"My name is Amao Kakeru. It's my fifth year in grade school. This time around, the game that gets us all fired up . . . is called LiveOn! Those who battle using mysterious monsters called forth from cards are referred to as CardLivers. CardLive on!"
— Intro
Amao Kakeru loves the mysterious card game called LiveOn, in which players can summon real-life monsters to life. The only problem is that he's never won a single game. Not only that, but he lacks a powerful LiveChange card that would allow him to transform into a monster himself. This all changes one day when he meets a mysterious puppy monster named Peddal who can create monster cards at will. From Peddal he gains the Tategami Wolf (Maned Wolf) card, allowing him to change into a pyrokinetic monster wolf that can talk to his monsters.
A Mons series in the vein of Yu-Gi-Oh! with a splash of Digimon.
This show provides examples of:
- Animal Motifs:
- Dogs and wolves for Kakeru. His transformed state is Tategami Wolf.
- Birds for Ai.
- Fish for Tohru.
- Animal Talk: The monsters can only be understood by other monsters or a human transformed using a LiveChange card.
- Bilingual Bonus: Almost all of the monsters, and Kakeru and Peddal's banter.
- Bishie Sparkle: Tohru, lampshaded by Kakeru. "I wonder why Tohru sparkles?"
- Fartillery: Pohi Bear, an Earth-Based Monster with the ability to lower the opponent's monster to the B line with flatulence. It smells so bad that he wears a gas mask!
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Peddal, to human ears sounds like a normal puppy. To monsters he sounds ridiculously well-versed and intelligent.
- Gatling Good: Ai's Gatling Goose card, which summons a gosling with a minigun in its beak.
- Gratuitous English: Peddal likes to use complicated English phrases.
- The Load: Kakeru's Sarusalsas, whose main function in any episode is to cower behind Kakeru. They'll only attack if victory is assured and aren't really strong at all. Their function is to work as the PowerSource to summon stronger monsters, but even then . . . they're still craven.
- Mons
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Tategami Wolf.
- Worf Barrage: Totsugeki Mustang role in most episodes is to be summoned, charges into battle, and gets instantly wiped out.
- Quickly-Demoted Woman: Ai is the top player in Kakeru's school, until Kakeru gets the Tategami Wolf card. Episode 4 is practically an extreme lampshade hanging of this trope as people forget Ai even plays Live On now that there's a BOY in the school who can Live Change.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Totsugeki Mustang and Shippou Mustang, respectively.
- Running Gag: Kakeru getting Japanese and English words mixed up.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Zenith (the monarch of the Vast Ocean type) almost does this when he gets creeped out by his CardLiver's furry-esque cosplay.
- Serious Business: Averted. Despite the fact that children are running around and turning wild monsters into playing cards that come to life, it's made clear that LiveOn doesn't dominate human culture like in other Mons franchises.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Kakeru, you can't turn into a magic wolf here, you'll block traffic.
- World of Pun
- Almost all of the monsters used in LiveOn are based on some kind of pun, sometimes in Japanese (i.e. - Jukaiju - forest monster), sometimes in English (Heater Rabbit - Exactly What It Says on the Tin) and sometimes in both (Sarusalsa - salsa ape).
- There's also a baffling amount that are terrible bilingual puns referencing American pop culture. For instance: Jack Knife Sparrow, and Rusou ("candle") Crow.
