Headscratchers / Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

• Episode 3: SOL Technology Inc. wants to find out the identity of Playmaker. However, shouldn't they have an account database where they could look up his real name? After all, they are the ones who built and run Link VRAINS.
  • Yusaku is stated by Ai to constantly cover his tracks in Link VRAINS, meaning he more than likely uses his hacker skills to prevent any digital footprint from being left. SOL Technology Inc. probably can't track him cause there is nothing to track. Not to mention his account may not be registered, but rather he forced himself in and used a pseudo account.
• In Episode 5: Yusaku pulled out 3 entirely new Link monsters we haven't seen him use before. Did he obtain some of these offscreen or did they all come out of the data storm? If they all came out of the data storm then that means Storm Access is significantly more broken and Asspulley then we thought.
  • He had Stack Reviver (a monster with effect related to Link Material) in his previous duel when he used it with the newly acquired Decode Talker. Link Monsters aren't something he newly created and it implies that he already had some Link Monsters in his deck, otherwise there's no reason for him to run Stack Reviver.
  • Both Go and Aoi have Link monsters without getting them from data storms, and the very theme of Yusaku's deck revolves around unique cards that were believed lost, so it's quite likely he had link monsters before. Storm Access allows him to get new, powerful ones, but it isn't stated anywhere that it's the only way he has to get them.
  • The Data storm provided Yusaku with either Honeybot or Link Bumper. I myself lean towards Honeybot due to the one Link Monster of Yusaku's we know he had without a data storm, Link Spider, making me assume that he possesses other 'Link' Link Monsters by default.
    • Take note that when Honeybot, Link Spider, Trickstar Holly Angel, and Gouki the Great Ogre were Link Summoned, they start out as either a red form in the shape of the Link Monster (for Honeybot​) or as a red orb that starts to take the shape of the Link Monster (for the others), then materializes into the Link Monster. For Decode & Encode Talker, and Link Bumper, they start out as a "frame" that gets "coloured in", which is not the case for the other Link Monsters that were not from the Data Storm. This would lead one to believe that he got Link Bumper from the Data Storm.
    • Also, Honeybot and Link Spider are both introduced in the same product for the real life card game. It makes more sense if both are the ones Playmaker already have, and Link Bumper is the one he just got.
• In Episode 8: Revolver says that the reason that he had Aoi infected with the Card of Hanoi was to take her hostage and force Playmaker to have to duel him. However, Yusaku's been actively fighting the Knights of Hanoi at every opportunity to the exclusion of all else; why would it be necessary for them to take a hostage to get Playmaker to do what he would have done on his own as soon as Revolver showed himself?
  • The Knights of Hanoi are Evil Assholes. Even if their objectives turn out to be Well Intentioned, they spend alot of time polishing their proverbial metal boot for when a proverbial puppy strolls by ripe for the kicking.
  • Also it put extra pressure to Playmaker, which may benefited Hanoi in some way, since for Playmaker, defeating Hanoi right now is not just for his personal revenge anymore, but also to save the hostage live.
  • He more than likely took Aoi hostage to force Akira/SOL into complying with his demands and essentially keep their hands tied.
  • Also, Yusaku is single-minded, but not stupid. He wants to take down the Knights, but he would prefer to do it only once he's good and ready for it. Revolver forced Yusaku to duel him without the benefit of knowing his deck and his strategies. For example, if he knew Revolver also had the Storm Access skill, Yusaku wouldn't have let him get into a position where he had less than 1000 Life Points.
  • It wasn't THAT complicated people. The cure for Aoi is the leverage for Ai, they are the "star chips" in the Playmaker-Revolver duel. Playmaker has been actively fighting Knights of Hanoi, but rarely put Ai on the line unless he has something to gain.
• Instead of passing on some semi-useless piece of information like "Revolver has a terrifying card" before being erased from LINK VRAINS, why did Ghost Girl not just tell Playmaker "He has Mirror Force"? I get that Mirror Force's name is a bit longer in Japanese (Seinaru Barrier - Mirror Force, literally "Holy Barrier - Mirror Force"), but it wouldn't take that much longer to say, really.
• In the first episode of Season 2, Kusanagi says he lives in his hot dog truck. So then, is that house we kept seeing Yusaku's? If so, how does he afford to live in such a nice place when he apparently has no known family, guardians or source of income? Even assuming he helps out Kusanagi (which is shown to be unlikely in the same episode considering his clear struggles while watching over it), it's highly unlikely that working a hot dog vendor could give enough to cover the expenses of a house like that.
  • It's possible that Kusanagi normally doesn't, but could do so. Given how Jin's been living, he honestly might be more comfortable in the narrower space of the truck that a larger, more spacious house.
  • That still doesn't answer how either of them can afford a house like that when their only known source of income is a hot dog truck.
  • Yusaku's house seems to be older in age and less modern in style, so it could be cheaper. On the other hand, it's a three-story house with a balcony (so it couldn't be that cheaper) and he even has a futuristic hidden room, and a robot maid (albeit of a much smaller variety)......my only guess is that he let people rent the top of his house. The full appearance of his house is shown already, and there is a garden on top of his house which for some reason is connected to the two taller buildings to the right and left of his house.
