Anime / Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V

Swing! Pendulum of the Soul!

"Locked in battle, duelists and their monsters are kicking against earth and dancing in the air! They storm through this Field! Behold! This is the newest and greatest evolution of Dueling! ACTION... DUEL!"

The fifth series in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, which first aired on April 6, 2014, and concluded on March 26, 2017, spawning a total of 148 episodes. ("ARC-V" is a double pun: it literally means "Story Arc 5", but the "V" shape also refers to the arc of a pendulum. ^note The term does have a meaning in the series proper, but said meaning is introduced very late into the story and constitutes a major spoiler.)

In the world of ARC-V, significant developments in hard-light technology have given birth to "Action Duels": a new form of sports entertainment where Duelists fight alongside their monsters in spectacular fantasy arenas and aim to win the crowd as well as the fight.^note Those duels include Action Cards, which can be found on the Action Field. Action Cards can be activated from the hand in any turn and they usually allow the player to escape from enemy attacks or to give their monster more offensive power. Action Traps have mostly a negative effect for the player.

Yuya Sakaki is an eighth-grader who aims to follow in the footsteps of his Disappeared Dad and become the most popular Entertainment Duelist in the world. When the pendulum pendant he received from his father suddenly begins to glow during a televised exhibition match, Yuya unlocks the incredible power of Pendulum Summoning: An unknown form of Summoning that could be Yuya's big break into showbiz... Or lead to a whole heap of unwanted trouble.

Similar to previous series, there are Duel Schools which teach people how to duel and in different styles; though unlike previous series, those are afterschools and regular schools indeed exist. However, the Fusion, Ritual, Synchro and Xyz Summonings are taught only in elite schools, with the Leo Duel School (LDS) being the monopoly of the entire world. With Yuya's creation of Pendulum Summoning, a new Summoning method was born that had never been seen before. Despite being a student of the low-level You Show Duel School, he decides to prove that the school's Entertainment Duel style can compete with anything.

Then the Wham Episodes start coming. One right after the other. So many they needed their own page.

ARC-V evolves into a Deconstructor Fleet of tropes and plot elements that had become staples of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, then pulls a Decon-Recon Switch as the story develops. Realistic outcomes are invoked repeatedly: the hero having rare cards no one has seen before means people try to steal or duplicate them, the danger presented by Hard Light holograms justifies the card game being treated as Serious Business, and the villains utilize this technology to wage war through dueling. The result is a Darker and Edgier Yu-Gi-Oh! series that manages to be more realistic and serious while still staying lighthearted and idealistic enough that it keeps true to the core themes of the franchise. Being that it aired in time for the franchise's 20th anniversary, it also pays homage to what has come before it, but how it does so is a massive Walking Spoiler.

After the conclusion of the series in March 26, 2017, the story of ARC-V has been continued in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links since September 28, 2021, the date when the ARC-V World has been added to the Massive Multiplayer Crossover video game. Set some time after the conclusion of the anime, it follows the Lancers gradually reuniting in this new virtual world to work through their remaining issues before a potential new threat emerges on the horizon that will take a chance offered by the unique reality of Duel Links.

As of November 15, 2016 official subs are available on Crunchyroll. You can legally view it here.

Warning: While a good few spoilers are hidden, some spoilers are left unmarked! If you wish to watch the series without any spoilers, you have been warned.

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This show provides examples of:

