Anime Review - Cardfight!! Vanguard - Link Joker (Eps 105-163) 2013

Right then, so, I've made it to Vanguards 3rd series....Link joker... , although a more accurate translation from the original Japanese would be "Chain joker", but never mind...
At the time of writing, only 48 episodes of the 59 episode series have been Released for free viewing on YouTube in English, so this review is somewhat incomplete, however the storyline is pretty simple to understand.

So, the story takes up some time after Team Q4 are victorious in the Asia circuit tournament, and Aichi has progressed from junior high school to senior high school, but, having switched schools, this means he now only really sees the other members of Team Q4 and his circle of friends when he visits Card Capital. The first few episodes of the series deal with Aichi attempting to start a "Cardfight Club" at his new school (Japanese schools place a heavy emphasis on extra curricular after school activities as a way of increasing student socialisation and learning opportunities) , however he finds that even with his enthusiasm, plus assistance from some of his friends, the prefect of the student council opposes him at every opportunity.
Its at this point the series makes a fairly big change to the established format and group of core characters, as many characters from previous series are relegated to being supporting or background characters, even Aichi himself is missing from several episodes during the mid series, where many of the stories concentrate on other characters facing problems with the series antagonist storyline, the "link joker".
"Link Joker" is the name given to a new aspect of the Void, who was the main enemy throughout series 1 and 2. simply put, the Void has now refined its tactics for conquering the planet Cray by instead of manipulating people who have "PsyQualia" powers, it applies its evil influence to anyone it can find, simply by having a cardfighter that is has possessed beat other players, who it in turn possesses by means of a technique called "Reverse". Those who are "Reversed" generally become evil, and their personality traits become a mirror opposite of their original standing, for example, in Kais case, he goes from enjoying a good game of Vanguard to simply wanting to win at all costs, generally by annihilating his opponents through the use of overpowered card mechanics, or in the case of Kenji, he goes from wanting to spread the message of truth and justice, to becoming a despotic tyrant obsessed with power. Generally, those who have been Reversed can be identified by the fact that their eyes go "dead" and they gain red facial tattoos whenever they use their power.
Only a few people, namely Aichi and Leon, are capable of resisting the power of Reverse, which not only makes the possessed evil, it also replaces cards in their deck with evil Reversed versions of their best cards.
The only way to release someone from being possessed is to bet them at a game of vanguard, which Aichi and Leon, then later joined by some of the others start doing once the Voids evil plot has been discovered.

This series gets really boring halfway through when they go back to having entire double episodes concentrating solely on a card by card play through of games, although this time round the "action" is stretched out by having cut scenes featuring flashbacks which fill in some of the lesser known characters backgrounds, which is pretty good as through this method we find out that Tetsu originally had no interest in vanguard until he met Ren, and that Kenji was originally rather crap at the game until he met  Gai and Yuri and learnt enough from being beaten by them to increase his skills and eventually surpass them.

This series also introduces a couple of new characters into Aichis circle of friends, namely Shingo Komoi, a fan of Aichi and a pretty good Vanguard player, and Naoki Ishida, a young man who originally tried to bully Aichi but was amazed by how confident Aichi became when playing Vanguard, so much to the point that he starts playing Vanguard himself being as he has never had a proper hobby himself before and finds he quite enjoys playing the game both of these characters end up being reversed at one point, and Aichi saves them).
One interesting-ish plot development is a growing attraction between Kourin (of the pop group "Ultra Rare", now a student at Aichis school) and Aichi, something which is played on after she is Reversed and becomes obsessed with Reversing him so they can be together.


So, thus far the series is fair to middlin' in content, although the storyline is basically the same as the YuGiOh! GX "Society of Light" storyline, insofar as an outside power begins beating people at a card game in order to convert them to their cause, with the fate of the world decided by who comes out on top. it really drops the ball mid series though by returning to the long drawn out cardfights between players during which the characters exchange tense and somewhat boring dialogue, again, a departure form series 2s in game dialogue, most of which was actually entertaining and somewhat funny.

