I don't mean to be a huge bummer or anything but:
What the hell?
overDress is a reboot of the Cardfight!! Vanguard franchise, something I've not been following for as long as some, but still for the past two or so years. I was looking for a new card game to get into, anime's a good gateway, and watching the original anime got it to stick. The original Cardfight!! Vanguard anime is by no means a great show, but the beginning served as a compelling enough hook to get people into the game. The characters were ok and the structure scratched a similar itch to the one
...
that Beyblade did, where you could throw yourself into this dumb little fantasy where people actually care that you're good at card games or battle tops or whatever. Big tournaments, rivals and friends, etc. And they were ads, no doubt. But because of that they actually focused on the subject, that being cards.
overDress isn't really about the card game. That might be ok if it were about something else, but so far? No dice. The first two episodes consisted of a slew of low rent gay jokes followed by some of the most confusing card games ever put to animation, card games that will leave you with more questions than answers. Questions like: "Wait, how did Megumi manifest all those rearguards? They weren't there a two-second cut-shot ago and she still has the same number of cards in hand." or "Wait, why did Bastion only get one drive check?" It was almost excusable when the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime didn't know the rules to their own game, but Vanguard's been around for a full decade now. People who know the game are gonna be baffled; people who don't are gonna be given the wrong idea.
But again, this is Vanguard trying to be less of an advert and more of a "real anime". So how's it faring?
Well, it definitely "looks" better. CLAMP's character designs are nice and the sakuga animation of the Bruce-Bastion fight at the end of episode 1 looked genuinely great. Beyond that? Hoo boy, it's rocky. I'll say that Danji has a bit of charm as far as characters go, though it'd be hyperbolic to call him magnetic. He's a fun dude, secure and confident in himself, and a good role model. Yu-yu is Aichi but somehow an even bigger pushover, Megumi's an airhead who calls Danji "onii-chan" even though she clearly wants to Cardfight and Chill (they aren't actually related, it's cooooooooooooooool), Touya has all of two minutes to make an impression and uh fails, and Tomari plays hot cops because she is literally a hot cop. In episode 1, a random street predator gets more time and development than either Touya or Tomari simply by harassing a crossdressing Yu-yu on I believe 4 separate occasions. This seems to already be a recurring theme as far as "haha guy wants to bang Yu-yu BUT YU-YU IS A BOY LMAO" goes, the entire second episode built around Megumi thinking Danji wants to bang Yu-yu. Also pretty sure Danji's in his 20s and Yu-yu seems like he's 13-14 but ok. The same gay joke is beaten like a dead horse once again for 10-15 minutes before we end the show with another rushed card game with wildly poor direction.
The third episode was probably the strongest, though that isn't saying much. It does an okay job of showing Yu-yu's empathetic intuition when he's working with Danji (meant to be his "it" factor that draws Danji to him) and it features two card games. Both are messy and make little sense, but they lean into it better than the first two episodes did and we get some more sakuga animation and a serviceable cliffhanger. Of course, episode four capitalizes on none of it. There's not a single card game in this episode of a card game anime, which, again, would be okay, if the episode was "plot heavy". But beyond a quickly resolved misunderstanding meant to vaguely introduce the audience to a friend of Danji's, nothing happens. It's borderline filler content in a 12-episode original series. Not sure how you go about defending that.
Point is, yeah, overDress sure is more like a "real anime", but in a lot of those creepy, low brow, mildly offensive ways that make you hurry to explain "it's not all like this". As of now, it fails as a card game advert and it fails as a show that can stand on its own two legs. I'm still excited for the rebooted game itself: that feels like a true improvement over past iterations. But I'm trying to not let my excitement for the game itself trick me into thinking this show is good. Things can always change and my masochistic ass will likely follow this for a while (I've endured worse), but right now, it's bad. Like, really damn bad.
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Apr 30, 2021
Cardfight!! Vanguard: overDress
(Anime)
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I don't mean to be a huge bummer or anything but:
What the hell? overDress is a reboot of the Cardfight!! Vanguard franchise, something I've not been following for as long as some, but still for the past two or so years. I was looking for a new card game to get into, anime's a good gateway, and watching the original anime got it to stick. The original Cardfight!! Vanguard anime is by no means a great show, but the beginning served as a compelling enough hook to get people into the game. The characters were ok and the structure scratched a similar itch to the one ... 
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