Tropes A-D

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
  • Some of the bigger monsters, just like Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon or DDD Great Death Lord, Hell Armageddon.
  • Many sequences during Riding Duels in the Synchro Dimension.
  • Literally every single Dragon that appears on-screen is done with CGI. No exceptions. It doesn't matter if it's Odd-Eyes, Dark Rebellion, Clear Wing, Starving Venom, the Supreme King Servant Dragons (Zarc's versions of the four Dimension Dragons) or even Supreme Dragon King ZARC himself!
• Aborted Arc: While Sawatari was in the Underground, it was suggested he would do a consecutive duel challenge like Manjoume did at North Academy. The next time he is shown, nothing about this is mentioned at all, whether he won or lost.
• Adaptational Villainy: As noted on the Recycled Premise section of the YMMV page, the Tops / Common conflict seems to be identical to the dynamic between Satellite / Domino City dynamic, with one major exception: The separation is instigated by the Tops themselves rather than the Zero Reverse, like in 5Ds, making them look like even bigger assholes than before. Furthermore, their reaction towards the Commons comes off as much pettier, since THEY are the ones who left the citizens to dry, spreading crime and violence, rather than the Satellite residents needing to steal due to the scarcity of resources caused by the Zero Reverse.
  • However, the Commons aren't much better. They fully support the messed-up system that pushes them down, buying in on the Bread and Circuses completely. Even Shinji's speech seems soon forgotten, and the citizens mock Yuya for daring to claim that the enslavement of losers is wrong, then they're thrilled when his duel turns violent. While they're still the victims, their status as Apathetic Citizens makes it hard to root for them.
  • On top of that, the Commons are quick to violence and anger. At first it seemed righteous but when all hell started to break loose with Academia's invasion, they took the opportunity to revolt. What was discovered is that instead of pushing towards equality like those found in 5Ds they instead choose to try and flip the system entirely with themselves on top. Thus it's true they support the system, they just want themselves on top. In many ways they are no better than the Tops and went out of their way to cause harm and mayhem and even betray Crow who wanted to find a more peaceful solution. They didn't even care about Academia's invasion, putting their "revolution" above all else.
  • Academia itself, being based on Duel Academy from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is now an Academy of Evil for training brainwashed Child Soldiers, whereas the original was an Academy of Adventure largely aimed at teaching future pro-duelists.
• Adults Are Useless: Averted. While the main cast are teenagers or younger, there are main recurring adult characters that have a major effect on the series. Strongly subverted in the Synchro Dimension arc, where the major players of that dimension are adults much like in 5D's.
• Allegiance Affirmation: Between the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot and the Morality Kitchen Sink, it's difficult to establish the allegiance of several characters at first.
  • Yugo is initially thought by basically everyone to be an Academia spy from the Synchro Dimension, mainly because he looks identical to the guy who kidnapped Ruri, and he fights against Yuto (Ruri's boyfriend) quite viciously. However, halfway through the Maiami Championship arc he's seen fighting against Academia. The beginning of the Synchro arc reveals his true allegiance: he doesn't have one. Instead he saw his friend Rin getting kidnapped by a guy who looked identical to him, and then somehow ended up in Heartland which was invaded by Academia, and so he turned against them in spite - or because - he had no real clue what was going on. He chooses to side with the Lancers, who are against Academia.
  • Sora was initially an extremely loyal Academia soldier who was sent on a mission to spy on the Standard Dimension and LDS. However, while he's there he grows close to Yuzu, Yuya and the others and teaches them Fusion Summoning. As a result, he is extremely conflicted when the Professor - the leader of the Academia - orders him to capture several people including Yuzu, and tries to bring back Serena in exchange for her. Yuya points out that this won't work - creating more doubts - and eventually Sora pulls a last minute Heel–Face Turn, introducing himself to Crow as one of Yuya's friends and giving him information, and later fighting against Academia's Mooks along with Tsukikage even though he carded his brother in an earlier episode.
  • Jean Michel Roget initially appears to be an Academia spy stationed in the Synchro Dimension, which is further emphasized by reveals such as having no background information, introducing Real Solid Vision technology and later on adding Fusion cards to a cop's deck. However, he also seems oddly nervous when Fusion summoning is brought up in any context, and he doesn't deliver Yuzu and Serena to the Academia even though he has the locations of both of them (he even arrests Serena). Eventually he reveals that he betrayed Academia and now he's out for himself.
  • Shinji Weber first appears as a friend of Crow's who's not too sure about the Lancer's claims to be from another dimension but rolls with it due to circumstances. However, it turns out that his real allegiance can be boiled down to "the only ones who deserve to live are the Commons, fuck the Tops". He then rallies the Commons and turns against everyone despite of being repeatedly told that there are bigger and more immediate problems, because he thinks that anyone who doesn't agree with him must be in allegiance with the Tops. He even turns against Crow, who tells him that his actions will only lead to a Full-Circle Revolution.
  • Another ambiguous figure in the Commons vs Tops conflict is Jack Atlas, who was originally of the Commons but rose to the rank of the Tops thanks to his dueling skills. He's a Base-Breaking Character In-Universe, as half the Commons think he is a Class Traitor, while the others think he is someone to look up to. Jack's Stoic, Jerkass personality and cryptic gestures and comments don't help. Eventually it's revealed that Jack was one for unity between the classes and that he never forgot his Commons roots. However, his gestures only had a real meaning to him, and even though he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and a Stealth Mentor, most people never picked up on it because he only clearly showed the "jerk" part. He only clearly confirms his alliance when he duels against Sergei, who is Roget's pawn, and even then people have their doubts. It takes his duel with Yuya to affirm to the Commons that he's a good guy.
• Alternate Self: A big plot point is that Yuya and Yuzu have 3 alternative selves. A throwaway line by Roger implies that Yuya and Yuzu are the only people to have this. With episodes 126 and 127 reveals that is because the the Dragon Boys and the Bracelet Girls original selves, Zarc and Ray were split into four when the four dimensions were created.
• Alternate Universe: This is the explanation for the alternate dimensions, which were split into four from the original dimension due to Zarc and Ray. The Fusion Dimension's Academia is based on GX's Duel Academy with Obelisk Force as their elite warriors, the Synchro Dimension has the D-Wheel and a classist City similar to 5Ds, and the Xyz Dimension has Heartland City as in ZeXal. It is implied that Standard dimension was originally the Duel Monsters dimension, without any special Extra Deck summoning methods, but later research led to their creation.
• And I Must Scream: With the right Duel Disk, victors can seal people into cards.
• Animation Bump: A few episodes are very well-animated, but at the cost of the following or preceding episode being Off-Model. Such well animated episodes include #34 and #45. Notably, episodes (including #34 and #45) with Hidekazu Ebina as the animation director are the best animated episodes overall.
• Anime Hair: Like in the previous Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series, a lot of characters have crazy-looking hair, but it is one of the more subdued series.
• Another Dimension: Episode 36 explains there are at least four alternative universes; Standard, Xyz, Synchro and Fusion, based on the series that used them the most. With Standard being the ARC-V dimension.
• Antagonist Title:
  • The titular ARC-V is the large, soul-powered machine used by Big Bad Leo Akaba in his plan to fuse the Four Dimensions back into their original form.
  • The "Demonic Duelist" that the Professor mentioned in Episode 126 is named Z-Arc, who is the titular main antagonist and Final Boss of the series.
• Antichrist: Zarc placed his reincarnations intentionally in the dimensions they were split into. Yusho comes to the horrible realization that he was raising a part of him, Yuya, to be a strong a duelist as possible, which in turn, ends up rapidly decreasing the time needed for Zarc to revive himself.
  • Ultimately only Yuri is a straight example, as Yuya, Yugo, and Yuto all start the series as Anti Anti Christs and become Apocalypse Maidens as Zarc begins forcing them to carry out his plans via possession.
• Anyone Can Die: Or be turned into a card at any rate. Surprisingly for a Yu-Gi-Oh! show there is a lot of supporting characters that are sealed in cards. This includes Hokuto, Michio, Olga, Halil, Teppei, Hikage and the three Knight of Duels Carl, Ashley and Bram.
  • Not even legacy characters are safe. Poor Crow and Asuka...
  • Episode 144 revealed that Yuto, Yuri and Yugo and potentially all of the Bracelet Girl except maybe for Yuzu, the protagonists and major antagonists of the previous arcs, are gone because of Zarc's defeat. Subverted when it's revealed Yuto, Yugo and Yuri are inside of Yuya and all the Bracelet Girls return in episode 148 with Yuzu in control.
• Arc Words:
  • "The fun has just begun" seems to be a recurrent phrase, as it shows in the plot, openings and endings mostly by Yuya. It has also been used by some of the more morally ambiguous characters as well.
  • For Yuto and Kurosaki, "Hangyaku" (Rebellion). It's mentioned in their summon chants for both of their ace monsters.
  • "Smile" or also commonly known as "egao", which has been repeated a few dozen times.
  • "Become One" or "hitotsu ni" is repeated throughout the show with its meaning changing based on the side that uses it. When the Academia or Zarc use it, the phrase means a forceful physical fusion like the Academia trying to fuse the dimensions or Zarc trying to fuse his counterparts to revive. When the good guys use it, it means someone was able to emotionally unite the audience through their dueling.
• The Artifact: The 2000 Life Point penalty for entering a duel already in progress was an understandable rule introduced in the Battle Royale of the Arc League Championship. However, the mechanic has been retained in all duels since, even when it's a hindrance to the protagonists since almost any time they enter a duel in progress now, it's to help a friend against a villain. It's even less sensical in Season 3 when apparently Duel Disks from other dimensions have the same mechanic built into them.
• Artistic License – Biology: The Doktor's parasites can apparently enter the brain through the ear canals.
• Ascended Extra: Little Fairy. No, seriously: the minor card from Zexal was a major part of two major duels in the series, after cameoing as normal for older cards in a single duel like much more famous cards like Dark Resonator, Gale the Whirlwind, Legendary Fisherman, and Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth.
• Back from the Dead: Episode 138 and 139 reveal that due to the Integration of the Dimensions, the people who were carded are being revived as shown by both Crow and Resistance members.
• Badass Boast: Most Of Yuya and his counterpart’s do these, but of particular note is this one from the dub.
  “Cloaked in shadows, and relentless in its objective, I call upon the most dangerous of dragons! I Xyz Summon! Come forth, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon!”
• Bad Future: The existence of the Fusion, Xyz and Synchro Dimensions, specifically their main locations being Duel Academia, Heartland City and Neo Domino City seem to imply that they are this for Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. In reality, they serve more as Alternate Universes to them.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits:
  • The first opening shows Sawatari holding his three Darts Shooting cards. However, since he replaces them for another deck in episode 7, three episodes after they are revealed in the opening, they have become meaningless.
  • The second opening shows participants of the Junior Youth Championship in a prominent way, these includes the students from the various Duel Schools and the LDS trio. None of them is actually important to the tournament plot and they are eliminated pretty early, most of them off-screen or very quick. Particularly, the LDS trio, who are supporting characters, are highlighted with the rest of the supporting cast, but all of them besides Masumi, who was eliminated before the opening was first aired, suffer from The Worf Effect and they have lost their prominence in the show. Sora is also shown to among the ranks of LDS, which might foreshadow that he will eventually leaves You Show, but Sora never joins LDS and he even antagonizes them.
  • The third opening depicts a vicious battle between an angry Yuya and Yugo, using Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon and Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, respectively. Presumably, it was setting up a war between them, as Yuya is on a mission to rescue Yuzu, who Yugo accidentally whisked away. In the show proper, not only does Yuya not use Odd-Eyes Rebellion during the span the show used this opening except at the beginning, but he and Yugo never duel. Their only meeting came at the end of episode 91, and they never spoke - they just dueled their opponents in the same room. What's more, neither of the two bear any ill will towards each other; in fact, Yugo seems to think Yuya's a pretty cool guy if Yuzu thinks so highly of him. Furthermore, Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon has never fired a Breath Weapon during the entire series so far.
  • The fourth opening features Yuya's rematch with Jack Atlas. Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon is fighting Red Daemon's Dragon Scarlight in the opening, but Yuya does not summon it during the rematch.
  • The entire third ending shows the Lancers getting along and getting into shenanigans. The only thing that reflects the content of the show is Yuya in a (different) riding suit.
  • The final ending shows the counterpart pairs hanging out with shots of all eight at the end. First Yuri and Serena aren't friends like the other three pairs and finally since Yuto, Yugo, Yuri, Serena, Rin and Ruri lose their bodies at the end of the show, all eight can never physically hang out like the ending.
• Beehive Barrier: The Action Spell card "Mirror Barrier," which prevents destruction of a monster by a card effect.
• The Big Bad Shuffle: For the first season it seems like Leo Corp, particularly Reiji, are the villains. Then in the second half of the season after the reveal of the parallel dimension plot, it turns out Reiji is fighting his father Leo, the real villain. Then in Season 2 Leo becomes a distant Greater-Scope Villain while the Arc Villain for the season, Roget, takes center stage. Roget is hinted to be working for Leo but it turns out he has betrayed Leo and is an independent force. Then once Roget is defeated and we get to Season 3, Leo is once again the main Big Bad. Until the whole backstory concerning the original dimension comes out; now Leo is part of a Big Bad Ensemble with Zarc, an even greater threat that Leo is working to destroy in ways that still make him an antagonist. But being that Zarc is currently still dead, his reincarnation Yuri is trying to help speed up his revival.
• Big Good: Arc-V is unique as there are technically three Big Goods throughout the show.
  • Reiji is the first one shown and arguably fits the role closest despite his morally ambiguously ways in the start of the show. Reiji is the founder and leader of the Lancers, the main heroic organization of the series as he leads the charge against Big Bad, Leo Akaba. In the final arc, he prepared and organized the plan that allowed Yuya to pacify Zarc.
  • Yusho is the second one shown and while Reiji fits the leadership part of the role, Yusho is more the charisma. Yusho's ideals play a big part of the show due to Yuya's attempt to live up to them. Yuya being able to fulfill the ideals allowed him to not only bring peace to the Synchro Dimension and end the invasion of the Xyz Dimension but even redeem Zarc. Also due to Reiji's deep respect for Yusho, Reiji will listen Yusho's orders giving Yusho a degree of command over him. Yusho fully steps into this role from 130 to 133 when he rallies the good guys that can move to stop Zarc's revival before facing Yuri himself.
  • Ray is Zarc's opposite thus the strongest good guy in the show. While Zarc regards everyone's attempt to stand up to him with amusement, Ray's arrival strikes fear in him. It is due to her intervention that the Lancers, their allies and Leo are finally able to defeat Zarc after he spent the past few episodes tearing through them.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Akabas. Every single member of their family has so many issues.
  • Reiji: He was once a normal kid that saw his family dissolve in front of his eyes. Once he found out his father became an interdimensional invader, he became the head of LDS at 13 and spent 3 years preparing a defense for his dimension and as a result is more than a little extreme in his desire to protect his home.
  • Himika: She was hurt that her husband rejected her and become even more extreme in her desire to protect her home than even Reiji was as shown by her actions with Reira.
  • Reira: She lived in a war torn country as a child alone, throwing away her sense of self to survive. She was adopted by Himika to be the perfect soldier. Only recently has she started to regain her sense of self.
  • Leo: He blames himself for the destruction of the Original Dimension. After regaining his memories, he has dedicated his life to his goals of fixing his mistakes but at the price of seeing the Four Dimensions and the people living in them as mistakes and unable to see the Bracelet Girls and the Dragon Boys as nothing more than part of their original forms.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the end while Zarc and the Academia have been stopped, the Fusion Dimension has to deal with the fact they invaded the other dimensions, the Xyz dimension has been nearly demolished, and the Synchro Dimension is still healing from their years of oppressive government, but all of them are working very hard to create a new world. In a more personal level while everyone that was carded is back, Reira is now a baby due to her Heroic Sacrifice and the Dragon Boys and Bracelet Girls are stuck as one person for each group.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • The conflict within the Synchro Dimension is this. Shinji represents the lighter end of the scale with his desire for fairer treatment from Tops and lack of regard for those who stand in his way. The Executive Council is a Darker Gray that will do anything to maintain the status quo (up to and including allying with Academia). For Black, Roget wants power and will use any means necessary to get it.
  • The shade for the Xyz and Fusion arcs. While the You Show Characters are purely white, the Lancers as a whole are much more morally ambiguous with Reiji allowing teenagers to fall for his plans and Kurosaki believing in Pay Evil unto Evil. The Academia so far are sadists that openly enjoyed destroying the Xyz Dimension.
• Black-and-White Morality: The series at first seemed to be setting this up with You Show as the White and LDS as the black, but this was thrown into a loop with Yuto and Kurosaki started to act. Same for the Synchro Arc with the Commons as the White and the Tops as the dark which was subverted when we understood more about the series. So far the only conflict that plays this straight is the Xyz Dimension vs the Fusion Dimension.
• Boring Yet Practical: Action Cards. Compared to many of the complex cards used in duels, their effects are simple and straightforward; negate an attack, negate a card's destruction, boost/lower a monster's stats, and so forth. But when seized and activated at the right time, they can swing the momentum in a duel.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: "The fun has just begun!". Yuya borrowed it from his Disappeared Dad, and several others throughout the show use it once in a while.
• Bowdlerize: For a rare change in a Yu-Gi-Oh! series, played with instead of played straight. While early on several violent scenes are cut or moved off-screen, when Cerebus Syndrome kicks in scenes start being cut less and less to reflect the change in tone.
  • For a prime example, one of Sora's monsters had it's Cannibalism Superpower effect kept off-screen in the dub until after episode 34, when the audience learns more about Sora's dark side.
  • In fact, certain lines of the dub make some heroic characters more antagonistic or violent than they were before. But we still have some Dub Name Change for certain monsters with "death" in their name and the like.
  • On a less grim note, the sound made by Yuzu's fan when she hits someone with it was changed from a solid "smack" to a cartoonish "boing" in the dub.
• Bread and Circuses: The situation in the Synchro Dimension. 1% of the population (the Tops) control 99% of the wealth, while everyone else (the Commons) live in squalor. The Commons are kept down through a combination of the Sector Security and the promise of the Friendship Cup, where the winner can become a Top. Images of the latest winner, Jack Atlas, are plastered all over the the slums. The Tops are desensitized to the plight of the Commons in part by police chases being shown live on TV.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Once the Lancers get involved in the Friendship Cup, Action Duels and Riding Duels are subsequently combined into Action Riding Duels, which are Riding Duels WITH ACTION CARDS!