My verdict on this series is that they shouldn't have tampered with a winning formula and gone back to the ridiculously over serious tones of the original series, but nontheless it isn't a bad watch.

Gorefest - ReGOREgitated Sacrifice (2008)

Right then, no anime related offerings today, just some good old fashioned blood and guts.

So, I cant remember how I came across this film, well, I say film, its more of an hour long straight to video special more than anything...the key word there being "speeeecciaaall".

Apparently this is the second film in a loose trilogy called the "Vomit gore trilogy", after viewing this, I cant say that I will be eager to view the other two entries in the series.


So, the plot is simple....there isn't one, well, nothing resembling a coherent plot anyway, because quite simply, all this film boils down to is a series of rather badly edited scenes strung together in some sort of bizarre dream like sequence in which various horrible things happen, usually including someone being vomited on and/or someone being killed in a fairly horrible manner...yes that's right folks, this film is a pseudo-snuff film.

It becomes extremely obvious within minutes of attempting to watch this piece of straight to video shit that the director, the imaginatively named "Lucifer Valentine", has very poor film making skills, and has managed to convince himself that his attempts are "arty" in some way. Its also fairly obvious throughout that Mr. Valentine has some very bizarre fantasies, mostly involving vomit, violence and sadism against women, lesbianism and some level of fascination with "Water sports" .

The overall "theme" of this film seems to be stories about female runaways/abductees who are subjected to torture and humiliation before being killed in some fashion, more often than not willingly.
 Scenes shown include:-

• A woman being disemboweled by identical twins, before then being choked/strangled with her own entrails before being vomited on by several people.
• A pregnant woman drinking her own urine, before then vomited and urinated on by a woman identified as being her "stepmother".
• A pair of co joined twins being "separated" by having the co joined bit in their head cut through with a hacksaw, then shown slowly dying as blood and brain matter leak from the hole in their heads.
• A woman being beheaded with a hacksaw before having the eyes and brains scooped out of her skull, which is then vomited in by a man wearing an octopus on his head who then drinks his own vomit.
• A woman performing oral sex on a man who ejaculates blood on to her once she has bitten his (obviously fake) penis.
• Numerous scenes of women being strapped into a gynaecologists chair and then being beaten, stabbed, whipped, vomited on etc.
• Numerous scenes of lesbian threesomes involving identical twins and a pregnant woman.

Scenes are randomly inter dispersed with discordant music, pictures of small children, and even a scene where one of the women who is later killed reciting a poem about kurt cobain.
Most scenes are shot at strange angles, and some include odd black and white or colour reversal effects, some scenes are also very obviously filmed using a camera which has been badly attached to a remote control car.


So yeah, This film, and by extension I would presume the entire series of films, goes to show that just because you own a video camera and have an idea, does not mean that you should make a film of that idea and then attempt to sell it to people. If i were to classify this film, I would not place it in either the "horror" or "slasher" genres, instead, I'd have to put it in the "shocker-porn"

Gaming Review:- Star Trek Attack Wing OP "The Collective" - Month 1

So, finally got round to playing the Star Trek Attack Wing Organised Play event "The Collective - Month 1", somewhat later than what everybody else has.

In what is a 3 part organised play event, similar to last years "Dominion War" event, which I missed due to not playing the game at the time, the idea, other than to sell the recently released Borg related products, is that the Borg have suddenly appeared in the Star Trek Universe and are up to all sorts of shennanigans etc.

The Fleet Build

Each player constructs a fleet up to 90 squadron points, within the limitations of the ships/personnel selected. In addition, players each receive a "blind" boost pack, containing one of the following ships:-

• Federation Saber class ship /U.S.S Yeager
• Klingon D7 battle cruiser/IKS B'Moth
• Romulan Bird of Prey/IRW Vorta Vor
• Independent Maquis Raider/Gavroche
• Dominion Jem'Hadar Attack ship/ 3rd wing attack ship.

