YuGiOh 5ds

After the Dark Signers, there's an obligatory tournament arc with 3-person teams riding D-Wheels. Aki gets a D-Wheel, but ends up being their substitute, and only gets to sub in once, where she loses horribly to a card that's stupidly broken by all accounts (even the characters acknowledge it).

The last opening even called her a benchwarmer.

Crow losing to an Exodia expy was the best thing ever.

I will admit that I loved the part in the WRGP where Crow performed a Synchro Summon with 0 LP.

Yeah, Zushin was hilarious.

edited 1st Apr '12 7:46:25 PM by burnpsy

You know what? Put Godwin on the list of characters I like. It's not that he has an interesting personality or anything, it's that he's managed to avoid the climactic big bad fight so far despite the fact that that's no way I'm going to believe he's not a villain. His ability to avoid things like that amuses me.

Bomber: "Godwin destroyed my village! He murdered by little brother and sister! I will have my vengeance!"
Godwin: "Don't worry everyone. I'm a good guy. Honest."
Crowd: "Sounds legit to me. Yay Godwin!"

"Sorry, but once a Duel of Darkness has been started it cannot be canceled."

Liar. It already happened twice.

"Hey, Bomber, want to be evil? I'll have to murder you to do it but you can have candy if you do." Well, I guess this is the point where they started giving Crow a more important role. "No, no, I didn't get eaten by the fog. I was uh hiding. Yeah. And I get my own Dark Signers fight despite there only being five of them because I'm just cool like that."

fu Crow.

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:12:03 PM by Arha

Aki is a character whom I suspect the writers wanted to use more often, but they were hamstrung by the demand to sell cards and the fact that the target demographic still largely thinks girls have cooties.

Word of God says that this fight would've gone to Rua has the card game execs not ordered them to make Crow a main character. Also, it's presumed that Demak would've gotten a 1-on-1 fight with Ruka that would've revealed his (nonexistent in the final product) backstory. Ah, the pitfalls of the "to sell toys" factor...

See, a Rua duel with Bomber would have been way cooler. And it wouldn't have had that shitty 'I was just hiding in a locker' thing either.

Oh, and Ruka isn't snarky anymore, so she's basically just a cute ornament now. With dumb hair.

And to my disappointment, they're already setting up the 'everybody lives!' crap. I am just going to pretend that at the very least Bomber's brother and sister stay dead. And Rally.

edited 4th Apr '12 2:23:40 PM by Arha

Sadly, Bomber's siblings are important later, so that's impossible, Arha.

You know, it always felt strange to me that Crow (who was not technicaly a Singer for most of the first season) got so many fights... good to know that he was suposed to be the "strong, but has to stand back and protect everyone elce while the main characters deal with the BigBad" character. That role would have fit his history of protecting that orphanage so much better than having Ruka and Aki left behind all the time.

I never watched past season two/the Dark Signer arc because from what I hear it went downhill from there. Definitely think Crow should have never been made into a main character though.

Crow I've noticed has a pretty big Double Standard with regards to him and Kiryu; the latter is loved, the former is a Base Breaker, despite these two having many of the same traits.

Also, it gets better in the final arc, but you do have to suffer through probably the most blatant "to sell cards" arc this side of Pyramid of Light to get there. Even that arc has gold in it, though, like the opponents who manage to bring out a nigh-impossible-to-Summon monster that makes the Egyptian Gods look like Skull Servants.

edited 4th Apr '12 3:16:26 PM by HamburgerTime

Kiryu's different though. He's a Dark Signer and he didn't break any of what was established. Crow does though.

They're also both Remember The New Guys with Game-Breaker decks and sweet rides who can pull off One Turn Kills easily. You'll often hear Crow bashed for all of these things, but Heaven forbid someone call Kiryu out. I suspect it's because Crow's funny while Kiryu's angsty.

Crow also broke continuity which Kiryu didn't. Not to mention he stole the spotlight from Rua who is a much better character and the plot was rewritten to make him more important than he started as. These are all legitimate reasons to dislike Crow while still liking Kiryu.

edited 4th Apr '12 3:24:16 PM by Chariot

And those reasons being legitimate doesn't change the fact that the reasons I listed are hypocritical. Don't blame Crow or the creative team or Shin Yoshida or whoever for the rewrites, either; blame greedy Konami execs.

edited 4th Apr '12 3:26:02 PM by HamburgerTime

No, I'd presume it's because Kiryu wasn't shoehorned into main character status and also didn't cause inconsistencies in the Crimson Dragon legend. Sure, both of them spawned meta-breaking decks, and it showed in the anime, but one messed with the plot and one didn't.

