WMG / Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

When this show gets dubbed, some characters will have their names changed.

• "Yusaku Fujiki" will be renamed to "Yusaku Wystaria" and "Decode Talker" will be renamed to "Conversation Digiton". His "Charisma Duelist Codename" will be changed from "Playmaker" to "Prince of Games".
  • Jossed for Decode Talker; it'll still be called "Decode Talker" in the TCG.
  • Also for Yusaku. His surname is still Fujiki.
• "Aoi Zaizen" will be renamed to "Sarah Zaizen" and "Trickster Holy Angel" will be renamed to "Trickster Shining Queen".
  • Or Trickstar Holy Angel will simply become Trickstar Holly so as to keep the reference to Hollyhock.
  • Jossed for Trickstar Holly Angel whose name stays the same.
  • Aoi Zaizen was actually renamed to Skye Zaizen.
• "Go Onizuka" will be renamed to "Muscles Colossus", "Gouki Suplex" will be renamed to "Gouki Knockout", and "Gouki the Great Ogre" will be renamed to "Gouki Emperor Ogre". There will be a common joke about how "Muscles Colossus" sounds more like a duel monster name than a human name. Because of this, his "Charisma Duelist Codename" will also be "Muscles Colossus" rather than "Go 鬼塚".
  • And I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that his voice will be a Hulk Hogan impersonation.
  • .....Also jossed for his monsters, their name remains practically the same.
    • Confirmed that Go received a Dub Name Change, but his English version screen name is "Gore". Given the streak of Yu-Gi-Oh! dubbing, it is quite surprising that "Gore" was chosen.
• Confirmed for Revolver. In the dub, his screen name will be Varis.
• Confirmed for Aoi. Her name is Skye in the dub.

VRAINS will be even darker than ARC-V.

Considering that Cyberpunk anime are often Darker and Edgier as well as its setting being more bleak and down-to-earth, this might be the case.

• Seemingly confirmed given Yusaku's revealed past.

Link Summoning will get a Mid-Season Upgrade.

Similar to Accel Synchro, Chaos Xyz Evolution, and the various Pendulum sub-types, a new, more powerful type of Link Summoning will be introduced about halfway through the series. Possible mechanics for this include having a Link which exceeds the standard maximum value of 8 (perhaps by having the Link markers change color) or having a special summoning condition which makes them easier to bring out with fewer monsters.

• Or having the ability to turn all your monster zones into Linked zones, thus allowing for more Extra Deck monsters to be summoned.
• Most of the summoning upgrades involve using monsters of that type as materials for other, better monsters of the same type, and using Link monsters as link materials is already ingrained in the mechanic (a link 2 can be used as 2 of the 3 materials for a link 3, ect). If Yusaku wants to power up, he might need to dip into the other summoning types, which are, pound for pound, stronger than links, but at the cost of ending the chain (not letting you summon more).
• Also a few things to note are that there are currently no Link Monsters with upper-left or upper-right Link Arrows, and no Link 5 or higher Link Monsters (not counting prize cards). Perhaps we'll see Link Monsters with those properties come the second season or something.
  • Episode 41 unveils the first Link Monster with both upper-left and upper-right Link Arrows - Revolver's LINK-3 Flash Charge Dragon.
• Amazingly enough Link summoning might not get an upgrade. Instead we get Link spells which seems to be an Expy of sorts to the seal of orichalchos.
• Confirmed as of Episode #49, in the form of "Reincarnation Link Summon", introduced by Soulburner.

There will be duelists who fall into comas after being defeated.

The Big Bad and his minions will have the ability to steal souls, like usual, and leave the duelist's body in the real world an Empty Shell.

• Confirmed, though the result of computer virus, not soul stealing.

The villains of the series are literal Player Killers

And this time, anyone can be Killed Off for Real in the most horrible way instead of being carded. Bonus points for recapturing the charm and nostalgia of the original manga.

• In episode 2, Ai told Yusaku that if his body takes too much damage, he could suffer mental backlash or, in extreme cases, die. This seems like a real possibility.

There will be a mystery player

The plot of an arc/sub-plot is figuring out who the mystery player is. They will likely duel and curb stomp someone before they are revealed and either not speak at all, speak through text to speech, or use a vocal distortion program. And they will, most likely, be revealed to be one of Yusaku's friends.

