I'm gonna make these Vangaurd tier lists regularly I think. Just another platform to express how my opinions are far superior to everyone elses.
edit: there is a revised list in the comments. ignore everything else,
BEST:
G NEXT. Hands down. Literally all of my favorite fights come from this season. They brought Aichi back, there was an actually good boss, the animation improved, and they showed really nice character progression for not just the main trio. Ya, ik, MIGERU was a thing. Didn't bother me as much as it did for others. Tokoha was already a poorly written character. At least her fight against Chrono in the semis is still one of the best fights in VG.
Asia Circuit: I know it gets a lot of crap for some reason. Maybe it's just my nostalgia goggles kicking in, though. This was the season that was just starting when I started Vanguard, and Aichi vs Leon is still one of my favorite fights.
Good:
Season 1: I don't think I need to say much here. It's season 1. They actually cared about the anime back then. Aichi vs Kai. Kai vs Ren. Aichi vs Ren. EZ money. I still remember getting chills the first time they showed Blaster Dark on screen (both on my screen and on the TV that Q4 was watching)
Link Joker: Animation started going out the window in season 3, but just barely. Outside of that though, break ride is my favorite mechanic, and this season did have some good fights. Leon vs Koutei, Ren vs Asaka, and, of course, Naoki's comment about Suiko in a sailor outfit.
Shin: Shin is my favorite male character in this whole darned franchise. It was cool to see how the famous Card Capital got started, and the cards introduced this season were really cool too. Animation was pretty on point for the most part.
Ok:
Legion Mate: Ok, hot take: Legion Mate was pretty good. The only reason it's not in Good is because you could tell they really stopped caring about the animation. Cards were literally just still shots of their card art. Anyone remember CEO Yggdrasil? Seeing Kai use RP again made me pretty happy, though. And when he got Kagero back, oh boy was that fun. His fight against Gaillard was literally the only episode in the series where they really card about the animation. I also am a big fan of my of the legion bosses. GIVE ME NEW BRAWLER SUPPORT BUSHI.
V Season 1: It's og Season1, but worse. Not too much worse though. But it can't be as good as the OG, so here it is in Ok.
Stride Gate: Uh is this one Girs Crisis or Stride Gate, I can't really tell? In fact, I didn't actually realize they were considered different seasons until now. they were both pretty lackluster. the only reason I have stride gate ahead of gears crisis is because the final fights against the company were pretty good. except for chrono vs ryuzu. demiurge is a stupid final boss and everyone knows it.
G Season 1: lol remember when they told us they were going to give us Vanguard but without the Vanguard? And then everyone complained so they kind of gave us back the Vanguard aspect? This season didn't even have good animation to make up for it. It was pretty sloppy overall, but I can't put it in bad. Because there was a lot worse to come.
Bad:
Girs Crisis: the only point of this season was to bring back fan favorite characters, and you are dumb if you think otherwise. im not taking the bait. i don't remember a single interesting fight from this season.
V continued: so V animation was pretty good, but V continued was just sooooooo rushed. They started just skipping fights and the formula became so predictable. The only good part of this season was Kourin beating Aichi in the end. You know its bad when the mess up a tournament arc.
GZ: I HATE THIS WITH A PASSION. They had the best possible villain setup from G NEXT and they freaking BLEW IT. Does anyone actually remember enjoying the triple fight against Gyze? There was literally so much build up, and the boss fight was just.... terrible. Chaos Breaker was a more interesting villain this season, and even he had a pretty bad fight against Aichi and Kai. Literally the only, and I mean only, good thing to come out of this season, was Rin's voice acting in her fight against Relics Tokoha. I still go back and rewatch that 2 minute scene just to hear her voice. But damn this season suckeddddddddd.
WHY:
I'm gonna save time by not even explaining why the BT anime should be in the WHY category. Who asked for this?