With this being a long-running franchise about a children's card game, it was only a matter of time before they had just activated the dethroning card.
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- Explain why it's a Dethroning Moment Of Suck.
- No Real Life examples, including Executive Meddling. That is just asking for trouble.
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- Demetrios: While I admittedly enjoyed the unpopular DOMA/Atlantis arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!, there was one part I wouldn't blame my fellow fans fans for not liking. When Mai was corrupted by the Orichalcos and Joey was understandably heartbroken about it, Tristan basically told Joey to, pardon my French, go fuck himself. Well, actually, he didn't quite say it that way, but he seemed to be trying to convince Joey as if Mai was pure evil and thus not worth saving. Note that under the circumstances, that isn't quite the same as telling your friend something important without sugarcoating it. That's just nasty and mean-spirited. I know people weren't too keen on Tea's friendship speeches, but isn't that going a little too far?
- LLSmoothJ: Speaking of Joey, the KaibaCorp Grand Prix treats him even worse as he becomes the butt of a joke based on a card in Yugi's deck (which even his friends laugh about). Even worse, in the tournament, his decline continues as he loses within the second round (I know it was to the Big Bad of this arc, but still, Joey was supposed to have become incredibly strong post-Battle City, and the arc's Big Bad wasn't the kind of person who should be flooring him that easily) of the tournament (he won the first round against Yugi's Grandpa, which may bring up a debate whether he let him win or not). It's bad enough he was already made into the Krillin of Yu-Gi-Oh, but now the Yamcha as well? Make you wonder if Joey's treatment is to pander to Kaiba's fanbase. Protip, writers: When you make a character into the second-most important person in the series, you must treat him accordingly. You don't give him second chair to fucking Seto.
- Dashguy: In the DOMA arc, there's Yami Yugi's duel against Raphael. To make it short: Raphael gets the upper hand, gives the Seal of Orichalcos card to Yami Yugi and tells him that since he's "evil", he "has" to use that card. Note that, at this point, the only danger in dueling came from the above mentioned Seal of Orichalcos card which would drain the soul of the loser; so you would expect Yami Yugi to tell Raphael to fuck off and keep playing right? Nope. He uses the card, loses and Little Yugi ends up sacrificing his soul in his place. This is a case of Aesop Amnesia, with reference to the lesson Yami learned about winning at all costs back in Duelist Kingdom.
- Ciel12: Same moment, but for a slightly different reason. Not only is the Aesop Amnesia, but it's out of character. When Yami was going to want to go through with potentially killing Kaiba, he was doing it because he felt under pressure to save Yugi's grandfather - in other words, most of his freakouts about losing tend to happen because he takes responsibility and has to fight for something or to protect someone. This also happens way after he grew out of his more gung-ho/illogical tendencies towards winning. But that isn't the case here - in fact, by playing the Seal he's putting his friends in danger, since whoever's soul is taken will powerup the Leviathan. This just doesn't make sense as something he would do, and while the English dub has him saying that he must do it, because otherwise 'two worlds will be in peril', there's no clarification of why and no clearly established stakes. What could have been great character development for an invincible character dealing with losing is squandered as his reason for playing the Seal is never clarified, and unlike the moment in Battle City where he spared Bakura, there's no definitive growth/resolution/progression. The Japanese implies he does it to prove that he doesn't have darkness in his heart and wasn't an evil Pharaoh, but this goes against earlier characterisation since he hasn't denied the possibility that he could have been a bad person in the past in previous episodes. When Marik confronts him about his family, he immediately assumes it's his fault and he did something bad to Marik's family in the past based on little evidence. A lot of my problem here is the Japanese making out like Yami is on the edge of being a villain because of his arrogance, when it's blatantly obvious that he is, at heart, an anti-hero. He has taken responsibility for things he didn't have to previously, and while he can be overconfident and push his beliefs on others, he doesn't have Kaiba levels of arrogance or refuse to admit wrongdoing on his part. It's filler cheating its characters (as it does with Mai) for the sake of melodrama pathos.
