Anti-Climax Boss: Gratos was built up heavily as the mastermind behind the whole arc, was super manipulative, the ability to wipe out other people's memories and... does not win a single Buddyfight in the series. The final nail on the coffin was when he lost to Shido.
Arc Fatigue: The final battle with Yamigeddo, which started at episode 37. Several moments kept the arc prolonged for longer than necessary. The plot has also been dragged further out by separating the protagonists and making them fight their Psycho Ranger counterparts, so several episodes are spent soly on Buddyfights set up in a similar format, with similar plots and endings.
Ass Pull: Ikazuchi's Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal being Fake Memories implanted in him. It has no foreshadowing and has little purpose other than to absolve him of his crimes and make Gratos look worse.
A lot of people haven't taken to the show focusing so much on Kiri and forcing the idea that he's so amazing and special. Others enjoy his sweetness, and the steps he's been taking to improving himself. This lessened come his arc in Hundred involving the fact he is Miserea, many citing said arc as one of the Season's best.
Gao. Many hate him for being an Invincible Hero and being a walking cliche of shonen anime tropes. Others appreciate his sweetness and battling skills, and see his intelligence as a breath of fresh air. THEN comes his defeat by Ikazuchi's hands which may or may not spark up a forum war.
Gremlin/Retsu Omori. Because believing that people should be taking orders and directions from inanimate cards and decks when playing a card game is beyond dumb!
Drum was one in the first arc, due to being ungrateful to Gao, bratty, and eventually being less important than expected. All of these are addressed after the first arc, though.
Bal. One party sees Bal as an annoying brat and wished Drum would come back to replace him. A second party sees him as endearing and adorable, and that as a baby, he has plenty of room to make mistakes and grow. A third party is frustrated but some of the problems he causes, but feels he is getting Character Development, especially via his interactions with Gao, Jack, and Abygale. Regardless of how people felt about him, most agree that his departure was a Tearjerker.
Gaito. One party seems him as a Flat Character, source of Wangst, and an utter annoyance. Another party sees him as an interesting character with Hidden Depths and room for Character Development. Fortunately, he got better after his development making him more adorkable in comparison to his earlier characterization. X helped in this regard by making him a much more likable character from the start.
Kanata. Some see him as an Adorkable character with cool cards, others see him an an even worse Invincible Hero than Gao, and think he is too perfect, creating nothing but a Flat Character.
Making matters worse are his fights. As a No Damage Fighter, he did not take a single point of damage until Episode 10, and has not lost a single fight yet. Then there is his debut of the card "Asterism Effect", a card that prevents him from losing the game no matter what, during the same fight against Gaito using an Instant-Win Condition card. Some fans are willing to forgive him as the anime is meant to advertise the cards, laying the blame of Bushiroad for making the cards too powerful to begin with. Others though are left with a bitter taste in their mouth as it makes it seem like the writers refuse to let Kanata lose. Its getting worse as he fights Gao, only taking 2 damage from Gao after six consecutive attacks! As with many others on the list, he grows out of this and he does start taking damage more often, but no more than what he needs to for him to win. Character-wise, it's still up in the air.
And then there's the argument with him being a Replacement Scrappy. Kanata is Buddyfight X's representative for Star Dragon World. Up til that point, that role has gone to Tasuku since the introduction of the flag in Buddyfight Hundred. Bushiroad at that point wanted to promote the new Prism Dragon archetype thus thought it would be a good idea to change the Star Dragon World player to Kanata. Gao got away with it because his buddy, flag and archetypes changed all the time, and the Black Dragon archetype that Gaito used changed styles from a Deck Destruction type to a Set Spell engine. Obviously, they didn't want to split Tasuku and Jackknife Dragon so Tasuku got Demoted to Extra.
Broken Base: The most recurring argument in the fandom is whether or not Gao should lose more. On the one hand, many people are sick of his constant and unnecessary victories, and feel that he could develop more from his losses. Others counter that losing won't necessarily equal character development (especially with a character who insists on having fun and not taking the game seriously), and losing just for the sake of it is pointless and boring. Gao's actual loss resulted in a major fan meltdown in the YouTube comments. Not helping the cause is in Episode 3 of Triple D where Gao loses two matches randomly against Noboru and later Gaito because of Bal. Thankfully, his loss to Kakeru was met with less outrage.
People have taken a liking to Davide Yamazaki, for being an effective and fun villain, and for the punk rock look.
Kazane Fujimiya, a strong, female Buddyfighter who simply has a lot of fun with Buddyfighting and plays Dungeon World, a fun and very solid deck, and isn't another Dragon World player.
Tetsuya was one before being upgraded to a main character.
Megumi Mamakari, the girl with an exaggerated case of Eyes Out of Sight, due to her sarcastic comments.
Dash Kazakiri and Dai Kaido, for possessing interesting decks and persoalities, and for being much nicer compared to Wataru and Masuka Raid.
