Yuugiou Arc-V/ Yu-gi-oh! Arc-V

This episode was a bit of a mess production-wise. Aside from the really, really shitty art and animation some of the writing and directing beats felt off, most glaringly in how Yuya and everyone else for that matter, had pretty much next to no reaction to seeing 227 suddenly breaking out a Fusion monster. Odd-Eyes Saber Dragon at least had good animation, and while I like the existence of Entermate Odd-Eyes monsters to serve as the missing link between the two archetypes, the method Yuya had to use to bring it out screamed "executive mandate" and I wouldn't be surprised if we never see it again. It does open up the door to seeing some of the other Odd-Eyes variants like Odd-Eyes Absolute and Meteorburst Dragons though. I wish they had shown Crow and Shinji weighing in on the City's meritocratic nature to see how deeply they buy into it (Shinji clearly does to some extent, but what about Crow?).

I honestly doubt the audience cares so long as it entertains them.

I do get the feeling the animation was a consequence of most of the team going to work on the new movie.

Only part of the animation that bothered me was Goyo Emperor not being intimidating enough. Or having much presence at all.

Also, I doubt Odd-Eyes Saber Dragon's appearance was meant to be an ad. The product's old now, and nobody bought it when it was new. This wouldn't fit their M.O.

edited 3rd Sep '15 11:25:11 AM by burnpsy

If it didn't sell when it first came out that makes it all the more likely that its appearance here was an attempt to drum up some hype for it and get it of shelves, wouldn't you say?

edited 3rd Sep '15 11:35:21 AM by ComicX6

No, I wouldn't. Their in-series ads are always matching up with or before the product's release. This instance is half a year later. They also haven't announced the release of any of the cards Yuya used to summon it, unlike Goyo Emperor's immediate announcement after the episode aired.

If even the children didn't snap it up before, they wouldn't do so now, either. Rather, the amount that would do so is quite negligible.

This is no different from when Yuya used cards like Pendulum Sorcerer at random, after they were promos (but didn't use their effects).

edited 3rd Sep '15 12:13:47 PM by burnpsy

And I just saw some pretty disturbing Misaimed Fandom - some rather talented Yugioh Players were talking about how they'd love to live in The City.

Well, it does have Card games on motorcycles.

I mean, if not for the institutionalized class system, the brutal prisons, and the ruthless tendency to shove anyone too weak into a pit of despair, it'd be a nice place to live.

End-of-5D's Neo Domino would be better in every way, then?

Yeah, they were saying the competitive nature / tendency to shove losers into degrading conditions and despair were "not so bad as long as you're not a noob."

To be fair living in City wouldn't be bad if you were part of the Tops and not part of the Commons. I could see why people would want to live there if they thought they were good enough players.

But isn't it a thing in pretty much all Yugioh shows that cards are way harder to come by than in the real life card game? Even if you're not a "noob," you're probably not gonna be able to build a decent Extra Deck (especially since a lot of the best cards are plot-relevant ones like Numbers or Signer Dragons or Odd-Eyes that the in-universe general public doesn't have acess to), and you won't even have access to Pendulums and stuff unless you're a main character.

edited 4th Sep '15 9:28:53 PM by spashthebandragon

If you're a Tops you're rich and could conceivably Bribe Your Way To Victory viz a viz, buying "rare" cards.

Not that anyone ever showed any difficulty putting together an archetype deck. At least anyone other than Team Taiyou...now I want to watch that duel again...TO HULU!

edited 4th Sep '15 10:51:08 PM by Eagal

Yeah, there's a whole heck of a lot of classism going on in Yugioh. All the rich people who just buy good cards are painted as bad guys.

And, of course, when Yugi or Jaden or any other main protagonist gets a good card, it's not because they spent money on it. It's because the power of friendship made it magically appear in their decks. That's how those rich people SHOULD have gotten good at this game! Heart of the Cards! Yeah!

To be fair, I'd imagine that said rich people don't just lose because they just buy good cards, but because they rely on overpowered cards and assume that just doing that will give them a victory.

