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  I spent a little time wondering what I was supposed to do about the "Now Playing" page when I actually finished something. Would I allow it to expand infinitely? Would I make my thoughts a limited-time thing that will disappear once I conclude a work? In the end, I figured I might as well write reviews and put em in the blog section.

  This blog entry's gonna cover three different works with drastically different tones, so I plan on including headers for you to jump to. If you're into Future Card Buddyfight, Kamen Rider Gavv, or Fate/Stay Night then scroll on down.

 

  Buddyfight might be one of the best card game anime I've ever seen. It utilizes the conventions of the genre in some really fun ways that tug on the heart strings and endear me to its cast. It has a pretty unrealistic sci-fi setting in which society has built itself around collaboration with alien monsters. Despite these fantastical elements, much of its game writing is grounded in what it's really like to go to locals, play card games, spend time with your friends, and aim to win tournaments.

  All four seasons we watched before writing this review follow Gao Mikado, a 12 year old elementary school student who loves Buddyfight and just wants to play with his friends. There's a lot of little things that add texture to Gao's character over the course of the show. While on the surface he appears to be yet another hot-blooded shonen protagonist he's also surprisingly gentle and thoughtful. His actions are colored by the knowledge that his older brother passed away from illness a few years before the show began. This kid just doesn't want to see people suffer. Even if someone picks a fist fight with him, he won't hit them. He'll just bob, weave, and use their own weight against them until they give up. I love this kid, he's got such a charming attitude. Every scene he's in puts a smile on my face, even the one where he turned into a fish.

  Around Gao, a supporting cast gathers. Notable mentions include:

  -Tasuku Ryuenji, the progatonist of the show's initial draft. He's a much more soft-spoken character who builds a rivalry with Gao over the course of the series that culminates in a final showdown that DID make me cry.

  -Paruko Nanana, the commentator that flies around in a UFO. Probably my favorite side character in the show. She's got sass, she's got goofs, and above all she's got a love for her job. She's always saying, "wherever there's a buddyfight, Paruko Nanana will be there." and She's RIGHT. She even shows up to some truly absurd places like, "the inside of an ancient demon god's stomach" or "the fucking moon". I watched this show knowing that in the sequel series, she's married to Gao. I don't think they interacted enough on screen for all that.. BUT, the interactions they did have did sell me on the idea that they could learn to love each other. My favorite ParuGao moment was Paruko's only on screen fight (where she wasn't possessed by a demon). She's the surprise anchor for her team in the Gaen cup, facing off against Gao. Nobody knows how she's going to fight or what kind of strategy she'll use because she's been in the commentator's chair for the entire show up until this point. Then, she reveals that she knows all of Gao's moves because she's been there for Every. Single. One. of his fights. That shit's good. That shit's SO good.

  -Kiri Horyu, This poor kid gets turbo bullied all the time. The season's arc is about him coming into his own by learning from Gao... and some uh... less scrupulous teachers too. His arc is a lot like Aichi from Cardfight Vanguard. There's a twist on his character revealed in Buddyfight 100 that REALLY made me resonate with him.

  -Kuguru Uki, the analyst of the group. She assists Gao's deck builder, Baku in analyzing opponents' strategies and finding counters. She's kinda quirky. I like her, but she does tragically fall prey to "Girl in Shonen Anime" disease. On Screen mentions of her role or talents for the team get DRASTICALLY diminished as the series goes on. On occasion you'll see her playtesting decks with Baku, but her actual job as an analyst is consistently sidelined.

  -Baku Omori, the Deck Builder. This guy fucking rules. He's a mechanic and a card game enthusiast, but he doesn't actually PLAY Buddyfight. His passion is in putting together decks to fit their users. He's basically Gao's number one guy over the course of the show. A villain will appear, utilize their gameplan to crush someone, and then it's Baku's job to go, "Here's what we can do about it. Think you can handle it?" And every time, Gao goes, "I trust you." and does it. In a show like this, a deck is a symbol of a character. Gao so consistently entrusts his deck building to Baku that I CAN'T say anyone in this show has a stronger relationship with them. Not even Gao's various buddies.