Players will then use the contents of this booster to make a unit to the value of 30 SP and use it as part of their fleet.


The Scenario

Players set up along opposite edges, facing each other, then the Borg cube token is placed in the middle of the play area. the turn proceeds as normal (players may NOT attack the Cube at any time, even if able) however at the end of the turn, three ships within range 2 of the cube run the risk of having upgrades "assimilated" by it.
During the turn, players may spend a ships action to add a "resist" token, which allows them to either ignore or choose the upgrade (crew member, weapon or item) which the Borg take, by rolling an attack dice and the outcome decided by what is rolled. Otherwise, upgrades are taken by means of "random" selection (it is left up to players to decide how this is done, personally, I put my upgrade cards in deck protectors, shuffled them and then allowed my opponent to choose a face down card, I found this worked better than the "roll a dice" method that some people were using).
Once a ship has exhausted all of its available upgrades, the Captain card is taken, and once that has gone, the Cube instead makes an attack on the captainless ship with 8 attack dice.

After the Cube has "assimilated", it then moves towards the players fleets, in a direction randomly determined based on whether there are any ships to move towards, or whether its movement would take it "off-board" (the cube will not move in a direction where there are no ships, and cannot move in a direction which will end with its movement taking it out of the play area).

The game ends when one or both players have no ships remaining on the board.

Opinion

As per tournament dictats, I played 3 games over the course of the day:-

Round 1 - Federation (me) V Dominion/Klingon (loss)
Round 2 - Federation (me) V Borg/Dominion (win)
Round 3 - Federation (me) V Federation/Klingon (loss)

Final placing - 6th.

Although the idea must have seemed like a cool one when the scenario was being devised, basically as a homage to the TNG episode "Q Who", it quickly becomes apparent that this scenario has several extremely big flaws.

1. The cube is either irrelevant to play, or dominates play.


The inability of players to attack or incapacitate the Cube whenever it comes near them seriously hampers the objective of basically annihilating each other. Although players may "resist" their upgrades being taken, the effectiveness of the ability to resist is negligible.
The Cubes random movement can also end with a Cube "following" a player around the board, rather unfairly picking on them, especially so when it crashes into ships as its movement makes it land on top of them and forces them to take damage.

2. The 30 point ships are basically worthless.
The best tactic I worked out (I tried 3 different strategies over the course of the day) was to use the 30 point ship as a lure, splitting it off from the "main" fleet so that when the Cube made its "random" movement, there was a chance it would go off in the direction of that ship and not attack the main fleet. Of course, this opened up the possibility that your main fleet would be at a disadvantage due to being one ship down, however with the attack values of the smaller ships being quite low, they were little more than fire support anyway.
When building the 30 point "special" fleet you were pretty much limited to choosing either the "named" captain and maybe one or two upgrades, or choosing the "unnamed captain" and upgrades that would compliment each other. the definite winner of the "Blind Booster" ship category goes to the Klingon ship, which when taken as unnamed with the named captain, allowed for a ship that had a decent level of firepower, a cloaking device and a named captain that allowed you to disable enemy crew members.

3. "Prize" items offer horrendously unbalanced advantages for this scenario.
The ability to boost firepower and take free actions makes or breaks this scenario, and being as that most of these boosts come courtesy of tournament prize items, if you don't have them, or don't have the money to purchase them from Ebay, you're fucked.
To be honest, this is something that seems to be a common problem in any STAW game, as the "general" release ships and cards, as well as participation freebies, offer very little by way of advantage over "Prize" items, to the point at which sometimes it basically boils down to "if you weren't playing this game 18 months ago, its not worth bothering with organised play".