Yusaku will be voiced by Yūki Kaji, Aoi will be voiced by Haruka Tomatsu or Mao Ichimichi, and Go will be voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi

Well... it's nothing more than wishful thinking, but why not?

• Jossed for Yusaku's voice actor; he'll be voiced by Shouya Ishige. Yuuki Kaji will, however, be cast in the series as Takeru Homura/Soulburner starting from Season 2.
• Jossed for Aoi; she'll be voiced by Yuki Nakashima.
• Jossed for Go; he'll be voiced by Daiki Hamano.

The old summoning mechanics will appear, but the show won't make as much of a big deal about it as ARC-V did.

People were disappointed when ZEXAL took away Synchro monsters, so for ARC-V, they brought them back, kept Xyz, made Fusions good, and made each one a major faction, such that which one you used was a major part of the plot. For VRAINS, they'll keep all of them but they'll all just be there, and won't factor in to the plot as much.

• This is actually pretty plausible, especially considering the fact that one of the major uses of the new Link Monsters is to compensate for the new rules involving Extra Deck monsters.
• If it's any indication, Digital Bug Corebage and Zoodiac Hammerkong, which are both Xyz Monsters, made a cameo in the first episode.
• Meta-wise, the booster after Cybernetic Horizon (which has a Ritual Monster as its cover card) is Soul Fusion. If the name's any indication, Fusions will also appear in the anime at least once.
  • Confirmed, with Playmaker vs. Blood Shepherd featuring the first instance of a Fusion Summon, where Playmaker Fusion Summons Cyberse Clock Dragon.

The final Big Bad will be the creator of Link VRAINS.

The major story arc of the later series will involve players getting trapped in virtual reality, unable to return to their physical bodies, forcing Yusaku and his friends to go after them. It's ultimately revealed that the one behind the abductions is the creator of the technology itself; he will engage Yusaku and company in a final duel, with his avatar in cyberspace being a monstrous humanoid a la Don Thousand or Zarc.

• Dr. Kogami created Vrains, and it looks like he's the Big Bad, so I'm gonna say Confirmed.
• For now, this seems to be Jossed since in episode #43, Dr. Kogami passed away with Revolver confirming his father's death.

VRAINS will have some connection to the ARC-V universe...

And it will be called the Link Dimension.

• A crossover is possible, although the odds of them tying ARC-V into VRAINS are slim.

The mysterious imp that is following Yusaku around is an AI representation of a primitive form of Decode Talker.

People have made parallels between VRAINS and 5D's, and specifically how Decode Talker is similar to Junk Warrior. Both monsters have the same ATK, and effects that make them stronger the more monsters you have on the field. And just like how Junk Synchron looks like an immature Junk Warrior, the imp looks like an immature Decode Talker. The imp itself is an AI in the shape of that monster, connected to a copy of the card Yusaku owns. Basically, a purely technological duel spirit.

• Maybe it's a monster that helps out with summoning Link Monsters like how Junk Synchron was a weaker version of Junk Warrior and a tuner monster
• Seemingly Jossed: it would appear to be the VRAINS representation of the AI Program which the various factions are searching for, meaning that it being a form of Decode Talker is unlikely. As for it being a technological equivalent of a duel spirit, we'll have to see.

Duel Monsters will have more in common with Digimon now

Related to the above WMG, the world of Duel Monsters will be purely technological in nature like Digimon.

• A possibility, but likely only limited to Cyberse-Type monsters.

VRAINS will get official subs on Crunchyroll.

Most of the other series are on there, with ARC-V only being 50 episodes behind, despite starting much later. With VRAINS, they can make the deal in advance, and have new episodes appear in a timely manner.

• Confirmed. You can watch it here.

Related to the above Link Dimension hypothesis

The Link Dimension will actually turn out to be a counterpart of the Original Dimension, with Link Summon naturally coming to be in the first place as a deterrent against another potential Zarc ever happening again.

• Seeing as the rules change to only allow one Extra Deck monster at a time, this could make sense. Zarc can't summon his ace monster without summoning a Link monster first and it's more than likely he won't have any link monsters.
  • Too bad that won't stop the next Big Bad from finding something even more broken. Remember the Numeron cards? Who else thought they couldn't get more broken than that until Zarc came along?

There will be VR beings

If Kamen Rider Ex-Aid did pulled it off, why can't this series?

