History Anime / YugiohZEXAL

* CatchPhrase: "Kattobingu!", a nonsense word that mashes up the Japanese term for "to flare up" with the English word "bing", although it could be translated in english as "I'm flaring up in a bing!".
** BlindIdiotTranslation: There were at least three alternative translations of 'kattobingu': the most common one being "I'll rise to the sky!", another as "Bring it to 'em!", and the funniest being one sub of the first episode had him saying "I'm ''pop flying''!" It's understandable as the word simply can't be satisfactorily translated into English.
** EvenTheSubtitlerIsStumped: Another fansub group has "I'll do kattobingu! [-(We have no idea how to translate this. Sorry.)-]" Even the ''official'' subs just leave it as "I'm Kattobing.".
** BorrowedCatchphrase: Tetsuo, Charlie, Tron, Astral, and Shark have all used "kattobingu", though Charlie got it from Yuma's dad Kazuma instead of Yuma himself. Cathy mutates it into "Cattobingu" (kyattobingu), which, while a clever way to work it into her CatGirl theme, makes even less sense than the ordinary catch phrase.
*** It seems that Yuma himself borrows this from his father, and it has become something of a family motto. To the point of Akari and Yuma being hilariously over the top by saying to do kattobingu, while giving each other an intense high five, the phrase has importance to both of them.
*** Now it seems like every one has their own version of kattobingu, most recently Takashi's "Todorobingu!" from episode 77.
** The dub just replaces "kattobingu" entirely with "feeling the flow"; and the English manga with "I'm gonna jet!" The dub also adds additional catchphrases; "High-five the sky" and, when starting a duel, "Get set to get [[{{Pun}} decked]]!"
** Also there's Takashi's "To summarize". The dub translates it as "In the end".

* ContinuityNod[=/=]ContinuityPorn: Episode 15 featured nearly every major card used by the main characters of the [[Anime/YuGiOh the original]] and [[Anime/YuGiOhGX the GX era]] as wooden statues. Yuma, Tetsuo, and hardcore duelist fans who had watched the original had a {{Nerdgasm}} when the 'statue duel' brought the original ace cards (Blue-Eyes, Red-Eyes, Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl) to life.
** In continuance of tradition, TheHero's ace monster has Attack and Defense of 2500 / 2000 and takes 2 monsters to summon under normal circumstances.[[note]][[Anime/YuGiOh Dark Magician]] does have 100 more DEF, though.[[/note]]
*** In the same vein, "Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon" has a lot in common with a certain other ace monster. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and "Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon" share the same stats (3000ATK/2500DEF), level (Level 8), type and attribute (Light Dragons), naming-theme ("X-Eyes Y Dragon"). Both owners, by the way, have names starting with "Kai" (Kaiba and Kaito).
*** Furthermore, they both have an upgraded, 3-headed form ("Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" and "Neo-Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon"), which once again, share most stats. The only exception here is the level and summoning requirements (BEUD is Level 12 and requires Polymerization and 3 BEWD, NGEPD is Rank 8 and requires 3 Level 8 Monsters).

** TheDreaded

** When an underwater Field Spell is activated, Yuma thinks he's drowning. This is a reference to Juudai doing the same in episode 38 of ''Anime/YuGiOhGX''. Yuma does it again when an outer-space Field Spell is activated.
** It seems growing an excessive amount of muscles before playing a card game is rather popular in the sequel series. Kagemaru did it in ''GX'', Goodwin did it in ''5D's'' and now we have [[spoiler: Dr. Faker]] in ''Zexal''. Perhaps coincidentally, these are all the first major BigBad of their respectful series.

* OnTheNextEpisodeOfCatchPhrase: "I'm kattobingu!"

* VerbalTic: Tokunosuke ends his sentences with "-ura." Which leads to an amusing moment in the Duel between Yuma and Tron where he cheers them on with "Zexal-ura", which the audience picks up as a cheer to Yuma's disappointment.

The story takes place in the futuristic city of Heartland[[note]]possibly set chronologically after a previous series[[/note]], where duels are conducted using the latest AugmentedReality technology. This is the home of Yuma Tsukumo, a thirteen-year-old [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent middle school student]] who tackles life and dueling with everything he has, despite his lack of skill at either.