Overall Thoughts
The 90 point fleet restriction, plus having limited access to being able to buy stuff, really hampered my ability to make a coherent and competitive fleet, especially against prize item using opponents. Although I was quite pleased that I got the Saber class ship as my blind, the point and build restriction on that meant that I couldn't use it to its full potential as a torpedo boat.
The added frustration of the invincible Cube interfering with play and not being able to do much about it pretty much meant that I was fucked before I had even bothered rolling any dice, so in essence, the game boiled down to "whoever has spent the most money wins".
The participation freebie is quite good though, with the counter attack dice allowing you to substitute one defence dice for it, and possibly inflict damage on your opponent when they attack you.
In short though, this scenario sucked, and wasn't the slightest bit enjoyable to participate in whatsoever.

Cardfight!! Vanguard - The Movie: Stand up!, Vanguard! (2012)

So, feeling a little drained after watching the "Asia Circuit" series in the space of 3 days, I decided that the best way of having a rest from watching Cardfight!! Vanguard was to..... watch a movie based on the same thing.....

Just a warning before you read on, this review/recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film and don't want the storyline completely ruined, go watch it first.



Ready?, Ok....

This 2012 "Movie" (although like many Japanese movies based on popular TV shows, it is actually more of a TV special than a cinema piece) was made following the success of the first TV anime series.
Unlike the anime series however, this is a live action presentation, and, oddly, the actual card game is simply used as a springboard to tell a story, rather than being a critical part of the storyline overall.
That's not to say this is a bad film, but it certainly isn't a good one either.

The storyline goes as follows:
Hiroki is a shy young boy who is bullied a lot at school. One day, he is attacked by a gang of bullies and attracts the attention of a mysterious stranger called "Daigo" (translates roughly as "great power", played by the Japanese musician/voice actor of the same name, who is playing an exaggerated version of himself). Daigo, in an attempt to save the boy, and impress an attractive teacher from Hirokis school, ends up getting himself beaten up by the kids, however, after the bullies run away, he finds out that Hirokis teacher, Maria, is worried about him, so Daigo takes it upon himself to help the boy come out of his shell.
Daigo gets himself appointed as a "Special teacher" at the school Hiroki attends, by saying he is a "Genius" and a graduate of Harvard University (although the diploma/certificate he shows to prove his credentials is from the "HarvardA university", and is obviously fake), and embarks on a campaign to cheer Hiroki up and get him to do something other than sulk.
As it turns out, Hiroki is a fairly depressed kid, as he is regularly left home alone by his workaholic father, and his mother died some years previously, which deeply affected Hiroki emotionally. To make matters worse, Hirokis father, on the rare occasion when he does actually see and speak to him, is very dismissive of Hiroki's hobby, which is playing the CCG "Cardfight!! Vanguard", dismissing it as a stupid waste of time and not the activity of a man.
Daigo finds that Hirokis passion for Vanguard helps him gain confidence, and that Hiroki is pretty good at the game, so he encourages him to challenge the lead bully, Teru, to a game, Hiroki reluctantly does, and suffers a humiliating defeat.
Daigo however, doesn't give up, he learns as much as he can about the game and then offers Hiroki encouragement in pursuing his hobby, even though Hirokis father is still disinterested and abusive to his son about it.
Daigo, along with Maria, encourage Hiroki to enter a Vanguard team tournament, in order to prove his worth and get revenge on Teru for his bullying by beating him in fair competition. The first few rounds go well, and "Team Hiroki" manage to get through to the finals against "Team Teru", which will be held the following day, however disaster strikes when Maria (who is also pretty good at the game herself) is injured in an accident, and is left unable to play in the finals. Daigo approaches Hirokis father to replace her, but again he is dismissive, and Hiroki is angered by his fathers uncaring attitude. Via a flashback sequence, we learn that Hirokis mother was the one who bought Hiroki his first Vanguard starter deck, and regularly played the game with him, even when she was in hospital dying from some unspecified illness. Hiroki says that his father was never there for him, or his mother, and that he has never once shown any emotion over the mothers death.
The tournament comes, and Hirokis father attends, at first though pleading that he cannot participate because he is busy with work, but is eventually persuaded to put work second, just for once.
The final gets underway, with Hirokis father going first, using the deck that Hirokis mother built, he is defeated.
Daigo goes next, and manages to beat Terus "Special Teacher", who throughout the film has shown himself to be a bit of a sadist and spent his time teaching Teru to be the same, which causes the teacher to make a childish outburst before fleeing the building screaming like a child because he lost.
Finally, Hiroki plays against Teru, and, after a very tense match, Hiroki again loses, meaning Teru is awarded the prize for overall winner, however, Hiroki earns Terus respect and friendship by showing he can stand up for himself, Hiroki also learns that unlike what he had previously thought, his father did visit his mother shortly before she died, where they discussed Hiroki and how his mothers illness was affecting him, but he was unable to show his emotion because he dealt with his wife's death by throwing himself into his work rather than confront what had happened.

