History YMMV / CardfightVanguard

* AntiClimaxBoss: Leon in the season 2 finale. The lack of padding in the final episode made the end of the match feel incredibly rushed and anti climactic.
* AssPull: In Episode 64, the tense fight between Aichi and Ren which the entire series had built up was eclipsed at its halfway point by the revelation that [[spoiler: Cray was real and that their fight was effectively deciding a totally stupid and pointless civil war between Royal Paladins and Shadow Paladins.]]

** Asia Circuit-Hen. Either you enjoyed it or [[FanonDiscontinuity it didn't]] [[MemeticMutation happen.]]

* HilariousInHindsight: When Episode 33 first aired, there was some speculation among fans that Kenji had a way to Superior Ride Daiyusha, explaining [[spoiler:how he had a Grade 3 Vanguard while Ren was at Grade 1]]. Come Booster Set 8, a Unit named Dimensional Robo, Goyusha was released, with a skill that matched the fans speculation.

* AntiClimaxBoss:
** Leon in the season 2 finale. The lack of padding in the final episode made the end of the match feel incredibly rushed and anti climactic.

* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Kai, particularly with [[spoiler: his turn to evil in Season 3]]. Either it was engaging CharacterDevelopment clearing up hanging character threads from Season 1, or a cheap rehash of [[spoiler: Aichi's corruption by Psyqualia in Season 1]]?

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
** The Seven Sacred Beast armors were well done initially, especially the concept of each armor bearer being an ace card to focus a deck around. Then they were aborted with three bearers unreleased (and at the time, one armor unrevealed), leaving Ezel to take the spotlight.

** Team Foo Fighter was renamed "Team Asteroid". It's either this or a {{Macekre}} depending on who you ask.[[note]]They are both astronomy based terms ("foo fighter" is a slang term for a UFO), however, the original version calls them one name, while the dub calls them by a completely different name.[[/note] This may be due to the presence of the real-life Music/FooFighters, a rather famous rock band who are still active today. American viewers would probably associate the name more with the band than the slang.

* LauncherOfAThousandShips: ''[[UpToEleven Aichi]]''. If a character exists in this fandom, he's been shipped with them.
* MemeticBadass: [[TokenMiniMoe Emi]] and [[CripplingOverspecialization Morikawa]]. The latter was taken UpToEleven after Morikawa got a balanced deck and [[spoiler: spent two episodes winning all his fights]].

* ShockingSwerve: Notoriously in Episode 64, the tense fight between Aichi and Ren which the entire series had built up was eclipsed at its halfway point by the revelation that [[spoiler: Cray was real and that their fight was effectively deciding a totally stupid and pointless civil war between Royal Paladins and Shadow Paladins.]]

** The {{Engrish}} lyrics to the first theme song: "We can't hold back this feeling any longer. Come on, tear off everything you've got! ''Get crazy way!''" It doesn't help that this is shown over images of [[HoYay Aichi and Kai.]]

** Aichi's final turn against Void Agent Takuto in the penultimate fight. Void Agent Takuto didn't even bother to guard even when he has the handsize to do it after Monarch Sanctuary Alfred's Limit Break. But this was clarified after Void Agent Takuto's Omega Glendios decklist was revealed. Let's just say Morikawa will be proud of the decklist.
** In Season 4, [[spoiler: Raul Serra]]. [[spoiler:He finally makes his move, explaining how nearly everything since the reveal of the Quatre Knights has been his machinations and was ready to make a play to become the true master of Link Joker. It's expected that he'd get the power and we'd see Kai (or Aichi) take on the first truly evil person in the series in a huge final fight. Instead, Gaillard, who had just lost to Kai only a couple of episodes ago, ends up defeating him and sending him away before he does anything of worth. He went from MagnificentBastard to SmugSnake to IneffectualVillain within one episode.]]