• Do you mean living data?

VRAINS will be the franchise's answer to Cardfight!! Vanguard G

Yusaku has a lot in common to Chrono, just like how Yuya was to Aichi.

Jean Michel Roget will return as an antagonist

Come on now!

It will be revealed that he got transported to the Link Dimension. He will also have a new chess-themed Deck focusing on Senet-like plays and field control in general, all while he prepares his field with enough Link Markers for multiple Fusion and Synchro plays.

Bonus points if he first appears as a Mysterious Stranger or Mysterious Watcher while wearing the same or very similar kind of clothes like those that he wore during the brief Flashback from the Synchro Dimension Arc, when he first arrived from the Fusion Dimension.

There will be a Link/Pendulum Monster at some point

We've had Xyz/Pendulum, Synchro/Pendulum, and Fusion/Pendulum, so why not give Link Monsters the same treatment too, despite the unlikely odds?

• Such monsters will also be coveted due to their ability to set up a Pendulum Scale and seeing as they are placed in a magic zone, can turn only your monster zones into linked zones unless otherwise specified.
• It could have the pendulum effect of letting you special summon from the extra deck in it's linked zone, with a marker pointing up.
• In a similar vein to Odd-Eyes Rebellion and Odd-Eyes Raging in the real card game, face-up Link/Pendulum Monsters in the Extra Deck can be Pendulum Summoned back to the Field as long as its Link Number is within the controller's currently active Pendulum Scales.
• Given that Speed Duels omit both Pendulum Zones since they now share Zones with the leftmost and rightmost Spell/Trap Zones, we'll likely only see them in action in a Master Duel.
• I don't know what one would look like, but imagining it gives me a heart attack
  • Jossed; by the conclusion of the series, there has not been a single instance of Pendulum Summoning.

Aoi's VR form will change her into an Angelic Beauty

To fit with the theme of her deck. And to make it more impressive, Aoi will get longer hair and make up.

• Confirmed.

Significant references to Sword Art Online, .hack, Log Horizon, Accel World, and Kamen Rider Ex-Aid will appear

Since VRAINS is a Cyberpunk sci-fi series, it may make sense.

• Starting from episode 22, the series explores a phenomenon, "Another", in which players are unable to log out of LINK VRAINS and remain unconscious in the real world. .hack, anyone?

The Knights of Hanoi have a device that will destroy LINK VRAINS.

And it will look like a Tower of Hanoi puzzle. Like the Link mechanic, position matters in that puzzle, and the origin of the puzzle invloved a legend where, once it was completed, the world would end. Naturally, to make it work, the knights have to do something with a duel.

• Confirmed

Yusaku will have a Superpowered Evil Side

By this point, it's pretty much a series' tradition.

• But then again, Yusei didn't, and Yusaku seems to be taking after Yusei the most out of all the previous protagonists.

The main villains are Undead Cyborgs.

Kamen Rider Genm Level X is themed after zombies with mechanical implants. If this is the most likely case, then they might be looking to eat the Duelists' VRAINS.

• Did you have to make such an un-bear-able pun?
• Sort of confirmed! Kogami is dead in the real world, but still around in Vrains, so he's basically a ghost.

Ritual Monsters will receive abit more attention in VRAINS than in ARC-V.

This WMG focuses on two points. The first point is: given the lack of attention to Ritual Monsters in Arc-V being recognized as another way to special summon (not to mention some ideas of a Ritual Dimension, which could've been the original Duel Monsters anime), it seems fitting to put some form of focus back on them in VRAINS. The second point is unlike Fusion, Synchro, Xyz and Pendulum, Ritual Cards are completely unaffected by the new rulings, which in turn makes it abit more viable to run a deck without taking the Extra Deck into consideration.

• Considering that in Zexal, they were used by Kaito, it's likely that they'll have SOMEONE use them at some point; given that Zarc's ace monster could not affect them, yet they didn't play a role in his defeat, they might have a key character use Rituals later on as a way to make up for things.

If this is true, it'd totally be awesome to see a few ritual based Archetypes running about in VRAINS, both old and new ones. Nekroz, Evi/Gishiki, Black Luster Soldiers, Shinobaron/ess Peacock, Prediction Princesses, Cyber Angels (even though the latter two have been used in Arc-V).