After father and son are reconciled, Daigo announces that Hiroki no longer needs him, as he has learned everything he needs to, but just as he leaves, Hiroki challenges him to a game of Vanguard....







This film is very, very Japanese, and was never really intended for consumption by non-Japanese audiences, so is somewhat difficult to watch in places unless you at least have a basic understanding of Japanese custom and culture.

I do like that the film takes place in the "real world", and not the "Anime world", with the characters being believable and not over the top anime stereotypes, and quite simply, the story boils down to one of an emotionally scarred boy reconnecting with his cold and distant father over a shared interest.
The fact that this interest is Cardfight!! Vanguard is purely incidental and only included for marketing reasons, hell, Hirokis passion could have been for playing chess, creative writing or even freestyle disco dancing, it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest.
I also like how during the scenes where the game is being played it is portrayed as the game would be played in real life, without all of the anime trappings of holographic characters, burning justice backgrounds and so on, and I also like how the game play scenes are kept brief, showing only "important" parts of play and the match outcomes.Similarly, I also like how they didn't go down the route of portraying the game as a worldwide phenomenon, with thousands of fans watching games in ridiculously oversized stadiums, instead portraying the game as it really is, namely small groups of people getting together to play a game as a hobby, and not as a lifestyle choice. Finally, I like how the film is expressly NOT used as a marketing vehicle for selling cards to viewers, as although cardfight cards are shown, very few of them are specifically named, and none are really described as being "ultimate awesome unbeatable" etc etc.

The film does not benefit from its short run time of 80 minutes, as the scenes in which Hirokis back story are filled in are somewhat rushed, and in some cases a little bit non-sequitur, also, Daigos being there and backstory isnt explored at all, but that can be excused being as that he plays the role of "mysterious stranger/mentor", as explaining his background would remove some of his mystery.
On the subject of Daigo, it is rather strange by western cultural standards for a strange man to take such an interest in the life of a child he barely knows, however this is a fairly standard trope in Japanese entertainment (hence "mysterious stranger/mentor") but it is not without any kind of equivalent in western fiction, Doctor Who being the first one that springs to mind.
I think this film suffers badly from the limited budget and poor writing imposed on it by being a niche TV special.

So all in all, "Stand up!, Vanguard!" isn't a bad film, it isn't a good one either, and certainly wouldn't be recommended to those who are looking to get a taster of the Cardfight universe.

Anime Review - Cardfight!! Vanguard - Asia Circuit (Eps 66-104) 2012

So, following on the heels of the first series, "Cardfight!! Vanguard - Asia Circuit" forms the second series of the Cardfight!! franchise. At only 39 episodes in length (probably because by this point there was no need to spend many episodes explaining game rules and card types) the series is shorter and much more to the point than the original series.
Again, this series is Available to watch for free on Youtube