• Breather Episode:
  • Episode 38, while not entirely light has comic relief that was absent after the incredibly dark Episodes 34 through 37.
  • After a series of relatively high intensity and serious episodes, Episode 57 cooled things off a bit by having Dennis and Gogenzaka become impromptu street performers.
  • Episode 73 has no on-screen duels and is basically politics and character development with one side-plot being mildly explored. Reiji is proven to have been taking well-calculated moves to save the Lancers who have been enslaved over the past few episodes instead of heartlessly throwing people aside, and Yuya gets a letter through to Yuzu. Comes right before the extremely intense Dennis vs Kurosaki duel.
• Call-Back: In 5D's, the Three Emperors of Yliaster used futuristic Duel Disks utilizing Hard Light where they placed their cards on light fields projected from their Duel Disks instead of on a card tray, and scenes set in the future showed everyone had such a Duel Disk. ARC-V remembered that and incorporated such Duel Disks as the norm, though they're not quite as advanced as the ones shown in 5D's.
• Calling Your Attacks: Par for the course as it's a firmly established Yu-Gi-Oh! tradition.
• The Cameo: In Episode 97, the Crimson Dragon makes an appearance during Red Dragon Archfiend Tyrant's summoning sequence. Later on, Jaeger appears in person to witness the finale of Yuya's climatic duel against Jack.
• Camp Follower: The Resistance base is shown to double as a refugee camp, with the sound of a crying baby confirming that a lot of the people living there are just refugees living alongside the rebels.
• Captain Obvious: Any time a duelist's monster isn't destroyed in battle because of a card effect, their opponent will often respond with some variation of "But you still take damage!".
• Cardboard Box Home: Realistically, the resistance camp is shown to be made up of a hundred or so tents stationed together.
• Cassandra Truth: Yuzu and Yugo attempt to warn the Synchro Dimension residents about the interdimensional war, but its citizens brush them off.
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Like other Yu-Gi-Oh! series, ARC-V is full of them. Special mention to Yuya, who many thought was a girl before the show started. And then there are his three counterparts: Yuto, Yugo and Yuri.
• Cast Herd: The cast is usually divided into their Duel School or factions.
• Casting Gag: In the English dub, Sawatari's father is voiced by Mike Pollock, very clearly channeling Jean-Louis Bonaparte from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's English dub, ironic considering they're both short, fat, balding men with a Hair-Trigger Temper.
• Central Theme: "Bring smiles with your Dueling" and "Forgiveness is the only way to end the war". Those words were said by Yuto and Yuya respectively. The fifth opening further reinforces this:
  To grasp tomorrow, is not hatred or its kind.
  Smiles make people became strong.
  Cut through the darkness, go forth.
  Even in the toughest times, just smile.
  I do believe in myself.
  I’ll surely believe.
  Let's start! Showtime!
  • Aside from these two themes, there is also a hidden message for the entire series itself: A Friend in Need. In this case, if Yuya helps out anyone he encounters solve their inner problems, then it's their turn to help him in return.
• Cerebus Syndrome: ARC-V itself started very lighthearted with some dark elements here and there as per the Yu-Gi-Oh! standard; with the arrival of Yuto and Kurosaki, things started to get progressively darker and more continuity-based. By episode 39, the series' focus is an interdimensional war. The series lightened a bit for the first few episodes of the Synchro Dimension arc before promptly diving back into darker territory and the entire premise of the Xyz Dimension arc makes it even worse. The Fusion Dimension arc gets even darker when the backstory of the series is finally revealed.
• Chekhov's Gun: The 2000 LP penalty if interrupted a duel that was introduced in the Fusion Dimension invasion arc, a In-Universe Scrappy Mechanic, ended up played a major role in bringing down Roget. To elaborate: He trapped Reiji in a cyber space that allows him to regenerate and duels everytime he lost to his opponent. Without this mechanic, Reiji's combo would not kill him infinite time.
  • Overlap with Chekhov's Gag, Yuzu's fan was introduced in the very first episode, appeared several time throughout the first season before the Cerebus Syndrome kick in and lead the viewers and the entire cast to regain their memory and discover that she is not present in the Pendulum Dimension.
• Clarke's Third Law: Technology is so advanced at this point, Action Duels are more or less Shadow Duels. Serious injuries during a duel are very possible, though there seems to be some limit to the lethality, considering that Sora survived a bombing run and building collapse.
• Cliffhanger:
  • A meta example. After the gruesome battle in episode 34, there's a one week hiatus leaving the awaited episode 35 on hold.
    • Another meta example that there is another one week hiatus between episode 84 and 85 which is also the duel between Yugo (to an extend, Yuya due to Synchronization) and Serena.
    • There's a week of hiatus between episode 87 and episode 88 due of New Year's holiday.
  • Averted with Episode 64-65. Episode 64 ends with Yuya being thrown off his bike to land on his neck, but the immediately following preview reassures the audience that Yuya is unhurt.
  • Episode 77 ended with Yuzu being thrown through a window, with billowing smoke from her crash landing blocking any view of the damage she was dealt. The audience was left with no idea of how hurt Yuzu was.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The characters with the "Yu" prefix all have color schemes that go along with their respective Extra Deck cards:
  • Yuya wears a blend of orange and green, just like Pendulum Monsters. Not to mention his hair.
  • Yuzu, Yuri, and Serena have several shades of purple to match the purple Fusion monsters. Isao Kachidoki also has purple hair and uses a Fusion monster as his ace. Roget wearing purple also hints at his true origins.
  • Yuto has a darker color scheme, like the black Xyz monsters.
  • Yugo wears white to go along with the white Synchro monsters. Incidentally, so does Gongenzaka.
  • Mieru and Asuka, the only confirmed users of Ritual Summoning in the show, incorporate a few shades of blue to their designs.
• Continuity Cavalcade: Everything about Tyrant Red Dragon Archfiend's summon sequence screams 5Ds, to the point where it's effectively a recreation of Red Nova Dragon's summon sequence, including the Double Tuning schtick, the flaming red Tuning rings, Scarlight's pose during the animation, and the Crimson Dragon's cameo in the background. Tyrant Red Dragon Archfiend even looks aesthetically similar to Red Nova Dragon.
• Cool Bike: D-Wheels are re-introduced in ARC-V in the Synchro Dimension.
• The Conspiracy:
  • LDS has restricted advanced Extra Deck Summoning techniques and cards (Fusion, Synchro and Xyz) to only their top students and not the general public. They also control almost all Duel Schools around the world as a means to achieve some kind of goal. Their goal is later revealed to be stopping Leo Abaka and defending their dimension.
  • Reiji is using the MCS to weed out powerful duelists to "serve as Lancers to protect the world", whatever that means. Turns out he's recruiting the finalists to fight in the war against Academia.
• Cosmic Retcon: Episode 127 reveals due to Zarc and Ray the original dimension was completely erased and the four dimensions were created without any memory of it. Leo Akaba, the only known survivor of the original dimension even lost his memory as a result of the split.
  • Zarc's second defeat and seal turns the Standard Dimension into the Pendulum Dimension, allowing duelists to Pendulum summon. But no one has any memory of it with the exceptions of Reiji and Yosho, and Reira is reborn as a baby.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In Episode 35, Yuzu finally tells Yuya and Gongenzaka about Yuto, the mysterious duelists who looks just like Yuya but uses Xyz Summons who attacked Sawatari. Gongenzaka quickly calls her out on not telling anyone about him back when Yuya took the blame for his actions, then goes for What the Hell, Hero? when he thinks she didn't say anything because she doubted Yuya and suspected he was behind it for real.
• Cowardice Callout: As is typical with the franchise, Big Bad Zarc runs a deck full of extremely overpowered cards — many of which created by himself — which have an in-built counter for just about any move any opponent can do. While it does make it very difficult to fight him, the heroes deliver a "Reason You Suck" Speech based on this. They point out that this level of Crazy-Prepared (keep in mind, most of the cast are Combat Pragmatists that indulge in this trope themselves) is not a mark of confidence in his power or rightful caution, but of cowardice, as he's too afraid of losing. Zarc does not take the criticism well.
• Crapsaccharine World: The City in Synchro Dimension, full stop. In the third opening, pictures of it looked incredibly stunning and beautiful, if a bit lacking in color. Come episode 54, however, it is revealed that 99% of the population lives in the slums, while the last 1% lives in Tops, a city built high above the ground. It's almost as though the people of Tops are flaunting their status for all to see from the ground below. And as it turns out, the Commons aren't much better, not caring about the fates of the defeated in the Friendship Cup and cheering on duels with bloodlust. Losers and problematic people are sent to an underground trash facility.
• Creator Thumbprint: The series director, Katsumi Ono, also directed 5Ds, which makes a lot of story elements from ARC-V seem familiar — Yuya has issues concerning his vanished father, Yuzu has a larger role than usual female leads, there's a plot-significant series of Dragon-types, and Action Duels are centered around Action Field Spells similar to Turbo Duels and Speed World. And then the whole Synchro Dimension storyline is similar to the first season of 5Ds. The thumbprint gets even larger in Season 3 when it is revealed the real Big Bad is Yuya's original self, Zarc, paralleling Yusei and Z-one from 5Ds.
• Crossover:
  • There is a kickass V-Jump wallpaper, showing Yuya with Beast-Eyes Pendulum Dragon and Super Saiyan Son Goku with Shenron/Shenlong from Dragon Ball. It was also a spoiler, since it was published before Beast-Eyes' debut.
  • In-canon, it has become one with every past spin-off; Asuka and Edo from GX, Crow and Jack from 5Ds, and Kaito from ZEXAL, are now involved in the plot. The three other dimensions are based on the same spin-offs. However the dimensions aren't the same as the worlds that they were based on.
  • Episode 73 was the 777th episode of the franchise, which was celebrated with a special opening featuring all other YuGiOh protagonists, as well as Yuya.
• Cue the Sun: The sun rises as Satellite Cannon Falcon charges its two-minute long Wave-Motion Gun.
• Culture Clash: The council at least claims this is at the core of the issues the protagonists face in the Synchro dimension. For example:
  • The Synchro dimension holds values and beliefs that create a terribly unstable society, but because everyone agrees with these values the protagonists cannot inspire change by appealing to the people's better nature. Shinji is able to rally the crowds because he holds the same beliefs, and his arguments align with the values held in the City and the idea of a better world.
  • Nobody cares about the institutionalized slavery because of how it functions.
  • The City has 99% of it's people living in squalor, but the cultural beliefs mean that almost everyone thinks this system is fair. When Reiji tries to get them involved in the war, the council refuses on the basis that it doesn't benefit the competitive system the City runs on.
• Cutting the Knot: It happens pretty often for a Yu-Gi-Oh! Show.
  • During the LDS vs You Show school duels, the protagonists research their opponents in order to learn more about them.
  • Episode 46, Gongenzaka and others hold down Yuya's Superpowered Evil Side, and Yuya just tries to get his cards back by kicking their asses.
  • Episode 50, Yuya is so pissed off by Reiji's actions that instead of challenging him to a duel, he just tries to sucker punch him.
• Darker and Edgier: ARC-V is just as grim as the original manga, and even more so than its spin-off sequels. The large amount of Deconstructions and Reconstructions of beloved franchise tropes, more realistic decks and playstyles, and stronger focus on serialized storytelling has resulted in the series being much more serious than past ones. The fact that an interdimensional war, where innocent citizens are explicitly being shown turned into cards as a metaphor for death, is the main story arc of the franchise, really sets the tone for things.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: And if you think the graphic violence in 5D's is bad enough, how about Academia blowing up Heartland, Kurosaki attempting to kill Dennis and beating up Security, Reira's backstory, or Yuzu almost getting killed off by Sergey! No one is shown bleeding, but still....
• Darkest Hour:
  • The Battle Royale sub-arc has a total of 15 ^note 7 from the Youth Division Lancers, the three Knights of Duels (Carl, Ashley and Bram), Hikage, Michio, Teppei, Halil and Olga characters carded, all of them teenagers on the good guys' side. While we do have assholes mixed in, the vast majority were people that just wanted to defend their home. Yuri making an appearance, Yuya suffering from a lot of Break the Cutie moments and Yuzu being chased around by Yuri for a night and being teleported away. Finally culminating in Yuya having his biggest break the cutie moment when he finds out Yuzu is missing or maybe even carded.
  • Episode 92 has Barrett able to recapture Serena at the last second while Sergey is able to defeat Yuya and capture Yuzu, putting her under Roget's control.
  • Episode 135 has Zarc finally reviving while Leo has successfully started Arc-V, starting the fusion of the four dimensions. But for some reason Ray isn't reviving due to Leo's rush. It continually gets worse as the Zarc arc continues as the Lancers and their allies, made up of the various dimension's strongest duelist failing to both defeat Zarc and make Yuya react from inside of Zarc.
• Death of a Child: Academia soldiers ruthlessly card a baby from the Xyz dimension.
• Deconstruction: The series deconstructed a lot of tropes common to the franchise to the point it has its own page.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Many tropes deconstructed early on are later reconstructed and played straight.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Zigzagged. Played straight for about three duels (all of which had the "antagonists" not being particularly bad people and changing their behavior before the duel ended). Also, in two of these it wasn't the actions of the protagonist but the actions of the audience that convinced the person to change, and the third one showed that the opponent in question didn't so much change as revert to the personality he used to have before he became a Fallen Hero. While the villains tend to mock, invoke or otherwise plan for this, later on the series plays it straight, resulting in Heel Face Turns en masse.
• Denser and Wackier: The first season of the series shows some slapstick comedy, along with some entertainment.
• Determinator: Enforced; ARC-V's main theme is "Take a step forward with courage!!"
• Deus ex Machina: Yuya gets to win his duel with Reiji in Episode 13 and save You Show Duel School ...because Himika got a call concerning an assault on professor Marco just when Reiji was about to (possibly) initiate his winning turn, causing him to step out and give Yuya the match.
• Different in Every Episode:
  • Before each Action Duel, a sequence plays out where various characters introduce the concept, with different animation and characters each time it's done. The animation is different based on who is introducing the concept and the relationship between the characters. Example includes Gongenzaka and Ankokuji having a sparring match during theirs.
  • Also Fusion Chants, they vary based on the monsters used in the fusion. So for Fusion monsters with more lax requirements, the chant is pretty different each episode.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Being sealed into a card is a pretty clear metaphor for death or murder, considering its permanence and the trauma associated with witnessing it. Kurosaki even directly references the cards as the "graveyards" of his comrades in episode 75.
  • Reiji and Himika's war speech that signaled the end of MCS. The audience's reaction changing from horrified to prideful as Reiji glorifies warfare comes off as extremely unsettling, especially in a children's show. Not that the main casts are happy about it.
  • The situation in the Synchro dimension appears to be a mix of late-Tsarist Russia and the USA. The City's economic situation, specifically the lack of a middle class and Shinji's speech are based on the former while the City's beliefs and justifications for their corruption is based on the latter. It's even said that 99% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population.
  • Sergey. Once again, Yu-Gi-Oh! gives us a villain who uses whip-shaped plants to show their sadistic, BDSM side. Only this opponent is also a masochist, as reflected in his dueling style.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • The first ending theme, One Step is sung by P☆Cute (Pendulum☆Cute), a pop duo created exclusively for this series. The members are called Ruri Shirosaki and Masumi Anzu◊^note other possible readings for Masumi's last name are Yamitsu or Kuratsushi. These are however Stage Names; their real names are Rin Aizawa and Arisa Kiyoto, respectively. Arisa Kiyoto voices Masumi Kotsu. Rin Aizawa voices Ruri Kurosaki.
  • The second ending theme, Future Fighter! is sung by Kensho Ono and Yoshimasa Hosoya, Yuya and Reiji's voice actors.
• Double Knockout: The result of Gongenzaka versus Yaiba and Yuya versus Edo.
  • Also happens with individual battles during duels, such as Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon versus Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon.
• Dragons Are Demonic:
  • Jack Atlas's Red Daemon's Dragon returns as "Red Daemon's Dragon Scarlihgt", which is a battle-scarred version of the already demonic-looking dragon with even more brutal effects. And then Jack busts out Red Deamon's Dragon Tyrant, which aside from the very omnious name also has even more horns and wings than the original, really making it look like a demon.
  • Over the course of the series it becomes apparent that the four Dimensional Dragons - yes, including the ace monster of the All-Loving Hero Yuya - are very negative influences, to put in mildly. Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon appears to be the goofiest of the lot, as it can be seen smiling during some entertainment duels, but it uses Hellfire as its main weapon, is very prone to inflicting physical violence during duels, and one of its many evolutions is Supreme King Violent Dragon - Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon, which is one of the most brutal cards ever seen in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon has an incredibly omnious appearance, attacks by impalling its targets with lightning-charged fangs, and can make its wielders fall to Unstoppable Rage; not to mention this card also has some pretty brutal evolutions. Clear Wing Synchro Dragon is actively seeking out fights with the other dragons and its attack is called "Whirlwind Helldive Slasher". And Starve Venom Fusion Dragon is a Body Horror-loaded carnivorous-plant/dragon thing with Too Many Mouths that is known to eat other monsters and even duelists. The attitude of Yuya and his counterparts towards their cards also reflects this; while Yugo is oblivious, Yuri is a Card-Carrying Villain who greately enjoys Starve Venom's penchant for violence, and Yuya and Yuto are more often than not aprehensive about having more than one dragon or their fused forms on the field because they're afraid of what they will do under their influence.
  • And then there is the "boss" of the Dimensional Dragons, Supreme King Dragon Z-ARC. Also known as the Demon Duelist. The Big Bad of the series, who once destroyed the world. Everything the Dimensional Dragons do is for the sake of revivng Z-ARC. Zarc for his part was once a man who fused with the four dragons to become a shadowy enormous Draconic Abomination with Sickly Green Tron Lines. Oh, and there are Supreme King Servant version of the four Dimensional Dragons, also have the same Tron Line pattern. Just to drive the point further that they're evil.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Invoked. When Dennis and Kurosaki decide to hold an underground gambling Riding Duel to see who gets to go to the Friendship Cup, the latter starts with a measly 1000 LP in order to make sure his opponent might actually win the duel. They still manage to tie up at 100 LP by the end of the episode.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • In Episode 33, Sora underestimates Raid Raptors — Rise Falcon. The LDS trio snarks to not underestimate it. It's almost Black Comedy as before they lost their memories, they underestimated that very monster before Kurosaki beat them down with it.
  • Dennis' status as The Mole has was revealed to the audience fairly quickly after his introduction, but none of the heroes were aware until episode 74.
  • Prior to his duel with Serena, Yugo makes a promise to Yuzu in heaven. This is immediately followed by a scene cut to Yuzu sneezing while sitting in an alleyway with Frank, Tanner, and Amanda.
• Duels Decide Everything: Thanks to Hard Light tech, ARC-V can now justify this trope, even though it still Zigzags it. Many characters do resort to dueling to settle things, as advanced Solid Vision allows monsters to harm other people. Various other characters, such as Obelisk Force and Security, simply skip the dueling and use monsters and Spells/Traps as weapons, and yet others, namely Kurosaki, simply skip that and flat-out physically involve others to disable them. Episode 126 fully cements it with the revelation that normal weapons can't harm Solid Vision constructs.

