Fantasista Doll

FANTASISTA DOOOLL…….. =) Welcome to Fantasista Doll, it’s about a young high school girl named Uzume Uno. When she was really young, she was a professional card game player and had won a renowned tournament; though upon entering high school, she has given up playing cards. Uzume is our main protagonist, she’s sweet, kind, absolutely sincere and will protect her dolls no matter what. So what the heck are dolls? Oh that’s easy, imagine a card game, now imagine the cutest, prettiest, most beautiful girls you can, good good, now every time you decided to play this card game, you would summon your girls and youcan battle with them, they can have different outfits and all sorts of things. Yeah, Dolls live inside of cards and can be summoned at will. A large portion (all of it), has the Dolls saying “master” a lot, if you hate that stuff, this isn’t for you. (Though let's be honest, we all love that) So what the heck is Fantasista Doll really about? Uzume is gifted cards from a stranger and a device to use said cards. These cards contain her 5 dolls, Katia, the super cute, super little blue girl, Shimeji, the eccentric pink haired girl, Akari, our gothic lolita (sorta) who is expressionless, Madeleine, the large breasted, level headed/tactician girl with purple hair and lastly Sasara, the “leader” of sorts with golden hair. They all fight with different weapons, Akari: Yo-yo’s, Katia: Colored Dango (I think: Think Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6), Sasara: Fencing Sword, Madeleine: Polearm and Shimeji: CQC. The plot makes little sense; there are two organizations, one you can consider very good and the other very gray. Uzume is somehow in the center of it all, and this gray organization wants her cards (dolls). The over arcing plot may be a little cliché, the way all the fights are handled are most definitely cliché, if you hate seeing “friendship rules all” types of resolutions, Fantasista Doll is not for you; I on the other hand love seeing “friendship rules all” in anime so this was fantastic for me. Expect to see Uzune stand up for her dolls, expect to see a lot of tears, expect to see some really good combat and expect to fall in love with Fantasista Doll (seriously). The cast of characters is thankfully limited. Each “Master” has 5 dolls and in the anime, we witness around 3-4 “Masters” that Uzume fights. The other “Masters” are taken care of by a support character named Kagami. We also have Komachi, Uzumes friend who is always ready to give Uzume advice, Manai, Uzume’s friend and creator of the Card Club and of course, Kagami. The plot of Fantasista Doll intertwines all the girls stories with Uzume in a well thought out manner. I honestly wasn’t really expecting twists in the story to happen, but once I hit episode 7-8, I was like, “Oh crap, that’s that and she’s that and oh my gao, what just happened?”. It may seem simple in comparison to other anime, but I still found it very gripping. I’m also too sensitive and got a little too emotional for Fantasista Doll, but “friendships rule all” is so touching and Uzume is great. (I don’t expect others to get a little teary eyed watching this) The Art: As you would expect, it’s very cute. The entire art style is super, I’m talking, super adorable; though a little on the “bloomy” side. The girls and Dolls are all drawn well, the lines are smooooooth and the quality of the art doesn’t take a dip the closer we get to the last episodes, so it’s a good mark from me. Animation is a little different. The first couple episodes have the flashiest animation in battles/fights. Near the end of the series, certain attacks are just cut/quickly shown, either to reduce time or just not draw out the intricate details; it’s a noticeable change from the earlier episodes too, unfortunately. That’s probably the “biggest” issue with Fantasista Doll, though it’s only an issue if something like that matters; I didn’t care so it didn’t affect me, I was way too busy squeeing and being too happy. Music: FANTASISTA DOOOOLL, yes, that’s the OP and yes, it’s very addicting. OP is beautiful, both the song and the animation that goes along with it, super gorgeous art work is involved and you would/should feel bad for skipping it if you do, because hearing FANASISTA DOOOOLL is too much fun. The ED is just as good, being pretty. The music that accompanies both OP/ED is also really nice to listen to, happy, cheerful and beautiful vocalists. About the BGM: just like the anime, most sounds/music is very cute, very happy, very cheerful, and very magical; yes, magical, perfect word to describe it. Though there are some sad moments and things like that, not much, so a lot of happy involved with Fantasista Doll. Overall, Fantasista Doll is amazing, I love the concept of the card battle (even if it’s been to death before), I really liked Uzume and her Dolls (even if Sasara is a bit hidoi), I liked the twist(s) that occurred and I most definitely liked the entire package that Fantasista Doll brought, would watch again if a new season was in the works without a doubt. Will probably watch again just because it’s super fun.

[Story] The plot is about a young girl who find herself thrown into a card game that involves using female I.As to battle. An interesting ideal that is unfortunately done poorly in this anime. I'm a big person whose into trading card games. So the plot really interested me, however the anime doesn't seem to really care about the TCG part of show, which is really odd considering that it's a main part of the show. Let me explain, When it comes to the competitive battle type animes (pokemon, yugioh,metabots, etc) it important that the anime show/explain in someway how the battle system works. So when battle actually happensthe viewer can understand what's going on. Fantasista Doll never does this. All of the battles just feature the girl and her opponents throwing out random, nameless card. There doesn't seem to be any real types of rules to the game or explain what certain cards do. Because of this I thought the battle portions of the anime were extremely boring. What's the point of even watching them if I don't even understand what's going on. As I continued to watch the anime, I got to understand that this was more about the main characters relationship to the I.As rather than towards the TCG aspect of the show. And if the show was going for that fine, but if that the case what's the point of even putting this lackluster TCG battle aspect into the show in the first place. [Art] The art is okay. It has that cute look to it without going into moe-y territory (which I personally don't like) [Sound] Is alright. Nothing really memorable about it. [Character] The characters are probably the best part of the show. I say this not implying that I think the characters are all that great, but from the fact that the anime's main goal was to focus on the character's relationship with one another and as such the characters became the most interesting thing out of the whole show. Overall, no one in this show didn't really have a interesting personality or memorable traits that I cared about or could get from another/better anime. I will admit that a lot of them have interesting character designs tho. [Enjoyment] While Fantasista Doll definitely isn't the worst anime I ever experience, the absolute disinterest the show seem to have for it own battle system really disappointed me as that what made me interested in it in the first place. Hence, why I gave it such a low score. [Overall] If you're looking for a show that involves TCG battles go somewhere else, but if you're looking for 1000+ generic cute girl anime, where here you go.

Overall it is a good show with some flaws here and there. Middle episodes are better than beginning or the end. Unfortunately it falls into uncanny valley between high stakes tragedy and light drama. In tragedy, where fates characters and the world at stake, bitter fight tooth and nail over often one's very survival is justified and make a lot of sence. On the other hand in light drama such as Gochiusa where they argue over coffee, afraid of ghost and bunnies and upset that one puzzle piece is lost able to showcase girls as weak, vulnerable, harmless and overall very sexy and fuckable. Here however there are terse personalityclashes, bitterness and crazy walkouts. Kind of the girl drama that men so much want to avoid. However only some episodes are guilty of that and others are much more chill, otherwise I would have given it much lower score. Also it is a waifu show with a ok selection of girls. Though these girls are not as likable as in Gochiusa or even Dolls Frontline. Overall while it is worse than the shows I mentioned above, it is better than many others. So I will recommend it nonetheless.