Ivan and Lone Remote, the Siberian Representatives in the WBC, being adored for their interesting dynamic and general care for one another.
Guru, the eccentric wise mentor introduced in X, for his fun personality and because he uses two really interesting decks, one for Guardians and one for Executioners. He also stomped Gao during his first on screen Buddyfight which to some fans is always a plus.
Mamoru Sekai from Buddyfight Ace and by extension, his buddy monster Cosmoman, for literally nothing more than the simple tribute to the Ultraman Series.
Some fans have theorised that Tasuku was originally meant to be the protagonist, but this changed due to Executive Meddling or some other reason. This is largely because the earliest previews made it look a lot like Tasuku was the protagonist due to their heavy focus on him, Jack's form changing gimmick being a very shonen hero gimmick in Merchandise-Driven works (see Kamen Rider), and the fact that Tasuku is a Foil to the Big Bad and engages a lot more with the Disaster Force plot than Gao.
It was mentioned that Omni Lord might be on Earth as humans who lost their identity has sparked a ton of people guessing that Kiri, Kazane or Ban Enma are Omni Lords. These theories were well founded after Kiri and Ban regained their memories of being Omni Lords.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This franchise series (including card game) have big following in Thailand, that even Bushiroad allowed Thai license publisher to make their own exclusive reboot format card game called Future Card Buddyfight New Drive.
Growing the Beard: Many of the first episodes of Hundred were repetitive, lacked a real plot, and lacked many of the characters people have come to know and love. Episodes 12-14 puts is right back on the plot, bring back older characters, and give the characters a goal beyond "stop the Demons when they show up."
Hilarious in Hindsight: The third season is called Buddyfight DDD, or Triple D. Another card game anime would have a D/D/D (referred to as Triple D in the dub) deck. The Triple D in Buddyfight's case seems to refer to the three leads' dragons, which also related to another Yu-Gi-Oh! series.
Tasuku is one blatant example, who goes out of his way to attend events he thinks Gao may be at just to see him. The first thing he usually does upon arriving is look for Gao. The fondness he has for Gao is so evident when they interact.
On the other hand, we have Zanya, who seems to have as much of a crush on Tasuku as Suzuha and Paruko do. Complete with even the blushing!
Rouga's blind loyalty to Kyouya could be seen as this as well.
Qinus Axia's interactions with Drum can be rather suggestive at times.
Gao and Drum fight like an old married couple and share a bed. The first episode also plays Drum out to be a Tsundere when thinking of partnering up with Gao.
Tetsuya is often the recipient of a Bridal Carry from Asmodai.
Episode 36 of Hundred brings us this quote from Drum towards Ikazuchi.
Drum: Unlike Gao, I was observing you the whole time. Even when we were in the bath together, I never took my eyes off of you. That's why I can say it with certainty. There aren't any scars on any part of your body!
Ivan and Lone Remote in Triple D are quite affectionate towards each other, the former even going into Manly Tears when the latter is arrested.
Buddyfight Ace is this with Yuga and Ranma out of the gate. In fact when Ranma becomes Vile Ranma, his "evil" plan is to make Yuga his own, meanwhile Yuga is doing everything he can to simply have Ranma back in his life.
Magnificent Bastard: Kyoya is always one step ahead of everyone else, incredibly charming and charismatic (so much so that he was able to sway the entire world to his favor), and can improvise on the spot without batting an eye. The only time he really loses composure is during Gao's massive Ass Pull in their fight.
Memetic Mutation: Taking scenes out of context (such as the wrestling scene in the opening) and claiming that the series is more graphic and raunchy than it actually is.
Memetic Loser: Kiri. Many people joked that no one cared about him, because he was so largely ignored by the plot. The fact that it took his friends a good while to really notice he was kidnapped made his status as the fandom Butt-Monkey even bigger. Axia leaves and states he wants to look for a buddy, blatantly ignoring the buddy-less Kiri. It's often to the point that anything bad that can happen to him (getting bullied at his new school almost immediately, turning evil again), will happen.
Misaimed Fandom: Noboru's speech in episode 15 about him being unable to catch up to Gao because of Gao's luck and inexplicable skill despite being more experienced resonated with a lot of people...and pushed more people against Gao.
It has the most narmy name for a card game. Justified since it is targeted for the younger audience but even they think the name Buddyfight is hilarious.
Disaster Force on Kyouya and Davide just makes their hair bigger. They look like Troll dolls. Especially Kyouya, who ends up looking like a bunny rabbit.
Gremlin's English voice is wooden and awkward-sounding. You can't take anything he says seriously. Davide also has a bit of a lisp, but many consider that to be charming and funny.
The English dub skipped out on all of Triple D so Bal did not have an English voice, even in advertisements during Triple D. But when All-Star Fight came around and we got an english voice for Bal... let's just say, it wasn't what many fans expected.