• That would be wishful thinking because Ritual Monsters cost a lot of dedicated deck space to use effectively. Nekroz were the highest level of competitive power Ritual Monsters are ever going to get as a whole. While 1 or 2 Ritual archetypes and some legacy Ritual support may pop up during the show's run, don't expect it to be shown during the show itself.
• In Episode 16, Yusaku uses Sphere Kuriboh, which supports Ritual Monsters, so it's possible he might Ritual Summon at some point in the series.
  • Seemingly confirmed, given that the cover card of Cybernetic Horizon, Cyberse Magician, will be a Ritual Monster.
  • ED3 more or less confirms this, given the presence of Cyberse Magician (along with Cyberse Witch, which supports Cyberse Rituals).
  • Fully confirmed during Playmaker and Bowman's Duel, where Playmaker Ritual Summons Cyberse Magician.

Legacy characters will appear as AI based off of the original.

Code names: King of Games, Osiris, Signer, Zexal, and Lancer.

There will be Character Focus episodes which revolve around Aoi

• Confirmed.

The Anime will also have a theme of finding the Truth and if so a Villain of VRAINS will be based on Lies or Anti-Reality.

This WMG is somewhat inspired by Mage: The Awakening, Genius: The Transgression, Umineko: When They Cry, Persona 4, and Persona 5. Given that the name VRAINS is a Portmanteau of "VR", "Vrai" (which is french for "Truth") and "brains", and the description that Yusaku is "a hacker who has the sort of sharp mind that can solve mysteries", it makes sense for the Anime to have some form of basis on trying to find the truth and having Yusaku being a detective for that truth of sorts. Not to mention the real world problems with online privacy, net neutrality, cyber-bullying and the easy mask of anonymity that the internet gives could easily be side themes that deal with the truth.

To go along with this, a fitting antagonist for those trying to gain the truth would naturally be liars, people who cover up the truth or even Consummate Liars. And what better place for a playground of lies than in Virtual Reality, a place that doesn't actually exist and yet people still experience it as if it did and where things that people cannot do in truth can happen there (if the programs allow it to that is)?

As perhaps a final guess, perhaps the Villain uses an archetype of monsters, spells and traps based on scientific theories that have long since been disproven, or based on various forms of lies and deceit that have been practiced through the ages, or possibly based on illusions or fallacies that lead to nowhere. Said archetype could be based on causing Reality Is Out to Lunch, twisting natural laws and/or You Cannot Grasp the True Form or just strategies that are meant to confuse the opponent and/or twist around the rules of the game as a whole or at worst, outright changing them (switching the rule that "you can only normal summon once a turn but special summon many times a turn" into "you can only special summon once a turn but normal summon many times a turn" for instance).

• You'd know what be interesting? having the character use very powerful cards with effects that create devastating circumstances or rule changes, but make them completely optional, forcing him to trick the opponents in thinking they can't disobey them or lying about how they work.
  • Considering Revolver's obsession with completing his father's work, and that his father might exist in some form within LINK VRAINS, influence from Persona 2 might also come into play - memories, the theme of the influence of one's past and possibly even the influence your parents have on you could well come into play.

The Big Five, Noah and/or Gozaboro Kaiba could return in VRAINS.

When we saw them last, they were in a Virtual Reality created by Kaiba Corp. It wouldn't be that much of a throwaway if they were still somehow alive in Cyberspace, just waiting for people to come so they could finally try bodyjacking them and getting out. Bonus points if they've gone mad from the isolation.

• Didn't Noah and Gozaburo die via Kill Sat?

There will be a popular Idol Singer in the LINK VRAINS realm

Not just an idol, but a Charisma Duelist, too. Expect Insert Songs.

Go will have Jojo references

That guy looks like a pillar man. I can't be the only guy who thinks that.

• None yet, but Blue Angel already had a MUDA MUDA MUDA.
  • One could make the case the OP "With the Wind" already counts as a Jo Jo reference, seeing as Hiroaki "Tommy" Tominaga, the artist who performed Sono Chi no Sadame, sings it.

The past incident that Yusaku is pursuing just is him trying to find his father.

This has become a common theme in the franchise lately where the protagonist thinks his dad is the greatest person in the whole wide world only for them to disappear without a trace. Yusaku's entire journey is basically him asking the villains if they have seen his dad, because he believes that they are ones who kidnapped him because he will be of great use for their evil plans.

