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Review

Wild Cardz

Synopsis:
Wild Cardz
The Crown Knights, a team of four cute girls with unique hair colors and abilities defend the Card Kingdom from outside invaders. Their names also mean that they could double as Lucky Charms mascots. There's the leader Sunday Spades, fast-running Jo Diamonds, combat expert Casa Clubs (who has such fine-tuned senses that she'd be able to hear an insect sneeze a mile away), and magic user Coco Hearts. When an outside force attacks, wielding thousand-foot-tall chess piece-shaped combat machines, they have to attack, but it seems no amount of force can stop them.
Review:
It's been said that Wild Cardz (originally entitled "Jaja UMA! Quartette") reminds people of the OAV series Idol Project. It's actually not a bad way to describe this series, which also marks the first day-and-date (simultanious) release on DVD. But while fans cheer the fact that the new format of choice is coming into its own, there's not a whole lot else in this package worth cheering over.

Plotwise, Wild Cardz makes very little sense. The bad guys are never adequately explained, there's almost no character development, and we get zero explaination for any of what happens. It's as if this was originally supposed to be a TV series -- it feels rushed and abbreviated, as if the only thing there was left to show us was fight scenes. (X the Movie, anyone?) While, as long as the girls involved are cute, one segment of fandom won't care about this, for the rest of us, that really hurts the enjoyablility factor for this two-parter. But that's not the only strike against this project.

In what has (sadly) become typical Central Park Media fashion, the dubbing suffers from an absolutely horrible rewrite (if there was any), which results in mouth-mismatching, awkwardly slow speech, and some lines that seem just plain out of place the way they're acted. The direction and acting are actually not too bad (although a few minor characters are totally miscast), but many characters become monotone when speaking loudly, resulting in many lines that simply cannot be understood.

Wild Cardz certainly isn't a must-see, but it isn't a must-miss either. If you liked Idol Project and similarly brainless fare, the fairly low-priced DVD might be a good investment if you're so inclined. However, the dub is certainly not even worth a look.
Grade:
Production Info:
Overall (dub) : C-

+ Nice character designs and smooth animation.
− Cliche and confusing. Horrible dub.
Director: Yasuchika Nagaoka
Producer: Yutaka Takahashi

Full encyclopedia details about
Wild Cardz (OAV)
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