  Oh, right, buddies. The show's called Buddyfight, so you might have figured this out, but most of the major players have a "Buddy Monster" who came from another world to fight alongside them. Gao's buddy (for the first two seasons) is Drum Bunker Dragon. He goes by Drum for short. He came to fight with Gao so that he could learn the skills necessary to take over his dad's spot as head of the Bunker Dragons. Also, he's really hot. Have I mentioned that yet? He's such a handsome guy. Now, DRUM is a lot more of a "Hot-Head Shonen Protagonist" type than Gao is. Together, they make one entire Goku. Honestly, it's a little unfair of me to not talk about him up to this point. He's just as important as Gao. That's why it's such a big status quo shake-up when he eventually leaves the show to become a family man. (Don't worry, he comes back having had 10 kids in what is presumably a matter of months? Drum fucks. Just wish it were me.)

  I'm gonna talk about each season of the show a little bit now. Know that I'm leaving SO MANY special little twists and surprises on the table for you to pick up when you watch the show. This is my whole-hearted recommendation. If you need me to just flat out say, "You should watch Future Card Buddyfight", this is me doing that.

  Future Card Buddyfight

  The first season follows a pretty standard escalation from just playing pickup games where they appear, to entering the school tournament, on to a regional, etc etc. Along the way, Drum and Gao have about a dozen Odd Couple moments. They butt heads a LOT over stupid shit like "who gets the last pudding?". It's delightful.

  There's some wrinkles thrown into this escalation of tournament scale. In this buddy-based society there are also buddy-based crimes. A series of thefts is being conducted by a mysterious criminal named Wolf. This criminal happens to have luxurious hair and look kiiiiinda similar to Gao's upperclassmen, Rouga. Surely this is a coincidence. Wolf butts heads with the Buddy Police several times over the season. He possesses an ability called "Disaster Force" that lets him use items and spells from the game in every day life. The Buddy Police have a secret weapon, though. Tasuku, the Buddy Police Boy Wonder, has a power of his own. The "Future Force" is a lot like Disaster Force but if it was cool and awesome instead of evil and scary. Both of these powers make you grow super long hair, by the way. It looks so cool in a stupid way.

  Eventually, the secret behind Wolf's identity and who gave him the Disaster Force is revealed. It turns out the real villain of Buddyfight was CAPITALISM. Or at the very least, a capitalist. Kyoya Gaen is a teen CEO for a company that... Honestly, I'm not sure what Gaen Financial Group actually DOES. Its existence kind of just gives him a lot of money and social standing to abuse as an antagonist, which is fine by me. Kyoya's something of an accelerationist. He thinks if he makes everything VERY VERY BAD by allowing monsters from the mythical Darkness Dragon World to invade, his ideal world will rise from the ashes. To this end, he's assembled a task force of Gay Children that he manipulates to do his bidding. Kyoya is responsible for a truly incredible scene in which he Blatantly Cheats in a game of Buddyfight to, and I quote, "See how easy [Rouga] would be to manipulate." Of course, it falls to Gao to defeat Kyoya before his Gay Child Task Force can open a portal to Darkness Dragon World.

  Future Card Buddyfight 100

  Having saved the world once, what's next for Gao? Getting a Child Job, of course! The second season, Buddyfight 100, follows Gao as he tries to balance being a full-time elementary school student with his new job as the inaugural member of the Buddy Police Youth. Why isn't Tasuku there? Well, he went off to Dragon World (the normal one, not the Darkness one) to train. I'll talk about Buddyfight and The Police in a bit, but before I drag the mood down a little with that, I should mention that Gao picks up a new deck this season. In addition to the Dragon World deck Gao's going to continue to play for most of the show, he and drum occasionally slip into Hero World cards that are based on classic tokusatsu and mecha series.

  Not long after Gao joins up with the Buddy Police, strange monsters called Hundred Demons start appearing. They serve an ancient demon by the name of Yamigedo. Hot on the trail of the Hundred Demons are a mysterious group of monsters calling themselves the Omni Lords. They seek Gao's help in making sure Yamigedo is sealed within his prison, lest he devour the universe.