* BadassDecay:
** Kourin tends to suffer this. She's initially portrayed as a strong fighter and [[CurbstompBattle curbstomps]] Aichi on their first meeting. She is then [[CurbstompBattle curbstomped]] by [[BigBad Ren]], [[spoiler: [[DrunkOnTheDarkSide Aichi]]]], and [[spoiler: [[TheAce Kai]]]] in her following three fights.
** Misaki suffers a lot from this in Season 2 so far. Fans are particularly bitter about it because not only has she had one win (against a CListFodder guy), all of her losses have been against LimitBreak Units. So the common belief is that she's losing just to promote LimitBreak [[MerchandiseDriven as an awesome mechanic.]]
*** She averts this later in the season when she rebuilds her deck from the Tsukuyomi/Amaterasu build to the soulless Scarlet Witch, [=CoCo=] build and stops losing altogether. Later she obtains the Goddess of Sun, Amaterasu crossride which has a Limit Break and she continues to win.
*** It becomes much worse in Season 4 as she loses every fight she is involved with. And this is after Season 3 where she had gone undefeated the whole season with the same clan.
** And Team Caesar. Despite being former National Champions, the only time they're capable of winning onscreen is when they're fighting Team Q4. And they now seem to be Season 2's go-to Worf candidates, since not only have they been beaten by Team SIT Genius, but [[spoiler: New [=AL4=]]] too. Though to be fair [[spoiler:Kenji does beat Ren, the only time a character other than Aichi or Kai has ever defeated Ren.]]
** Kai is the biggest offender of this. After 2 seasons of winning every fight (Not counting his first one with Aichi at the very start) only to lose to the season's BigBad, fans has noted Kai as "The guy who will win every fight in the season but lose to the final boss of that season."
*** In Legion Mate, Kai goes further into the trope, justifies it...and then averts it in the end. After becoming the Main Character he goes on to shortly lose as many fights in one season as he has lost in the entire SERIES up to that point, including losses to two characters he had easily defeated multiple times in the past. And one of his wins was [[spoiler:Ren]] who essentially threw the fight. The justification comes from the fact that [[spoiler:he wasn't using his usual Kagero or Narukami clan but the Royal Paladins. While a strong deck that he has used in the past, it's not one he's had much success with and doesn't fit his style of play]]. However, once he obtains [[spoiler:his Kagero Deck again]] he doesn't lose a fight for the rest of the season.

** Kai. You either think he's Badass or a SmugSnake with obscene trigger luck.
*** Though there is some middle ground where he's likeable, but his portrayal in official material like his profile, and his portrayal in show don't line up.
** [[spoiler: Kai's turn to evil in Season 3]]. Well-done engaging CharacterDevelopment clearing up hanging character threads from Season 1, or a cheap rehash of [[spoiler: Aichi's corruption by Psyqualia in Season 1]]?
*** Made worse when Kai became Season 4's protagonist instead of Aichi. A potentially interesting change in protagonist which could result in a great redemption arc of a season, or more aggressive shilling for a character who's already had the lion's share of it in the tail end of Season 3?

* DesignatedVillain: The Quatre Knights pretty much seem to be this. Even though they're the antagonists of Season 4, all of them except Neve ([[CharacterisationMarchesOn in his first appearance anyway]]) are fairly respectful to the mates despite the whole Judgment thing, and it's being heavily suggested that they're keeping Aichi sealed away to protect the world from Link Joker. [[spoiler: Never mind that Aichi himself chose them and asked them to do it.]] The only reason that they're antagonists is that they're standing between the mates and Aichi [[spoiler:Though this is later subverted with Raul Cera, who was TheChessmaster and was engineering events to break Aichi's seals and claim the power of Link Joker for himself, then [[TakeOverTheWorld conquer both Earth and Cray]].]]

** Among the Quatre Knights, Rati is liked for her quirky manner, and her mechanically fun deck. The fact that in G ShesAllGrownUp and is studying in Yale with Aichi helps things.

* HilariousInHindsight: When Episode 33 first aired, there was some speculation among fans that Koutei had a way to Superior Ride Daiyusha, explaining [[spoiler:how he had a Grade 3 Vanguard while Ren was at Grade 1]]. Come Booster Set 8, a Unit named Dimensional Robo, Goyusha was released, with a skill that matched the fans speculation.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Several instances:
** There are early indications that Kourin disapproved of what Suiko was up to, and was going to interfere and become a SpannerInTheWorks. This... kind of goes nowhere since although Kourin's intervention does help to break [[spoiler: Aichi]] out of his [[spoiler: addiction to PSY Qualia]], there was no overall interference with the plan.
*** All she seemed to care about was Aichi's wellbeing, there was little to suggest she had a problem with the plan as a whole. So, once she helped Aichi, she had no more reason to interfere.

** When the preview of the anime was released, many people actually thought that Aichi is the HEROINE of the anime until anime fans who had long followed TCG animes shouting that they finally have a female as a main character for a TCG anime. Too bad, Aichi is a 15 year old teenage boy and the spot was taken later by Chiharafuyu.
** Fans were debating Ren's gender up until the first episode where he got speaking lines aired.

** The dub gets hit hard in Season 3, when characters have to read English instructions from a pamphlet and the script still treating them like they're Japanese, resulting in Naoki's infamous "[[LogicBomb I can't speak English]]" line.