Tropes E-L

• Earth Is Young: It's revealed near the end of the series that the 4 Dimensions were created not that long ago. It's debatable how long ago considering we know that Zarc and Ray can manipulate memories but the four dimensions are at least 14 years old.
• The Earth-Prime Theory: Episode 36 revealed that the ARC-V dimension, Standard is the basis for all the other dimensions. Subverted. Episode 127 revealed that the original dimension was actually destroyed and Standard is just one of the four dimension created in the wake of Zarc's defeat.
• Easy Amnesia: Hokuto, Masumi and Yaiba's memories of Kurosaki are erased in Episode 26, replaced with new memories that he was always their fellow LDS friend. Although, they do remember that his Raid Raptors - Rise Falcon is very powerful, but as a good memory rather than a bad memory.
• Empathic Environment: The sky turns dark and gloomy in Episode 39 as Kachidoki corners Yuya in their duel, inadvertently unleashing the latter's dark side. This results in a disturbing win for Yuya.
• Evil Plan: The ARC Area Project is actually a Zigzagged Trope. While the actions to do the plan are horrific, the intentions are quite reasonable for Leo at least.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: On one side there's Zarc, who wants to destroy the world. To combat him, Leo Akaba instigated the inter-dimensional war so he'd be able to revive Ray, the only person able to stop Zarc.
• Evolving Credits:
  • After the third episode, the first opening reveals Sawatari's three hidden Darts Shooter cards.
  • After Episode 37, the second openings changes from scenes of Yuya's duel with Sawatari and Yuzu's duel with Masumi to scenes of Yuya and Yuto holding their dragons and a scene of Yuzu and Serena each with their own bracelet. Also, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon and Yuri's face are no longer hidden.
  • After Episode 54, the third opening changes the opening from Action Duels to Riding Duels, showing Yuya being chased by Security after he arrives in the Synchro Dimension with an overview of Jean Michel Roget, showing the preparations of a Riding duel, showing Crow and Jack when Odd-Eyes and Clear Wing are fighting. And then showing Roget and two new characters and seeing Jack unsilhouetted. Since episode 65, Jack's dragon is also unveiled.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The Fusion Dimension seems to hate all Xyz users, considering themselves superior. The Xyz Dimension seems to loathe all Fusion users due to their instigation of conflict. It is unknown how the Synchro Dimension feels, especially since the reveal during Yuto's duel against Yugo that they might just got caught in the war like Standard.
  • As of Episode 41, it seems that members of the Fusion Dimension might feel the same way about members of the Standard Dimension as they do towards members of the Xyz Dimension.
  • More of fantastic class-ism, but the people in Synchro Dimension's Tops absolutely despise the "Commons" who live in the slums below. Security tries to throw out any Commons that manage to get into Tops.
• Fashionable Asymmetry:
  • Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon's right side is much more fancier than its left. The same also apply for Rune-Eyes and Beast-Eyes.
  • Dennis's outfit.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: When Shuzou and Himika do the Action Duel Sequence. Shuzou has a fiery background, while Himika has an icy one fitting their personalities.
• Foreshadowing: Now has a page.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Episode 57 reveals that Jaeger/Lazar is on City's 100 yen bill. The shopkeeper that was mean to Carly in her first appearance also made a cameo. Episode 66 shows Garome living among the Tops.
• A Friend in Need: Combined with For Happiness and Forgiveness, these are the key themes of the series.
• Friendly Rivalry: The You Show Duel School and the Gongenzaka Dojo are considered to be rivals. But there seems to be no hard feelings involved. Gongenzaka, the heir to the Dojo is best friends with Yuzu, daughter of the current headmaster and Yuya, son of the school's founder. It is also said that the Gongenzaka Dojo students helped Yuya a lot, mostly because the majority of his duels are with them.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Zarc was just an average duelist that was able to gain enough power to destroy the original world.
• Full-Circle Revolution: The Synchro Dimension was dangerously close to this. At the later parts of the Synchro arc, Shinji's revolution would simply switch the rulers between the Tops and Commons while keeping the same mindset. It wasn't till the Lancers interfered that they finally buried the hatchet and started a more healthy revolution.
• Fun with Acronyms: "Leo Duel School" is called LDS for short. Episode 52 reveals that the Duel Schools have actually been set up as training courses to teach duelists in preparation for the war with Academia, and LDS is renamed to "Lance Defense Soldiers."
• Future Spandex: Everyone in the Original Dimension dressed like this which showed how advanced the they were compared to the current Four Dimensions. The only exception was Zarc who ended up destroying said dimension.
• Fusion Dance: Outside of the obvious Fusion Monsters, Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon, the Supreme Black King Dragon can be considered one considering it involves giving Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, an Xyz monster, a LEVEL. A more shocking example is Zarc fusing with the four dimension dragons to create Supreme Dragon King Zarc
• Game-Breaker: Invoked and lampshaded with Pendulum Summoning, which allows a duelist to Special Summon multiple monsters from their hand at once, and when Pendulum Monsters are destroyed they go in the Extra Deck face-up and can be Pendulum Summoned again, making it harder to permanently get rid of them. Several characters accuse Yuya of cheating using illegal cards, relying on an unfair advantage that other duelists don't understand the mechanics of, and/or take an interest in him and his Pendulum Monsters because they're so strong. Turns out this trope was intentional in-universe too; the entire idea behind Pendulum Monsters is that the Big Bad created them to make himself much harder to beat, and to symbolize his self-declared invincibility.
• The Game Come to Life: A big reveal in episode 126 was real solid vision actually created bodies for the monsters to inhibit thus every monster in the show is alive. This turns out to be a cruel deconstruction as the monsters got sick of the Original Dimension's vicious dueling and grew to hate humanity as a result, feeling like their toys. Rewatch the show and you see plenty of monsters reacting to their environment and not just Yuya's monsters or the Four Dimension Dragons.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Reiji is trying to reverse-engineer Yuya's Pendulum monsters to create his own, but it's taking effort. The first time he uses the cards he's created, D/D Savant Kepler and D/D Savant Galilei, they malfunction, because he hasn't perfected them yet. This is represented in-game with their extremely detrimental Pendulum effects that cause them to become almost unusable after one turn — their Pendulum scales change to a much narrower spread, and they then destroy any monster their controller has in place with a Level not within their scales.
• Generation Xerox: The reveal of Arc-V's backstory reveals that the protagonist, deuteragonist and tritragonist trio of Yuya, Yuzu and Reiji are this to Zarc, Ray and Leo who caused the end of the Original Dimension and rise of the Four Dimensions. Yuya and Yuzu are Zarc and Ray's reincarnations of sorts while Reiji is Leo's son.
• Genre Blind: Characters continue the grand Yu-Gi-Oh! tradition of instantly dismissing a card just because it has pitiful attacks, even when it should be obvious that said monster has an effect to make up for it. Especially jarring when they also have those kind of cards in their own deck
  • This actually gets Played for Drama in the Synchro Dimension arc where a character greatly misinterprets what Jack Atlas was trying to tell him when he handed him a low level card. He completely overlooks the obvious fact that he was just handed a tuner monster with additional abilities. He then comes to loath Jack, thinking him a traitor to the commons who has just called him worthless.
• Genre Shift: ARC-V started out as a light hearted anime with some darker undertones, not unlike GX. By the time the Tournament Arc was done, it became a dimensional war that deconstructs the Hard Light system that's been in place in the series for years, putting it on the same level as, or perhaps even more so than the Shadow Games from the first and second series animes, as well as taking a deeper look at the psychological ramifications it all has on the cast, sometimes verging on Gen Urobuchi levels of psychological breakage, especially in regards to the main protagonist. Plus from the Synchro arc on much of the plot is driven by the political manipulation various parties perform in order to achieve their goals. Come the Fusion arc, specifically episodes post 126 and 127, the series takes more cosmic horror aspects as the reveal of Zarc and Ray starts to drive the series more.
• Gilded Cage:
  • Academia is this for Serena though she is known for her attempts in escapes.
  • In the Synchro dimension, the Lancers were held here for the Friendship Cup. They can only leave if they have a match and must return back if they win. Though it's more smaller than most examples as it's closer to a high class hotel than a mansion but due to the class division between the Tops and the Commons, it is easily seen as this.
• Good Counterpart:
  • By episode 52, LDS is this to the Academia. They are both duel schools focused on creating dueling soldiers, the difference is the LDS' goal is simple self-defense compared to the Academia's goal of invading other dimensions.
  • Episode 127 reveals the Four Dimension Bracelets are this to the Four Dimension Dragons. Leo created the cards that would become the bracelets to absorb the willpower of life to continue as the opposite of the power of hatred the dragons have.
• Good Parents:
  • ARC-V shows the You Show School children's parents as supporting and caring towards them. Yusho constantly encouraged Yuya in his flashbacks, Yoko is always watching over him, Shuzou is seeing worrying over his daughter's troubled behavior and Futoshi's and Ayu's parents took time out of their agendas in order to be in the stadium to cheer for their children. Even Gongenzaka and Reiji are frequently seen with a parent.
  • Averted with Mr. Sawatari and Leo Akaba, though...
• Gratuitous English: While this is common in this franchise, attack names are often entirely in English. However, we list here the attack names of the Four Dimension dragons (including evolutions) because they are a mix of Japanese and English words, a possible nod to Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Red Daemon's Dragon and the two Galaxy-Eyes dragons, Photon and Tachyon. This also includes the attacks of certain dragons based on the dragons from previous series.
  • Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon's Rasen no Strike Burst. Odd-Eyes Dragon's Spiral Flame is entirely in English instead.
  • Rune-Eyes Pendulum Dragon's Rengeki no Shiny Burst. Beast-Eyes Pendulum Dragon's Hell Dive Burst is entirely in English instead.
  • Brave-Eyes Pendulum Dragon's Shakunetsu no Mega Flame Burst.
  • Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon's Hangyaku no Lightning Disobey.
  • Clear Wing Synchro Dragon's Senpuu no Hell Dive Slasher.
  • Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon's Hanki no Gekirin Strike Disobey.
  • Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon's Reppuu no Crystallos Edge.
  • Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon's Shinkon no Disaster Disobey.
  • Red Daemon's Dragon Scarlight's Shakunetsu no Crimson Hell Burning.
  • Red Daemon's Dragon Tyrant's Gokuen no Crimson Hell Tide
  • Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon's Senmetsu no Cipher Stream.
  • On another note, quite a few characters (Yuya, Sawatari, Dennis, Halil) are prone to exclaiming things in English even outside of the usual Duel lingo, as are the opening/ending themes. There's so much that one almost starts to wonder whether English networks could get away with airing it without even needing a dub.
• Gray-and-Grey Morality: The true shade for the Synchro Dimension conflict, both the Commons and Tops are bloodthirsty and believe in complete competition a large difference in morals from the main protagonists. The only true difference is the Commons are effectively enslaved by the Tops.
• Hall of Mirrors: While dueling Masumi in the "Crystal Corridor", Yuzu bumps into an Action Card's reflection while trying to get to it and loses because she can't get to the real one in time.
• Hard Light: The Leo Corporation has invented Solid Vision with mass, "Real Solid Vision", allowing anyone to interact with the Duel Monster holograms. This is part of what makes Action Duels so popular. Apparently, they can also control just how hard the light is because they state that the Junior Championship has the most spongy Solid Vision since the duelists are all young kids.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Invoked by Reiji. When Yuya tells him that he got his two Fusion dragons because of Yuzu, who in turn asked Sora to learn Fusion Summoning, Reiji points out that Sora indirectly influenced Yuya and that the power of Rune-Eyes and Beast-Eyes originated from Academia.
• Hell Is That Noise: Raidraptor - Rise Falcon's cry, both the original (which is the same as Earthbound God Ascilla piscu) and the other one that the dub also uses in addition to the original.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Tsukikage decides to hide Yuzu underground to protect her, since Security is looking for her. Security believes that Yuzu had been rescued by Sora and are subsequently looking for her, so Tsukikage decides to hide her where she was supposed to have gone in the first place.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: At the beginning of Episode 63, three Elite Mooks pursuing Yuya and his crew intend on overwhelming the party by summoning a Zerg Rush of Goyo monsters. After the party is backed into a corner, Kurosaki pulls a Big Damn Heroes by dropping out of the sky and pulling a two-card combo with his opening hand that summons Raid Raptors - Rise Falcon. He uses one Overlay Unit to add the combined ATK of all seven Special Summoned Monsters controlled by the mooks to Rise Falcon, jacking its ATK to 7900. He then proceeds to attack all monsters on the field for a triple OTK.
• Hope Spot:
  • In episode 37, Yuto and Yugo fall into some sort of trance after both of their dragons are summoned, which makes them both duel more viciously than normal. Yuya is able to bring Yuto back to his senses, and tries to snap Yugo out of it as well. When Yugo uses a monster effect on his own dragon rather than Yuto's, Yuya briefly thinks Yugo has returned to normal, but it turns out there was an additional effect to Clear Wing Synchro Dragon's monster effect that Yuya wasn't aware of that powered it up before delivering the finishing blow.
  • A rather cruel one in Episode 48. Michio and Teppei join in the tag match of Tsukikage, Serena, and Kurosaki vs the Obelisk Force. And through their teamwork, they are able to halve the life points of the Obelisk Force. Till they turn it around and defeat both Michio and Teppei, sealing them both into cards.
  • Episode 135 has Yuya defeat Yuri using Odd-Eyes, Dark Rebellion and Clear Wing, giving the idea that Yuya, Yuto and Yugo successfully repealed Zarc. Only for Zarc to reveal he was able to take over Yuya's body at the last minute and fully revive.
• Hufflepuff House: Ritual Summoning. The four dimensions are explicitly based on the four types of Extra Deck Special Summons, so while Ritual Summoning is technically the fifth Special Summon type, it gets very little attention and isn't seen as an advanced technique like the other methods are. Mieru and Asuka use Ritual Monsters, so they do have some representation, but it's far lower than the other four monster types.
• Humans Are Bastards: A recurring theme in the show. Unlike other series where humanity is corrupted or tricked by evil forces of magic, in ARC-V, the conflict is entirely human in origin. Even the Dragon Boys' Awaken side was the result of the original dimension enjoying violence and bloodshed.
• Humans Are Flawed: Overall where series falls on regarding people. While humans are capable of great evil due to extremism (Fusion Dimension), apathy (Synchro Dimension), hatred (Xyz Dimension) or bloodlust (original world); they are capable of changing for the better, but it takes a lot of hard work.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The Fusion Faction hunted Heartland's Xyz users for fun and profit. Made worse with the reveal that the war was started in order to kidnap a single girl.
• Idiot Ball: Invoked in some of Yuya's dueling opponents, likely due to the fact that like all main Yu-Gi-Oh! characters, Yuya needs to win most, if not, all of his important duels.
  • Dennis and Sawatari seem to lost all of their sense to keep secret about their advantages over the Synchro Dimension when arriving there as Shingo told the Security about Action Spells even when he wasn't asked or tortured, directly hampered Yuya as a result while Dennis used Pendulum and Xyz Summoning in a joke duel against Gongenzaka even though he doesn't have anything to gain for winning. But as Dennis is The Mole, it could be on less stupidity and more on purpose. To be fair to Dennis, unlike Sawatari, he had no idea that they were currently pitted against the Synchro Dimension.
  • Surprisingly enough Crow in episode 87,who attributed Yuya's sudden shift in behaviour and desire to duel him rather than escape to help his friends, to mean Yuya lied to him and really is working with Roget. Instead of the fact that Yuya was clutching his head and screaming in pain, right in front of him.
• Improvised Weapon: Gongenzaka uses his metal geta (sandals) as weapons when escaping prison.
• Immune to Mind Control : Yuya. One of the Doktor's Parasite Fusioners attempted to crawl into Yuya's brain, but it was burnt to a crisp as Yuya's Superpowered Evil Side (actually Zarc) briefly emerged. Ironically, Roget intended to do something similar to him earlier but due to a lack of time went with the electric shock device instead, effectively forcing Yuya into Berserk Mode. Good thing Roget didn't go with the first solution.
• Info Dump: Episode 36 pauses in the middle of a duel to fill the audience in on exactly what the deal is with the various dimensions and the war between them. Lampshaded in the dub:
  Yuya: Look, you're throwing a lot of crazy information my way.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: Several of them are around, from the duel disks of the Fusion and Xyz dimensions inhabitants, and after Reiji got ahold of Yuto's duel disk he was able to implement the same feature on the Lancers' (Standard) Disks using cards to set up coordinates.
  • During the first season it was already known that Yuzu's bracelet ^note It's unknown if the other bracelets have a similar feature could warp people away, but during the Battle Royale it warped her and Yugo to the Synchro Dimension..
  • In the same vein the Yugo's Clear Wing Synchro Dragon has been doing that to him for a while now, its implied that the four Dimension Dragons have the same power as well, because they are drawn to each other
• Ironic Echo: "The fun has just began" has also been used by Sora and Dennis when referencing to their "hunting games".
• Japanese Ranguage: Shown in Episode 8, where it displays "58 wins and 5 roses", which makes it more puzzling when you consider that they spelled "lose" correctly not a few scenes earlier.
• Jerkass: Every time a new one shows up, it's like the show does its best to trump the previous one.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The Yu-Gi-Oh! version. It starts out with Yuto, the Dark Duelist, mostly about who he is, why does he look just like Yuya, how does he know Yuzu and what happened to him. For a while we only got bits and piece like Yuzu looked like a friend of his Ruri that was kidnapped and some group called the Academia was his enemy. This eventually was shown to have been planned from the start as his story was revealed to be a huge interdimensional war between dimensions that resembled previous Yu-Gi-Oh! series. While we have gotten a lot of answers, many still remain from why Yuya and Yuzu are the only characters with an Identical Stranger, what are they and why does Leo want to fuse the dimensions. Also, what exactly is the "ARC Area Project"? Why is Yusho so important that people kept sending him to other dimensions?
  • Ultimately, some answers are provided in a near literal jigsaw-like way; the answer to one mystery connects it to a different plot thread, until it's clear how almost every isolated "puzzle piece" fits into the main plot. (Ex, the solution to mystery of why Yusho vanished three years ago also explains what secrets Reiji has been keeping and what his true motives are.)
• Kid Hero: The main cast are in their early to mid teens.
• Kids Are Cruel: When Yuya was younger, he was relentlessly mocked after his father's disappearance.
• Kudzu Plot: Cleanly averted. By the end of the series nearly all questions the series brought up has been answered like why there are four dimensions that are divided by summoning methods, why there are four Yuyas and Yuzus, what Yusho was doing for three years, what is the cause of Yuya and his counterparts' Superpowered Evil Side, where did Yuzu and her counterparts get their bracelets, what is going on with Yuya's pendulum, what was Leo's goal and why he was obsessed with the bracelet girls.
• Lampshade Hanging: In addition to pulling a lot of Subverted Tropes in regards to series staples, the anime also hangs a lot of lampshades on stuff that's still played straight. For example...
  • In episode 55 when Yugo and Yuzu get into a riding duel with Security, Yuzu points out just how incredibly dangerous "card games on motorcycles" would be in real life, even without the Hard Light making the attacks real and possibly causing a wipeout, and even suggests stopping and dueling him normally for safety reasons. Doesn't stop Yugo from continuing the duel though, nor does it stop him from scaring Yuzu silly with half the stunts he pulls during it. The Lancers also get in on this quite a bit.
• Large Ham: Hoo boy. Between Yuya's entertainment routine, the intro for almost every single action duel, and a lot of other things, there's definitely hamminess to spare.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Episode 141 shows that after Episode 140, this was put on the entire Standard Dimension mixed with Fake Memories. Everyone except Reiji and Yusho have forgotten the Interdimensional War.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The fact that Zarc's first action upon reviving is to attack the Academia and the Fusion Dimension is way too fitting for their crimes against the Xyz Dimension.
• Layered Metropolis: The City. There are gigantic... Columns for lack of better world that host the areas where the Tops live, while the Commons all are at ground level.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Gongenzaka justifies his use of Synchro Summoning to his father by proclaiming that dueling is constantly evolving, and even Steadfast Dueling must evolve or be left behind in a new era where everyone else has moved on. This is pretty much exactly what happens in the real life card game, with old archetypes like Harpies and Cyber Dragons getting new support cards to allow them to use new strategies and summoning methods introduced after their original runs. The recurring theme of the three main protagonists seeking to evolve their dueling styles with new strategies to keep up with opponents could also be a nudge to real life players that dislike the new summoning methods like Synchro and Xyz.
  • In episode 60 and 61, Yuya is back into a corner by a card called "No Cheating Allowed", which bounces any special summoned cards back to the opponent's hand whenever a Cardian monster is on the field, making his Pendulum Summons useless until he can get rid of it. A character on the sidelines quickly comments on how as long as that card's on the field, Yuya's Pendulum summoning will be treated as cheating. This seems to mirror a lot of veteran players reactions to when Pendulum Summoning was introduced in the actual card game, with many considering it broken and cheating.
  • In episode 64, when the public of the Synchro Dimension is introduced to Action Cards, some complain that it seems unfair, not unlike how the fandom at first felt about them.
• Le Parkour: Very common in this series. They use it to get Action cards or kick ass.
• Lighter and Softer: The first season of Arc-V.
  • A few episodes from the second season.
  • The first half of the third season (aka Heartland City) thanks to the Smile World card.
  • Despite its darker side, Arc-V also have a bunch of lighter side to the series, because the main focus is entertainment.
• Like Father, Like Son: Yuya looks up to his father, using a Entermate archetype and a similar playstyle to his father to entertain the audience. Reiji, on the other hand, after finding out his father had abandoned his family and is planning to fuse the dimensions, has shown dislike towards his father and wishes to foil his plans. Gradually deconstructed as the series progresses with the tropes switching between the characters. There are times where Yuya struggles to use Entertainment Dueling and resorts to violence in order to win, only to later regret his actions. Even when he doesn't, his cheerfulness can come off as forced, if not ambiguous, much different from Yusho's dueling, which seemed more sincere. Meanwhile, while Reiji and Leo have very different goals, both use questionable methods, believing the ends justify the means.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: All three sides all fighting each other. On one side there's Zarc, who wants to destroy the world. To combat him, Leo Akaba instigated the inter-dimensional war so he'd be able to revive Ray, the only person able to stop Zarc. Reiji, the Lancers, and Yusho are fighting both of them by trying to prevent the apocalypse without stooping to the same level as Leo.
• Living Battery: Episode 128 reveals that Leo has been carding everyone to use their life energy to power Arc-V to fuse the Bracelet Girls and the Four Dimensions.
• Living MacGuffin: Yuzu and all of her alternate dimension counterparts are the overall targets of the chessmaster characters; Leo Akaba is gathering them for some unknown reason, Reiji intends on protecting them from the other chessmasters, and Roget wants them so Leo can't have them. Their actual function in the grand scheme of things has yet to be revealed, however. Later revealed that they are parts of Leo's daughter Ray, who defeated Zarc. His quest is to revive her and have her finish Zarc.
• Luxury Prison Suite:
  • Enjoy Chojiro had one as he gets fine food and accommodations due to being the Boss for 10 years.
  • While not necessarily luxurious, Serena was much better off compared to the male Lancers during the Security Prison Arc. Especially compared to Kurosaki who was the only other person captured that was separated from the main group (though this was because the former was going to be the subject of interrogation while the later got there because of the fights he started up)
  • Ruri and Rin are revealed to have been living very nice rooms while in the Fusion Dimension. Makes sense when you realize they're parts of Leo's daughter