Periphery Demographic: It quickly amassed a fanbase of older fans, mostly shippers picking up on Ho Yay or people in love with the art style.
Popular with Furries: A normal person would be somewhat forgiven for thinking that the anime series (and even the card game as a whole) had gotten notoriety mainly through furry fans (or more specifically, scalie fans) since a couple of Draconic Humanoid Monsters with hunky designs appear here, with a select few of those even being one of the main characters in their respective shows. The franchise manages to be full of "unfortunate" fanservice as well, owing to the majority of these characters' armor designs leaving their lower backs exposed for their tails.
Replacement Scrappy: Bal is already considered vastly inferior to Drum and much more annoying. Not helping is his actions in Episode 3 of Triple D where he costs Gao two games, one against Noboru because he ran away and wasn't in his deck and the other against Gaito because he was sleeping in the middle of the fight and thus could not impact call on top of him He has however been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, but to Base-Breaking Character.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Noboru originally wasn't popular for his rudeness and constantly putting Gao down for any sort of victory. After he started getting focus and we learned more about hisbackstory, and he got some character development, he became one of the most popular characters on the show.
The Sengoku Academy arc. Aside from coming off another tournament arc with more interesting villains and better battles, many found the villains' backstories dumb time-wasters that failed to develop or endear most of them sufficiently. To top it all off, it's a a battle between 2 teams of 5, with the rules state to win, one team had to defeat all the opposing Buddyfighters, resulting in the already Base Breaking Gao defeating 3 out of the 5 villains, with him fighting the final 2 of them in a row. Other than him, only Zanya and Kazane actually got to win, but were both quickly defeated by their next opponent. One of the few decent things to come out of this was the appearance of Legend world, and the debut of Drum's new Thunder Knight, Magic World, and Dungeon World forms (the results of his training in other worlds).
This seemed to have befallen the second season, Buddyfight Hundred. The overarching story of last season is replaced with an incredibly formulaic Monster of the Week plot (one of the titular 100 Demons wrecks havoc, the heroes must defeat the person possessed by it or either Shidou or Sofia disguised as "Death Shidou" and capture the monster, rinse and repeat). To compound that, not only has Tatsuku, the other protagonist, been Put on a Bus for the time being as he's in Dragon World, none of the problems associated with Gao as listed above (including his insane winning streak) have been fixed at all. However, once the plot kicked in, things changed. See Growing the Beard above.
Triple D and X subverts this issue by making its arcs distinct, adding in new characters, and introducing Gao with new buddies. In particular, Triple D gives us Bal, which while Bal was a bit of a Base-Breaking Character, his dynamic with Gao was not one of those things, Gao had to play older brother to the baby dragon after all. In addition, Triple D was one long Tournament Arc which helped keep focus. X introduced Batzz who himself went through a character arc from Demon Lord to Leader of the Thunder Empire with Gao's help. Introducing Guru who took on the mentor role to our heroes was a welcome addition as trips to his place act as breathers to each major arc.
The anime has a bad tendency for characters to get just enough development only for them to either be written out, Demoted to Extra, or start losing all their matchesso Gao can win instead. Some more blatant examples come Triple D and X include Terumi Kuchinawa, most of the Omni Lords, Gremlin, Sofia, and Shido. X manages this with Tasuku of all characters to promote the Prism Dragons of Star Dragon World.
Continuing a tradition most previous card game shows have, because the main focus was on the trading card game and humans, we don't know much about the Buddy Monsters and the worlds they themselves inhabit that doesn't involve the card matches.
In the first two seasons, mentions were made of a disaster that had occured years before the start of the story that impacted the lives of some of the characters. However, starting with the third season, the idea was never brought up again and thus fans never got an explanation regarding what exactly happened.
The mystery of The Disaster was finally unveiled in April of 2019. Thanks goes to Shincci of the Buddyfight Wikia, who was able to find that a Buddyfight staff member tweeted, then deleted, an explanation about the event, focusing on the visuals of the first ending theme of season 1:
"Why was [Tasuku] in the mountains? It's because as child, he was swept away by tsunami to the mountains. That's why his clothes are dirty with mud. Somehow he was washed up to a nearby mountain and in despair, he started to wander through the mountains. When he looked up, the stars in the whole sky were shining. That's because the city was destroyed by the tsunami and all of its light sources were gone."
Values Dissonance: The main reason that Qinus Axia was changed from a trans woman to a Camp Gay man is because the Japanese version was extremely transphobic towards her (multiple remarks about her being a "manlady" and Drum stating she "doesn't understand gender" as one of her flaws being just some examples).
Wangst: Kiri's feelings of inadequacy are undermined by the fact that Tetsuya loses constantly and, unlike Kiri, isn't heralded by people as someone with amazing potential. Tetsuya, while naturally more positive than him, has it worse than him. Yet he's less mopey about it and still hasn't turned evil or run away. Kiri's feelings about being forgotten are more reasonable, though.
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