- I agree with both of you, but not from Yami's perspective. No, the reason I'm putting this as my DMOS is because of Raphael's reasoning. His reasoning basically amounts to "Oh, I know you're evil because Dartz told me, so I know you're gonna play that card." What happens next? Yami activated the card, and Raphael instantly thinks his theory is true, even though it was blatantly obvious that the Pharaoh's being mind controlled by both it and the shard on his neck (which Raphael gave him, no less). For the record, I also don't mind this arc and thought it was pretty fun, but as of now... fuck you, Raphael.
- Ciel12: Same moment, but for a slightly different reason. Not only is the Aesop Amnesia, but it's out of character. When Yami was going to want to go through with potentially killing Kaiba, he was doing it because he felt under pressure to save Yugi's grandfather - in other words, most of his freakouts about losing tend to happen because he takes responsibility and has to fight for something or to protect someone. This also happens way after he grew out of his more gung-ho/illogical tendencies towards winning. But that isn't the case here - in fact, by playing the Seal he's putting his friends in danger, since whoever's soul is taken will powerup the Leviathan. This just doesn't make sense as something he would do, and while the English dub has him saying that he must do it, because otherwise 'two worlds will be in peril', there's no clarification of why and no clearly established stakes. What could have been great character development for an invincible character dealing with losing is squandered as his reason for playing the Seal is never clarified, and unlike the moment in Battle City where he spared Bakura, there's no definitive growth/resolution/progression. The Japanese implies he does it to prove that he doesn't have darkness in his heart and wasn't an evil Pharaoh, but this goes against earlier characterisation since he hasn't denied the possibility that he could have been a bad person in the past in previous episodes. When Marik confronts him about his family, he immediately assumes it's his fault and he did something bad to Marik's family in the past based on little evidence. A lot of my problem here is the Japanese making out like Yami is on the edge of being a villain because of his arrogance, when it's blatantly obvious that he is, at heart, an anti-hero. He has taken responsibility for things he didn't have to previously, and while he can be overconfident and push his beliefs on others, he doesn't have Kaiba levels of arrogance or refuse to admit wrongdoing on his part. It's filler cheating its characters (as it does with Mai) for the sake of melodrama pathos.
- RAZ: Speaking of the DOMA story, the one real Dethroning Moment for me is the ending battle against the Leviathan. Okay, so Yami Yugi's awakened the three Legendary Knights, the ones that are supposed to be able to destroy the beast, right? Wrong! They get completely curbstomped and eventually destroyed so the Egyptian Gods can come in for the final battle instead, meaning the entire purpose of the Knights was utterly friggin pointless! Oh, but it gets better: right before the battle, both Kaiba and Joey had their souls recovered after previously losing them and return to aid Yami Yugi. So awesome moment of them delivering some payback for nearly being absorbed like the other duelists all were? Not so much, because the attacks from their own monsters get shrugged off and they both eventually wind up getting absorbed by the Leviathan anyway! So... what the hell was the point of reviving them in the first place if that's all they were going to amount to?!
- EDP: For me Kaiba's dethroning moment comes during his duel with Yugi at the Duelist Kingdom: when Yugi was about to defeat him, Kaiba declared he'd take a step back for any 100 HP he'd lose to try and convince Yugi to not attack and gain the turn he needed to win... But he had the Negate Attack
card deployed, meaning he could have negated Celtic Guardian's attack and get his turn to attack without playing drama queen. - Loekman3: For me it's how the narrative treats Yami's decision to tribute his monsters for Catapult Turtle's effect damage against Rafael. It's somehow treated as an evil move when he does it but the thing is, no matter how much the series tries to treat it, Duel Monsters is still just a card game and in real life, it's a legitimate tactic if you want to inflict the last amount of life points to your opponent. Furthermore, what could Yami do during the three turns of no attacking aside from the method in the duel? Sit down and do nothing while his opponent has three free turns of doing anything he wants? Chances are by the time those turns passed Rafael would have potentially drawn a winning card that would have caused the Pharaoh to lose his soul. He only lost because of a lucky draw that somehow manages to turn the Pharaoh's strategy against him. There may be other moments of Protagonist-Centered Morality but none are as blatant as this one.
