The last round of the regionals is played for all its worth, but can Aichi truly succeed here?
What They Say:
The final fight of the regional tournament reaches its pulse-pounding conclusion! If Aichi wins, Team Q4 will go to Nationals! But if he’s beaten by the swashbuckling captain of Team Handsome, Aichi’s team not only loses, but Kamui will apparently be forced to wed Nagisa! And what is the weird sensation that comes over Aichi at the climax of the fight?!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Aichi’s growth from a young player with no experience to someone who has managed to work his way to the final round of the regionals certainly says a lot about his ability. As well as just how lucky he is. With his match against Gouki, he’s definitely facing a challenge unlike before but is doing his best with it as he’s completely visualized himself now as the Buster Blade and is going strong against him. But it’s not an overwhelming kind of series of attacks but rather the kind of fight where every inch is a true battle as they go at it. Aichi’s got an interesting variety of cards to play, and that brings out some fun combinations as he goes at it and Gouki has plenty of his own as well. I do like that both of them pull out different types to use and they don’t necessarily dominate for awhile but instead get wiped clean in an instant because of their ineffectiveness against a strong opponent. Rather than dragging it out on both sides, they each take their hits and move on to the next attack.
The back and forth has its moments, but they do pepper it with a few character aspects as well. There’s a small flashback that shows Kamui trying to explain to Aichi about a certain way to play, tricks to avoid and the like because of his experience with how poorly they work, but it’s something that Aichi feels that he has a way to make it work. With everything riding on what he can do in the here and now to take on Gouki, he has to try every attack in order to find the weak link to get through. It’s not a surprising tact to take and it’s even done well enough to really surprise Gouki when it gets rolling as Aichi’s allies end up gaining a significant amount of power to make this a real challenge between the two of them. The strategy side of it all is pretty fun to watch in its own way, but since I continue to be largely disconnected from the details of game play, it does all just wash over me.
In Summary:
Not surprisingly, the match turns out about as you’d expect with this being the end of the regionals and still more episodes to go. With hints of something larger going on behind the scenes with the women that ran this event and the kind of skill that Aichi is displaying, it has the potential to grow but I’ve been saying that from the start. With its heavy focus on the card game itself rather than the characters, it continues to be a mostly hollow series with simple cheers you can do while admiring that the lead is doing well, though he doesn’t always succeed. With the nationals offering greater challenges, and only so many potentials to lose, the show could certainly go on for a lot longer. As of this writing, I believe it’s still slated for just twenty-four episodes, so it’ll be interesting to see what they really do to finish out the next few if it’s not getting another full season to explore the nationals. Regardless, I can’t see myself watching the show into the nationals based on what it’s done so far, but I am curious to see what it will do for the next few episodes at most.
Grade: C
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
