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Yapping About Shadowverse Flame

Not the first card game anime to take over my life, and most likely not the last.

A few years ago, I started learning Japanese seriously. Around this time, I had been watching a lot of seasonal anime, which is something I’ve been doing on and off since high school (right now, it’s off). Since I was so intoxicated by the new challenge of learning Japanese, and since my mindset and relative unfamiliarity with contemporary anime made every show into a thrilling adventure, I tried a whole lot of shows that a more cynical, conservative self might otherwise have never watched. One of those shows was Shadowverse Flame, an anime that, unbeknownst to me, would end up running for nearly 100 episodes, and that I would end up taking almost three years to watch.

[SubsPlease] Shadowverse Flame - 48 (1080p) [FC5F1D11]

I saw someone describe the appeal of Shadowverse (Flame) thusly: if you like the larger-than-life drama and sort of distorted, immaculately rendered facial expressions of classic Yugioh, you won’t find a better contemporary alternative than Shadowverse. This is because (in case you didn’t know) Yugioh itself transitioned to a different studio with a different, rounder, more comedic and child-oriented style (and, as of 2025, there are no currently or upcoming airing Yugioh TV anime). In its place, we do have a few substitutes. There’s hobbyani like Beyblade, Bakugan, and Duel Masters, which all go for a more Corocoro-style mixture of hot-blooded proxy battle action and gag comedy. There’s also the Vanguard series, which from my understanding is aimed at teens and incorporates the sprawling ensemble casts and lore of classic Yugioh (I plan to get into it at some point!)

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But the series I chose to get into was Shadowverse.

A couple of things endeared me to the series before I decided to watch it. It was a stand-alone sequel series, and only the second in the franchise, seemingly a good entry point for newbies. It was getting funding from Cygames based on the absurdly popular and ongoing mobile game, which means it’d probably have some solid production values and (hopefully) continue for many years into the future — part of the deal with these giant franchises is I like the massive scope of them and getting to see them evolve over time. I also loved the character designs from the beginning. There’s the slick streetwear-casual fashion with a slightly futuristic technological flair, the exciting color design (exemplified by the multi-tone hair colors, which I think will be remembered as one of the key aesthetic traits of this era of anime character design). And there’s the creatures! As a lifelong Digimon and Pokemon fan, I was of course intrigued by the fact that all of the characters had a cute little fantasy critter buddy.

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A note about some of the character designs before we move on. I love practically all of them. Maybe my favorite design is Itsuki, the flower-loving, soft-spoken club president with a giant appetite. I love a pink boy. Look at this shit, he’s doing a handstand. It’s awesome.

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I also love our classic gyaru Tsubaru, who ends up being one of the more complex and mature characters. There’s also a BOY gyaru, the incredible purple-haired bad boy Haruma, complete with the cute little skull motifs and a badass fixation of chomping on lollipops. Another great example is maybe the most endearing, Ren, a hyper-sincere Kamen Rider wannabe with super strength. The characters are all distinct; their personalities, the shape language and colors of their designs, and the themes of their Digifriends / decks (more on that later) all make for as interesting and diverse of an ensemble cast as you could ask for.

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The thing about Shadowverse Flame is that it’s an astonishingly consistent (nearly) 100 episode anime in 2025, which is no small feat. There are only a few episodes that are visually flashy, and the sakuga is extremely limited, but the series overall generally looks good with an emphasis on maintaining the structure of the character designs, which can get rather complicated with high line counts. I think this is the appeal of the ā€œclassic Yugioh aestheticā€, at least as it pertains to the Gallop anime. Things here are a bit softer than there, but still it’s an overall impressive looking show throughout.

The animation has bits of brilliance, with one of my personal favorite animators, Yuu Yoshiyama, throwing in some incredible Kanada-style bank animation (this show didn’t even need bank animation! They did it for us!) and showing up throughout.

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A lot of the big episodes feature Tetsuya Ishikawa, who I wasn’t familiar with before but whose line weight variance is instantly recognizable, but who also pulls off the kind of flashy poses this kind of show needs.

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The story, although it has its ups and downs, also remains remarkably consistent in its approach and themes, maybe to the point of being too focused on explaining what it’s trying to get at. Still, if you tried to get me to sign up for a 100 episode anime today, chances are I’d put it on my backlog forever. But since I had no idea going into it how long it was going to be, I could just enjoy the ride without thinking about how many episodes were left.

