English Dub Review: Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress: “Our Seven-Day Crusade”

 

Overview: When Danji (Josh Meredith) decides to retire from cardfighting, Megumi (Lily Ki), Yu-yu (James Higuchi) and the entire group are thrown into disarray as they begin to question their position. Also, to make matters worse, the city government issues them a notice that the park will be closing soon which causes the gang to soon take it upon themselves to fight the institution. 

Our Take: A big ol’ monkey wrench was thrown in all the excitement for Danji and Yu-yu’s amusement park match previously in the former choosing to retire, not to mention a new development in the park being planned for closure. 

One aspect about the whole situation to keep the park open that I couldn’t help but giggle at was Megumi’s incredibly ingenious and totally not childish plan to build a wooden barricade and fend off any would be intruders with water guns. The showrunners seemed to go for compelling with everyone coming together to build it, but also came off as slightly childish in the process, especially when taken into consideration how nearly a large number of the team blamed Yu-yu for the entire situation that was completely out of his hands. In fairness to Megumi though, she did try to get her older brother and new addition to Cardfight!!, Takami, to help, seeing how he technically owns it. But even so, there could have been a more proactive way to go about it or she could have been even smarter and actually read the fine print of the notice she received. 

I enjoyed what Takami brought to the table story wise in how the cold chemistry between him and sister establishes a rocky relationship. There is no backstory but the actors Lily Ki and Aaron Coates do well enough to establish a divide between them through their frigid dispositions. But besides them, the older sibling also establishes a history/friendship between him and Danji as well as a wider friend group with Megumi with it showing a different side to both of them. Hopefully there’ll be more flashbacks and present day scenes to build upon it further.

And of course the whole solution to closing of the park was that it was just a misunderstanding on Megumi’s part because she can’t read so it seems. That little turn of events was probably supposed to be funny as well. But similarly to the barricade building, it missed the mark and simply left me tired. 

Lastly, I appreciate that Vanguard is not afraid to shake up the status quo and take some risks for characters Danji and Yu-yu moving forward from a show that I was expecting to be more safe. Quite honestly, the mentor and student dynamic was kind of already at play. Although, to take Danji out of the game while having him be a teacher and Yu-yu more at the forefront is an exciting and progressive one that I hope to see be cultivated even more so from here on out. 

Even with it’s underwhelming plot, “Our Seven-Day Crusade” takes steps forward in all the ways that matter with a great character introduction along with progression of that of established ones.