The series begins a couple of weeks after Team Q4 is declared victorious in the national Vanguard tournament. Aichi, Kai, Kamui and Misaki have all gone their separate ways, in order to have some "time off" from the game.
One day, Aichi goes to Card Capital to find the shop deserted apart form a mysterious boy whom says he has an interest in playing Vanguard, so Aichi plays a game with him to teach him the basic rules. Throughout their battle, the boy keeps making cryptic statements about Aichis cards being "retro", and that Aichi needs to find his "Limit Break". Then during one turn, the boy speaks Aichis name, despite Aichi never actually telling him it, the next thing, Aichi wakes up and finds himself standing alone in the shop. He also finds that his deck, containing both Royal and Shadow paladin type cards has been replaced by a new deck containing cards from the new "Gold Paladin" clan, and the mystery gets stranger when his friends insist that he has always used a Gold paladin deck
Aichi seeks out Kai and tells him about the mysterious boy, and finds that Kai's Kagero deck has also been replaced by a new deck themed around the Narukami clan, and he too doesn't remember Aichi's old deck, or his own. Kai challenges Aichi to a game there and then, saying that if Aichis story is true, then he will need to practice with his new deck. During play he stumbles over what to do with the unfamiliar cards, however Kai points out that Aichi needs to stop behaving like a spoilt child and open himself up to new gameplay strategies, and with that, Kai demonstrates the new game mechanic of the "Limit Break", which utterly defeats Aichi in a single move.
Later, Aichi finds out that Team Q4 have been invited to participate in the VF Circuit (Vanguard Fighter) , an international level competition with teams from all over Asia meeting to play Vanguard to decide which team is the best.
He initially has some trouble forming a team, as Kai has completely disappeared, Misaki is indifferent towards playing, and Kamui has joined Team Handsome instead. Aichi however is successful and manages to take Team Q4 initially to the Singapore leg of the championships, then on to the Korean leg, Hong Kong leg, and then finally to the Japanese leg.
During the tournaments, Aichi makes it his goal to find the mysterious boy who swapped his deck and find out just what is going off, both here on Earth and on the planet Cray, along the way meeting up with old friends and making some new enemies. The battles they participate in are also made difficult by the addition of random game conditions, such as limiting the time that can be taken over turns, randomising attack targets etc.
Eventually, the mystery is solved, although the story of the battle for planet Cray is far from over....




This series is much better than the first series, as it benefits from actually having a decent and coherent story arc that stretches over the run.
In a brilliant marketing move, the series not only both makes sure it maximises sales of cards by prominently featuring a new card set with a new game play mechanic, but also encourages RL players to buy more cards by having Aichi face a problem encountered by most CCG players, namely having to change their play style to accommodate changes in game play and learning to adopt different play styles as opposed to just building and playing the same deck all the time.
That said though, once again, most of the on screen action takes place at the gaming tables of the tournament, however unlike the previous series, effort is made to make the games, and the characters dialogue whilst playing, interesting to watch and listen to.

So, I'd rate this series "quite good"

Anime Review - Cardfight!! Vanguard Series 1 (eps 1-65) 2011

Been a while since I indulged in my weeaboo leanings and watched any anime (YuGiOh! Arc-V doesn't count) so after seeing loads of people spunking off over it down at the local games shops, and finding out that the entire series is available to watch for free on Youtube, I thought I'd give Cardfight a try.

Now, I mostly don't watch modern animes (YuGiOh! Arc-V doesn't count) simply because I don't like the way that most modern animes have gone down the route of being all emo to make them more down with the kids at the expense of sex demons and lots of gratuitous violence and swearing, however I must admit a slight fondness for animes based on gaming, so, therefore, I should like Cardfight....hmmmm.

 So, the story arc of the first series, and what a series it is too coming in at a whopping 65 episodes, revolves around, as many of these types of show do, the card game "Cardfight!! Vanguard", which is said to be the most popular card game in the world.