Not to be all ā€œunlike other card game anime, this one’s about the charactersā€, but there’s no doubt that Shadowverse is laser-focused on each character’s self-actualization, with less of a focus on a complex world or plot. This comes into conflict with the second half of the show, I think, where we transition from a fairly grounded story about some kids at a card game school (?) to a battle for the fate of the world. But, what are you gonna do. Anime gonna anime.

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The first character arc that stood out to me was Subaru, who is seemingly the most low-key member of the gang but also has a personality that resonated with me in a way I’ve never quite seen before. Subaru is the laid-back joker of the group, non-committal to a fault, and this is of course a reflection of his own insecurities. Subaru’s avoidant tendencies, towards others as well as towards the game of Shadowverse itself (nearly every character’s arc is reflected in the game in some way), stems from his distant relationship with his far more talented younger brother. He feels guilty for not being fully present as an older brother figure as his brother wrestled with his own fame and genius, and this guilt is why Subaru refrains from committing to things out of a fear of failure. Still, we can see from the very beginning that he hasn’t fully given up. He’s at a Shadowverse school after all, and he clearly still enjoys the game. Subaru’s deck is themed all around ghosts, one of the many quite clever cases where the mechanics of the card game dovetail with the arcs of the characters. Ghosts have the power of invisibility, of course, and this is exactly who Subaru is — a self-effacing character who is in a sort of limbo in his own life. But it isn’t just a purely aesthetic coincidence that Subaru’s deck is built this way. He uses the Necromancer class, one of the seven (eight?) main classes of the game, which involves destroying one’s own cards in order to gain an advantage. Subaru’s playstyle is a risky one that looks a bit like self-sabotage, a fitting description of who he is as a character. In a later arc, Subaru’s mentor is a character from the previous season, Mimori, who has a similar tendency of floating through life due to her own unwillingness to take decisive action. He’s an overly analytical and self-critical character and the kind who, despite playing dumb, often picks up on more than they let on, which I think is a really fun dynamic.

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Of all the members in the club, Subaru has an understated but special complicity with Tsubasa, the oldest in the group. Tsubasa, like Subaru, is quite sharp and can read situations quickly and more deeply than others. But, like Subaru, she struggles to fully commit to relationships. Her backstory is similar — in her case, she regrets not standing up to the school bully, Haruma, who eventually drove her senpai to drop out of school. This gives Tsubasa what seems at first to be a very nihilistic view of life. In her experience, the strong dominate the weak, so there’s no point standing up for yourself, and the smart thing to do is instead to protect yourself and stay out of trouble. She’s generally careful and measured in her actions, and puts up a barrier in relationships. Again, it’s no coincidence that Tsubasa’s deck is a Bishop class, a play style that focuses on building a strong defense and stalling out the other player. It’s pretty clear to me that things go a bit deeper than this, and that, beyond her backstory, Tsubasa generally has a melancholic personality, prone to fits of depression and apathy. I really like this character and her small moments of characterization throughout, and she’s probably my favorite overall.

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Maybe my favorite battle of the whole series is the pivotal character moment when Tsubasa faces off against Ren, one of the more passionate members of the club. This is the perfect kind of setup that this kind of anime can provide. On the one hand, we have the defensive, aloof Tsubasa. On the other, the aggressively sincere Ren. Their match is a reflection of their contrasting play styles, mirrored by their contrasting personalities, and says something about where they are in their lives. The conclusion is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever seen in one of these shows, a beautifully directed episode and a genuinely touching moment of self-actualization after which Tsubasa is never quite the same again.

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These are two of the most layered and interesting character arcs, in my opinion, but pretty much all of the major characters have something similar going for them. In the second half of the show, most of the characters get an explicit foil for them to duel in a tournament format. The hero-loving Ren meets her match in Hina, a loner Shadowverse prodigy who loves the same show that she does, but instead roots for admires the villains, outcasts who rise up and seek to remake the cruel world in their own image. The shy brainiac Shion squares off against the enigmatic Warden Craft, whose philosophy prioritizes a purely selfish pursuit of knowledge. And so on and so forth.