- Rob Has: For me, Noah Kaiba being "very good" at Duel Monsters in Virtual World arc doesn't make sense. Canonically speaking, Noah died many years before Pegasus invented the trading card game therefore he had no reason to be good at this game. Noah Kaiba was so good that he managed to outwit Seto Kaiba's "Last Turn" (one of the most overpowered trap cards available in the game) and almost drove Yami Yugi into defeat if not for Yami Yugi drawing "Treasures From Heaven" in the right moment. Gozaburo Kaiba's duel against Seto Kaiba in the same arc can be excused from DMOS for his one-dimentional strategy which can be undone with the right cards, but there is no reason for Noah Kaiba to be playing Duel Monsters at the same level as pro duelists with elaborate combo setplays.
- Lily Nadesico: The ending of Season 3, where Yubel pulls a complete Karma Houdini and gets to be reunited with Judai, and Judai promises to only love him/her for all time - which is exactly what Yubel wanted. Well, isn't this the greatest Esoteric Happy Ending I've ever seen? Screw the Freudian Excuse, in my mind Yubel is an unsympathetic villain and Judai should have rejected him/her with no question asked, perhaps even throwing a Shut Up, Hannibal! at him/her.
- Retloclive: Yusei vs. Kalin (Kiryu)'s first duel ending because Yusei's D-Wheel falls apart before Kalin's winning attack was as lame as it gets to make sure that the hero can't lose a duel involved with the main story. This should have easily been Yusei's first legitimate loss, but ends up counting as an unfinished duel even though it was so bloody obvious that the duel was on the verge of concluding...Plot Armor at its worst.
- Valkir: Despite the other problems in the series, the finale to the Team Unicorn duel tainted 5Ds beyond all recognition. Yusei is down to no cards in his deck and all Jean needs to do is end his turn for a win, delivering the first true loss to an otherwise Invincible Hero. All this time, Jean's team has been all about using team strategy for the good of everyone. But Jean is suddenly...er...passionate about his duel with Yusei and suddenly feels the need to attack him, which his team inexplicably supports. He runs into a defensive monster that Yusei boosts with Fortress Warrior and Yusei pulls away with a win despite deserving to lose in every single way. We're supposed to believe that team victory between three people that are extremely cohesive and genuinely care about one another is less important than one superstar flexing for his friends, despite that the former resonates with the themes of the franchise far more than the latter. Yusei's plot armor actually hypnotized Jean into losing. "End your damn turn, Jean" has become synonymous with "jumping the shark" in the fandom. The worst part? It wasn't singles elimination, so Yusei's team had no story requirement to win at all...they could've won their next match and still stayed in the plot.
- Jedi Master Yusei: To say nothing of what happened to Aki/Akiza in that duel. She finally gets a chance to shine again after being Demoted to Extra for the majority of the season...only to lose to Andore/Andre in 2 turns. Seriously?!? She's the goddamn Black Rose! I could think of at least 5 different ways she could've schooled his ass! But no, she gets tossed aside just to so how "unstoppable" these guys are (even though they already did the same with Jack) so that the almighty Yusei can swoop in and look awesome by single-handedly annihilating all three of them. Look, I admit Yusei is my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist aside from Yugi himself (just look at my user name for Christ's sake). But there's badass, and then there's
Canon Sue. And you're treading dangerously close to the latter here, guys. At least let the lady take down one of them.
