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Honestly, I forgot almost all the rules to the game even after watching the first two seasons of the original animation many years back. But because of quarantine, I just recently got back to casually watching Cardfight!

And oh boy. I have a lot to say after finally watching the movie for the first time.

Many characters from the original show appeared in the movie: Ren, Leon, the OG Q4 members, the three idols, Emi, Nagisa, Morikawa, and many others. I thought it was sort of cool to see all of them. Sadly, many of them held very little role in this movie. I do think it’s ... kind of understandable though, since a movie (compared to a show) doesn’t have as much time to flesh out characters. However, in my opinion, it would have been better to show only the characters that have slightly-significant to significant roles in the movie to leave more room for strong characterization.

This leads me to wondering about the target audience. I’m pretty sure someone who hasn’t watched the show at all would probably have a difficult time enjoying Neon Messiah because of having little background knowledge on all those characters as well as the game itself.

So, of course, we would assume that the target audience is people who are fans of Cardfight! Vanguard’s animated show or manga.

Assuming that a fan was watching the movie, we would expect that the fan watches not only for the characters themselves, but for the great cardfights between the characters. Of course, that’s where a huge chunk of the action lies in the many seasons of Vanguard. Not only who the winner is, but also the process of how the winner wins the cardfight. The show holds an advantage in a way; in a story form that is long-running, it’s not always easy to guess who would win a cardfight and how the person would win.

However.

When there are multiple gameplays in a single movie, it’s expected that the characters will not be able to defeat the antagonist until the end of the movie (if there is a happy ending). It’s very hard to shock a watcher by only showing who wins and loses since it’s easy to predict.

So, to tackle this, one would assume that the storytellers would show the crazy process to how one player will win.

I think this would be the place in the movie that needs the most improvement.

I noticed that in the movie, there was a lack of talk about critical triggers, strategy and specific moves, number of points to a card, abilities of the cards, etc. Basically, there was a lack of the stuff you would normally expect to see when watching a cardfight, especially when seeing the new cards the antagonist has and the card that made its way to the name of this movie.

Neon Messiah.

It was like watching a game that you know how to play, yet not understanding exactly what’s going on on the game board. All you know is that there are two people going against each other and who wins in the end. Why this person won, you don’t know.

The actual cardfights were replaced by well-animated scenes of the cards and the players taking the form of their cards, physically fighting each other and flying around and stuff. As much as I appreciated how badass the cards and characters looked in those scenes, I wish there was more talk about the actual gameplay and process to victory to give the battles the protagonists face more substance and meaning.

There were also a few other things I felt could have been expanded on, since for me, it’s easy to miss out on small details and bits of important info that’s only briefly mentioned.

I would have liked to know more about where the antagonist acquired the power to wreak havoc and just more about that power in general.

What exactly happened to Leon, Misaki, and Ibuki in the rain when they could have ran indoors?

Why did only certain people get “the dreams”?

Why was getting knocked out a side effect to losing?

Why didn’t the antagonist strike earlier instead of only just now?

What sort of powers and secrets does the prized grade 4 card hold?