** The dub gets hit hard in Season3, when characters have to read English instructions from a pamphlet and the script still treating them like they're Japanese, resulting in Naoki's infamous "[[LogicBomb I can't speak English]]" line.

** The live-action drama. Entertaining, light-hearted play on the game with an [[LargeHam amusing]] [[CrazyAwesome performance]] by [[RealPersonCameo Daigo]], or a nonsensical mess which takes itself [[{{Narm}} too seriously]] and functions as a 78 minute long [[ProductPlacement card game commercial]]?

** Team Foo Fighter was renamed "Team Asteroid". It's either this or a {{Macekre}} depending on who you ask.[[note]]They are both astronomy based terms ("foo fighter" is a slang term for a UFO), however, the original version calls them one name, while the dub calls them by a completely different name.[[/note]]
*** This may be due to the presence of the real-life Music/FooFighters, a rather famous rock band who are still active today. American viewers would probably associate the name more with the band than the slang.
*** This gets annoying when the official English subs decided to start subtitling "Foo Fighter" as "Asteroid" - even though "Foo Fighter" is said in English. This is not ''too'' bad, since to western viewers - as noted above - "Foo Fighter" is probably more associated with the band, and doesn't sound as cool as "Asteroid". However: In a season 3 episode, Tetsu calls a young Ren a "Foo Fighter", which he explains is a "Strong, yet mysterious fighter". None of this is changed in the subs, resulting in Ren bizarrely leaping from him and Tetsu forming a team of Foo Fighter that shall be named... "Team Asteroid"....
*** That, [[JustifiedTrope and the record label would likely get]] [[ScrewedByTheLawyers lawsuit-happy if the dub used the name.]]
*** Vanguard G dub ends up sticking with their nickname of [=AL4=].

** The Lock mechanic has been this since it debuted as many see it as an unfair mechanic since you can neither use your locked rearguards for anything, nor replace them with new units for at least two whole turns. On the other hand, there are others who are fine with it and that it's possible to work around it, especially since Bushiroad created cards that can be used to counter Lock. There's also those who are fine with the mechanic so long as it's used as part of costs and require locking the player's own rearguards. The PowerCreep towards the end of ''G'' did not help with Link Joker being featured in two separate boosters within the span of three months, allowing it to rise to the top of the meta. Needless to say, when people found out the mechanic was going to return in the reboot, although only in the form of "self-locking" thus far, reactions were mixed.

*** That, [[JustifiedTrope and the record label would likely get lawsuit-happy if the dub used the name.]]

** Ren in the final arc of season 1. Made worse by being a combination of this trope and IdiotBall--Against Kai he plays very well, but when he goes up against Aichi? He practically throws his hand away on early guard and call maneuvers that don't match up with his established play style, lucks into drawing Phantom Blaster Overlord, and he attacks a unit that Aichi would have ''had'' to voluntarily retire anyway for his own strategy to work. Compared to the previous four, incredibly tense and wildly unpredictable fights it comes off as a major letdown.
*** Arguably justified. He wanted to toy with Aichi, and generally cause him to suffer a slow defeat before succumbing to [=PSYqualia=]. He thought he'd win regardless, and didn't realize he could lose until it was too late to do anything about it.

* BadassDecay:
** Kourin tends to suffer this. She's initially portrayed as a strong fighter and [[CurbstompBattle curbstomps]] Aichi on their first meeting. She is then [[CurbstompBattle curbstomped]] by [[BigBad Ren]], [[spoiler: [[DrunkOnTheDarkSide Aichi]]]], and [[spoiler: [[TheAce Kai]]]] in her following three fights.
** Misaki suffers a lot from this in Season 2 so far. Fans are particularly bitter about it because not only has she had one win (against a CListFodder guy), all of her losses have been against LimitBreak Units. So the common belief is that she's losing just to promote LimitBreak [[MerchandiseDriven as an awesome mechanic.]]
*** She averts this later in the season when she rebuilds her deck from the Tsukuyomi/Amaterasu build to the soulless Scarlet Witch, [=CoCo=] build and stops losing altogether. Later she obtains the Goddess of Sun, Amaterasu crossride which has a Limit Break and she continues to win.
*** It becomes much worse in Season 4 as she loses every fight she is involved with. And this is after Season 3 where she had gone undefeated the whole season with the same clan.
** And Team Caesar. Despite being former National Champions, the only time they're capable of winning onscreen is when they're fighting Team Q4. And they now seem to be Season 2's go-to Worf candidates, since not only have they been beaten by Team SIT Genius, but [[spoiler: New [=AL4=]]] too. Though to be fair [[spoiler:Kenji does beat Ren, the only time a character other than Aichi or Kai has ever defeated Ren.]]
** Kai is the biggest offender of this. After 2 seasons of winning every fight (Not counting his first one with Aichi at the very start) only to lose to the season's BigBad, fans has noted Kai as "The guy who will win every fight in the season but lose to the final boss of that season."
*** In Legion Mate Kai goes further into the trope, Justifies it...and then averts it in the end. After becoming the Main Character he goes on to shortly lose as many fights in one season as he has lost in the entire SERIES up to that point, including losses to two characters he had easily defeated multiple times in the past. And one of his wins was [[spoiler:Ren]] who essentially threw the fight. The justification comes from the fact that [[spoiler:he wasn't using his usual Kagero or Narukami clan but the Royal Paladins. While a strong deck that he has used in the past, it's not one he's had much success with and doesn't fit his style of play]]. However, once he obtains [[spoiler:his Kagero Deck again]] he doesn't lose a fight for the rest of the season.