  Buddyfight 100 is far more formulaic than the first season for a long period of time. It eventually breaks the mold it sets for itself, but by god I hope you found Shidou from last season's Gay Child Task Force as funny as my watchgroup did. If you DON'T enjoy watching that loser get owned over and over again, the first half of 100 is going to be a bit of a slog. If you DO enjoy him, you'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

  Once again, a lot of details and big moments that I LOVE lie in this show. I could talk more about the season's antagonist Ikazuchi or how Kyoya attempts to hijack the show at the last minute and not only fails but makes Yamigedo MORE POWERFUL or how I think Kiri is surprisingly solid plural rep. I'm not going to do any of that because I cannot recommend watching Buddyfight ENOUGH.

  With my praises sung, if there was ever a time to address the elephant in the room, Buddyfight 100 was it. The Buddy Police are a recurring factor in basically any buddyfight story. Gao's rival is a Kid Cop. For the duration of 100, several beloved characters are working directly for the Buddy Police. you can't ignore their impact on the story. HOWEVER, I do want to commend Buddyfight Season 1 in particular for dedicating a sizable chunk of its runtime to being about police corruption. I also appreciate how it isn't really the Buddy Police who get shit done around here. It is EXACTLY Tasuku and Gao. Even after Gao leaves the Buddy Police, he's the one stopping the evil plans again and again. I have mixed feelings on the Buddy Police as a concept, but I do feel like the show's execution is doing something that isn't Actively And Constantly Gassing Up The Police. Often times, they exist to get bodied and then let the Real Twelve Year Olds handle the problem.

  Future Card Buddyfight DDD

  As with any long-running shonen, future seasons introduce new characters for us to fawn over and try to shake up the dynamics. For Buddyfight, that came in the form of DDD (Triple D). The events of the first two seasons are only vaguely alluded to, Drum's gone home, and Gao's friends treat him like he's just kind of an average fighter despite saving the world twice. It's not too big of a problem for me, but some people might be bothered by doing a soft reset like this. As long as the story being told to me from that point on is fun, I'm willing to accept these concessions. What makes DDD strange is that despite not referencing the events of previous seasons heavily, they have Gao do things like... point out he's fought with Serial Antagonist, Kyoya Gaen before? Down to knowing what his cards do because they're the same ones from season 1? That is, of course, a minor inconsistency.

  DDD is a lot SILLIER than the first two seasons. Characters get more expressive, comedy gets more slapstick, for the first half of the show they even do little comedy skits at the start of every episode that are in a completely different animation style. It works its ass off to endear you to Gao's new buddy, Bal. He's The Dragon of The Sun and he's also just a widdle baby who doesn't remember anything. This show DOES a lot of the "walking, talking baby who doesn't know what they're doing" bits like, "stealing" and "being gullible", but it's nigh impossible to hate Bal. He's literally a baby. Why would I have beef with a baby?

  By the time that silly and fun first half of the season is done, I'm ready for them to hurt me. DDD has a special kind of emotional whiplash I haven't gotten anywhere else. An episode can reveal a horrifying truth about a beloved buddy's origins and they can fly into the night, tears streaming down their face, only for the "Next Episode" card to tell us, "THE NEXT BUDDYFIGHTER IS A CAT!" and have the following episode's title be comprised ENTIRELY of "meow"s. Gao can slowly turn into a fish over the course of 3 episodes because he ate a weird seaweed and the entire cast can treat it with dreadful seriousness, genuine fear they're going to lose Gao... to being a fish. A mad scientist can abduct Bal to obtain the secrets of his power and spend the next 20 minutes trying to break through his shell with a comically large hammer. And then, at the end of it all, Bal can realize he has to bid Gao farewell... Together, they can have one final fight against Tasuku and his buddy, Jack. They can realize there's not enough time in the world for them to do everything they want to together. Bal can fade away, tears in his eyes, knowing that while this is goodbye for him and Gao, he'll wake back up one day and make bonds like this again. In a future where Buddyfight still exists.

  Future Card Buddyfight X

  The final season in Gao Mikado's story is Future Card Buddyfight X. With Drum returned to his family and Bal slumbering until the world needs him once more, Gao is in need of a Buddy to compete in the World Buddy Masters tournament. This time around, his Buddy is Demon Lord Dragon, Batzz. Batzz was sealed away for crimes he may or may not have committed against Dragon World. He's also Really Sexy but you didn't hear it from me. In ancient times, Batzz lead a revered and feared army called the Thunder Empire. They rallied around him once more, granting Gao a new deck filled with all new dragons. Together, they tackle the World Buddy Masters and win the prize: A special "Mirage Card" that can become whatever the owner wishes it to.