But because this is a movie with limited time compared to a show, it’s understandable how the makers of the movie couldn’t cover everything, including the cardfights. However, I think it would have been nice to see at least one cardfight where the players actually demonstrated strategy.

~~~

I talked a little earlier about the animation. I actually think the animation is one of the strongest points of the movie.

From what I saw, the lines were very clean, and the color palette was very vibrant. This really made the characters and backgrounds pop. The characters’ faces and bodies had good proportions and remained consistent throughout the movie. The animators also added some, I don’t know what to call it, light spots and shadows to each panel which made the characters appear more 3D-ish (I don’t mean CGI. I know that “3D-ish” is probably not the best word, but basically they didn’t appear “flat”) compared to the original show. I think it’s easier to simply see it by comparing a shot from the film to a shot from the original show from 2011.

In terms of animation alone, one of my favorite scenes would have to be the little snippet of the battle between Ren and Ibuki, where Ren is falling and destroying buildings. And after the cardfight, I thought the animators did a great job with animating Ren’s reaction and facial expression. This scene gave off some sort of mature vibe that wasn’t in the original show.

There is one other scene in the movie I really liked.

As the audience, we see this scene through a young kid’s eyes rather than in third person.

The kid is on the floor with cards scattered all over the floor while above him there are other boys frowning at him, saying mean things, and walking off. We see the slow movement from the kid’s hands as he’s crawling on the floor begging for the other kids to not leave.

This scene really stood out to me from this movie. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think seeing through the slightly blurred eyes of the victim increased my empathy for the character. I thought it was a very tasteful choice the animators made.
Other things I liked about the movie were all the flashback scenes. This really gave some more interesting background to the characters, especially Kai.

It was also fun to see Aichi and Kai interact in the first half of the movie. But speaking of interactions, it would have been nice to see Kai interact more with Ibuki than he did in the movie.

Storywise, there were many things I feel could have been worked on before the movie’s release, mainly the cardfights. However, I personally didn’t hate the movie. I think lots of stuff from the movie would make good GIFs!

First thing I gotta say about this anime: wholesome.

There is just something about this anime that is so wholesome, and I don’t think I can quite pinpoint exactly what makes it seem this way to me. I think it has something to do with the fact that most of the characters are not smart. This show definitely pulled off the “dumb, but the kind that’s cute” well, and I can tell that was one of the huge the goals of the story. It’s an over-the-top and innocent comedy.

The opening was also, from my limited anime-watching experience, quite original. You would have to watch the ... opening in order to get what I mean.

Now, on to the reasons why I rated this only a six.

First off, despite the opening being quite original, it does get a bit repetitive after you’ve watched a bunch of episodes. As a result, it kinda loses what made it funny, because well, you end up already knowing what’s going on in the opening after seeing it a couple of times.

There are also times when the humor is a bit predictable to me, so it doesn’t end up as funny to me as I think it could have been if there were some tweaks to the timing or presentation of the humor. Since this is supposed to be primarily a comedy anime, I think that’s kinda important in terms of what to improve in this show.

Another reason is that there were a couple of interesting characters that were sort of mentioned or introduced, but they never really got much screen time nor explanation about their personality. I really kinda wish there were more episodes in this anime that introduced these characters further (such as the male lead’s master and grandmother).

Finally, there’s the problem that is quite common in a lot of anime: you watch an anime, then realize that the anime is basically telling you to go read the manga if you want a continuation of the story (and you know this anime is telling you this because the last episode just isn’t satisfying). The last episode of this anime is basically just like the other episodes in this anime (meaning it doesn’t feel like a “last episode”). But I guess that makes sense since this anime doesn’t really have much of a overarching conflict that needs to be solved nor any plot. There’s only so much of a story you can show with only eight episodes that each are only five minutes long.

Despite me rating this a six however, this does not necessarily mean that it’s a horrible anime. I actually started really enjoying it after a couple episodes in because it really is such a cute anime.

The art is simple, but it’s clean and easy on the eyes. It fits well for the shoujo demographic. The animation’s not terrible either, for a comedy anime.

I was able to be invested enough in characters like the male lead and his interactions with the adults in his life. I also haven’t personally watched many over-the-top comedy anime that were aimed towards a teenage female audience, so it was a pretty refreshing experience for me.

