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WARNING To explain some of my problems with this show it's almost impossible for me to not spoil anything also I HAVE to compare this show to it's predecessor for context on this show's many problems because they were the direct result of trying not to repeat that show's many problems


Ok So Arc-V which was supposed to be the show that proved anyone who said "they should have stopped after DM/GX/5DS" wrong only for it to crash and burn in a way that still baffles me in how they managed to fuck it up to this day. Why am I telling you about Arc-V ... when I already wrote a review about it because VRAINS's cardinal sin is how hard it tries to OVERCORRECT what went wrong with Arc-V. So LET'S CREATE A HYBRID OF THE WORST ASPECTS OF BOTH ATTACK ON TITAN(I am so glad that things show/manga's.final arc FINALLY made people realize how terrible that show always was) AND SWORD ART ONLINE. Yusaku is an unlikable asshole whose motivated primarily by MUH REVENGE But the way they handle his backstory (Which is admittedly pretty fucked up) is that he was just pissed he only got to drink juice boxes as a kid. However, that's not the big problem with him the big problem is he's NEVER ALLOWED TO BE WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING AND NEVER LOSES the way to write an unlikeable protagonist is to show his flaws as they are and have him improve which tbf they kinda do here IN THE LAST 15 EPISODES WHEN THE DAMAGE HAS ALREADY MORE THAN BEEN DONE. I'd rather have Yuma (who Yugioh fans treat as if he were the antichrist because dae shonen protag) because at least we're supposed to see his flaws as what they are. Go's motivations change literally every goddamn episode to the point where he might as well have been a new character at times. Takeru can best be summed up as "hey we got Eren Yager's JPN VA let's jackknife Go/Aoi's entire characters". Oh and the ACTUAL Worse part about this show, so Arc-V's biggest problem was good ideas with AWFUL execution, this show on the other hand's biggest issue is how it has good ideas in theory that never go anywhere the biggest example of this by far is how it horribly mishandles Aoi Zaizen, She was everything this show needed a likable character whose motives weren't horribly hamfisted and they actually make sense but no she's given the bitch status EVERY GODDAMN CHANCE THEY GET TO THE POINT WHERE THE WRITERS LITERALLY MAKE A GODDAMN JOKE IN THE FINALE. AI is just a cheerleader until the final arc (Which admittedly handles him well) albeit he is the one character who I've mentioned thus far that never pissed me off. The last important character is a man named Ryoken "Revolver" Kogami who much like Aoi a tragedy not because he's horribly mishandled but because he REALLY deserved to be in a much better show, his motives make sense, they for the most part aren't horribly hamfisted(Although that's kinda the point when they are), his character progression is very well done, and while he isn't the most likable guy right away AT THE VERY LEAST THEY ACTUALLY SHOW HIM AS BEING IN THE WRONG ABOUT THE THINGS HE IS and unlike Aoi, he is actually allowed to do shit. In fact, I ACTUALLY FELT ENGAGED whenever he did stuff if he were the protagonist this show would have been SO MUCH BETTER. TL DR the only two characters that keep this from being unwatchable are Aoi/Ryoken(before anyone says Emma/Akira Emma really is just 9/10 times there to explain stuff, and Akira is just an extension of Aoi both could have been cool if they actually did shit though). Onto the actual plot the stakes are always so high to the point where Yusaku is literally NEVER ALLOWED TO LOSE so it basically means there are no stakes because no matter how threatening a villain may seem Yusaku is just gonna BS his way to winning no matter WHAT HAPPENS. The villains other than Revolver/a few of season 2's villains/season 3's villains (who I CANNOT MENTION Without spoiling anything) sucked Bohman might be the worst villain in any show I've had seen because his goals change constantly and then he just becomes a generic doomsday villain whose powers literally become doing whatever the plot fucking needs him too have that duel. Basically, this show's big problem is whenever it could do anything interesting it chose to play it safe.


EDIT: I advised you to never Watch Zexal/Arc-V dubbed. I'm happy to say this show's dub is while not amazing, isn't completely unwatchable unless you just want to Laugh at it either. Most of the people in the cast actually sound like they gave a shit what they're doing/know what they're talking about (unless the character isn't supposed to know) there are. a few dab jokes but in the original it was a reference to Showa era Kamen Riders/Super Sentai so that would have likely gone by international Kids's heads. Other than some hilariously bad name changes it doesn't most importantly actively make the show your watching worse than it already is(it doesn't make it BETTER but none of the problems with the dub are exclusive to it alone there isn't as much stuff lost in translation in this and Arc-V's dubs) but at least you can tell there are people actually trying this time around)

