Series Reviews – Blue Archive

Welcome to Kivotos! In a makeshift fantasy world, the player enters into a place where almost all of humanity is gone, replaced by a variety of different beings mainly comprised of humanoids and humanoids with animal motifs. You are the sensei in this game, a teacher to the plentiful and wonderful students that inhabit this magical and technologically advanced city.

Blue Archive released in early 2021, debuting with a Japanese version shortly followed by a Korean/worldwide version later in that same year. There is also a Chinese version as of late 2023. Blue Archive is a gacha game where the primary gameplay consists of a tactical autobattler where the player assumes a third-party view while activating skills of the students whom they deploy to handle various scenarios from map to map.

The world of Blue Archive exists in a fantasy realm that could be akin to a future far away. For reasons unknown to the player and the in-game persona, most of humanity has gone missing. The replacement humanoids and humanoids adjacent are mainly students that each belong to the various academies that reside in the city. Each of these academies hold within them their own power related to control to the city or parts of the city along with their unique motifs, focus points, and goals. You, as the sensei, belong to a special group called S.C.H.A.L.E., a special organization with additional power and control above all the clubs and schools in the city. Together with your digital companion from your specialty tablet, your job is to traverse the city and help out the various clubs and students as needed. Along the way, you discover the truth behind the mysterious S.C.H.A.L.E. along with facing the various interested parties blocking your way.

Sometime in 2024, the series also received its first anime title. Blue Archive the Animation focuses on stories based upon those in the gacha game itself. The sensei, the player character, begins and moves on from club to club, dealing with and enjoying the laughable adventures along the way.

The earliest product in Weiss Schwarz for Blue Archive came out in February 2024 with the simultaneous release of both the trial deck and booster. A year later, in October 2025, the booster based upon the series’ anime was released.

Blue Archive was a rather unique series that released initially as a sort of gacha bundle. That is to say that all the cards carried a universal trait of Kivotos (キヴョトス). The original set was rather unorganized. Characters from respective academies were assigned a specific colour, and that was it pretty much in terms of creating an identity for each school. By the release of the second set, Blue Archive took a shift in another direction, changing to become more archetypal focused. That is to say, the second set rewards building in specific groups, focusing on a three clubs and a single stray character (Hifumi) appearing in the series with the Abydos Countermeasures Committee, Gehenna Disciplinary Committee, and Problem Solver 68. No news has been made on any new upcoming set. However, if there is to be a sequel, there is likely a chance for the release of newer support for the other groups within Blue Archive. This post will focus on organizing the cards by the various groups that appear in the series and their general performances. I’ll try my best, but I may miss one or two groups.

Beginning with the Abydos Countermeasures Committee by which Shiroko acts as the cover girl for the game, this group focuses on assembling its members with a specialized finishing troupe. There are two colours for this group, mainly blue, and followed by yellow that was introduced in the second set. Each member of the committee has their own duty, and in the late game, Shiroko can pull out a friend from the level zone or do some tricks with another copy of herself (Shiroko blue finisher).

Sample Deck Profile: Abydos

The outlaws are at it again, gaining a green identity prior to their sole red identity in the first set. Problem Solver 68 with Aru and her gang are a bunch of trouble makers primarily aimed at gathering their wits together to enable Aru in the late game. Aru’s hard boiled shot does a two pronged attack, dealing an initial burst of damage followed by a delayed explosion at the start of the encore step to your opponent. There is also a standby variant from the original set where Aru would constantly recycle herself back on board for continual attacks.

Sample Deck Profile: Problem Solver 68

Gehenna’s disciplinary team is in full swing and ready to dish out damage. Experience is the key specialty that separates their prowess from others. Upon reaching endgame, with Hina and co. assembled in front, Iori fires her a shot from the back, dealing a point of damage and also letting you surveil the top of your opponent’s deck as well while the rest of the team cleans up in the front. There is a variant from the old set that focuses on the team’s red identity.

Trinity General School is gifted with angels whether they carry wings or not. With the three additions of Hifumi cards in set two (for her short anime appearance), the rest of the students focus upon compiling the school’s top Peroro enjoyer for the end game, Hifumi. The school is solely limited to the colour of yellow and encompasses several students from various clubs (unlike the three mentioned before, Trinity doesn’t have a singular trait). While the Justice Task Force maintains control on the board, the Sisterhood cures both you and your opponents’ souls, whereas the Order of Relief Knights will get you patched up as the After-School Sweets club fills your stomach with sugary treats.

Sample Deck Profile: Trinity

One of the other big schools, Millennium Science School is home to those that aspire for invention and experimentation. Similar to Trinity, the school combines several clubs together. Calculator wife Yuuka drops a hundred kilograms works with her friends in the seminar to handle finances and resources. The game development club and the invention team provide tools for everyone. Meanwhile, the infamous bunny maids lead the overall assault. One finisher is Aris who fires her double-shot hand carried railgun, piercing your opponent’s bottom deck twice and punishing them for the number of climaxes revealed. Similar to Trinity’s mono-colour, Millennium is limited to blue.

Sample Deck Profile: Millenium

While I don’t tend to refer to the schools and clubs by colour, green is in an odd spot for this series. In the original set, various schools were all put together here. Interestingly, Waka(wife)mo doesn’t carry a secondary trait (for lore reasons). Almost all the rest of the clubs are displayed here. Saori and her Arius Squad have a sort of Voltron-esque design going on. Miyako and the Rabbit Squad are all assembled and ready for combat. Hyakkiyako and both their ninja foxes and the Yin-Yang club are also here. I would say green feels like a jumble of characters.

As a series, Blue Archive feels rather mixed and even more so thanks to the split between the two current existing boosters. As a gacha series, you can see my opinion on them here in comparison with the standard sets, the original set felt like it was more about trying to field as many characters from the gacha game with some slight nod-offs to their abilities transferring to card effects. As such, while there is some inherent synergy latent with having characters of certain factions or groups with each other, the overall feel felt random and all over the place. The unifying trait of Kivotos kept everyone together, but I feel it also trivialized deck building and took away uniqueness from the set as well. This was changed within the second set where characters were evidently divided by their specific groupings. And, from my understanding, the reception to this is mixed. On one hand, some players are happy that characters create additional value when paired with their own group synergies. On the other hand, others are upset that they cannot more so easily pair these cards with older cards in a full capacity, missing out on certain abilities or losing consistency without building into a theme. Either way, that’s a conversation for a different time.

I do hope, in the future, we see more iterations of the Blue Archive girls. Personally, I enjoy the direction of the second set itself, and I wish to see more visualizations and cards of the girls, even if it moves into following the direction of more anime series. Give me my C&C Bunny waifu deck!