Aichi Sendo is a teenaged boy who is a bit of a loner and gets bullied a lot, however one day his favourite trading card, "Blaster Blade", which was given to him as a gift (even though at the beginning of the series he has no interest in playing CCGs) is stolen by two bullies who plan to use it to beat the local Cardfight champion, Kai (who originally gave Aichi the Blaster Blade card).
Aichi races to the games shop "Card Capital" to beg for his favourite card back, however Kai has already beaten the bullies and taken "Blaster Blade" for himself, so Aichi challenges this as yet unbeaten "Cardfighter" to a game with the prize for winning being that Aichi gets his card back.
Aichi, despite never having played Cardfight!! before manages to win and finds that he rather enjoys the game, so he becomes a regular visitor to Card Capital, eventually becoming one of the stores top 4 players, earnig himself a place on the store team in the national Cardfight tournaments.
Through paying the game, Aichi gains a lot of self confidence, as well as making new friends, however, as always, he makes enemies in the form of another Cardfighter called Ren, who has the mysterious power to be able to see the outcome of games before they have been played, and thus remains the worlds unbeaten Cardfight Champion, as he basically abuses his power to cheat.
Aichi finds out that he too shares Rens power, and it begins to corrupt him, however through various struggles, Aichi and his team mates emerge victorious at the Cardfight national championships on their second attempt....

Phew!, 65 episodes....yeahhhhh.
First off its worth stating the obvious that the series exists purely as an advertisment designed to sell Cardfight game cards to viewers, however, unlike YuGiOh!, the series does NOT misrepresent card powers, what cards you see on screen would be exactly the same as they would be if you bought a pack or sealed deck of them in real life, so that is a bonus right there.

The first 20 or so episodes make sure that the viewer understands the games rules of play, which is a good thing being as that having watched loads of games of Vanguard in real life, up until I watched this series I had absolutely no idea what was going on, so at the very least, I could now play a game of Vanguard without having to refer to rulebooks or ask my opponent what to do (I will also state that despite asking several Vanguard players how you play in RL, none of them could be arsed showing me...tight arsed bastards!, probably didn't want me to crush them or something...grr).


So, did I enjoy this series?, well,t he answer to that question is a simple "meh".
While I liked the overall premise of the series, and the fact that the show teaches you how to play the game and presents you with varying styles and strategies of play, I did not like how for the vast majority of the time, the show consists of two people playing a game of cards whilst making snidy comments to each other.
Even the overall story arc of series 1 was pretty boring, and went on waaaaayyyy too long to hold much interest to anyone who isn't interested in the game. Yes, yes, I realise that YuGiOh! does exactly the same sort of thing, however the "game playing" portions of that show are interesting to watch because they genuinely do add something to the story, whereas Cardfights in game dialogue simply consists of the players trading thinly veiled insults whilst playing the same cards over and over and over again and then waiting until either one of them fucks up or one of them gets lucky and manages to pull the right card during their drive trigger phase so that they annihilate the other player (this is probably a harsh observation being as that the RL CCGs game mechanics are at fault here, however devoting a whole 65 episodes to seeing the same people play the same game over and over again gets a bit tiresome).
Yeah, Team Q4, as Aichi and his mates are called, literally play the same opponents over and over again and its dead obvious what they are going to play and whether they will win or lose before they have even started trading insults.

There are 3 (at time of writing) follow up series, "Asia Circuit" , "Link joker" and "Legion Mate", I haven't watched any of the others yet but I'm going to give them a chance, as hopefully story will take precedence over scenes of people standing at gaming tables.

EPis0dIC! - Ulysses 31 - "Strange Meeting" (S01E24) - 1981

Ulysses is conducting mining operations on an asteroid, Shirka warns him that the materials contained within the rocks he is drilling may be dangerous, so he warns Telemachus, Umi and Nono to keep away.
The children move away from the area and find some caves they decide to explore, however Telemachus runs afoul of a trap set by the Gods and falls into a portal after spotting a statue of Poseidon.
Ulysses runs to Telemachus' aid, and is told by Zeus that Telemachus has committed a grievous sin by falling into a time portal, and Ulysses 31 must travel back in time 5000 years to the time of his distant ancestor, the original Ulysses, and set the time lines back on their original course.