Great show with a good cast of characters and great story. I feel like it's also one of the few shows that tries to be dark but doesn't feel like it's going out of it's way to be edgy (In fact if you asked me how to do a dark tone right this show would be an example in my opinion cause queue the old meme from ten years ago "Being Meguca is suffering") that being said it's not perfect there are a few plotholes the big one I can't really say without spoiling anything and this show has a reputation now I ... know this is a weird thing to complain about but I get the feeling part of this show's appeal when it first came out was that no one knew what to expect from this show, or rather it did a lot of things you typically wouldn't expect a show like it to do. This show got stupidly popular and even spawned a subgenre and countless imitators. I not only saw a show written by the same guy who made this (which used many of the same tropes,character ideas as this show did and this was a fact I was aware of going in) but watched 3 shows frequently compared to this (one of which is in the subgenre) so I kinda had an idea what to expect going in so it didn't quite ruin the experience per say but as I said I feel like part of this show's appeal was how shocking it was. Since I kinda had an idea of what to look for and this show's reputation going in yeah you get the idea. Still a great show though.

It's good but not amazing just don't go in expecting Gurren Lagann or something that's just gonna have you COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FLOORED with how good it is cause while yes only 3 characters do get development everyone's fine (and even then pretty much the ONLY 3 characters who get development's arcs are so telegraphed to the point where I called how the main character's arc was gonna end at the end of episode 2) Story's fine but I feel like it would have benefitted from having 3-4 more episodes to fully explain what was going on in the endgame (one of the few times ... I felt like the episodes that was just the main character dicking around were more enjoyable than the plot episodes because everything was just happening too fast) and the twist Villain I saw coming from a mile away Like I feel like Style over Substance is very much in effect here (Though consider whose at the helm this isn't surprising) it's a good show that's rarely boring but it's the case of a show that felt like it was the first draft and needed a bit more time to iron out everything.

This movie would have worked if not for one thing IE the show's cardinal sin character writing. Anno STILL doesn't get that you can't make your main character an unlikalbe whinny kid who did THAT in the opening scene and expect me to feel bad. Asuka gets some development to make her less of a bitch. THEY Still think they can make Rei/Gendo/Ritsuko's entire personalities "I'm so mysterious nothing sticks out about me"and expect me to give a shit about them. Gainax made another mech called Gurren Lagann that I despite my love for HATED the ending of this made me realize "the character writing ... is so good to the point where I felt most of the cast deserved better, in this show I couldn't give 2 fucks if it happened" everything else is ok at least the themes actually do something other than trick rabbid fans into thinking this has more to it like the show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRriLTBDlgM&ab_channel=SubscribeToMeForNoReason that about sums it up. Before I Dump on this show I'll mention a few things it did right. I do like how it felt like it had a better reason for having the characters be anthropomorphic animals than BNA did (that show can best be summed up as a cop drama with furries) and normally I don't like 3d cgi models in shows but I feel like this show did really a good job with them. The dub(unless I watch a Yugioh show or the dub sucks or is hard to find or doesn't exist I watch dubbed) was pretty good sadly positives ... end here. The story is while not bad is told in the cringiest way possible with at least one scene per episode being cringeworthy as hell. Most of the characters felt one note other than the MC. This show is pretty much what I feared BNA was gonna be like (I watched both cause I lost a bet I might do a review of BNA I was pleasantly surprised by that show), I am so not looking forward to season 2.

WARNING SPOILERS DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS SHOW IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO TALK ABOUT IT WITHOUT SPOILING ANYTHING I tried as good as I can to keep it spoiler free but there are a few things I can't not spoil so consider this your warning if you want to watch it