Light as a character is essentially a reflection of the show’s philosophy. He is a bit of a weirdo and doesn’t really know how to interact with others (in his character chart, his notable trait is that ā€œhe’s good at keeping promisesā€. He’s just a certified good boy). But the reason he likes Shadowverse is it serves as a way to get to know other people. Much of the first half of the show features Light getting his ass beat (uncharacteristic for a protagonist of this kind of show!) by all sorts of people, including major rivals and antagonists. He doesn’t so much have a burning desire to win and be the strongest (as you might expect from this kind of show) as an insatiable curiosity about what makes other people tick. In the end, he always ends up understanding his opponent, growing from it, and winning. But it might take him a while.

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After about twenty five episodes of introducing the cast, the rest of the show is essentially a sequence of tournaments featuring these conflicts as a way of moving forward the characters’ personal stories. While I enjoyed this set up at first, it started to drag in some cases where the show tries to squeeze more juice out of the drama than there really is. There’s a clear throughline in the story each rivalry tries to tell, and with each move of their battles we get an insight into who has the upper hand in their ideological conflict, but I still think some arcs are stretched out way too much. I would have liked more time with the characters outside of battles and especially in groups. Card game anime is essentially always built on one-on-one battles. This makes the conflicts quite direct, but with a cast like this I would have liked more episodes with more than two characters, especially towards the end when the stakes cease to be about the characters and instead become about the fate of the world.

Some of my favorite episodes are the brief bits of downtime we get in between arcs, where we get to see our large, lovable cast interact with each other. Maybe my favorite episode is one where the gang all has a barbecue together. I often find myself drawn to long anime specifically because they have this sitcom-y quality where you get lots of time with a cast of characters, and I can get a little annoyed when the plot gets in the way. It’s the classic One Piece complaint, but I really do wish they spent some more time on the proverbial ship.

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Another small nitpick I have is the focus on Light’s rival, Mikado. Mikado is a prodigy to the point that other students and even his parents fear him, and he is alienated from his peers as a result. I’ll admit that his fallen angel themed deck is cool and pretty cute. But I was a bit disappointed that the main rival wasn’t Haruma, whose design I love and who has sort of a similar dynamic with Light. Mikado is a sort of smug know-it-all character, and while I did grow to like him I can’t say he was my favorite character. His trash talking was always on point though.

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Bit of a spoiler in this next section, but I find it interesting how Light’s story wraps up and it almost makes up for the way the final arc is set up. In the previous show, there was a whole story about seven chosen children who saved the world (again, very Digimon — you can see why I was intrigued). But while Flame keeps the number seven as a bit of a running theme (seven clubs, the seven strongest Shadowverse players in the world, seven classes) it is not, for the most part, explicitly about destiny. Until the end, when it’s revealed that the neutral class of the card game was supposed to have its own ā€œchosenā€ representative, it was supposed to be Light, and he just missed out on the first season. This is the reason why he is the protagonist of the final battle. Our villain believes in ā€œjustice and fairnessā€, and since Light didn’t get to fight the Big Bad in season one, the setup here is that he has to face his destiny by defeating a much weaker version of the Big Bad in season two. I thought this was kind of a clever setup, but the way it’s handled was pretty ballsy. Light actually loses, as he is wont to do. In his big battle of fate, Light fails and has to apologize to the whole world as they all await destruction. Of course, there’s a loophole, and Light gets to have his rematch, but he faces the final villain not as a chosen hero, but just as a regular kid. This really cements who Light is and why he’s a good protagonist, in my opinion. He is not some sort of chosen one, not a hero, he is just a regular kid who enjoys Shadowverse because it’s a way for him to connect with the world around him. And eventually, Light’s persistence pays off, as he comes to an understanding with the big bad and wins.

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Overall, I did really enjoy the show and I hope they make another one. I think the formula that they have going could evolve in interesting ways, and I found myself really attached to the characters and being impressed by the writing. There’s a ton of fanservice for the cast of the first season (which I haven’t seen yet!) that made me feel that the characters were loved and that the staff wanted to give them a satisfying sendoff. I think it’s a small miracle that an anime this long and this consistent could be made, even if it took a small army of outsourced genga and nigen animators to do it. Again, it sort of reminded me of Digimon Adventure (especially 02) and Yugioh, but Shadowverse Flame is it’s own thing. The battle mechanics are more complex, the stories have a certain grounded, empathetic bent to them, and the show overall has a fresh, new feel to it. I would love to see more.

And if you don't want to watch a 100 episode show, at least watch the ED of the second season. Please. I'm begging you.

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