• Or maybe...
  Yusaku: "I gotta find out who's seen my dad."
  Ryuko: "I gotta find out who killed my dad."
  Yusaku: "Let's work together!"
  Ryuko: Okay, let's see how well you fight.
  *Yusaku pulls out his deck, Ryuko pulls out her scissor blade*
  Both: "Well, this is awkward."

• Jossed hard. He's trying to punish the people responsible and find out the purpose behind that.

Yusaku will have to deal with a duelist that uses the old rules, and/or the Knights of Hanoi will restore the old rules.

This will force Yusaku to overcome a field full of Extra Deck monsters, with only his Links and maybe one or two other Extra Deck monsters of his own.

• This could basically turn the Knights of Hanoi/that Duelist into a Take That! towards the fans of the card game who quit after the new rules were shown.
• Jossed. Their leader, Revolver, uses Link Monsters.
  • That doesn't joss it, though, it just makes it less likely. There's still the possibility that they're using them to fight fire with fire, so to speak, and the old rules wouldn't prevent Link Summoning (although they would make it so only Link Markers that point left, right, or to your opponent's field are useful). And there's still the possibility of a rogue element that uses the old rules and shuns the new ones.

Revolver's real name is Setsuna Saiba.

Think about it: Seto Kaiba = Setsuna Saiba

• Saiba is a pun of "Cyber", and Revolver is the first ever Kaiba Expy who is introduced as a completely villainous character.
• Jossed. In episode #42, Revolver's real name is revealed to be Ryoken Kogami. In episode #43, Revolver introduced himself to Yusaku and Kusanagi as Ryoken Kogami.

VRAINS is connected to ARC-V

The cyberspace is created by Reiji after an accident that rendered Yuya incapable of participating in an Action Duel anymore. He let Yuya (and possibly some close others) test it out and Yuya suggested Reiji to release it to the public.

• Depending in the mechanism at work, it would also let Yuto, Yugo, Yuri, Ruri, Rin, and Serena move about on their own, as well.

The Mysterious Lifeform will be a sort of companion to Yusaku, similar to Astral from Zexal.

He does have a voice actor, meaning that he will have dialogue. He may encounter Yusaku and befriends him, giving Yusaku advice in LINK VRAINS.

• Confirmed, although Yusaku doesn't see Ai as a companion.
  • By the end of the series, he does.

The True Final Boss and real Big Bad will be The Mysterious Lifeform itself...

...thus delivering a Take That! of epic proportions to the previous series which ran on the concept of the mysterious companion to the main character.

• If that were happen, we'd inevitably get tons of comparisons to Kyubei from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Perhaps even a Crossover Ship.
• Except GX and ARC-V already sort-of did that with Yubel and Zarc.
• Confirmed. In the third season, Ai becomes the final villain.

Yusaku and Revolver are related

In this case we could have at least these 3 scenarios:

• They are brothers. Due to an incident caused by SOL Technology, the two were separeted at a young age and either or both of them suffered Laser-Guided Amnesia, or merely partial memory loss due to trauma. Now they are both seeking the key to their pasts, not just Yusaku. Revolver either thinks he will somehow restore his past memory by destroying LINK VRAINS, or is actually doing it out of Revenge as he only knows he has lost his memories, but gave up on trying to restore them (meaning he doesn't remember Yusaku).
  • Now remember all those Kaiba Expies and their younger brothers. It would certainly be delicious to see a dynamic like that if the The Hero played that role too.
  • The Yaoi Fangirls would be pleased, wouldn't they?
• They are step-brothers, half-brothers or distant cousins and they were separated like described above.
• They are first cousins. This could be the most interesting way to do it. After all, in most Japanese works of fiction (first) cousins are almost always a boy and a girl who have/seem to be having romantic feelings for each-other and are otherwise almost non-existent, at least in terms of plot relevance and screen time. Cousins of the same gender who actually have both screen time and plot relevance only appear in the few rare exceptions such as Devil Survivor 2, Endride and Shokugeki No Soma.
  • It certainly wouldn't discourage the Yaoi Fangirls either, especially given the Shipping in those 3 series...
  • Revolver is a Char Clone, and those characters are almost always revealed to be related to someone on the main cast. The odds of him being related to Aoi^note The original Char was related to Sayla Mass, who in terms of role, would be Aoi's counterpart are slim, since she already has a brother, so the odds of Revolver being related to Yusaku are pretty good.
  • Worth noting that in Ex-Aid (which this show has been compared to), there was a similar plot twist with Emu and Parad being related as host and bugster respectively, so it's not entirely out of the question.