this show it's a tragedy it had the potential, the potential to prove EVERYONE who ever said "Yugioh.... they should have stopped making those after INSERT DM/GX/5DS HERE" wrong. Season 1 was set up to do just that it had EVERYTHING YOU COULD HAVE WANTED IN THESE SHOWS it had likable ... characters, (ESPECIALLY THE FEMALES A RARITY IN THIS FRANCHISE) it was dark and mature but it never felt so dark to the point where it was overbearing, stakes were clear, unlike most shows these days MC's were allowed to lose so it didn't feel like you knew how a fight was gonna end when it started, and it had a story an AMAZING CONCEPT. It's been 4 years since it ended and I still to this day ask myself "how did they fuck all of this up". season 2 was mostly filler with a cocktease that made us think "YES FINALLY SOMETHING INTERESTING" only for nothing to come off of it. season 3 came and got off to a good start and I was thinking "Ok maybe season 2 was just a production break because of DSOTD it'll be back in form now" oh how wrong was I. Everytime I think of dropping a show I tell myself "I sat through all 148 episodes of Arc-V I CAN DAMN WELL SIT THROUGH THIS" it took me dropping the show 5 TIMES IN IN THE SPAN OF 30 EPISODES IT GOT THAT BAD, complete with the most ridiculous case of Talk No Justu by the main character who went from annoying crybaby to generic good guy to god mode Gary Stu I've seen(a least until season 5 of Steven Universe's finale happened) tand then we get to the final arc and when you think this can't get worse it somehow did..... first of all, the show decides all those great characters we had in season 1 they don't matter anymore, those female characters it was praised for they're now living macguffins, and the guy who was set up to be the main villain's plan is the dumbest plan I have ever heard in any work of fiction, the MC just god mode gary stu's everything in all but one duel (Which was ironically the best duel in the show)and the ending was rushed where they decided "HEY ALL THOSE CHARACTERS YOU LIKED THEY CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES THEY'RE DEAD OR THE CHARACTER THEY'RE DOING EVERYTHING FOR IS DEAD TOO" (and this is one of the better yugioh endings) I have to give it a 5 because of how godly season 1 is but this is the one show pretending everyone died after season 1 might bet the preferable outcome .

ALSO NOTE while I hate to sound like that web but don't watch the dub it's legit considered unwatchable, not only are there a few scenes/plot lines edited or altered to be more kid friendly bu
it's loaded with performances from people who either didn't know what they were talking about or were here just to get an easy paycheck and leave (One of the guys would go on to do Attack on Titan's dub and he's one of the only few people in the dub who actually with his performance sounded like he was actually trying and wanted to be in this), dated by 2015 pop culture references, a ton of outdated celebrity impressions and the ultimate tell tale sign of a bad dub A CRINGY RAP OP (And it's not even funny bad like the One Piece dub op)

I feel sorry for everyone who refused to watch Zexal period when they found out the MC would be shonen esc/dropped it watching the first 25 episodes dubbed not only was the first 25 episodes of Zexal (Season 1) the worst part of the show period but also the dub is nigh unwatchable. I would still VERY MUCH Recommend watching Zexal before watching ZEXAL II (for some reason this website has them listed as separate shows)

WARNING DO NOT WATCH THIS DUBBED I hate to be a dub vs sub guy but trust me not only is a lot of the plot changed for being too ... dark, the actors sound bored, or like they don't care, and Yuma legit sounds like spongebob in the dub and it doesn't have the same cheese factor or meme factor that DM and GX's respective dubs have.

So you soldiered through Zexal (I don't think season 1 of Zexal was as bad as everyone acts like as it is) congratulations you now get to see THE BEST ARC IN YUGIOH HISTORY THAT DIDN'T HAVE 2 GODAWFUL SEASONS RIGHT AFTER IT (Shows a picture of Arc-V) everything about this works perfectly characters are amazing(Yuma's a lot more tolerable here than in season 1 in fact I'd argue he's needed because of all the dark stuff that happens in this arc to keep it from being too dark) the story is actually really good if I had to complain about one thing it's that the final villain was generic as heck and the ending sucked that being said Vector MORE THAN MAKES UP The main villain being a letdown from a villain standpoint hell THIS GUY SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE MAIN VILLAIN point is more people need to watch this it is easily in my opinion the most underrated anime of all time because it wasn't 5DS or the dub sucked or Yuma was a shonen esc MC

I have heard so much great things about Evangelion for literal years going in to the point where there was no way in hell it was ever going to live up to all of them but by GOD was it bad and no just because something has deeper meaning does not mean it's good when you introduce all these psychological themes and do literally nothing with them complete with some of the worst character writing I've seen, it confuses being so mysterious to the point where nothing sticks out about them(I'm looking right at Rei and Gendo over here)for character traits, Asuka was just a ... bitch, and Shinji dear god Shinji he might just be the least likable main protagonist in any anime I've ever seen in my life he whines SO MUCH to the point where season 1!Midoriya would tell him to grow up and stop whining. The ONLY good thing about this show was it's influence and thus it spawned a bunch of shows that try to do the same thing but actually do a good job at it and some actually good mecha animes (Shows Gurren Lagann/Code Geass(TBF Code Geass is a deconstruction of Gundam tropes but it owes MORE THAN A FEW THINGS To Evangelion) and tbf the art even if it has a few moments where it shows it's age here and there, and reuses stock footage(which is to be expected in a mecha anime)still holds up nicely, and the soundtrack's pretty good and I do like Eva unit 1's design. Moral of the story it's not as good as everyone acts like