Tropes M-R

• Made a Slave: The fate of those who lose in the Friendship Cup, not unlike the Crash Town arc of 5D's.
• The Magic Poker Equation:
  • A series staple; many characters have a very convenient opening hand. Consider, for instance, the number of times Kurosaki opens with three copies of Vanishing Lanius, or the number of situations that make Smile World (a recurring card that looks mediocre on paper) work.
  • Surprisingly enough, there is actually some aversion to this trope when looking at the deck types used in the series. Hokuto and Yaiba, who use the Constellar and X-Saber archetypes respectively, make pretty standard plays in respect to how the real Yu-Gi-Oh! card game is played. With those Archetypes, getting out one or two monsters with 2500+ ATK on the first turn is pretty normal, especially when it's shown that characters carry multiple copies of cards.
  • It's also noteworthy that there's one character who is famous in-universe for this, so much so it's part of his canon nickname. Also noticeable is that he frequently does a chant and concentrates before drawing, which hints that, like the Shining Draw in ZEXAL, his luck might actually be some sort of supernatural ability.
• Magic Versus Science: Unlike past Yu-Gi-Oh! series, science has the main focus. Due to advances in science, holograms have real mass and being sealed in cards are purely scientific, making the threat purely scientific. In addition, the Four Dimension Dragons and the mysterious powers in the Yuyas and Yuzus' possession are completely mystical in nature, and magic doesn't exist at all. Finally subverted when it was revealed that Duel Monsters have souls and is the main catalyst behind the creation of Zarc.
• Magical Accessory: Yuya's pendulum pendant. In the very first episode, it turns some of his Effect Monsters into Pendulum Monsters... and that's about it. Even after 90 episodes, that's the only thing it has ever done. Yuzu's bracelet, and by extension the bracelets of all of her dimensional counterparts, fit more in line with this trope, as they resonate in response to bad things happening to Yuya and his dimensional counterparts.
• Magnetic Plot Device: So very many. We have Yuya's pendulum, his Pendulum Cards, Yuzu's bracelet and the four Dimension Dragons that Yuya and his alternative selves have and the bracelets that Yuzu's alternative selves have.
• Main Character Final Boss: The Greater-Scope Villain of the anime is revealed to be Zarc, who is the original self of protagonist Yuya and his counterparts Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri. Prior to being fought - by the entire cast except those four - he made several "appearances" by having his personality energy through Yuya during extremely stressful or high-pressure duels - essentially giving the audience a Final Boss Preview to showcase how ruthless, violent, and controlling he is during duels.
• Male Sun, Female Moon: Apollo and Diana, two Fusion Dimension duelists who respectively guard the towers holding Ruri and Rin. Apollo's deck and attire is based on the sun, while Diana's is based on the moon. Despite their Smug Snake attitudes, Both of them are effortlessly curb-stomped by Yugo and Kaito in one turn.
• Master of None: Standard was this compared to the other dimensions before Yuya invented Pendulum summoning. While they had access to the various extra deck summoning methods, they weren't as skilled as the duelists that came from the other dimensions. Makes sense when you learn they didn't originally have these methods.
• Martial Arts and Crafts: The Junior Youth Championship's qualification mini arc features Yuya dueling with the aces of four different Dueling Schools. This schools not only teach how to play a children's card game but also double as cooking school, cram school and even fortune-telling school. And Sora has dueled opponents from schools that aside Dueling also teach Sumo, Shogi, Chess, Kabuki and Opera.
• Mêlée à Trois: Between the Lancers, Academia, and Roget.
• Merchandise-Driven: Very downplayed, while the show like all other spinoff was created to sell cards, plot and characters come first. There have been times when duels have been skipped or just shown the end like Sora and Kurosaki's rematch to continue the flow of the plot.
  • Yuri's duel with Asuka in episode 123, where he suddenly chooses to use an Ancient Gear deck instead of his own, can be seen as the most blatant form of this trope. In his first turn he quickly busts out and utilizes nearly every new card to be featured in a Structure Deck that would also be released near the time of the episode's airing.
• Meta Origin: Episodes 126 and 127 (See the Wham Episode page) serve as this for the entire series' setting since Leo's account of the Original World ties in everything in the series: why and how the Original World was split into the Four current Dimensions, the existence of the Dimensional counterparts of Yuya and Yuzu as the reincarnations of Ray and Zarc, why the Professor wants the girls so bad and what the Arc Area Project and Revival Zero Consists on, and finally it name drops the series title The Arc V machine that will give birth to a new (the 5th) dimension).
• Metaphorically True: When dueling Kaito, Gongenzaka makes his usual proclamation about his Steadfast Dueling style, claiming that he "will not move". Kaito interprets this as Gongenzaka ending his turn and goes ahead before Gongenzaka can do anything else.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Averted with the Parasite Fusioner's hosts, whose eyes looks completely normal.(The closest thing to this trope is the rather empty look they have when idle.) It makes the slasher smiles of the hosts even more disturbing.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • One of the biggest example could be the MCS arc; it started like any Tournament Arc until Sora vs. Kurosaki's duel, where 31 episodes of friendship and sport-like dueling were introduced to the concept of dueling as war, where only the strongest survives, in only one episode.
  • Episode 39 takes the cake, we start out with a normal duel with Yuya even being the Butt-Monkey in the beginning. The duel slowly gets darker due to Kachidoki's actions, till finally Yuya's Superpowered Evil Side awakens and we head straight into Nightmare Fuel.
• Morality Kitchen Sink:
  • Eventually divulges into this when the interdimensional war was revealed. Sorting by factions and individual characters, we have: White (the You Show Duel School, Yuya, Yuzu, and Gongenzaka) vs. Lighter Grey (Yuto plus Serena) vs. Darker Gray (the Big Good LDS and Kurosaki and Yuya's Superpowered Evil Side for kicking only assholes) vs. Black (Academia). Sora seems to go from Dark Gray to Black with a few Pet the Dog moments. The Synchro Dimension, while not directly involved in the interdimensional war, seems to be locked in a Black-and-Gray Morality conflict (see the entry above).
  • Special note of the Lancers, who despite being the good guys are made up of differing kinds of moralities. Yuya and Gongenzaka are obviously White, being the kindest characters on the team who are deeply opposed to the war. Sawatari and Serena are Light Grey, Sawatari seems more focused on the pride of being on the Lancers than the actual war while Serena has her heart in the right place, she's done some horrible things when still loyal to the Academia. Reiji and Kurosaki are Dark Grey, while still having good intentions, have done some horrible actions and aren't stopping anytime soon. Dennis is Black, being an Academia spy. Reira and Tsukikage are unaffiliated, simply following Reiji's orders for differing reasons.
  • There's also some work put into showing how characters who do evil things think and why they do what they do.
    • Sora and Dennis both have a lot of humanizing traits, with the main difference being that one of them never got the chance to actually do much evil before The Power of Friendship saved him, and the other couldn't live with his own guilt and wound up Driven to Suicide.
    • Serena shows the mentality that leads people to becoming Black, since she wanted to be a soldier until she stopped to consider that her victims might be innocent.
    • Sora suffers from a bad case of Fantastic Racism, but is shown to have grown up with no friends, trained not to ask questions and obey orders unquestioningly, and starts thinking for himself and avoiding commands once he makes real friends for the first time in his life, and begins to have a Heel Realization.
    • In fact, all the characters from Academia see themselves as Proud Warrior Race Guys with Undying Loyalty to their leader, even the nastier characters like Yuri. The only ones who aren't feel Trapped in Villainy, which drives them into despair and Then Let Me Be Evil.
    • Edo falls into the latter category, and once he finally breaks out of it he manages to abuse the aforementioned Undying Loyalty of the Academia soldiers to convince his subordinates to pull a mass Heel–Face Turn.
    • Yuri is eventually shown to be twisted because he was raised as a monster by a man who, due to preconceived notions, saw him as a "demon" and rewarded him for doing evil, which was the only time someone paid personal attention to him.
    • Kurosaki is a genocide survivor and a Shell-Shocked Veteran trying to rescue his friends and family, who has become paranoid and ruthless due to all he's lost.
    • Reiji's invasion of privacy and ruthlessness has saved the lives of the three LDS students and enabled him to ensure that his dimension isn't caught by surprise and destroyed the same way the Xyz Dimension was.
    • Duel Chaser 227 became a Corrupt Cop in order to avoid poverty.
    • Most of the Tops actually believe the lie that they are equals and friends with the Commons, when they're actually the oppressive ruling class in a Crapsack World.
    • The Commons are starving and manipulated by their oppressors Bread and Circuses, but while the crowd can be nasty every individual member that we meet is genuinely nice or has a Hidden Heart of Gold somewhere.
    • Shinji truly believes the only way to change the system is through a violent revolution and his rebellion gets swallowed by Black-and-White Insanity, but ultimately pull a mass Heel–Face Turn.
    • Roget is just a greedy bastard, although he tries to justify his actions to himself by claiming Might Makes Right.
    • Kaito is in the same boat as Kurosaki, except every member of his family was killed, whereas Kurosaki still had his sister, and Kaito thus pushed everyone away to avoid being hurt- causing him to become He Who Fights Monsters even more than Kurosaki.
    • Leo Akaba doesn't think that anything in the four dimensions really "counts" and his driving motivation is to get his daughter back, but he goes far beyond Well-Intentioned Extremist, fucks up royally in the process, and refuses to listen to any perspective but his own.
    • Even Zarc was pushed to the edge by his need to fulfill the sick desires of his fans, as well as the implications that he had ability to understand the pain of duel spirits when everyone was forcing them into battle.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: The majority of the cast are scrawny teens yet they regularly show superhuman agility when running for Action Cards.
• Myth Arc: The series so far is focused on the Interdimensional war that Leo Akaba started and the main casts attempts to stop it or help it. Along with the secret of the Dragon Boys and Bracelet Girls and how they fit in Leo's plans
• Mythology Gag: Now has its own page.
• Nebulous Evil Organization: What Leo Corporation and Academia are implied to be. Subverted for Leo Corporation but played straight for the Academia.
• Neon City: The Synchro Dimension's "City" is a Crapsaccharine World, where 99% of the total wealth is controlled by only 1% of the population. The City has extremely high skyscrapers lit up so brightly that the night turns into day. It is even lampshaded.
  Yugo: Beautiful, isn't it? How much wealth is in this skyline?
• Never Trust a Trailer: The first version of the third opening indicated that Yuya and Yugo would eventually duel in the Synchro Dimension. Not only does this duel never occur in the Synchro Dimension, but Yuya never duels Yugo at all in the series.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Like in earlier series, Yuya can make cards out of thin air. But Yuzu and Gongenzaka somehow got Fusion and Synchro monsters and support that were members of the Archetypes they used, despite advanced Special Summoning methods being reserved for the elite schools and LDS students. Presumably, these actually existed but they just didn't have them.
  • Zarc's pieces and Ray seem to have this ability since they are beings with great power. For example, Yuri suddenly has a card which can perform both fusion and synchro summon using the same material (the latter by treating one of the materials as tuner) after absorbing Yugo and taking his Clear Wing Synchro Dragon despite his archetype focusing on fusion mechanic. In Ray's case, Reira who duels Reiji because of Ray's words summons a fusion monster Reiji doesn't know about.
• New Rules as the Plot Demands: Subverted. When Yuya literally creates the new Pendulum Monsters and Pendulum Summons mechanic out of nowhere in the middle of his duel in the first episode, Strong Ishijima actually asks if that is legal. The only reason he lets it slide, is because the SYSTEM considers it legal. And even then once the public realize Pendulum Summoning requires special cards, they consider Yuya a cheat. Since Yuya doesn't fully understand the Pendulum mechanic himself, it feels like this when a part of the mechanic occurs that he himself didn't know. That said, this only happens a few times and had already been explained in real life.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In episode 135, Reiji tells Yuya not to worry about anything else, and to focus on winning against Yuri, so that Yuri cannot absorb him and become Zarc. It works...except that, in giving himself over entirely to his desire to win and not caring about anything or anyone else, Yuya gave into his inner darkness, absorbed Yuri, and became Zarc instead.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Averted. Yuto and Ruri's relationship is strongly implied to be mutually romantic.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The Resistance doesn't see Dueling as fun but as a war. Given their backstory, not hard to see why.
• No Ontological Inertia: The Doktor's parasites are seen crawling inside the host's ear to their brain to brainwash them. But as soon as Leo Akaba seals the Doktor into a card, the parasite's brainwashing over Yuzu, Serena, Rin and Ruri immediately ends.
• No OSHA Compliance: Nearly every Action Field is dangerous and multiple times duelists have nearly fallen at dangerous heights. Good thing that episode 34 shows that there are limits toward this, albeit fatal injuries are still possible.
