User blog comment:RyuuseiR3/Bushiroad Strategy with Live2017/@comment-31623047-20170730175539/@comment-24699797-20170730221929

The problem with Gao is that his character is no longer relevant to the plot; he's just in the middle of the plot doing stuff.

The first half of season 1 introduced the game and setting of the anime. The second half developed Gao a bit, but mainly dealt with Tasuku and Rouga's character arcs. The pacing towards the start was weak, but as a new series geared at a young audience, that's to be expected.

Hundred started off a bit weakly, just introducing the plot, some new stuff, and then not going anywhere fast with abysmal pacing. The overall plot wasn't terrible, though a little bit generic. We got to see there was a little more to Gao and Drum... but ultimately, they still ended up being mostly flat characters doing cool stuff. Even Gao's "problem" seemed a little contrived, if understandable from a marketing standpoint and for stalling until they revealed Fifth Omni as the primary protagonist archetype. For this season, Ikazuchi, Tasuku, Jack, and Kiri had the most interesting twists to their characters. In fact, Tasuku and Jack were probably the best characters for the second season running, if only because we got to see them struggling to deal with relatable worries. Kiri is close, but he gets very little screentime. That said, it wasn't much of a race.

DDD... well, yeah, Bal. Gao didn't develop, Tasuku was relegated to being a background character, and Rouga for some reason had his entire character development rehashed from square one. Everyone who wasn't Baku, Kuguru, or Noboru was put on a bus, and all three of them were basically walking meme versions of themselves, despite not being too much more than that in the first place. Kaido was flat, and Gaito was flat, except for that one episode explaining that he's actually a rich kid with an understandable reason for being uber-emo-chunii-edgelord, who probably needs counselling. While it was fun to see there was a little more to Azi Dahaka outside of roaring "ERASURE OF HISTORY!" and "NONE CAME BEFORE ME, AND NONE SHALL COME AFTER ME!", it was still minimal. Abygale was relatable, Gemclone was cute. Bal was absolutely the best character, because he was actually a character.

X (Batsu) so far is... decently paced, but mostly predictable. Except for that one weird bit we just got done with, but no one in their right mind would have predicted that. But again, everyone is flat. Except Batsu. We actually get to see something resembling motivation from him. The series isn't done, so I can't judge yet, but it seems the writers have latched onto: protagonist buddy, plus Gao, plus cool-looking but flat splotlight characters, plus walking meme supporting cast, where of these, the only character we have any reason to care about is Gao's buddy. That said, I'll be sorely disappointed if Chibi Panda doesn't get his time to be steal the splotlight toward the end of the series.

And though it's not related to the characters, X has some of the worst fight choreography in any card game anime I've watched. Vanguard has dropped a few clangers - like miscounting resources in a season climax, and just going "lol, protag triggers" - but this is on a different level of awful. I've had quite enough of knowing every fight is going to end in a multi-attack rushdown on a near-full life opponent, into Tempest Buster.