Oh, and as for the Merchandise-Driven elements becoming more blatant, yeah, the end of Yusei VS Team Unicorn was probably the most blatant one ever. I'm surprised they never released Zushin, though.

I never had a problem with the Crimson Dragon thing because the Dragon is probably the most powerful entity yet introduced in the series; I'm sure it can do whatever the heck it wants.

Personally, I don't understand why anyone considered the Dark Signers a threat when you can hide from the soul sucking in a locker.

Oh, and I'd argue that Kiryu probably breaks the group dynamic more than Crow. Jack and Yusei were regarded as the two aces of the place and on equal footing with each other at the absolute top of the pack. That's what it means to be an ace, after all. For them to have been the subordinates of another person and that person not to be mentioned doesn't make a great deal of sense.

Don't really care though. I just don't like Crow because of the main character status that he wasn't intended to have. I mean, his survival kinda falls apart if you so much as look at it funny.

Yusei: "Crow! You made it! How did you survive the fog?"
Crow: "Because I'm cool and have a meta deck."

edited 4th Apr '12 3:44:27 PM by Arha

I won't argue that it got "good" after the Dark Singers. Though if you skip a buch of the filler (I'm looking at the "spagetti western" style ark here), it is not that bad. This version of Turnament style fights were interesting/different to say the least. Though the main characters winning without using decks designed to work together was a litle weird (and lampshaded).

Thinking back on it, I really liked the michanics of that "only common cards" dule. And the infinity robots were cool while not being completely overpowered (unless you used Syncros... Oops) even if the people that used them were... a little silly to say the least.

Of the main characters' new Ace cards, Jack had the best "discovering his new card" arc. I don't even really remember where Rua's came from... Oh, and of course Aki and Ruka are the only two who don't get new Ace cards (even thought they do get a couple more dules). Also, that new mechanic is relitively cool.

The other female rider and her butler... didn't leave mutch of an impression. Might have to do with how oftain they were Put on a Bus (or which ever Trope fits best there). I understand that she was suposed to be Aki's rival and provide some plot, but she came across a little flat on both accounts.

Didn't like Loki, Thor, and Odin. Now, they were OVER POWERED (not to mention comming out of no where). What was that effect again? "Can not be destroyed by spell and trap card effects and if distroyed they revive the next turn with +1000 attack (cumualtive)" if I remember correctly.

The final fight... well, it was interesting to say the least. Though it would not make much sense if you had not seen a number of episodes durring the season.

Sorry for the Wall of Text. Had not seriously thought about the series for a while now and ended up talking through the high (or low) points that I remember.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:10:16 PM by Belian

Re: the Aesir coming "from nowhere:" That's hardly unusual for the God cards in this franchise. I mean, the original series didn't give any indication that any but the Egyptian Gods existed.

True. But I keep coming back to this simple question: Where were they durring the Dark Singers arc?

Most of the God cards come out of left field, but they are usualy sealed, unknown, being held by another Big Bad, etc. But in this case, they are used by good guys... who never thought about helping to stop The End of the World as We Know It the first time?

I'm sorry, but to my mind this particular case is harder to explain than the others I know of.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:16:38 PM by Belian

I'd imagine their wielders were in Norway at the time. They probably didn't know what was going on in Japan.

But they knew about the Crimson Dragon and time manipulation when they first met the team. Odin (and his "all seeing eye") should have been able to alert them to the situation.

Would that have made any sense at that part of the story? Not a chance. But the fact is they are good guys with God cards that never showed up when there was trouble.

So Carly basically beat Jack. Possibly twice considering she probably could have used that trap she used to commit suicide earlier, though maybe she couldn't have. Some King you are Jack. And whatever happened to those flames being like force fields? And how did he get his demon dragon on the field for that tuning?

And I see Divine is alive again. Because shut up, plot!

edited 5th Apr '12 5:40:30 PM by Arha

The wiki is telling me that it never left the field in the first place.