  • I think it's more like an old apartment complex.
    • Then how did he convince his landlord to let him build the duel closet in? Considering exterior plaster is optional, I don't think that would be a standard feature. For that matter, I'm surprised the electrical work would be robust enough to power it without getting an inspection. Places like that usually have problems with a hairdryer, let alone a VR tank.
• In episode 61, we were shown that it's still possible to use the Duel Disk to duel outside Link Vrains. Then why did we never see anyone dueling with Duel Disk outside Link Vrains until episode 61? The Duel Club in Yusaku's school seems to duel on the table, despite having Duel Disks.....
  • Those holograms are still big, man. Can't fit in that tiny little club room.
  • For privacy reasons. It would be a little bit obvious in some cases and Blood Shepard adresses this too, saying that he doesn't understand people who use themselves as their avatar (to Go Onizuka). Some decks could give the identity away too and just using another deck seems also a little bit much. A bunch of VRAINS characters are socially awkward. It makes sense that they wouldn't like to stand out, for Playmaker this is even shown several times in the show and said in his profile. (for Spectre, the reason he is using his RL self as an avatar might be, because he's "a ghost" to others in real life anyway and doesn't like people, so it wouldn't make a difference. His whole purpose is duelling; Nobody needs to know him).
• Episode 74: ...How the hell did Ghost Girl survive her confrontation with a very pissed off Blood Shepherd? The ending of 63 made it seem like Blood Shepherd was going to blast Emma for interfering with his duel against Soulburner, but fast-forward 11 episodes later and Emma is still intact without any explanation or exposition; it's like they didn't even care.
  • They explain this later. They're siblings
• So, uh, can someone explain to me why a real-world Cyberse Deck was hidden and an elaborate Duel Puzzle was created to hide it? Episodes 64 and 65 didn't really explain who or what hide that Deck.
  • The Knights of Hanoi were hunting anyone with Cyberse cards, so one unnamed user was scared he would be next and hid his deck in a real-life location that could only be found by getting through a dungeon filled with deathtraps and by solving a difficult Duel Puzzle. Who did all this is never fully explained, but as to why it could be that a) The user wanted to hide his deck so that one day he could get it back once the Hanoi were no longer a threat or b) That anyone capable of getting to it would need to have the skill, willpower and knowledge to properly use the Cyberse Deck, hopefully against the Hanoi.
  • The final battle clarifies that Ai hid it there before immediately forwarding that information to Yusaku and Colter so they would use it to defeat the Hanoi.
• So in episode 84, Revolver reprograms the Tower of Hanoi to act as a powerful network scanner to detect Lightning in the internet. That's fine and all, but why didn't he use that very same function to find the location of the Cyberse World in Season 1? Would have been a better solution than to destroy technology and computers worldwide.
• What is the art of Judgment Arrows?
  • Its an emblem depicting three arrows crossed together as if they were swords drawn and held together ala the Three Musketeers.
• There are six @Ignister boss monsters, each a different attribute and summoning method. One Fusion, one Ritual, one Synchro, one Xyz... and two Links. But there is another summoning method they could have used. Why isn't there a Pendulum boss? Why aren't there any Pendulums in Vrains?
  • Likely Two Reasons:
    • The duels in VRAINS are predominately Speed Duels, which only gives three spell and trap zones. The Master Rules instated as of the VRAINS era state that Pendulum cards are placed in the further most S/T zones. Since Speed Duels eliminate those two zones, its unclear if they'd still go in the left and right zones, and it would limit Ai to only a single Spell or Trap if he wanted to Pendulum summon.
    • Pendulums were the main gimmick of ARC-V and they likely wanted to focus more on Links being compatible with other summoning rather than reintroduce Pendulums.
    • There's also the fact that in Master Rule 4, which is the VRAINS-ruleset, all Extra Deck Monsters must be special summoned to Extra Monster zones or Linked Main Monster Zones. Master Rule 5 retcons this for Fusion, Synchro and Xyz, but Pendulum and Link can still only be summoned to the same zones as in Master Rule 4. Most of the time, a player will only have 1 or 2 open Linked Main Monster Zones, so Pendulum is simply not anywhere near as powerful as it was in Master Rule 3 (ARC-V), where Pendulum Monsters could be summoned anywhere, since the Extra Monster ones didn't exist back then.
• How did Bohman get the Earth Ignises information? All of them are seen inside of him.
  • When Playmaker beat Go Onizuka, Ai reclaimed G-Golem Crystal Heart from him and returned it to Aqua. Crystal Heart contained the very last fragments of Earth's data. So when Bohman defeated Blue Maiden and absorbed Aqua, he also absorbed what little was left of Earth. That's why Earth doesn't talk when Ai meets the other Ignises inside of Bohman: there's enough of him present for the six Ignises to be fused, but the vast majority of him died during SOL's dissection and was lost irrevocably when Onizuka was beaten.
• More of a meta one, but what happened to the English dub? Episode 108 aired in February, and then it just stopped. Sure, that's nothing new to the franchise, but at least when GX and 5DS did it they tried to still give some sort of resolution. As it stands, VRAINS's dub ends with Ai beginning a duel with Pandor.
  • The rest of the dub aired in Australia around the time you posted this.

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