In addition, I liked the idea of this whole story having a male lead that is good-looking, but, instead of intelligent and perfect like many other shoujo male leads, a dumb guy. This is a great set up for an awesome parody of shoujo manga tropes.

I wouldn’t say that this comedy anime is going to fit everyone’s sense of humor, but personally, I did enjoy it. It’s not an anime I would scream at everyone to watch, but I suppose it’s an alright anime to pass some time with if you want something comedic and shoujo-y, yet not drama-heavy.

I... I can't even.

Like, what?

This. Was really... What the heck?

The art is messy, and the characters don't make sense (very 2-D with no interesting personalities, but rather disturbing and unrealistic). This manga is really.. strange. Like there's really no purpose behind the making of this manga other than for some weird moe satisfaction.. I don't even know. It's not very attractive, especially a certain page that I totally did not expect coming (likely, you won't really find it attractive either).

Anyway, read if you're extremely bored; but honestly, the only real good thing about this one-shot is the fact that it's only a ... short one-shot. Let's just say: thank goodness it's not a legitimate series.

Warning: rants and spoilers... though is there really any plot to spoil?

--------------------------

I confess: I don't really read smut. But..

I have always wanted to at least attempt to read a yaoi manga properly, and I thought when I first saw this on anime-planet, "Might as well read this: it has pretty nice art."

I'm serious, like I will be perfectly honest with you, the lines are pretty clean and the blond guy on the cover I saw specifically saw on anime-planet (and not on myanimelist) was actually pretty good-looking so... why not read this?.. At least, that's what I thought prior to reading a few chapters.

First page ... is literally just two boys being horny and going at it. Then the rest of the pages are a brief introduction to the fact that one is a "geeky fudanshi" and the other is a "hot, bisexual hairstylist," along with them still just going at it. Then the next chapter has the "typical tsundere" and "perverted-but-hot teacher." That's basically it. Purely mindless porn. This was like watching Boku no Pico except with decent art and without the huge age problem. But still nonetheless pretty bad.

The characters were very unrealistic and two dimensional. They were even slightly annoying. Sure, I only read like three chapters of this manga, but I don't think any good love interest is suddenly going to insist on banging the main character (not to mention the "uke" characters being obedient) within 4 hours of their first meeting without even really getting to know them first. Then right after the banging is the "I love you" even though they still barely know each other after the intercourse. And they all just CAN'T wait to have sex every two pages, and because of that, I couldn't even read past the part where they have a foursome (Not to mention that two out of the four are brothers). The older men were treating their younger mates like they were sex toys almost. It was pretty annoying, in my opinion. And when they tried to be funny, it really wasn't, and it certainly wasn't romantic either. This manga is a huge "how to not romantic comedy."

I know that maybe the author wasn't even trying to put in a lot thought to the characters, since the goal was to provide gay sex, but they were so ridiculously uninteresting and poorly-thought of compared to, let's say the characters from "Love Stage" or even "Junjou Romantica" (both are much better examples of yaoi).

This manga just made me feel annoyed and even bored for the most part, as a person who doesn't read the genre usually. The characters were nothing new, and they all stuck to tropes. The only good thing I could get out of this manga was the best art, but other than that, I felt like I was choking on this manga.

As the sole purpose is to make satisfaction for the fujoshi/fudanshi readers, it does a decent job with that. Actually, take that back. It doesn't because you hardly get to see their dicks anyway even when they have sex in the first three chapters. (What the hell? If you're going to have to make mindless porn, we at least need penises flying in front of our faces. Don't be half-assed, mangaka-san. )

This manga really isn't for people looking for real plot or really anything beyond gay sex.

*sigh* Maybe I shouldn't have reviewed this since it's like expecting a hentai to have plot.

ONCE UPON A TIME… there was this stereotypical shounen protagonist that found himself in a great situation that happens after meeting three witches. What is this “great” situation, you may ask? Well, he has to become this one thing that he absolutely loves.. Every midnight, he’s back to himself from it. But every noon, he becomes the very being he absolutely adores: a WOMAN.

I bet you probably were expecting this manga to be something like this.

Sorry, I told a lie. Here’s the truth:
1) This manga is NOT a romantic comedy. It will always be a psychological.
2) The sypnosis here on myanimelist has a TEENY-tiny mistake in ... word usage. Don’t expect an “ordinary” male character that comes from a harem shounen manga to appear in this one.

AND..

3) The main character absolutely, utterly despises the whole opposite sex. Why?

It’s for a reason which you can read in the manga in order to find out if you’re interested.

But I could say that you should NOT bring your hopes up too high for this one.


Now, here’s where we get to our cast members! I’ll just do this from the top of my head!

-Grumpy Cinderella

-The three witches.. who we only ever see for one page