• "No Peeking!" Request: Identical Strangers Yuzu and Serena decide to swap clothes so Yuzu can draw attention away from Serena, who is being pursued. Serena starts undressing right there and then, but Yuzu quickly stops her because the male Tsukikage is watching them. She drags Serena behind a huge rock instead and demands from Tsukikage not to peek, to which he complies. Serena has no idea why they have to go through the trouble.
• Not Drawn to Scale:
  • In episode 24, Hidekazu Ebina (the episode's animation director) said that he intentionally made Yuto taller than Yuzu despite that he's supposed to be shorter than her. His reason was that this was supposed to give Yuto's exposition a sense of seriousness.
  • Gongenzaka's height varies on occasion, mostly when it is funny for him to be towering over someone else. * Not Just a Tournament:
  • The Maiami Championship started as a normal tournament albeit with Reiji using the tournament as a testing ground for possible new Lancers. Then it just falls off the rails as the Academia invades forcing Reiji to use a Battle Royal to hide their invasion and keep non-duelists safe.
  • The Friendship Cup plays with this. While the intentions behind it are a little less than moral and some rather unnerving events ensue, everything plot-relevant happens away from the tournament and it's ultimately never the cause of anything important beyond character development. It more or less progresses like a regular tournament.
• Once More, with Clarity: In episode 54, the flashback Yuto had in episode 18, is once again shown from Yugo's perspective, solidifying that their conflict was not only a misunderstanding but quite possibly planned out by Yuri.
  • It happens again in episode 80 Yuya finally gets to talk to Sora about him getting away when the rest of the cast realized that Yuzu was missing, this scene was played out as Sora running away to avoid capture or being questioned about her whereabouts, but in Sora's flashback of the same events, we see that Sora, (thinking the Obelisk Force had captured Yuzu instead of Serena) went back to Academia to search for her and presumably bring her back to Maiami City, making very clear he would never let anyone take Yuzu prisoner.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are two You Show Duel Schools, but they're in other dimensions: one in Standard and one in the Fusion Dimension.
• Outside-Context Problem: Academia to everyone. First they caught the Xyz Dimension completely off-guard and used the element of surprise to decimate them. Then Reiji specifically avoided this trope by calling the Standard dimension's attention to Academia directly after their first minor attack, convincing them to militarize so they wouldn't be caught off guard the same way. Finally, nobody in the Synchro dimension except the Council and Roget believe Academia exists, leading to characters who have already been told about the inter-dimensional war making false assumptions about the protagonists based on what they know to be true in their own dimension.
• Overly Long Fighting Animation: As far as attack animations for monsters are concerned, Satellite Cannon Falcon's Wave-Motion Gun Kill Sat attack against Ancient Gear Chaos Giant has a much, much longer execution than most attacks in the entire series.
• Parasites Are Evil: The Doctor brainwashes his victims by inserting parasitic insects in their ears. The infectees become uncharacteristically sadistic, rejoicing when watching others suffer and even taunting their friends when they try to set them free.
• Personality Powers: Most character's decks reflect who they are in some way, Yuya's Performpals, are goofy and support each other, Kurosaki's Raid Raptors are better at fighting things stronger than them, and Sora's Fluffal deck is a cute and non-threatening deck that hides a much darker side. Reira's use of card that mimic her opponent likewise hint at her lack of a sense of self.
• Pieces of God: The Dragon Boys are parts of Zarc who became a god or at least a being with the power of one. The Bracelet girls are pieces of Ray the only person that can stop him.
• Planet of Hats: Episode 36 shows that there are alternative dimensions that are divided by the advanced summoning method they use. Except the ARC-V world, Standard which uses them all.
• Playing Card Motifs: Shows up twice; each of the four Akabas have one^note Spade for Leo, Heart for Himika, Club for Reira and Diamond for Declan; and Heartland has duel schools named after them.
• Poor Communication Kills: A justified example, the reason for Yuto and Yugo's rivalry. They both thought the other was Yuri who kidnapped Ruri and Rin, people very important to them. As such they were both angry and probably would never think that there was a second person that looked like them around.
• The Power of Friendship: Zigzagged.
  • Good friends can (potentially, if they're aware of the situation) provide emotional support for characters who are struggling through a Heroic BSoD, but that's about it. Even if you're dueling for someone else's sake, you're not likely to win unless you keep your head in the game.
  • The Power of Friendship cannot overcome intense PTSD, cultural acceptance of slavery, or indoctrination as a Child Soldier.
    • At least, not in the magical all-our-problems-are-fixed way Yu-Gi-Oh! is famous for. Sora shows signs of improvement thanks to friendship, but remains loyal to Academia... for a spell. He eventually pulls a Heel–Face Turn towards the end of the Synchro Dimension arc, defying Academia and helping out the Lancers for the remainder of the arc.
    • This is shockingly, for the first time in the whole franchise, completely and utterly defied, sadistically subverted, and played frighteningly straight in the Duel between Kurosaki and Kaito. Despite all of Kurosaki's attempts to get through to Kaito, Kaito's anger at Academia is so great that he beats Kurosaki and refuses to talk to him, in spite of Kurosaki's attempts at winning by using this trope. Double subverted four episodes later after Kaito shows up to bail out Yuya's group from the Obelisk Force. It is implied that Kurosaki's words did have an effect on him, although it takes some time to work.
• Prayer Pose: Most duelists from the Fusion Dimension clasp their hands together with fingers interlocking when announcing their Fusion Summon. Yuzu also adopts this behavior once she learns Fusion summoning from Sora.
• Pretext for War: Of the "these guys are evil, so we need an excuse to attack them" variety. While it's true that Academia is an evil, dimension-invading genocidal child-soldier employing military force, Leo Akaba has never actually tried to take over Standard. He sent a small squadron there with the intent of capturing two girls, but he didn't give a crap what happened to any other people in Standard. Reiji and Himika take the footage of this squad butting heads with the MCS participants to make it look like Academia has already tried invading and that their world is in immediate danger in order to whip the world into a frenzy.
• Prisoner Performance: The prisoners, led by Chojiro and Yuya, put on an entertainment duel tournament among the inmates with flashy lights, performances, and everything. The reason for this being that the spectacle would distract the guards from the other inmates who are trying to escape the prison.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Both Yuto and Kurosaki have called LDS to be over arrogant and lacking determination in their duels.
• Recap Episode: The first half of Episode 76 and the second half of Episode 100.
• Reconstruction: Combine with Deconstruction, the series tries to incorporate many tropes from the previous series into more consistent and realistic ways.
  • Characters build their decks much more realistically — they run multiple copies of cards, use simple but effective combos with them, and staple cards are common. There's also significant drop of new cards appearing from nowhere, and an increase in the same cards appearing over and over as duelists rely on them.
  • The obsession people have with Yuya's Pendulum Monsters. It's not merely that a character has some rare or powerful trading cards; it's that these cards appeared from nowhere and yet were somehow recognized by the dueling computers as a legal move, and no one knows how that's possible. The result is also that some people think Yuya is just a cheater who hacked the card database to recognize made-up cards, and the company that runs the dueling systems is trying to replicate these cards for mass production.
  • The plot and Info Dump is only revealed from people that trust each other, or at least has some justified reason in their personality, not from Motive Rant.
  • The complex morality, Anyone Can Be Carded and large cast reflects realistically an interdimensional war, unlike many other series which only focus on a relatively small group of characters that aren't justified by being The Chosen Ones.
    • Likewise, the characters that do get singled out by various parties are chosen either because they have magical powers, or because they're extremely famous and able to convince the masses to take certain actions because of their popularity.
  • The main and supporting characters generally act more realistic and actually try to solve their problems outside dueling, averts Duels Decide Everything.
    • Likewise, duels are only ever important because of the franchise-set rules about dueling being a conductor for supernatural forces^note Specifically, dueling is used as a tool of war because it allows people to steal their opponents souls, and about dueling being extremely popular to the masses^note The MCS tournament was used to warn the entire Standard dimension about Academia because people would be watching it worldwide, and the Friendship Cup was used to put a revolution on hold because some people would stop fighting if they could watch a really interesting duel.
  • In a more positive way, Yuya's attempts at using entertainment dueling to bring joy and happiness work best when 1) he isn't consumed by doubt during the duel, and 2) his opponent is a genuinely well-meaning person with some goals and motivations Yuya can relate to (as in most of the qualifying duels). Not all of his opponents fit the second requirement, and as such Yuya cannot get through to those people.
  • While The Power of Friendship is mocked and doesn't have the same, magical-therapy or card-game-winning effect it did in previous series, good friends can take steps to remind each other You Are Not Alone and help each other pull through times of despair.
    • Befriending Yuya and Yuzu doesn't directly lead Sora to pull a Heel–Face Turn, but he does begins looking for ways to follow orders without hurting Yuya or Yuzu because he cares about them. This gives Yuya and Yuzu an opportunity to point out some of Academia's darker traits, eventually leading Sora to doubt Academia and slowly pull a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Reira's situation in episodes 90 to 91 shows no matter how much determination a person has, they cannot cure PTSD by willpower alone. However, the following episodes show that Reira's determination is one of the key attributes she needs to recover from her trauma.
  • As a group of Fire-Forged Friends who first allied in the middle of battle, the Lancers fall apart when they first arrive in the Synchro dimension as they don't really know how to interact with each other when not in battle (and really know very little about each other outside of dueling). But because the only time they ever worked together as a team was when it really counted, they can do so again when the City is thrown into chaos.
• Red Herring: There were a lot of hints along the way that Reiji's Ambiguously Evil status was because he was either going to become an antagonist in some manner. These hints particularly intensified with the reveal of Zarc, who has similar silver hair as Reiji, is also a master of the Extra Deck summoning methods, and is referred to as a "Demon Duelist"; Reiji's deck theme D/D/D stands for "Different Dimension Demon." However, by the end of the series nothing came of this, and any similarities between Zarc and Reiji and hints the latter may turn evil somehow are just this trope.
• Rescue Arc: The Fusion arc involves around the Lancers and Yusho's forces going on a rescue mission to retrieve the remaining three bracelet girls (Serena, Ruri, and Rin), who are already corrupted by Academia. However, they're not the only ones: Yugo is doing the same thing as well, and has an Unfinished Business with Yuri.
• Rescue Romance: Variation. Yoko and Yusho Sakaki Met when he stepped into a duel she was having with a rival delinquent gang in order to rescue one of the members of her own gang they were keeping hostage. He showed up and rescued the girl, all while entertaining the perpetrators and winning her heart.
• Reset Button: Averted. Despite the series loving to use this, at the end of the series the there have major changes to the setting and even the characters. The Xyz Dimension is still destroyed, Arc-V exists as another dimension connected to the other four, Reira is still a baby, the Dragon boys and Bracelet girls respectively share a body.
• Resurrective Immortality: Because they go to the Extra Deck instead of the Graveyard upon destruction, and can be summoned back en masse as long as you have the proper Pendulum Scales, Pendulum Monsters are often said in-series to have this.
• Revisiting the Roots: ARC-V stands out of the Yu-Gi-Oh! spin-offs because it shows the older ways of advanced summoning (Fusion, Ritual, Synchro and Xyz) alongside the newest (Pendulum) and considers them as much of special. It also brings back old school's monsters and past archetypes, pleasing many fans.
  • Turns out the series also returns to the settings of the past series as well.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Commons revolt is just a large, violent riot.
• Rewatch Bonus: A LOT. Due to the extensive foreshadowing in the background, a lot of harmless or odd sentences become a lot more damning with a rewatch. The Mieru vs Yuya duel for example starts with Mieru using a coin with a dragon and demon on opposite sides for some reason. We later learn of Yuya's original self, Zarc who is described as the Demon Duelist and became a dragon himself.
• Rival Final Boss: The final duel of the series is Yuya vs Reiji as their final attempt to redeem and pacify Zarc.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Averted since the Ship Tease is mostly related to the plot. If Yusho's theory is correct and you consider Zarc's "destroy the world" goal to be a plot, invoked and exploited by Ray and averted by Leo.
• Rousseau Was Right: Despite it falling to its Humans Are Bastards trope unlike the previous series, this series does portray characters as either people not wanting to cause harm, didn't ask for bad things to happen, or have a detailed reason as to why they do what they do.
• Rule of Three: The three Extra Deck summoning methods (Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz) are portrayed this way, each with its own correspond ing dimension and population of practitioners. The purpose of the Standard Dimension and Pendulum Summoning is to act as a bridge between the three.

