News: Bushiroad Press Conference 7/4/2012

At 1:00 PM JST, Thursday, Bushiroad conducted a special live conference over NicoNico Douga concerning their Tantei Opera Milky Holmes and Cardfight!! Vanguard properties. Drawing over 17,000 viewers and more than 14,000 comments over the course of an hour, the conference revealed key details about upcoming episodes of the anime's second season, Asia Circuit, as well as upcoming promo card releases and collaborations between Bushiroad and NJPW, whom they bought out earlier this year.

Previews of Cardfight's ED07 "Fighting Growing Diary," drove the viewers wild with what appear to be an image of an older Sendou Emi and Katsuragi Kamui, as well as Kamui's friends Reiji and Eiji in the back. How these elementary-school characters would appear when scaled up with the series' primarily middle- and high-school class has been a popular subject, and Emi's grown appearance is surprisingly consistent with the fans' image of her.

 

Celebrated actor and musician Daigo made a special video appearance, explaining his role in the upcoming eighteenth episode of the Asia Circuit, Ride 83: "A Legendary Fighter" (ＲＩＤＥ　１８「伝説のファイター」.) His character is designed to emulate Aichi's first season appearance, as well as Daigo's appearance in many of Cardfight's TV commercials and national tournament award ceremonies. Amusingly, it was not lost on fans that Daigos animated character bore a resemblance to characters designed by his sister Eiki Eiki, a professional mangaka.

Several additional details were made available regarding Daigo's animated portrayal. The character in question is being set up to fight the newly-introduced Sohryuu Leon, the series' first Aqua Force cardfighter, who is also getting the same treatment as many main characters through a much-anticipated trial deck release. Daigo is currently set to use the Royal Paladin clan; how this will fit into the Circuit's current storyline is not currently clear.

Regarding Leon himself, preview images of his trial deck showed a previously-unseen draw trigger.

A special Midnight Bunny alternate artwork card, illustrated by the artist behind the Mini-Van omake comics, Quily, will soon be available as a promotional item.

Finally, Bushiroad CEO Takaaki Kidani made an appearance to announce additional information regarding the Vanguard World Tournament (ヴァンガード世界大会), discussing the inclusion of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia in the running for the 2012 crown. With these accounted for, there are twenty qualifiers being held worldwide across thirteen countries.

Related to this, the official English website was today updated to include prize details for the NA national championship. The top two finishers of each qualifier will gain entry into the North American championship via invitation, with travel fees being provided by Bushiroad. The top four finishers at the championship will gain an invitation to the world championship in Tokyo, where they will compete to determine the world's first Vanguard national champion. Concerning Asia-Oceania championship, it has now been established that the Korean champion will have an automatic invitation into that competition. Any fighters who already possess an invitation upon winning at a qualifier will have their prize passed down to the next in line.

The conference was highly successful, garnering a 68.8% most positive rating from NicoNico Douga's viewers. 25.5% felt that it was okay, 2.7% did not think that it was very good, and just 3% fell into the most dissatisfied category.