*** Though there is some middle ground where he's likeable, but his portrayal in official material like his profile, and his portrayal in show don't line up. This troper's major issue with Kai is the inconsistency here, but he is still likeable as an elite, cool player.

** Amongst the new main cast in season 3, Naoki Ishida have been the most popular, being well liked for his hilarious and awesome moments and a subject of MemeticMutation.

** Legion Mate. Just Legion Mate. If you watch an episode without any context (and even with), the season sounds a HaremAnime wherein Kai gathers a bunch of people to be mates while yearning for his own (Aichi).

** Kai, big time. By the end of Season 3, many fans were annoyed with him becoming the FinalBoss for no apparent reason other than Bushiroad deciding to resurrect Overlord out of the blue to [[MerchandiseDriven push even more Kagero cards.]] This wasn't helped by the implication that Kai was going to be EasilyForgiven for all the evil he'd allowed to happen and participated in through a BrainwashedAndCrazy HandWave, leaving him to [[spoiler: become Season 4's protagonist]]. THEN [[WhamEpisode Episode 162]] aired, revealing that [[spoiler: Kai wasn't BrainwashedAndCrazy and knew what he was doing the whole time, but couldn't stop himself because he's addicted to power to the point he couldn't refuse Link Joker despite knowing it was evil. Add in the idea that he truly hates himself for doing it and hurting Aichi, and that he wants to commit suicide]] and with just one episode, Kai was solidly rescued. Even the idea of [[spoiler: him as Season 4's protagonist was helped by the implication that he's trying to save Aichi to find redemption for what he did.]]

* SeasonalRot:
** A frequent complaint about Asia Circuit Hen, coupled with the time-old accusation that the writers ran out of ideas after Season 1. Case in point, Team Q4 lost every stage they've been in (despite winning smaller fights) before the Japanese Stage. One episode even goes so far as to talk about the "value of losing"...
** Legion Mate, for many of the same reasons Asia Circuit has been accused of.

*** All she seemed to care about was Aichi's wellbeing, there was little to suggest she had a problem with the plan as a whole. So, once helping Aichi, she had no more reason to interfere.
** Similarly, there were a few hints that Kai and Tetsu were going to fight at some point. This never happens. The fans particularly seize on this one because Tetsu's fight with Kamui was astoundingly poorly choreographed (the most notorious example being the time Kamui uses a Perfect Guard against Tetsu's 12000 Power Still Vampyr while he had at least one 10000 Shield card in his hand). Said fight also had the issue that Kamui and Tetsu had no real connection whatsoever (this was even highlighted ''right before the fight when Tetsu doesn't even know Kamui is a member of Q4''), whereas Tetsu is Kai's EvilCounterpart.
*** They were pretty much forced into a corner with that one. Someone on Q4 had to lose in order for the Final Fight between Ren and Aichi to take place and a lot of time was spent building up the fact that Misaki was going to get her revenge on Asaka for the previous Nationals. Add to the fact that there's no way in hell they were going to let Kai lose to a non-Big Bad along with Kamui's arc on bailing on Q4 in the previous nationals and...well, they sent him in to take the loss.

* TheWoobie: Following Episode 24 and her backstory, Misaki was firmly established as one. Having her parents die in a tragic accident while she was young is bad enough, but due to her [[CursedWithAwesome 'perfect memory']], any time she gets too involved in Vanguard somehow, all the painful memories come flooding back. She spent whoever knows how long avoiding playing, but ultimately in Episode 24, it all comes crashing down...