-Homeless man who just so happened to be a rapist

-First girl that seems significant appears.. who we hardly ever see again after the first chapter

-The former childhood female friend who lowkey wants Grumpy Cinderella to die

-The current male best friend who hardly has any chemistry with the main
character.. How on earth did they become friends?

-Psychopath in a frilly dress who wants Grumpy Cinderella’s D

-Queer girl that should’ve had more screen time than she ever got

-Babysitter/Maid to kill

OK, so notice how none of these characters have names. That’s because I forgot ALL of their names. I will forget every single one of these characters even existed after one month at most. Let me explain.
One of the weaknesses of this manga is that we hardly learn much about each of these characters except our Cinderella in here. I wanted to know more about the psychopath in the frilly dress. How did she come to be one? I wanted to know what all the other characters been through. Unfortunately, I never received that.
Also, I wanted to know more about the witches. They were the ones that started the whole story. But no, they don’t go beyond the first page. We never even learn their names or why they did all this to the main character. We only ever see them ONCE.
There were just a lot of pieces of the puzzle that were just missing, especially in the area of character development for the supporting characters. And some of the scenes in the manga didn’t even make any sense at all. That’s why my score is a 6/10.

Though, I gave such a score, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy it at all and that it was unoriginal.
One of the good things that you can expect from this manga is a main character that is actually quite well done. You’ll see why he acts in some ways as you read along, and he is not the usual main character goody-two-shoes. He is an MC that I would never expect to find in a gender bender.

Speaking of gender bender, I never expected a psychological to accompany it. With gender bender, I typically associate it with something more light-hearted and fun (like “Ranma 1/2” or “Ouran Highschool Host Club”). “Fukigen Cinderella” gave a bunch of surprises throughout!

So, I wouldn’t guarantee that you will like this manga at all, but go ahead and give it a shot if you want a very different story from other gender benders!

God Child (9/10)
Oh my gosh. WOAH. This is the manga that had the ending that KEPT ME up for 2 hours last night. I couldn’t help but think over and over in my head: “How did I not see that coming? Did that just happen?”

Trust me. This never happened to me before with other manga.

It was so obvious that the ending would happen this way, yet it wasn’t. There was so much foreshadowing, but for some reason, I didn’t even pay attention to the warning signs. I was basically too emotionally attached to the characters that I didn’t have the courage to think about ... whether or not that certain phrases meant something.

If you’re expecting a romantic comedy that will help you de-stress, run away from this manga. Run like you're being chased by a serial killer, because that is what it is full of.

Or stay if you want breathtaking crazily-thought of murder mysteries and love that has so much depth that you forget that it is romance or shounen-ai you’re reading.

Main characters are crazy. Supporting characters are crazy. ALL OF THE THE CHARACTERS ARE OUT OF THEIR MIND.

But that only makes things better because you would naturally want to know why they turned out that way. And of course, you always get the answers in the manga (which I’m really thankful for because sometimes stories lack explanation. This manga definitely is not one of those stories!!).

All the mysteries kept me on the edge of my seat. Some of them I remember very well, like the case with the bunny-masked serial killer and the case where beautiful women had their eyes stolen. Those I referenced weren't even among the craziest.

Wanna read shounen-ai and a story involving a secret organization filled with dangerous people that the main character has to go against? You might like this.
I was so surprised that this manga was in the shoujo genre. In fact, this manga could seriously be its own genre. The story is a gem! I can’t even explain the whole story in one word.
PLEASE give this one a try!

Gamerz Heaven (6/10)
In a typical shounen manga, there would be a happy ending for the cast, and the main lead would end up with the female lead. This manga does not do that. This is THE shounen manga where the main male lead has a male love interest and where the female main has a female love interest for her. Yes, we have an LGBTQ+ cast right here. This is the good thing about this series, along with being what is unique about it. Let’s start off with some of the good things about Gamerz Heaven.

IN THE BEGINNING:
We have a third year middle schooler named ... Kaito who is obsessed with video games, that some of his classmates cannot comprehend why he’s so into video games. One day, he finds a mysterious disc with the words “GAMERZ HEAVEN” on it. Kaito who is really curious without hesitation plays the game, but he realizes it’s no ordinary game: it MERGES the REAL world with the GAME world. In this first level, he meets a boy called the Navigator (who is a character of the game) and finds one of his classmates (who was class president of his class) has turned into a demon that the main lead ends up killing. The next day, none of Kaito’s friends (they are in the same class as him) seem to remember the class president that disappeared. In order to figure things out, Kaito and his friends enter the strange game.
