This is one of those manga spinoffs that feels extremely random and that’s part of the fun. It’s nice to see a series be able to just jump in and throw all the characters into a whole new scenario. Aichi even gets to show up which is the first time we’ve seen him in a new combat situation in a super long time. So that was cool and the main story involves a lot of nonstop action. The series does come to a rather abrupt ending though which is a shame because it felt like there was a lot of meat left on the bone. Hopefully Cardfight continues to churn out a bunch of other titles though.

The series starts by introducing us to a new kind of Cardfight, Sky Battles! These battles are super exciting but also incredibly dangerous. If you fall off of your hoverboard during a fight then you will potentially fall to your doom. There are no real guard rails here. Additionally there is a terrorist organization known as Blast! who specialize in stealing cards and challenging duelists to these sky battles. They are bad news and with the real impacts of card effects, anyone trying to fight them is risking his life.

Zero’s not scared though and so he aims to get out there and take them down. This leads him to enter a big tournament where all of their fighters will be attending. What he doesn’t anticipate is that the tournament will end up being on the planet Cray. It’s unknown how the fighters will be able to get back home or what will happen if someone is defeated. For now Zero just has to focus on defeating every fighter in his way but this will definitely not be easy.

As the main character Zero is definitely a really fun lead. He is always ready for a fight and doesn’t back down to any challenge. The guy was just a normal fighter but doesn’t bat an eye or hesitate for a moment when he suddenly has to go up against the organization. Some may say that he even adapts to this whole thing too quickly but honestly that’s part of the charm. I like when a character isn’t worried about the small stuff and is just getting ready to fight right away. Zero starts out the series at a high level already but as it goes on he gets even better.

Zero also has a hidden origin story which is hinted at right away even if it doesn’t get explored until near the end. I may have more nostalgia for someone like Aichi but I dare say that Zero starts out at a higher level and his consistent confidence might even make him a better main character. He’s not perfect or anything like that but is someone that you can always count on to defend his friends.

The only other character who comes close to his level is Shiki. Shiki is the shop manager and initially he just seems like a comic relief character but then it turns out that he has a whole backstory related to Blast. That helps to make him more of an intriguing character and his skills are also top rate. That was really important because being strong without the skills to back it up would not go anywhere. This way he was someone who could stay relevant to the end and he even got my favorite duel in the series. I would have liked him to have fought more but the series is fairly short so there’s only so much that you can do here.

The guest stars in Akina and Aichi both look good in the series. Akina may not have been a match against Zero but he put up a really good fight and nearly claimed victory. Aichi has a significantly larger role although I feel like his deck isn’t quite as impressive here. He makes up for that with his sheer experience but in a way Akina just ends up looking more powerful. It’s also cool to see both main characters in the same adventure, raises the odds that perhaps someday we can get a full crossover across both character casts.

The main heroine in the series is Suina and she’s definitely a fun one. I was a bit worried that she wouldn’t get any wins for a while there but she was able to clutch one out in the end. She did a good job fighting on behalf of the shop owner and making sure that none of the main characters lost themselves to rage. A more difficult task than you might expect in this series. She was also able to keep on fighting even when roped into a shadow duel where the damage dealt was all real. There wasn’t too much time for Suina to appear but she made the most out of every appearance.

Then we have our villains. The first member from blast is Kira and he took Zero down rather easily near the beginning of the series. After that you have to wait until the climax for the rematch. Kira sort of sees this all as a big game. He is definitely evil because it’s not like the guy is brainless but doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of what he’s doing. I thought that he was a good villain but did get overshadowed by most of the others.

Reiryu is the first member of Blast’s elite four to fight and now this was a really powerful figure. Zero had to pull out all the stops here and unfortunately this is one fight where Suina was crushed. The battles were a good way to show how the Elite Four were a complete step above the normal fighters though. These were not opponents that most fighters could handle and none of the other Elite Four were quite able to match this initial appearance.

Hibana is one of the other members and she was strong. She probably could have defeated Zero if it was one on one but she had the misfortune of having to take on Aichi as well. There are very few fighters who could defeat two MCs like that. She lasted quite a while either way so the Elite Four tag continued to get its due respect. Then we had Amon who gets a lot of screentime. He started out as a nice kid who just wanted to learn Vanguard but unfortunately Zero was too focused on winning at the time. He prevented the fights from being fun and this broke Amon down to the point where he ended up with a whole lot of split personalities.

Amon broke down in a very literal way and ultimately had to have the personalities literally knocked out of him. He should be okay now but that was definitely a tough process to go through. I can’t say that I loved the character but I thought his backstory was done very well. Finally we have the main villain Yuyu. (No relation to the anime main character Yu-Yu) This guy is cool and a super strong duelist. We sort of get cheated out of a climax for him though as an ancient demon god takes over his body all of a sudden for the final battle.

He was still a cool villain though and definitely put the main characters through the ringer. The demon monster was cool too of course but a bit more of your classic destroy the world type. There wasn’t a whole lot to him beyond that. The series wanted to end with super high stakes though and there’s no better way to do that than by adding in a big monster.

Yuuki is technically a more minor character but he served as the first real challenge for Zero in the tournament. He has a really cool design and is known as one of the strongest duelists in Japan so it’s not like the guy is all talk or anything. He was ready to fight from the start. As far as the minions are concerned, he ends up being one of the more memorable characters. If this series had been longer, I suspect he would have done more.

The artwork is definitely solid. There are a lot of good speed lines for the action scenes which really lets the series show off its intensity. The pages are all easy to read and the character designs are good. It can get a little rough during some of the busier turns when a page is trying to do a whole lot at once but that tends to be more of a rare event. So on the whole the art is definitely more on the positive side. The best panels are always when Zero gets in the zone and really locks in against his opponents.

You can definitely see where the series starts to really sped up the pacing but I thought that it all ended out well. Throwing in a tournament near the beginning of the series that goes all the way into the end is always a fun way to go about things. The Sky Ride duels seem a little too risky to ever be practical but the rule of cool is fun. The shadow duels are also a great way to introduce high stakes right away. This is a series that is focused on getting you hyped right away and I’d say that’s the right approach here. You can leave logic behind for a little while.

Overall, Cardfight delivers with another solid title here. It’s one of those manga that makes for an easy read and will keep you entertained the whole way. It may not be the kind of title that you remember a whole lot down the road as a great adventure but serves its purpose. I didn’t really have any issues with it and the series can actually get rather intense and emotional when it wants to. I’d like to see this animated at some point, I feel like you could pull it off in a 12 episode season. Just seeing the old main characters would already be a great selling point. If you’re looking for a good dueling title, this is definitely one that I can recommend.

Overall 7/10