To be honest, my feeling is that it did end too quickly. It was fine up until episode 112, and I would have liked to see the conclusion play out as it did, but take far longer for Aster to convince his students (another five or six episodes). That would have given some more time for more meat to the arc, possibly allowed BB to be drafted in as a weapon and dealt with properly, and probably worked for Alexis assuming that the Fusion Dimension continued as normal, giving her the chance to prove her chops against Dennis (even though I loved his duel with Kite and found the added taste of him being a Resistance member added a little more feeling to the duel.)
Fair enough although going by your comment, it seems you wanted more expansion on the Academia/Fusion parts of the Xyz arc... which means this arc would have been much more succesful absorbed into a longer Fusion arc to expand on all the pointers you mention, which don\'t get me wrong I agree.
Especially how Asuka should have been the one against Dennis rather than Kaito (nothing against him though, but his the series\' reasoning for him facing Dennis was feeble at best) and an expansion on Edo\'s character arc.
Leave a Comment:
Heartland Arc
Contrasting most of the previous complains of the last arc a common opinion held by lots of people is that this arc ended too soon, concluding after only 13 episodes (11 if we don't count the ones happening on the Fusion Dimension) that the arc had so much potential that went wasted because of that.
I do not share this opinion, at all if anything from ep. 1 my only thought was "Am I going to have to sit through a whole arc of this?" but I'll try to be fair and mention first what I did like about the arc:
The most enjoyable parts of this arc where Edo's character arc and his change of heart along with hindsight of the Child Soldiers of Academia thanks of him and the Tyler Sisters, Yuya getting to apply what he learned in the City by catching Grace's interest and swaying Edo to his side were shockingly heartwarming. I particularly loved the way Grace's curiosity for Yuya's entertainment dueling was handled, and how despite being very much The Dividual they still got subtle differences in their characterization.
True the change of heart of the whole Academia kids did felt rushed and it reeks a little of Deus ex Machina and maybe if I didn't knew that these things are known to happen in Real Life battlefield I would not have bought it in the slightest.
Now for the things that the arc did not do right:
If you were hoping for some backstory or insight for Heartland, The Resistance or anything about the Xyz Dimension, I'm sorry to tell you that the Xyz arc is only "Xyz-related" in a nominal way, because with the exception the mention of the Dueling School factions and the introduction of two new characters Allen and Sayaka which quite honestly beyond their Morality Pets role fell flat as characters, everything else in the arc is carried by either Yuya, Edo or the Tyler Sisters.
Oh yeah the Resistance gets a cameo at the end of the arc, nothing about it was noteworthy.
People were expecting some plot-heavy reveals, or hints about the Dimensional Counterparts, and we do have new intro which gives us the Arc Area Project name for the Heartland Invasion... and that's pretty much it, sure Yuto's dragon is given a power up and somehow Yuto is now able to talk with Yuya 24/7 but all of it cames off as mostly inconsequential, and much of it in never again brought up.
And last if we needed more proof that Shun's only role in the series is the Ineffectual Loner which lots of anger issues towards their enemy there is no bigger proof than Kaito, again somehow Shun decides that the Lancers are his comrades after all thanks to bonding with Yuya... off-screen probably since we never got to see any of it, instead the mantle of the Loner is taken by Kaito even with his own Morality Pets (Sayaka and Allen) and his tragic backstory of his family being carded by the Academia.
Given that down outnumber the ups this time. I give this arc a 4/10 and that's only thanks to the people from the Fusion Dimension.