Summary

This summary covers episodes 1–5

Takeshi and Michi are spending a late night studying in the spooky library. Michi accidentally drops a deck of cards, and Takeshi notices that the label reads “Weiss Schwartz” which Michi explains is the name of a card game that she happens to be especially good at. She laments the fact that she can’t meet a man who could be her match at the game. Suddenly, the cards burst from their container and open a porthole, through which the two are dragged.

Takeshi awakens in a sort of void, surrounded by various doors floating in space. In front of one is a card which he believes Michi to have dropped, so he opens it. Inside is an old man who tells him that he’s entered the card battle space, and that he happens to be the Chosen One. Luckily his lack of knowledge regarding the game isn’t much of a problem, because Michi is his first opponent and she plans to teach him the rules of the game. After the first game, it’s apparent that the Chosen One needs a lot of work and the old man moderating the battle space lets him know. Michi and Takeshi leave the space and enter another door, only to be faced with their next opponents — a group of three girls in ridiculous outfits.

Thoughts

Wow, can we say “empty product-shilling mindless mediocrity” anyone? I mean, existing only to be a toy commercial isn’t a terrible crime in-and-of-itself, but being a toy commercial while also being animated poorly and filled to the brim with fanservice revolving around the underage female protagonist (as seen by an elderly, perverted man no less!) and reusing at least a third of the previous episode’s scenes every subsequent episode must be a punishable offense in some country somewhere.

Okay, okay, it’s not that bad. I can’t possibly expect very much from a show with two-minute episodes, especially when it comes to things like character development or constructing a decent plot. And even though some fairly enjoyable shows have been made in order to exist as nothing more than an extended toy commercial (I don’t care what anyone says, the first season or so of Pokemon was a good time), most of them are shallow and mindless, meant to hypnotize parents into shelling out cash for something that will be out of style in another two weeks anyway. I can deal with that.

But that doesn’t mean that I have the self control to turn a blind eye to the aspects of the show that really vex me (and really, isn’t the point of all this to try and steer people away from what I consider to be junk?). First of all and probably most significantly, I think fanservice revolving around females of high school age (especially if they appear even younger than that, as Michi does) is disgusting, doubly so in this case because one of the observers is an elderly man. I know that there’s usually somewhat of a humorous quality surrounding “dirty old man” characters, but for some reason the old man’s behavior in this series really rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps some of that is that the show has very little to offer in terms of other redeeming qualities, so its unsavoriness is more difficult to ignore. And before anyone emails me angrily protesting my sensitivity towards this content, I do realize that as far as visual fanservice is concerned, the items of interest here are relatively mild in comparison, but it’s the combination of subject matter, age-appropriateness and character dynamics that are really causing me to feel uncomfortable about the examples of fanservice in this show.

On the other side of the coin, Michi has her share of obnoxious personality issues, the most obvious of which is the fact that she abuses Takeshi for even minor instances of stupidity. It seems as if every time he opens his mouth, she finds an opportunity to physically abuse him, first by stomping him into the ground and then later by whipping him, dominatrix style. Physical comedy can be humorous in many cases, but direct character-on-character abuse of this nature almost always seems kind of depressing to me, rather than uproariously-funny as probably intended.

One thing that I don’t understand, and I may be missing the point here, is why the show doesn’t cover more about the card game on which is was based (assuming that it’s based on a real game, which was the impression that I got). The characters are shown tossing out cards and using bizarre card-related powers, and there are brief scenes showing the game board itself (which seems needlessly complicated, of course), but no actual rules of game play, other than the requirements of winning, are covered. Perhaps the animation is meant as side entertainment for fans of the game itself, and in all honesty I don’t really think that what I saw of Yu-Gi-Oh ever touched on the rules of the actual card game on which it was based, but I almost feel as if this show might better serve its short length by introducing a new game rule, concept or tactic each time around, rather than focusing on a poorly-though-out story that comes across as silly and boring.

Luckily, this show’s short episodes and relative obscurity (upon first hearing the title, I actually thought it was some sort of relative to Weiss Kreuz, which I suppose would have been much more entertaining, in a trashy sort of “late nineties” way) make it easily-ignorable, which is completely fitting.

Pros

• Short and relatively obscure — you probably won’t accidentally stumble upon this somewhere and ultimately disappoint yourself

Cons

• The fanservice aspects are more inappropriate than usual due to relative ages of the characters
• Both main characters are pretty unlikeable