*** Not to mention the Kai vs. Leon fight was done so poorly, Kai had 3 chances of winning the game but screwed it up, causing Leon to win the fight. Fans had pointed out that a fighter like Kai should know better than to commit those mistakes but since the Aichi vs. Leon fight must go off, Leon has the PlotArmor in the fight.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The increasing lack of footage from the actual cardfights as the series progressed, particularly from ''[[TheMovie Neon Messiah]]'' onwards. Many consider it a cheap cop-out to avoid showing how the fight actually went while also making it hard to follow how the victor is decided due to the lack of a script, effectively taking the "trading card" out of a ''trading card anime''. ''Neon Messiah'' is particularly guilty of this, as ''none'' of the cardfights were shown properly to the extent that an unaware viewer could have easily mistaken it for a shounen anime fight scene instead.

** Episode 4 of Season 2 gave us Rekka's Kyun Kyun '[[{{Kawaiiko}}Ride]]'

* {{Woolseyism}}: Aside from not using [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseHonorifics honorifics]], the "sub-manager" (i.e., the shop cat/kitten) is referred to as the "Assita-cat" in the dub.

*** Vanguard G dub ends up sticking with their nickname of AL4.

** Episode 4 of Season 2 gave us Rekka's Kyun Kyun '[[{{Kawaiiko}} ]] [[MostAnnoyingSound ]] Ride'

*** For the 2018 reboot, it has the powerful ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXng2aVkK8 Legendary]]'', preformed by [[VideoGame/BangDreamGirlsBandParty Roselia]]. There's even an official [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKhj2Hj5U4w Engrish version]] for the dub!

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In Episode 46 of Vanguard G, [[spoiler: after losing to Chrono and resigning his post as the Branch Manager of the United Sanctuary district]] Kanzaki rides his horse down the side of the UN HQ building on his way out. [[SincerityMode No, really.]]

** The Vanguard reboot announced in March 2018. Obviously this is coming from both the anime and the card game itself.
*** Anime-wise some welcome the reboot considering the problems GZ has presented, and the fact that the series is going to follow the Manga more closely is a huge plus. On the other hand, many do not like the fact that Bushiroad is simply going back to the beginning, especially when they could have just adapted the Cardfight!! Vanguard Shooting Star manga instead (especially because Shooting Star has a female protagonist).
*** On the Card Game side of things, considering how important the G-Zone was to the game, the fact that we are going back to the beginning does not sit well for players who had spent a lot of money on the game only to have to start all over again with no guarantee that it will ever be supported again. On the other hand, players in favor of the reboot like the fact that Bushiroad is willing to start all over again, and points out that Premium and G Format will always be available to legacy players.

* HolyShitQuotient: The confirmation that the 4th arc of ''V'' is about Shin Nitta's past surprised pretty much everyone.

** The reboot's treatment of the Asia Circuit. With it having been mentioned in the anime during a mini-arc that featured the top three fighters from that tourmanent, people started thinking that it would be made into a [[AdaptationExpansion full-bown arc]] rather than being briefly featured like it was in the manga, potentially allowing for more characters from the original series to appear in the reboot. This ended not being the case with only Aichi's departure for the tournament and the end of the final fight being shown.

* UnexpectedCharacter:
** With the Reboot focusing on the original cast, many were surprised to see that the third season would reintroduce [[Anime/CardfightVanguardG Mamoru Anjou]] as a recurring character and even more unexpected was Trinity Dragon appearing.
** Just like with the Reboot no one expected Kazumi Onimaru and Verno Fahrenheart would be included the game ''Cardfight Vanguard EX''.
** No one expected Shin Nitta as TheProtagonist of ''V'''s 4th arc which serves as a {{Prequel}} for the series and on top of that more ''G'' characters appearing including Rive and Mikuri Shindou.

* HoYay: Has its [[HoYay/CardfightVanguard own page.]]

* UnexpectedCharacter: With the Reboot focusing on the original cast, many were suprised to see that the third season would reintroduce [[Anime/CardfightVanguardG Mamoru Anjou]] as a recurring character and that Kazumi Onimaru and Verno Fahrenheart would be included in the video game based on the rebeoot. Even more unexpected was Trinity Dragon appearing.

* UnexpectedCharacter: With the Reboot focusing on the original cast, many were suprised to see that the third season would reintroduce [[Anime/CardfightVanguardG Mamoru Anjou]], and later, Kazumi Onimaru, as recurring characters. Even more unexpected was Trinity Dragon appearing.

* UnexpectedCharacter: With the Reboot focusing on the original cast, many were suprised to see that the third season would reintroduce [[Anime/CardfightVanguardG Mamoru Anjou]], and later, Kazumi Onimaru, as recurring characters.