The beginning chapters dragged me into their world, and I wanted to find out more about what exactly was going on in this game. I wanted to know exactly how DANGEROUS this video game was.

CHARACTERS:
The characters aren’t too memorable, but they also refuse to be forgettable either. They make up a fun cast. What I love about the characters is that not one of them is technically straight xD xD
Kaito—game-obsessed otaku who is hella dense. He and Kyouko are childhood friends. He’s infatuated with Navigator.
Kyouko—smart girl with glasses who attends cram school. She has an unrequited crush on Kaito, but may have a soft spot for her friend Rio too.
Navigator—the smol one who helps out Kaito and co. and is kind of like a “wanted” convict. He at first is monotone and lacks emotion, but he does develop. Navigator gets attached to Kaito, and it becomes more obvious in the later chapters.
Ren---he’s just as obsessed with video games as Kaito. It seems he has feelings for him.
Rio---a sassy girl and good friends with Kyouko. She’s pretty good at games in the game center. She has a crush on Kyouko. Eventually, there’s a bit of a flashback showing where the origin of that love comes from and how she and Kyouko first meet, which I thought was pretty neat.
There are more characters, like Ren’s dog and an idiot trio, but the ones above make up the main cast.

ART:
I actually kinda like the art style. It was easy to see the battle scenes and distinguish the characters. It’s not the best art I’ve ever seen (like Tegami Bachi), but it DEFINITELY ISN’T the worst. The beginning chapters start off very strong and shounen-like, but unfortunately later on, I felt that the art got a bit more feminine to the point it looked like shoujo manga almost (in one scene, there was a shoujo bubble effect).

TOWARDS THE ENDING:
So, why did I give this manga a LOWER SCORE despite all the good stuff I said about the manga? Well, it was because of certain parts of the middle to the end that caused its downfall.
The manga was trying too hard to be dramatic and add a bunch of plot twists to the point that the manga was unable to answer any of the questions I had. For example, who gave Kaito the video game in the first place? How did this game cause all of this madness like the disappearing classmate? What exactly was the goal in this game? There are a lot more questions I would type here, but that would reveal a bunch of spoilers.
To be honest, the ending was absolutely horrible, and the last chapter was extremely rushed. None of the questions I thought of were answered. It was utterly UNACCEPTABLE. This was the example of what NOT to do in an ending (this reminded me of the time when I read the last chapter of D.N.Angel).

WHY YOU PROBABLY MIGHT WANT TO OR NOT WANT TO READ IT:
What I really like about this manga was the fact that it was one of the only shounen manga in existence to have canon shounen ai and shoujo ai treated equally. And no! It’s not just subtext! There are legit intimate moments between the characters! It wasn’t obvious which (shounen ai or shoujo ai) the mangaka preferred (I only found out after finishing the manga that it was made by the same creator as “Graviation,” a popular yaoi manga).
If you want to read a manga for the sake of a gay middle schooler cast, then try reading “Gamerz Heaven” (you might still be put off by the ending.. But if you’re just interested in yaoi, there’s a doujinshi based off of this series made by the same mangaka that you could read. I’m not sure if it’s good or not because I don’t read yaoi)!
But if you are expecting an excellent story with a satisfying ending that ties up all the knots to the story and don’t care so much for the romance, then I suggest you find another manga.

If you're a fan of the characters in the original Cardfight Vanguard, and you like comedy, then you might end up enjoying this adorable little series. Each episode is really short, so it's easy to watch the series even when busy.

So, the story is pretty non-existent. But it's understandable because it's supposed to be just the daily lives of the characters. The characters are however all very hilarious and likeable in this one. In fact, I like Toshiki Kai in this particular series more than the original (you get to see Kai sneeze in this one).

You need to be able to have at least ... seen the first season before watching this in order to get some of the jokes. If you watched the first season and like it, give this one a go! :D

This was simply beautiful and breath-taking (coming from someone who only watched 4 episodes of season 1). My favorite thing about this was that rather than staying serious and boring, it has a mix of emotional scenes that actually made me cry every time (even after watching the same scenes several times) and comedy (I’m a big fan of comedy). The characters are quite memorable. Tomoya’s just the average dude, but even though he’s just the average dude, he has to go through so much (which you pretty much see in the show! I also have a softspot for little children. Geez, Ushio is so ... freaking adorable.. I can’t even!! Fuko is strange, but also cute!
The characters are what really move the story, and I freaking love all the characters. (One thing that could be improved though is making the female cast less “moe.” I couldn’t help but feel the “moe” vibes behind all the females. Fortunately, they all are very likeable!)
As you can probably tell, I don’t really have much experience in writing reviews. But please.. just.. just watch it. I mean. Get the experience! I mean, come on! It isn’t rated 9/10 on myanimelist for nothing!