  The Mirage Card ends up the center piece of a conflict with a new CEO, one that isn't Kyoya Gaen. Wisdom is his name and he's a GROWN-ASS MAN. He is a grown-ass man whose plan to turn all the monsters in all the worlds into his mechanical puppets might have worked had he not continued beefing with elementary schoolers. His family also seems to be responsible for Batzz's troubled past in some way. though Batzz acts like a big, bad demon dragon, he's really an innocent victim of the Wisdom Clan's meddling. This is the truth of Batzz's heart that Gao saw right from the start.

  In their quest to stop Wisdom, Gao does the sickest shit imaginable. He uses the Mirage Card to create a new flag to fight under. Thunder Emperor's Fangs lets him play cards from every single world. This means he gets to fight alongside every single one of his friends and their buddies every fight. There's a couple specialty flags like this throughout the series, but this is the first and only time the protagonist of the series gets to use one. It kicks ass. Thunder Empire is actually the deck I started playing Buddyfight with and it's the one I play to this day. It'll always hold a special place in my heart. Several of their effects require you to use monsters from various worlds. It gives a gameplay benefit to valuing diversity and different perspectives. Where Wisdom would simply take monsters from other worlds and homogenize them to fit under his banner, Gao welcomes outsiders to fight with him.

  Buddyfight X also has the benefit of having my favorite Final Fight in the show... twice. X actually gets a mini-season tacked on to the end that serves as a joyful sendoff to all the characters we've met so far. The season begins with the World Buddy Masters and ends with the Gao's Genuine Gameface Cup. (GGG Cup) It features the return of Drum and Bal so that they can fight with Gao and Batzz through one last tournament bracket. (It is never explained how Bal woke up early, but it doesn't matter.) The GGG Cup plays all the hits. Kyoya has one more final plot to thwart, Ikazuchi and Yamigedo are back for a friendly rematch, and all Gao's major rivals (minus Gaito, sorry the bracket worked out that way) get their runback. It's the exact kind of finale a show with this kind of history deserves. There's a reason bookends endured the test of time. They work. They make you think about how far you've come and you get a little teary-eyed as Gao hits one last Gargantua Punisher.

 

  2024's Kamen Rider Gavv concluded three weeks ago at time of writing. As per usual, watching Kamen Rider as it aired with my lovely partner was a blast. I wouldn't give it up for anything. It helps that Gavv is like, top 3 Reiwa seasons for me. It doesn't dethrone my Heisei-era faves, but god damn does it try. The visuals are poppy, the sound design is full of ear worms, and its story's got heart.

  Gavv follows Shouma Inoue-Stomach, the titular Kamen Rider Gavv, as he tries to stop his family's drug trade. It's a lot like Kamen Rider W in that way. The main rider is an escaped member of a crime family who holds a number of secrets in his past. A lot of villain drama comes from the Stomach Family being comprised of Petty Bitches Who Can't Wait To Get What They Want. Not only do every single one of them want Shouma dead as he's the affair baby their dad had with a human woman that they so mercilessly turned into drugs in front of him, they're also constantly doing little power grabs between each other. Other than Lango, the villains in Gavv are driven by what I can only call, "Middle Child Behavior". They all want to be the top dog and rule over what their dad left behind.

  The protagonist cast is endearing. They've got quite a bit less wrong with them than the antagonists this time around, but they've got their struggles. It's Kamen Rider, it would not work if NOBODY had any trauma. Hanto, Kamen Rider Valen, is a journalist who's investigating the death of his mother. Once he pieces together that a monster did it, he's so ready to let a strange scientist in a back alley experiment on him (without anesthesia, mind you) and turn him into a Kamen Rider. There's a handful of really funny bits toward the start of the show where he and Gavv are trying to hide their secret identities from each other. It's kind of like if in Faiz, they cut inside of Yuji's thoughts and he was freaking the fuck out. When those go away, they're replaced with some pretty blatant yaoi between Hanto and Shouma. I really appreciate that Junko Komura threw us a bone on this one.