Tropes S-Z

• Serious Business: Wouldn't be a Yu-Gi-Oh! show without it. But ARC-V tends to do a bit more to justify it than other series.
  • The reason for other people trying to steal Yuya's Pendulum Monster cards are because they are one of a kind tools needed for an entirely new Summoning method when they were created.
  • The high stakes of Duels are more reasonable, as due to advances of technology, Duelists are really in danger- and spectators too, as used to chilling effect when Yuya duels Sawatari.
  • Yuya freaks out when Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon is destroyed during his Duel with Sora, and everyone treats his impending loss as a terrible blow, even though there are no real stakes. This one is less due to the consequences and more due to Odd-Eyes being Yuya's Living Emotional Crutch. Also, he didn't know that Sora would still manage to stick around at the time.
  • The series does a very good job justifying why Dueling is used for fights to the death. If you could make real monsters physically attack your enemies, conventional weapons are worthless. Powerful duelists are pretty much people of mass destruction as Kurosaki showed in his duel against Sora, he easily destroyed an entire city.
  • Special mention goes to the special summons. While Pendulum Summoning being a big deal is justified in that it's brand new and starts off exclusive to one person, it almost seems like any other type of summoning is damn near impossible to learn unless you have a proper teacher. Yuzu takes multiple episodes before she can learn even the most basic of fusion summoning, and Gongenzaka's father initially thought he stole Synchro summoning from another school. This is later justified as Standard originally didn't have any extra deck summoning methods and Leo introduced them to the public due to his subconscious memories of them from the Original Dimension.
  • Episode 36 reveals that duelists from the Fusion Dimension conquered the Xyz Dimension with Duel Monsters.
  • As a form of Call-Back to Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Yugo stated that dueling is the fastest way to create a comfortable life for yourself in the Synchro Dimension, unlike Standard, which is treated more like a sport than anything.
• Scenery Porn: Subverted. It might seem like the Synchro Dimension is beautiful, unlike the militarized Fusion Dimension and the destroyed Xyz Dimension. But then you get to the slums...
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: The guards in the Synchro Dimension prison can be bribed with rare cards for better treatment.
• Shaming the Mob: Attempted and failed by Yuya after the audience mocks him in his duel with 227. Instead of being horrified, they love his violent dueling and want more.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Tops residents in the Synchro Dimension are dressed as if they're members of the upper class in Victorian England. Wearing three piece suits and the women wearing fancy dresses.
• Ship Tease: There was so much of it, that it has its own page
• Shoo Out the Clowns: In episode 53, the Lancers leave Standard, effectively taking the silly You Show group out of the story for now.
• Shout-Out:
  • In addition to Kurosaki's Satellite Cannon Falcon being very reminiscent of Gundam X, its attack sequence is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of Bahamut ZERO's summon.
• Slave to PR: A major part of the Synchro dimension arc is about people using dueling to win over the Commons and the general population of the City, with a single well-publicized duel having the power to spark a war or halt one.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: ARC-V goes all over the scale. On one side the show does not tip toe around the harsh realities of war. But the show goes out of the way to show that violence isn't the answer and while difficult, the only way to end war is with communication. This reaches a head in the endgame, where Yuya causes people to turn good left and right and many tropes previously deconstructed are played straight, leading to a happy ending.
• Snobs Vs Slobs: The make up of the Synchro Dimension as seen in Episode 55.
• Smug Snake: Played with in LDS. While they are very skilled, they underestimate their enemies and think they are the best. When Kurosaki, Yuto, Yuya and Yuzu have all beaten some of their aces. There are some exceptions though, such as Reiji and there are some who are implied to be nice, such as Tio.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The openings are always incredibly positive, but the second opening played during the incredibly dark and downright depressing Battle Royale sub-arc. While the third opening and ending are incredibly happy and joyful, episode 50, where these songs were first shown, was a dark and depressing episode when Yuya finally breaks. That being said, the latter two do demonstrate a reasonably serious tone. This is taken up to eleven when the fourth opening and ending are incredibly positive and heartwarming but they played during some of the darker episodes of the series with Yuzu being thrown off a highway and Yuya being electrocuted, triggering his and his counterparts' Superpowered Evil Side, Zarc.
• Soup of Poverty: The refugee camp in the war-torn Xyz Dimension only serves soup. Otherwise the locals can only depend on the water from whatever water fountain is still working and whatever little canned food is left.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • Many fans and translators use double letters or an extra letter for names with long vocals, while the anime tends to romanizes them with only a single letter, e.g. "Yuuya" and "Yuya" or "Koutsu" and "Kotsu". For names with a "Sh", the fans and translators use "Sh", while the anime romanize such names with "Sy", e.g. "Yusho" and "Yusyo" or "Shuzou" and "Syuzou".
  • In episode 8, the You Show Duel School is romanized as "Yusyo Duel School". The school is founded by Yuya's father. The logo of the school has "You Show".
  • There is also the Maiami City and Miami City problem. Episode 27 solves this, it's Maiami City.
  • Xyz was often fully capitalized as XYZ in earlier fansubs, and unfortunately, the capitalization has stuck among the less educated members of the fandom.
  • See also Versus Character Splash below.
• Spoiler Opening:
  • The second opening shows the Professor's machine with that glowing green light, which first appears in episode 36. In this opening and everytime we see it in the anime, the machine is absorbing cards — the souls of people trapped inside them.
  • The second ending heavily hints at Yuto fusing with Yuya a good 5 episodes before it happened.
  • The second ending and the third opening give subtle hints that Yuya was either going to acquire Yuto's powers or gain access to the Real Solid Vision system without the large projectors that are normally required. Turns out it's the latter.
  • The fourth opening has Leo drop the Bracelet Girls into the huge machine behind him. Turns out that is exactly what he does.
• Spotlight-Stealing Crossover: The 5Ds-based Synchro Dimension arc is longer than the GX-based Fusion Dimension and ZEXAL-based Xyz Dimension arcs put together, despite being considerably less relevant to the overarching plot. Additionally, Jack and Crow are far more persistent characters in the narrative who are kept more in-character to their prior selves than any of the legacy characters from Fusion or Xyz. It should perhaps be of little surprise director of the series also directed 5Ds.
• Stealth Pun: The first opening, Believe x Believe, is pronounced "Biri Biri", and electricity is heard in the song when the name is sung. "Biribiri" is a Japanese onomatopoeia for sparking electricity.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe; interestingly, besides the heroes in the You Show school, everyone is like this calling dueling a battle. This becomes a plot point when the Resistance and Academia takes central stage and dueling is being used as a tool for warfare.
• Stunned Silence:
  • How everyone reacted to Yuya winning in Episode 2.
  • Reiji's use of Avoid in his first duel with Yuya.
  • Nearly everyone when it looked like the building that Yuya was in, collapsed in Episode 32.
  • When Kurosaki's Revolution Falcon started bombing the field.
  • When Yuya defeats Kachidoki with Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon while acting like a different person in Episode 39.
• Superpowered Evil Side: The four male counterparts have a darkness inside them that can be awakened, often by their dragons. While fans call it "Berserk Mode", series director Katsumi Ono refers to it as "Kakusei", which can be translated as "Awakened" or "Enlightened". Eventually it's revealed that the "Evil Side" is Zarc influencing his fragments to cause destruction and attempt to recombine.
  • Deconstructed. Having a Superpowered Evil Side makes you an Antichrist or an Apocalypse Maiden, since the evil side of you is, well, evil.
• Tagline: "Take a step forward with courage!!"
• Take That!:
  • There are two moments regarding playing monsters in Defense Position. When Gongenzaka Tribute Summons his Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei in face-up Defense Position, a confused Yaiba wonders how he did this; Gongenzaka explains it's because of his monster's effect. Previous series (barring ZEXAL) ignored the fact that Monster Cards cannot be Normal Summoned in face-up Defense Position. Later, Yuya is surprised that Mieru sets a monster in face-down Defense Position, a nod to the fact that since GX nobody ever set a Monster Card in face-down position (again, barring ZEXAL).
  • The first time Yuzu attempts to Fusion Summon, her Duel Disk gives an error because she accidentally shuffled her Fusion Monster into her Main Deck rather than her Extra Deck. Previous series before 5D's didn't have Duel Disks with Extra Deck Zones, heavily implying that Duelists would just put their Fusion Monsters in their Main Decks. Even in 5D's, the Extra Deck Zone on a Duel Disk was only ever accessed once in the series, and Jack and Yusei were both constantly shown to put their Synchro Monsters in their Main Decks.
  • The general fact that Duel Academy, of GX, are a generally villainous faction.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • Zarc's backstory Yuya's Awakened state has plenty of fans who wanted to see him utterly annihilate places such as the Synchro Dimension and Academia due to his ability to cause real destruction. Zarc became a bloodthirsty monster who fused himself with his dragons and gained power on par with a god because of a similar sort of fans who wanted to see more bloodshed and carnage from him after he accidentally injured someone in a Duel.
  • While watching the duel between Gongenzaka and Synchro user Yaiba, the children comment on Yaiba's large amount of Special Summoning with something akin to distaste and mention it's like he's "playing solitaire". Synchro Summoning was seen by many casual players as a point where the game began losing a lot of player interaction as the game began focusing more on Special Summoning and began regarding it as boring.
  • The Obelisk Force often times uses strategies similar to real life competitive players: lots of cards that remove monsters from the field and prevent their opponent from counter attacking. They are also Smug Super whose methods are treated as dirty, underhanded and disgraceful.
• Tangled Family Tree: The Akabas are revealed to have one hell of a family tree. At first it was pretty clean with Leo as the father, Himika as the mother, and Reiji and Reira as their children. Then we have the reveal that Reira is adopted, not too shocking. It gets really confusing when Ray is revealed to not only be Leo's daughter from a different marriage, but also the original form of the Bracelet girls. Making Yuzu, Ruri, Serena, and Rin technically Reiji's half sisters. Then of course comes their own families. Rin is an orphan, so there's nothing else there, but Yuzu's father is Shuzo Hiragi, even if only by adoption. Ruri meanwhile has her older brother Shun Kurosaki and, presumably, their parents, and Serena was pretty much adopted by Leo after he became the Professor.
• Technician Versus Performer:
  • It seems that, despite Action Duels being more interactive and being meant to be entertainment, few people take the idea of making it a show seriously, with some only doing it by having flashy Monsters. Technicians play more traditionally, letting their Monsters to do the fighting, unlike Yuya and his dad, who are Performers to the core and move around the arena with their Monsters and like to keep their audience in suspense.
  • Overall You Show characters are taught to be performers. One of the main points of the school is for duelists to interact with their monsters and use Action Cards to their fullest.
• Teleportation Sickness: Sawatari commented that traveling to another dimension felt a little unpleasant.
• Theme Naming: In keeping with the protagonist's name starting with Yu, only we now have eight of them at once this time! (Yuya, Yusho, Yuzu, Yuto, Yugo, Yuri, Yuzo, and Yuu) Man, this page is gonna get confusing to read...
  • Yuzu is an Odd Name Out, since the U in her name is shorter.
  • Yuya, Yuto, Yugo and Yuri are intentional since they are apparent alternate selves from four different dimensions. Of course, it works only well with the fan-spellings, but the apparent official spellings (Ute for Yuto and Hyugo for Yugo) defy it a bit.
  • All of the Yuzus's names share connection with the other four heroines from previous Yu-Gi-Oh! Series. Yuzu (Citrus) and Anzu (Apricot) are both fruits, Serena (Moon) and Asuka (Bright Sun), Rin (Groove, Cold, Loneliness) and Aki (Autumn, Emptiness). As for Ruri, the kanji for her name is also part of several bird names when written in Japanese such as Red-flanked bluetail and Blue-and-white flycatcher, giving her a bird theme like Kotori.
• Think Happy Thoughts: This is arguably one of the key reasons behind Yuto's "Egao" speech.
• There Can Be Only One: The Dragon Boys are unknowingly in this situation. As Yuzu states they are drawn to each other because of their dragons and when they lose to one another they are absorbed. Then the last survivor's body is taken over by Zarc's revived consciousness. In the end Yuya was the "winner".
• This Is Gonna Suck: If there's any indication that Yuzu's going to blow a gasket, expect those that notice to look like this.
  • After Mieru interrupts Yuya and Yuzu's touching moment, the kids are all looking very nervous as Yuzu starts to lose it. Fortunately, it only sucks for Yuya.