The anime was rescheduled on September 24, 2012 and was rebranded as ''Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal II'' on October 7, 2012. However, it is not a new series - NAS' website lists the series as ongoing, with no reset of episode numbers to go along with the rebrand. Likewise the dub of second season, which began airing on August 17, 2013, doesn't change the title.

Taking place shortly after the events of the World Duel Carnival, life seemed to go back to normal for Yuma and his friends. However evil forces from the Barian World seek to obtain the "Number" cards to destroy the Astral World. Now Yuma, Shark, and Kaito along with all their friends must band together and face this new threat.

** Outside Japan, [[spoiler:Misael]] complied (albeit reluctantly) to the villagers' orders to kill Dragluon and betrayed his heart and wishes. The original dub depicted [[spoiler:Misael]] far more heroically, though, and instead of killing his friend, he offered his own life to prove his point but was killed by the invaders before he could do so.

** [[spoiler: You'd expect PlotArmor to protect the protagonists from death, but nope. Astral has technically died twice, and Shark was revealed to have been killed in a past life. And now, as of Episode 135, Kaito bites it after defeating Mizael and unlocking the Numeron Code.]]

** Would that make them [[IncrediblyLamePun Bar-Barians]], then?

** The dub just replaces "kattobingu" entirely with "feeling the flow"; and the English manga with "I'm gonna jet!" The dub also adds additional catchphrases; "High-five the sky" and, when starting a duel, "Get set to get [[JustForPun decked]]!"

Has the distinction of being literally the last SaturdayMorningCartoon ever broadcast (before the Creator/{{Vortexx}} block ceased airing on September 27, 2014). Also holds the honor of being the second ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' series to completely finish its English dub (''GX'' only stopped at the end of its third season and ''[=5Ds=]'' stopped midway through its last season and was given a hastily edited GeckoEnding).

*** Fake Number > Barian Number

* SeriesContinuityError: In episode 43, Kaito's Photon Pressure World did not activate when he summoned Photon Kaiser, even though it was established in the card's text that it was not an option. Dr. Faker's Battle Route card vanishes between episodes with no explanation.

** They're all over the place if you're looking for them, to the point where Zexal sort of feel like an AU that asks what if Atem was an alien.

** [[spoiler: Kaito, in two flavors: red for Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, and blue for No. 62: Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon.]]

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Heartland, in comparison to the likes of Satellite and Dark World looks pretty bright and colorful. There's robots cleaning up people's messes, a futuristic atmosphere, and no systematic conflict. [[spoiler: Except we've got brainwashings a plenty, cards that warp, distort and outright degrade people's minds into horrifying insanity, a terrifying madman in charge supported by a guy that looks like Dr. Weil who is willing to commit omnicide on one universe to save his son, and which we see as junk being dumped into a world and its residents ''running, screaming.'' After the Barians are introduced, it gets even worse. They're at first quirky and bizarre, rather incompetent and overspecialized. Then we see that Girag, despite his comedic quirks, basically goes around brainwashing everyone he can in order to make them basically an army of mind control slaves. As if that wasn't bad enough, Misael appears, with a terrifyingly powerful dragon at his beck and call, and he basically terrifies the protagonist out of dueling him. And then Vector returns, and is shown as ''even crazier, eviler and more disturbing'' than we already thought he was. He made a lot of squicky moves on Yuma through his disguise of Shingetsu Rei and a multitude of lies, and his duel with him showed his commitment to completely burying the heroes for defeating him that one time. And even then, we get a GodOfEvil that Vector incarnated into himself, which has further decayed his sanity. And then we get a nice little story about a King who executed his subjects en masse and then committed suicide...shown in an illustration, followed by several other legends with more sympathetic characters suffering from tragic fates. Then we get the world ending followed by several supporting and even main characters''dying''!]] Such a light cartoon, eh?

* RousseauWasRight: Perhaps one of the strongest uses of this trope in a YuGiOh series, considering the villains are either people who have understandable reasons to their motivations and the Barians are actually just people who are doing what Astral World is doing to them.

* ExcitedShowTitle
** ExcitedTitleTwoPartEpisodeName - Repeatedly.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Opening sequences often shown shadowed monsters and characters before their first appareance.

* LargeHam: Dr. Faker shows up for less then a minute and makes this impression with his over the top laughing and speech.