  This year's tertiary rider is far and away my favorite of the bunch. Rakia Amarga is a former Stomach Company employee who joined up to investigate the untimely demise of his little brother from the inside. It was a REALLY shortsighted plan made out of anger, desperation, and a belief that no one could be trusted. Shouma has to use his lovable little puppy dog eyes to convince Rakia not to kill him and Hanto. From then on, the trio work together to defeat the Stomach Company. This is also the point where the show unveils Rakia's GAP MOE. He's this big, serious guy but the reason he's made no progress on his goals is because he's a lazy little bastard! He finds out that to "investigate" a "crime", you need to "go outside" and all he can say is, "This sucks."

  There's still a lot of things Shouma is hiding from the others. It takes an awful long time for anyone in this show to learn that they're up against Shouma's FAMILY and when they do, it takes a lot of work to smooth things over again. When you're not watching Shouma's Gochizos run around like little pikmin, you're watching these slow-burn interpersonal dramas. Tension rises for months between these three until something FORCES Shouma to spill the beans. His biggest flaw is that he's so non-confrontational. He's found family and friends that care about him and he's so utterly terrified of losing them that it causes him to make things worse for himself.

  No discussion of Gavv would be complete without talking about Sachika Amane. She's the boss of Shouma's part time job, the emotional core of the show, and a litmus test by which you can find out who in your viewing party is a raging misogynist. Sachika embodies the kindness and warmth of Kamen Rider. She's funny, she's cool, and she's got a fire in her heart. Why then, does she not get to join the fight? The previous year's Kamen Rider Gotchard did a lot to make me appreciate its non-transforming cast. I've watched and adored Heisei era Kamen Rider, where there are TONS of characters that don't transform or fight at all. I know there are ways to contribute to the story of a Kamen Rider series in a positive way without picking up a belt. The problem is that Sachika is the ONLY woman in our core of 4 protagonists and the only character among them that does not get to transform, let alone get in a fight. The gender politics of Gavv are really the only issue I have with this show. I would be complaining so much less if, say, Hanto was a woman. Why CAN'T Hanto be a woman? Why can't Shouma be a woman? Is there a real world reason that isn't rooted in misogyny? I dare you to find one. "The primary rider can't be a woman because it won't sell" is a reason rooted in misogyny.

  I think Gavv is worth the watch despite troubled gender stuff, but it would behoove me to mention it and the MONTHS of discourse I had to suffer through where people kept leaping through hoops to find reasons Women weren't allowed to Do Things. It's really unfortunate because this show DOES have some pretty sweet girl villains, but no heroes. Keelin said they should have given Sachika a cool sword toy or something and I'm inclined to agree. I can't say enough that the only problem with Kamen Rider Gavv is that it's the first Rider show in YEARS that doesn't have a woman pick up a belt.

 

  I would say Fate/Stay Night needs no introduction but, I went to two different anime stores this summer and couldn't find a single Saber. Fate/Stay Night is a visual novel created by doujin-circle-turned-game-company Type-Moon, written by Kinoko Nasu, and illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi. Seven mages summon spirits of heroes from the past as Servants to fight in a war over the Holy Grail. Y'know, like the one Jesus's Blood was in, maybe. It also happens to be an eroge with three different routes, each focused on one of 3 heroines. Which girl will you choose to have our protagonist, Shirou, go out with? It's uhhh... not really much of a choice because PICKING a girl to date isn't the point of Fate. Yes, Shirou pursues romance and sex scenes staring technically-18-year-old characters over the course of the game, but he does so in a set order. You have to play Saber's route (Fate) to unlock Rin's (Unlimited Blade Works) and you have to play Rin's route to unlock Sakura's (Heaven's Feel). It's less of a "choose your favorite girl" and more of a proper narrative escalation. Unlimited Blade Works builds off of themes laid out in Fate and Heaven's Feel builds off of themes laid out in Unlimited Blade Works. There's a reason the game asks you to play them in order.