Telemachus 31 emerges from the portal and is immediately captured by a trio of Ithacan warriors and brought before Penelope, wife of Ulysses, who is the ruler of the kingdom of Ithaca.
The original Ulysses has been gone for nearly 20 years, firstly leaving to fight in the Trojan war, and then taking 10 years to return home (as detailed in Homers epic poem "the Odyssey"), and under the Greek tradition, as Ulysses has deemed to have deserted his wife, she must choose a new husband to take over as king of Ithaca.
Telemachus 31 recognises Penelope as looking like his mother, and she recognises him as looking like her son, the original Telemachus, however both of them know they are not who they appear to be. One of Penelopes many suitors, of whom 108 have gathered within the palace to demand Penelope choose a new husband from their number, demands that Penelope choose now, otherwise he will take the boy as his slave, Penelope at first refuses, but as Telemachus 31 is hauled away, she relents and offers a challenge to any would be suitor.
The challenge is simple, whomever can string a bow that once belonged to Ulysses, and then fire an arrow through 12 crossed axes at a target will be chosen as her new husband (knowing full well that none of the assembled suitors will be able to manage it, as they all lack Ulysses' great strength and skill). The assembled suitors relish the thought of finally making a grab for power, but Telemachus 31 is still placed in a cage until the morning.

During the night, Telemachus 31 is freed by his opposite number and doppelganger, the original Telemachus, the two then lead the palace guards on a merry chase as they become confused and try to recapture "Telemachus", eventually though the boys manage to outwit the guards and escape, but in doing so they run  into Antinous, chief amongst Penelopes suitors and the man responsible for Telemachus 31s incarceration. He demands that the real Telemachus identify himself, when the boys refuse, he says that he will now kill them both, as Ulysses heir cannot be allowed to live and contest his claim to the throne. The boys fight with Antinous' men, but the fight goes badly, however, the boys are saved by a mysterious stranger who looks like an old beggar.
After the trio escape, the beggar reveals himself to be the real Ulysses, finally returned to Greece.
Telemachus informs Ulysses of the situation with Penelope, and Ulysses says he will put things right.
The group are then approached by Ulysses 31, Umi and Nono, who have finally arrived in ancient Greece, Telemachus 31 is overjoyed to see his father again.
The two men discuss the situation, and hatch a plot to put Ulysses back on the throne, however the original Ulysses doesn't think he will be able to complete the challenge as he received a wound in the fight with Antinious' men which would prevent him from being able to use the bow.
The following morning, a sage warns the suitors that Ulysses will return, and will punish those who would stand against him, but his warnings are rebuffed. The beggar man joins the assembled suitors at the palace and the trial commences.
One after another, the suitors fail to string the bow, even Antinous fails despite coming close. A pause is requested, with anyone else wanting to try doing so the following day, but the beggar man speaks and says he wishes to attempt the challenge. Antinous mocks the beggar but allows him to attempt it anyway, simply so he can insult him.
To every ones surprise, the beggar not only manages to string the bow, he also fires the arrow through the crossed axes, and thus proves himself as being the best choice to marry Penelope and become king of Ithaca. Penelope asks that the man reveal his face, which he does, the beggar is Ulysses 31, standing in for his injured ancestor. Penelope realises the deception, but Ulysses 31 states that the actual Ulysses is also present, Aninous calls for them both to be killed, however only he carries a sword, as the two Telemachus' hid all of the palaces weapons earlier that day.
Ulysses 31 and Antinous fight, Ulysses easily beats the clumsy and overconfident Antinous through a combination of his skill and his 31st century weapons. Antinous declares Ulysses 31 to be a God, and the suitors bow down before him, Ulysses 31 declares that the days should be one of celebration, as their true king has finally returned.
With the time line fixed, the travellers are taken back to the 31st century, where they return to the Odyssey and leave the area, with all memory of their adventure into the past wiped from their memories.


I like this episode as it is a pretty good retelling of one of the parts of the classic myth from the Odyssey. Although it takes some artistic licence with the events as portrayed in the original poem, as sci-fi retellings of Greek myths go, this one isnt half bad.