Whereas the heroes know all cards have value and use them to their utmost effectiveness.

That's not necessarily something tied to rich or poor though. In fact, I'd love to see some inverting of the usual Rival / Hero dynamic of Yugioh. The Hero is a rich guy who starts off Kaiba like but with enough Yugi traits to keep him from being a total jerkass and make the audience root for him, while the rival has a Yugi style background and personality at first but reveals a massive chip on his should for rich guys, and while he espouses the usual friendship talk (and probably genuinely believes it) he looks down on the rich hero for having everything he doesn't and constantly twists what the latter says to make it look like said rich guy is an elitist who looks down on others.

Yeah, that could be pretty cool. Maybe something like the Tony Stark of Yugioh protagonists.

The only problem is I'm afraid people will interpret it as you are poor and it's your fault or something like that if the attempt is fumbled.

Plus, we are a lot less sympathetic to rich people, because no matter how often it's shown that they can have—often serious—problems of their own, many often assume they can buy whatever they want or need.

I mean, when one person has all the advantages and one doesn't we are going to cheer for the latter, even if the latter person is a jerk, and making the underdog a jerk might lead to people disliking what the writers are trying to do. Or something along those lines.

It's hard to put into words what I mean, but it's something that can easily be botched if not handled correctly, and even if it is, people can see things differently.

Well, I'll take any traits that make the Yugioh protagonists as different from each other as possible.

You can have the classic fallback of the hero having his father (who may or may not be an asshole) attempt to cut him off and lead to character development that way.

Him having to start from scratch might work, but it'd be more interesting if he didn't have that to me at least.

Turn his advantages—having money and power; being able to buy the best tutors and the best cards if he wants to and having every possible edge—into a disadvantage.

He's got great cards? That's cause he bribed someone for them, or just spent a lot of money!

He's a talented duelist? I bet he pays off the officials, or even just got himself some high priced tutors! He never earned it the way some of us do! He never had to crawl and scrape his way to the top!

He's won a lot of tournaments? Probably just a small fish in a big pond! Among us real duelists, he's nothing!

Give him all that money, and than make it meaningless, leaving him to struggle to overcome the disadvantage of his advantage. He has to prove that he got to where he was with his own skills, and not just his cash.

Maybe add in that he uses his money for other things, like Charity drives and giving jobs to people and all that shit, but everyone just wants to bring him down, and he's essentially fighting against everyone to prove his worthiness as a duelist.

I'm not surprised at good players wanting to live in the Synchro Dimension Tops. It's basically the ultimate reward for being good at a card game on a competitive level.

Still disgusting, but you can see where the logic comes from.

So the Commons hate being shat on, yet have no problems with the loser being forced into labour? Regardless of where they come from?

Really now, this place gets more and more irredeemable by the episode.

It's because being rich isn't a sign of true strength. A true Meritocracy allows for ones merit to decide ones place.

Most Tops are just filthy rich people.

Well, it seems like your job might also make you a Tops; the instant 227 lost his job as a Chaser, he was downgraded from a Tops to a Commons. And he seems to believe getting his job back would have made him a Tops again.

...Hmm, thinking about it, do you guys think the dub will still go for the same social commentary as the original?

edited 5th Sep '15 6:12:36 PM by raaabr

Yuya mopes as Sawatari vs. Yugo begins. Sawatari beats Yugo to the corner and goes first, Pendulum Summoning. Yugo gets out Clear-Wing and Odd-Eyes resonates. Yuya starts talking funny, as if he's synchronized with Clear-Wing and Yugo. Yuya's spirit even overlaps with Yugo's, which Yuzu sees. After doing that thing where Yusei thinks of a plan, Yugo summons a new HSR to help Clear-Wing beat Shingo. Yugo and Yuya doesn't seem to know what happened. Shingo notices Yugo looks like Yuya as he is taken away.

Next Week! It's the 777th episode of the YGO anime! At the facility Gong argues with Gallager! Tsukikage escapes and reports back to Reiji. It's seems like Sergei vs. Damon happens first...