  FSN is pretty dense in terms of how MUCH of it there is. It took me several months to read it all. The actual prose is pretty breezy though. I rarely got "tired" of reading it, mostly during some of Unlimited Blade Works's many... many... many fight scenes. If I could change one thing about this game, it would be forcing Nasu to tighten up some of these fights. There are several points at which I feel the game is simply Too Long. It's honestly given me a lot of conficence that the VN I'm working on currently is NOT too short. I've seen what a VN that's too long looks like now. Going from Fate to Unlimited Blade Works was a bit of a pain at the start becuase while you can skip previously viewed scenes, if the scene in which Shirou is told information the reader already knows from Fate is DIFFERENT, you still have to read all of it despite it saying pretty much the same thing.

  When they aren't giving informational monologues about this world's ACTUALLY PRETTY INTERESTING magic system, the cast bounces off of each other quite well. Shirou has pretty fun chemistry with all of the girls. Saber, the Servant Shirou summoned accidentally, is a DELIGHT. She's a resolute, duty-focused individual... who just so happens to love Shirou's cooking and worry about him sooooo much. Far much more than Shirou worries about himself. She worries about Shirou more than she worries about herself. You'll find this is a through-line with characters in this game. They're all way too self-sacrificing for their own good and they can only recognize that through their interactions with each other. Maybe the reason they mesh so well in casual conversations is because they're all reflections of each other. Fate is pretty heavily about recognizing your own flaws by seeing them in other people.

  Legacy is another big theme in Fate/Stay Night. This Holy Grail War is far from the first one. Most of the game's cast has some kind of connection to the history of using Servants to battle. Someone, be it a parent or a mentor, got them involved and handed them a legacy to follow. Even when trying desperately to make someone NOT grow up like you, if you're taking care of a kid you'll leave an impact on them. The previous Grail War is alluded to constantly. Its echoes are felt in every aspect of this one. By the time Heaven's Feel comes around, it's pretty clear that this Grail War was doomed from the start because of the actions of the cast's forefathers. This world has history we aren't privy to. You can get a glimpse of that history by reading a Prequel Light Novel written by Gen Urobuchi... but I've seen what happens when Gen Urobuchi writes about guys fighting to the death for a wish. I don't know if I can do it again. Anyway, I appreciate the lived-in quality this world has. There's a million things happening that we aren't privy to. There's other "members of the church" besides Kotomine? I wonder what they're like. The Mages' Association is constantly alluded to, but no one from it actually shows up in the game. Several times, Rin talks about the wider culture of magecraft that don't actually impact this game or any of the characters in it. The world feels more lived-in than it is because of these little details.

  The legacy that Shirou inherits from his adoptive father is a wish to Save Everyone. It seems like a pretty standard "protagonist motivation" at first, but it kind of snowballs out of control. This wish is the root of Shirou's lack of care for himself. He believes that if he can use his life to make others happy, that's all it's good for. Fate route plays this pretty straight as he tries desperately to save Saber as she suffers from the exact same problem as him. Unlimited Blade Works twists it by showing us what the consequences of Shirou's path might look like. Heaven's Feel is a fitting finale for the game that shows us what it might look like if Shirou were to turn his back on the idea of saving everyone. The game's three routes are in conversation with one another as they explore different aspects of Shirou's Savior Complex.

Many people will tell you to just watch the UBW anime and the Heaven's Feel movies, but not having all three routes to explore Shirou's inner world does it a disservice. Fate/Stay Night is a game that builds upon itself over your three playthroughs of it. In this world of people who fucking despise the concept of reading, it's often assumed that anime adaptations of works like this are the "ideal" way to engage with them. This is NOT the case for Fate whatsoever. The entire franchise's relationship with anime adaptations is kind of fraught. So much of what makes Fate work is Nasu's prose, something that is bound to be lost in the translation from game to moving picture. There's a lot of looking into characters' thoughts and reflecting on them that is cut because it doesn't make for very interesting TV. It just doesn't sit right to think about engaging with only the surface-level externality of a work like this. I recommend Fate/Stay Night, but only if you're willing to knuckle down and read. There's not an anime that gets to the core of what made this hit so hard. (The UBW anime DOES add what would be my favorite scene of the route were it included in the game, though. It's not without redeeming qualities.)