Cardfight!! Vanguard: Divinez Genma Seisen-hen

Cardfight Vanguard DivineZ Parallactic Clash is a bizarre season to the DivineZ era of Cardfight Vanguard's D series, billed as the final season, a goodbye to the cast who came together from the Fated Clash hosted by the plushie dragon Gabwellius many seasons ago turning out to be the leadup to a movie. I'll talk about that a bit at the end, but for now lets talk about the season as is it.

Parallactic Clash, while its at first seeming similar to the Fated Clash, it is greyer as characters are fighting for their own realities with the false reality already having overwritten the world, ... and so Akina and friends awaken from the illusion to fight the Fantome fighters. And the 'enemy" side mirrors season 1 Akina in the way that their wish is def much more weightier than the opposition. Hell Akina wakes up to his parent being together again.
But the tone is casual, a casual cerebral exploration of loss and gain, reality and fake. This isn't a good vs evil conflict at all. And so this season stands out among the many within D series and outside of D series. They're just chilling at the restaurants and hanging out at amusement parks talking to each other and then fighting afterwards to determine which aspect survives with their reality until the other side has 0 players left.

This season is kinda reminiscent of Yugioh Vrains season 3 with Gabwellius himself, much like Ai, no more in the role of a mascot character, but a (bishounen) human man, leading the charge of reshaping reality in the mysterious tower that suddenly exists in the town in a final conflict.

However, this is where it's kind of depressing outside of the factors of the conflict. Because this is not only the final season, but the only real series in a while that actually has writing. And this being 12 eps compared to the 24 eps of nothing that was the last 2 seasons of the Deluxe tournament arc. And if you're this deep into niche anime to be watching card game anime, obviously it's a recommend, skip the Deluxe seasons and go straight here from season 2.

So this really is the Akina season. Not the final season sending off the Fated Clash cast. Just Akina. The two plot threads, Kurumi, a hospital girl he knew who suddenly is his classmate/bestie, and Gabwellius, the little dragon plush who gave him the opportunity to cure his sisters illness by participating in the Fated Clash and starting this whole mess, are the strongest parts of the show no one else on team Verity is getting spotlight. So you can basically tell they had two good ideas because everyone else is fodder. And while the ideas are smart and interesting, finally being smart and interesting in your final season isn't really a good viewer experience when it means underdeveloped characters have to become fodder for the plot.

So I find it hard to believe they made a manga prequel for this season. Like, to have 3 seasons of trying to make a Akina/Nao romance dynamic happen but Kurumi and Akina are instantly having more chemistry in half a season, is anything in such a prequel prior to Akina's awakening of value other than ensuring the Fantome gimmick can be stretched out for more than a set? Not to mention of course everyone on the protagonist side has a completed deck, so there's nothing really to sell but the antagonists decks. The narrative end to the gameplay is lopsided. Michiru in the op but it should come to no surprise to anyone his ep didn't contribute to anything, like every other appearance he's had. But sure, you totally have content that had to be cut for a manga. *wink*

And so with the reveal that ep 12 isnt the end of the story, but the true conclusion being the in upcoming movie, Parallactic Fate...

So you mean to tell me this whole season was planned for a movie conclusion and yet half of it is undercooked? They only explored Akina's parents being back together at the start of the season and they dont explore him as a character with it for the rest of the season when he's the literal MC. Are they saving that for the movie? Why? Akina has been boring for 3/5ths of the whole series because they give him no further characterization after the first season. The PC anime would have benefitted from him feeling a little mixed or maybe accentuate his desperate need for being optimist miracles man when one of the characters is someone who was terminally ill fighting to stay alive in this illusion world, the bad end of his sister that he saved at all costs in the first season. Like why would you drop that family lore if it not gonna come up again within those 12 episodes. No progression of our MC, most of the cast is fodder, who ok'd this?

The strongest part of the anime remains to be Kurumi Ishikawa. This season is clearly for her and no one else with how undercooked everything else is. If you're watching it, its for her. That's where all the hard hitting writing is. She's the best character of the season, cause at the very least D Series is very good at writing female characters going through the most lonely and painful emotional strife in the world with Mirei, Hikari, and now Kurumi. She dances in the op. Her fight for her miracle. Very gripping stuff.

But like, why did it have to be like this. There's this very common statement within the Vanguard community that the biggest negative with D series is the short episode count. "Oh if only it were back to a weekly anime", pinning every problem D Series has to its seasonal structure and yet once again, D series proves that claim is BS cause the upcoming movie is supposed to be the culmination of last 2 seasons of setting up the Mythisch cards which led to Parallactic Clash which leads to it all to ending in THE MOVIE. How many more episodes did they need????

The writing on the wall is that the people at Kinema Citrus in charge of Vanguard currently simply are incompetent at writing a card game anime because it can't be a production issue the because relationship between Vanguard the anime and Vanguard the game is close. Its not Yugioh where its half original stuff and half anime stuff each set, there's whole sets to sell anime character cards. Meaning they need to have a plan, and a long term one cause of future support when the next 12 ep season comes around. And for whatever reason the plan sucks and they seemingly coast on one single good idea and just phone in everything else except for a side characters sometimes, they will get a good episode while the main plot is thinner than the finest thread. Which is insulting to both previous eras of Vanguard, to all other longrunning franchises be it card games or others in the hobby sphere, AND to 12 episode seasonal anime that air EVERY SEASON.

But of course I still recommend it, cause if you're this much down the rabbithole of card game anime, commit. Its important to watch flawed shows to develop a creative and critical mind.

At the very least, the series isn't ending on no other way to read it but as AI propaganda like how Overdress did. The bar is in hell when it comes to Vanguard anime endings.

The movie is probably gonna be a good sendoff, but like a lot of Bushiroads overall business decisions with Vanguard as a game, why can't it all be good?