlight in the anime as well, so expect relatively lesser screen time for them in the manga.

(Spoiler end)

(I have not read the novels completely yet so I'm not qualified to do a similar comparison between the novels and manga for those coming over from novel to manga. Sorry about that. I do know the manga teases at many events that already happened in the novels however, so if you're a novel -> manga person you're in for a very fun ride ;) )

About the art, it's decent, but the artstyle noticably improves over time. I'm not an artsy person so I can't exactly commentate on how good it is, other than that it's easy enough to know what's going on without having to decipher a sea of squiggles and black ink.

Characters? It really depends on personal tastes here. I'm admittedly extremely biased towards Misaka Mikoto, because she has both strengths and flaws. She has your typical tsundere personality, but it only surfaces when she's around her love interest (who appears sporadically). Other times, she's a cool person who’s the opposite of her supposed status as an ojou-sama, with some cuteness thrown in. Sometimes however, she may come off as rather selfish and understandably immature and rash for a 14 year old. But as a whole it does add some depth to her character instead of being that one-dimensional bull-headed main character whose sole purpose is to protect their friends or whatnot like some protagonists from other shounen manga. She's the most powerful electromaster in the city, and what really made me invested in her character is the ways she plays around with that ability. She can do so much more than just shooting lightning bolts like other average shounen protagonists, especially so when the setting is in a technologically advanced city.
As for the other main characters, they are also multi-faceted like Misaka, but relatively less so since this is Misaka's story: The pervert roommate Shirai Kuroko, the meek and shy Uiharu Kazari, and the upbeat Saten Ruiko. These are all archetypes that have been done to death before in many other mediums, but what makes them special (to me) is that the author gives them enough development to expand them beyond their archetypes. The archetype is just a foundation from which to grow a character from, the easiest way to define a character but is not necessarily the entire definition of the character. Many of the other characters in the manga seem one-dimensional at first, but the series does put in the effort to try to add on to their character and develop them as well alongside the main cast, although understandably not as much. However, that basically only applies to the characters on the good side. Sadly, the ‘bad guys’ often turn out to be rather simple minded one-time goons with the exception of the final few ‘bosses’.


Finally, enjoyment. I, for one, really enjoyed reading the manga. I loved the cool action scenes, I love the interactions between the characters, I loved the ways in which it further exposed Academy City for what it was. Ultimately, what I like in the series is that it sets up a situation, then throws the characters into it and think of relatively logical ways to help them escape the adversary, each time unveiling even more about the characters themselves or add on to the already complex world. The characters act rather like themselves rather than what the plot demands of them, and although are based off stereotypes, it is only one part of their personality.

(And the main cast are all flat-chested! Any fanserive is also not overblown to the extents of Fairy Tail, which, to me, gives the girls the respect they deserve as human beings rather than objectifying them as something for the male readers to fap off to.)

Finally, if I had to give an overall score, it would be an 8. Despite how much I love the manga, it has its flaws, and sometimes the flaws are so glaringly obvious it can disrupts the enjoyment of the manga. (The way things build up is great... the resolution? Not very satisfying sometimes.)

I hope you enjoyed reading the only review (so far) of this manga on this site, and thank you for maintaining your attention span up until here.

(By the way it's my first review so feel free to inform me on how I can improve =D)