English Dub Review: Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress: “Overnight Statue”

Overview: Masanori (Scott Roberts) searches for Danji (Josh Meredith) which eventually leads him waging war against the amusement park and taking on Zakusa (Hans Wackershauser) in a card fight.

Our Take: What in God’s green earth is this episode? I kept scratching my head throughout at it’s innate absurdity. Remember Tohya’s groupie, Masanori? Well, this whole tedious ordeal consists of him going on a wild goose chase as he searches for Danji for a very specific and underwhelming reason that makes almost everything here irrelevant. One decently funny aside is the staff must be very big Apocalypse Now fans because they loved to blast “Ride of the Valkyries” after nearly every airborne helicopter entrance Masanori makes. There was even a war scene done at the abandoned amusement park with card players trying to shoot down Masanori’s parachute when he attempts to land and try to hassle Danji again as an homage to the film. It’s inclusion is a welcome, if not random, pop culture reference that was pretty funny for the amount of times it played. But of course Masanori’s war tactic is to build a Buddhist monk statue in the park? Everything is beyond befuddling. At the very least, it factors into his backstory that was given. This was decent enough in its execution as he tells an amusing melodramatic and exaggerated version of his time as a monk and how faced off against Tohya and decided to follow him thereafter. 

But in all seriousness, this entire entry just feels like one big monotonous task. Even Megumi and Yu-yu were strung along, doing dull crap like finding Zakusa’s card that got lost in the forest because for some stupid reason he can’t play without it. Some Vanguard player, am I right? Then Danji just pops in and out throughout, always right before Masanori shows up and doesn’t actually contribute anything to the plot to move it forward, as this episode is dragged by it’s ankles towards the finish line as it huffs and puffs getting there. 

We do get a bit more insight on Zakusa and his history. His is probably my favorite between the two in that it paints quite a sensible and convincing picture as to how he developed a crush on Tomari and why he is as relaxed and dignified as he is, even through a purely comedic lens. Also with that and her crowd hyping in the episode, it’s really starting to come into view how much Tomari likes to dominate people and I. am. Digging it. Some of the writing is laughably bad too, so much so where I’m debating whether it was intended or not. For instance, and this should truly say it all, Zakusa made some comment about how he can smell his revenge on Masanori. Masanori then denies this for Zakusa to retort back with, “you should have your sinuses checked.” Jesus. 

If you’ve been watching the series long enough, you know every episode ends with a card fight. Not only was there no ending battle to stunning animated effect whatsoever but it ended with it being predictably placed throughout. The real kicker though is that this long and winded paint-drying watchparty was just a means for Masanori to ask Danji for a rematch with Tohya. That is truly the best way to sum up this episode as it slogged through in its entirety. Enough said.