  • They do this again when Mieru shows up in front of Yuzu. Fortunately, they hold her back.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: The duel between Yuya and Kachidoki seems to represent this. Kachidoki is straightforward and focused on the prize, willing to plain old assault his opponents in order to slow them down, representing the Tiger. Yuya is more soft in his dueling, as he looks to have a connection with both the opponent and the audience and tries to use duels in order to bring people together, representing the Dragon (which also is his Animal Motif). It's also shown that Kachidoki holds a grudge towards Yuya, who is oblivious and Kachidoki considered their duel to be the work of fate.
• Title Drop: ARC-V itself is a massive machine created by Leo Akaba that harvests the Life Energy from souls of carded people to power a process that will reunite the Four Dimensions back into one.
  • The "Arc Area Project" and Zarc were first mentioned in Episodes 100 & 126 respectively.
• Tournament Arc: The Maiami Championship (MCS) starting from episode 27, and the Friendship Cup beginning with an exhibition match in episode 64.
  • The MCS arc includes sub-tournaments in different age classes, most notably the Junior Youth Championship, where the majority of duels are shown. The story gives a lot of build-up for this tournament, and it is stated in episode 26 that this is not going to be just a normal tournament. As a part of the Deconstruction, the Junior Youth Championship is cancelled after the round where the top 8 were determined.
  • The Friendship Cup is a single-elimination tournament with 16 participants including almost all of Lancers, Yugo, Yuzu, and Crow vying for the right to challenge Jack Atlas.
• Training from Hell: The Ryozanpaku School is a boarding school that refuses its students from leaving the campus unless its for school and the students cannot see their parents till they graduate.
• True Companions:
  • Yuya, Yuzu and Gongenzaka are this. The three have been friends since they were children and have deep loyalty to each other.
  • The Lancers are a subversion. Most of them barely know each other and have trouble working together as a result. Only Yuya and Gongenzaka are really close, Sawatari is The Friend Nobody Likes with most of the team ignoring him, Kurosaki likes to work alone, Reira, Reiji, and Tsukikage form another group where Reira and Tsukikage are loyal to Reiji for reasons other than friendship, Serena is very confrontational, and Dennis is The Mole. By the end of the series they play this straight due to the trials they overcame. To the point they rushed to face Zarc to help each other out.
• Two Guys and a Girl: It's all over the place here: The main characters^note Yuya, Yuzu and Gongenzaka, the You Show kids trio^note Tatsuya, Ayu and Futoshi, the main LDS trio^note Hokuto, Masumi and Yaiba, the LDS transfer trio ^note Halil, Olga and Dennis, and the most significant members of Academia^note Yuri, Serena and Sora and the Resistance^note Yuto, Kurosaki and Ruri.
• Two Lines, No Waiting:
  • The first arc utilized this, splitting up Yuya and Yuzu to have the latter interact with the Dark Duelist until the two lines merged at the Tournament Arc. The Tournament Arc itself utilizes some Third Line, Some Waiting and Four Lines, All Waiting due to splitting up the focus between various groups, as well as to avoid Arc Fatigue by giving all of the focus characters a chance to have screentime and develop.
  • The line splits again after a dimensional portal mishap at the end of the Synchro Dimension arc sends Yuya, Kurosaki, Gongenzaka, and Sawatari to the Xyz Dimension, while Yuzu is sent to the Fusion Dimension.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: It is revealed that the war going on is between the different dimensions that resemble previous Yu-Gi-Oh! series world's with ARC-V world being caught in the middle.
• Unfinished Business: Yugo's hostile rivalry with Yuri is essentially this. Their Duel would get interrupted every time they met each other.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Episode 29 has a rematch between Zuzu Boyle and Julia Krystal. In the fifth turn of the duel, Zuzu uses her Fusion Cycle trap card which allows her to summon and use a monster in Julia's graveyard that was used for a fusion summon. Zuzu uses this on Julia's Crystal Rose monster which can be treated as two fusion material monsters instead of one, allowing her to fusion summon Mozarta the Melodious Maestra with Julia's own monster. The duel ends in Zuzu's victory.
• Versus Character Splash: Before the start of a duel, there is a VS screen when both duelists shout "Duel!". The names of the duelists are shown on-screen, but only either the first name or last name, depending with which they are referred to.
  • The screens also show the spellings of certain names that differ from the "fan-spelling". This include Syuzou/Shuzou, Layra/Reira or Ute/Yuto. But whether the spellings are official or not is another question.
• Wall of Text: While it follows the norm for most antagonists' ace monsters to have a laundry list of effects, Gladiator Beast Assault Fort is so complex that its entire text box needs to be split in two to detail all of its interactions.
• War for Fun and Profit: According to Sora, this is the entire reason the Fusion dimension invaded the Xyz dimension.
• War Is Hell: The series does not pull its punches when showing the realities of war. With the Akaba's using realistic propaganda to draft soldiers, child soldiers being sociopaths because they were mislead by adults or because they were forced to kill to survive and realistically showing that anyone can die in a war, even the civilians. Not to mention characters who have been on the frontline having varying shades of PTSD, including Reira, who was orphaned as a child in a war that involved guns and bombs instead of Duel Monsters. And this was all before the story went to an actual battlefield, discounting flashbacks and the MCS championships, since there were only a handful of soldiers and civilians present. The actual battlefield has helpless refugees being hunted down and infants being carded. Not to mention from Asuka's backstory we learn that deserters of Academia are killed on sight, and anyone caught draft-dodging is considered disposable.
• Wham Episode: The series had so many that it has its own page
• Wham Line:
  • Episode 71 has one at the beginning by Melissa after Yuya explained what happens to the losers of the Friendship Cup:
    Melissa: What's wrong with that?
  • Episode 80 has two Armor-Piercing Question examples. Said questions were said by Yuya to Sora:
    Yuya: You're taking her back to the prison that is Academia!?
    Yuya: You know that he can’t be persuaded, don't you!?
  • Episode 102 gives a short one that makes us question a lot about a certain character:
    Kaito: Sakaki?
  • Episode 115 provides the viewers with an ominous sign in the form of Yuya's conversation with Sora:
    Yuya: I don't think that Serena kidnapped Yuzu because she wanted to. Serena is a comrade who has fought together with us. I'm sure there has to be a reason…
    Sora: Yeah. You're probably right.
    Yuya: Huh?
    Sora: I heard that the Professor has someone in his inner circle who can freely control people's minds.
    Yuya: Seriously!? That's why Serena is... Then, Yuzu will undergo the same thing!
• Wham Shot:
  • Although it can no longer be considered as such, the first shot of Heartland let the viewers know that this series is not like the others.
  • Episode 39 has Yuya with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
  • From episode 45, Dennis has Polymerization in his deck.
  • Episode 46 has Dennis welcome Yuri.
  • The third opening sequence has a rather big one, with a brief silhouette of what appears to be Jack Atlas with Red Dragon Archfiend Scarlight behind him.
  • Episode 59 has Tsukikage appearing out of nowhere to rescue Reira.
  • Episode 67 has Reira attached to wires.
  • Episode 70 has a shot where Duel Chaser 227 pulls out a Goyo Fusion monster out of the envelope Roget had sent him.
  • Zigzagged with Episode 74. It was already expected from previews that Dennis would use Fusion Monsters against Kurosaki, revealing his allegiance to Academia. Said monsters being Antique Gear monsters, however, were not.
  • The preview for Episode 75 features the return of Sora.
  • At the end of episode 86, we see Yuri in the Synchro dimension.
  • At the end of episode 123, the Academia student who is guiding Yuya is seen smirking evilly, which reveals that Doktor's speech on controlling the students aren't just empty words.
  • In 135 as Yuya stands over Yuri, he starts to radiate a black aura showing that Zarc has taken over Yuya's body.
• The Whole World Is Watching: Since many major duels happen in widely broadcasted tournaments, this happens a LOT.
  • The first most notable incident was in the Maiami Championship during Kurosaki and Sora's duel, where Sora revealed that he was Evil All Along - and quite psychotic at that - while Kurosaki decided to deal with him via literally carpet bombing the field, all the while the two were throwing reveal after reveal. To say the audience was shocked would be a major understatement.
  • LDS, the organizers of the Maiami Championship, went to great lengths to cover the latter part of the tournament by having it take place outside of the stadium while the crowd was inside, and cutting off the feed. And then they used the footage and showed it to everyone anyway as a propaganda piece.
  • Yugo's duel with the Security as he and Yuzu attempt to escape capture is broadcasted live to the whole City (yes, that's really what it's called) in a manner more befitting of an athletic event than the police chase it actually was. This backfires for both of them, as one of the people watching was the Chief of Security, who was able to gather vital information about the two of them from the TV footage.
  • The Friendship Cup is similarly broadcasted to the entire City, and just like the Maiami Championship, several important matches are shown to everyone. This includes Kurosaki exposing Denis (this time via Kill Sat which was seen from space). Notably, many participants use it for propaganda, such as Yuya advocating against the City's slavery-based system, Shinji Weber using it to rally the Commons for the revolution, Roget's failed attempt to crush public resistance by using Sergei as a stand-in, Yuzu and later Sora's hijacking of the same broadcasting system to communicate with their allies, and most importantly, Yuya and Jack's finals duel to unite the City.
  • The last major duel, ZARC vs everyone, is seen by all four dimensions due to the various portals appearing all over the place.
• Withholding the Big Good: Due to Leo's impatience, he screws up Ray's revival just as Zarc fully revives. As a result Zarc spends episodes 136 to 139 tearing through the Lancers, their allies, who are the strongest duelists of their respective dimension and Leo easily. Even Reiji despite putting up a good fight goes down and if it wasn't for Reira channeling Ray at the last second, Zarc would have won.
• World of Ham: First, it's a Yu-Gi-Oh! show. Nearly everyone has a hammy side, but Yuya, Gongenzaka, Shuzo and Sawatari are the hammiest by far.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • This is everywhere. Nearly every match ends with the opponents respecting the other's skill. Then the plot gets started and this trope is sadly averted more than played straight.
  • Averted in the Sora vs Kurosaki duel. With Kurosaki attempting to steal Sora's soul afterwards and Sora refusing to admit defeat to an Xyz user.
  • Also averted in the Yuya vs Kachidoki duel. Where Kachidoki refused to take Yuya's hand after Yuya defeated him.
  • Averted in any of the duels that have to do with the interdimensional war. The Academia laugh at their victory and their opponents are just trying to survive or have become just as bad as them.
  • Averted in the Synchro Dimension as well. Security looks down on everyone, while their opponents are trying to escape.
• Would Hurt a Child: Himeka would brainwash one, and Security doesn't care about hurting Reira.
  • And then there's Kurosaki, who certainly doesn't seem to mind hurting Sora. Zigzagged with him, as Kurosaki later shows he would only hurt a Child Soldier.
  • Academia takes the cake, with soldiers shown carding an infant on-screen.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Several characters, most notably Yuya and his friends and family often believe they're in a regular Yu-Gi-Oh! show rather than an Urobuchi-style Deconstructor Fleet.
  • Yuya in particular thinks he's in a typical gaming anime while he's actually in a Psychological Horror story similar to Tokyo Ghoul, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kamen Rider Gaim, and Black★Rock Shooter. Likewise, Sawatari would have been his main rival in such a show, but here, he's treated with no respect and constantly overshadowed by almost everyone.
  • At the opposite end, Kurosaki, Kaito, and Reiji are all correct that they're in a Darker and Edgier anime, but the former two think that it's a Dark Age of Comics-like series where you have to Pay Evil unto Evil and the latter thinks that it's a Genius Thriller in the vein of Death Note and Code Geass that pushes the boundaries between shonen and seinen, where you have to be as much of a Chessmaster outside of a duel as you are in it. In a series like this, even these approaches aren't safe from deconstruction.
  • Much later, Yuya turns out to be correct, and several characters who were Unscrupulous Heroes learn to change their ways. It just takes a really, really long time to get there.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Arc-V showed an excellent use of this trope to build tension with the Yuya vs Yuri duel. The fandom knows that Zarc will obviously revive but because Zarc will revive no matter the result of the Yuya vs Yuri duel, that means there wasn't an obvious winner for once which caused the fandom for once to be generally divided on the winner.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Just as Yuya is about to celebrate his victory over Jack, who crowns him as the new "King" at the end of their second Duel, Sora shows up to tell him that Roget is still at large.

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The fun has just started!

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