- Jedi Master Yusei: To say nothing of what happened to Aki/Akiza in that duel. She finally gets a chance to shine again after being Demoted to Extra for the majority of the season...only to lose to Andore/Andre in 2 turns. Seriously?!? She's the goddamn Black Rose! I could think of at least 5 different ways she could've schooled his ass! But no, she gets tossed aside just to so how "unstoppable" these guys are (even though they already did the same with Jack) so that the almighty Yusei can swoop in and look awesome by single-handedly annihilating all three of them. Look, I admit Yusei is my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist aside from Yugi himself (just look at my user name for Christ's sake). But there's badass, and then there's
- bubblesishot46853: The Arc League Championship is about to begin, and the kid trio are participating in their own division! Surely, we can expect lots of character development from them and see what cards they run. Oh look, Frederick won his duel easily, and now it's Ally's turn, and she's going up against a new character we know nothing about...what? She lost? Well, ain't that dandy. Not only did another favorite character of mine lose right when a tournament begins again, but she lost to a character with no buildup other than a mention that he's Declan's younger brother. To make matters worse, he ends up winning the Youth Division, being selected for the Lancers, and continues to floor every duelist who comes his way. It's like Riley is a bad fanfiction's Mary Sue Self-Insert come to life, and is the reason why he is my most hated character in Arc-V. I hope that he suffers a crushing defeat, and maybe get turned into a card, because that's what he deserves. The only plus side is that at least this pitiful first duel brought Ally's cards to the real game. Besides that, I just wanna comfort poor Ally and tell her she'll win next time.
- Awesomekid42: In episode 45, Sora and Kurosaki begin their rematch duel. This was something to be hyped for, being an opportunity to see new cards from both of them, and have a good follow up duel. What happens in it? After the two turns shown in episode 45, the writers skip to the final turn in episode 47 with Sora winning, with no other parts of the duel being shown. This is a major disappointment. We did get to see some new cards from both of them, but this not only came off as incredibly lazy, but a duel that many have been looking forward to was completely denied. To rub more salt in the wound, both Sora and Shun are panting in exhaustion before the final turn telling us that it must have been much more difficult for Shun than the last duel was.
- Izzy Uneasy: I'm retrieving my entry about Manjoume's contrived loss to Amon to talk about a factor that spoiled Arc-V in my eyes - Shingo fucking Sawatari. He makes Jun look like Judai by comparison, and calling him a Butt-Monkey would be like saying that eating shit is slightly unpleasant. And in the episode 120, Crow breaks his duel disk just so he won't follow him, turning Shingo into a cripple. It wasn't just Gallop spitting in the eyes of their fans, in was them hocking a massive loogie in their fans' mouth, them pissing in there and forcing them to swallow. If Crow took Diavolo's place in a Requiem loop, I won't bat an eye. The breaking of Shingo's duel disk is not only Crow's Moral Event Horizon, it's horizon for writers too. I may come off as too petty, but this moment make me regretful I ever considered watching Yu-Gi-Oh in the first place.
- countchocula: The insane decision to turn Yuzu from Yuya's Love Interest in the anime, into the past version of his mother in the manga version. How did they not think everyone would find this gross? How!?
- Arabian-Knight: Blue Angel losing to Spectre. It feels like a dishonor done to a fan favorite character. Especially because Spectre's cards don't exist in the real game (at least, not yet), and seem to be made specifically to defeat Blue Angel.
- Magister Flopsy: Yugioh Go Rush began suffering from massive tone problems around the start of the 4th arc when the series took a pretty sharp turn into Darker and Edgier territory, but didn't seem to want to fully commit due to being geared toward a very young audience. Arguably it was at its worst in Episode 55 with the duel between Asaka and Yuamu to decide who would be Student Council President. It takes place during the anime's fifth story arc, which began with the introduction of Knight of Cerebus Ryugu Phaser. Ryugu's ruthlessness, the sheer amount of resources at his disposal, Fantastic Racism against aliens, and terrifying Rush Duel skills lent an all-encompassing air of dread to the first few episodes of Season 2. Then you get to Episode 55, which is a pretty bog standard "student council election" episode, complete with all the light-heartedness and petty pre-teen drama that generally entails. It was about as jarring as you'd expect.