The Millennium Items/Shadow Realm will play a role in the plot.

In the first opening, we see the Eye of Horus for the first time since GX. As a result, it isn't too hard to think that some aspect of the original series will make an appearance in VRAINS.

When the show gets dubbed, the dub would air on Disney XD.

If Disney picks up the rights to this show (as well as the rest of the anime series within the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise), the dub would air as part of Disney XD's anime block.

• However, Disney has yet to mention anything about the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, so fingers would be crossed and we'll see how this plays out. And considering that the show's tone is Darker and Edgier than Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, it's possible that Disney might want the dub to be edited for broadcast on Disney XD if they pick up the rights.
  • Cartoon Network would probably be a better fit, although it's worth noting that Disney currently airs Mech-X4, which if the tone of the first episode is anything to go by, would fit right alongside Yugioh Vrains.
    • Though it's also worth mentioning that Cartoon Network's channel space (outside of Bakugan: Battle Planet and [adult swim] and its Toonami block) currently doesn't air anime at all.
  • Considering Nickelodeon (via Nicktoons) is far behind other countries, this better make the switch to another network. Otherwise, we may not see it until 2020 or beyond.
• Both confirmed with a twist and Jossed. VRAINS isn't on the channel as a result of Pluto TV acquiring the exclusive broadcast rights to it. But Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS is confirmed to be airing there instead. ^note To further specify how out of nowhere that announcement was: Disney XD content has slowly moved new episodes to Disney Channel, an unlikely network to pick the series up considering the only anime they aired in the US was Yo Kai Watch and that was back when they had a Disney XD block, not to mention the launch of Disney+ and Pokémon going to Netflix starting with Journeys made Disney XD even more of a rerun farm.

Yusaku will be voiced by Wayne Grayson

Considering he's been there since the beginning as the best friend/sidekick of the protagonist, he'll finally get a role as the protagonist.

• Jossed. He's actually voiced by Jake Paque.

Birds will play a role

We see birds in the opening a few times: when the circles turned to birds that became the title card, then when Yusaku (and Naoki) first appear and we close off by watching a bird fly away. In episode 1, when Shoichi was telling about the Data Storm, we saw an image of...something with bird-like creatures.Not sure WHAT the bird means (is it connected to the more then likely mysterious power in Yusaku, will it be an organization name/symbol, etc.), but in someway it will play a part.

Yusaku's older duel disk will be a Chekhov's Gun

There will likely be someone who's hacking the new duel disks, doing things like either rigging draws to ensure their opponent cannot win or being able to look through their deck. Yusaku's disk, using physical cards, won't have this problem.

• Unlikely to be the exact reason for how he would get past that situation as Yusaku's cards are still data constructs when he is in LINK VRAINS. It more likely that said hacker hasn't cracked the older model Duel Disks and gets caught because Yusaku would likely have a protection program (or Ai) when he tries to manually hack it mid-duel.
  • It does play a role, but in the opposite way. Hanoi have a virus called the Another program, and look for duelists who have old-generation disks like Yusaku to take him out.

The first duel between Yusaku and Revolver will be interrupted

It's been a staple of the series since GX that the first duel between the protagonist of a Yu-Gi-Oh series and their rival would end up being interrupted, so it's not hard to think this will also be the case here. Especially, since Yusaku losing means that the Knights of Hanoi would obtain Ai and since that's not an outcome SOL Technology would want, they'd have a reason to make sure Playmaker doesn't end up losing against Revolver.

• Jossed. Revolver forces a tie in their first Duel.
• Also jossed in their first Master Duel; Playmaker wins.

The Revolver that attempted to banish Cyverse five years ago is not the same Revolver as in the present show.

Since at least two Knights of Hanoi so far have used the same avatar, it makes sense that it would be possible for the Revolver avatar to be shared as well. It could even be a Dread Pirate Roberts situation. Relating to which...

Revolver (or at least, the current Revolver) is Kusanagi's younger brother.

When we see Revolver (or rather, the person using that VR alias) come out of LINK VRAINS into the real world, the silhouette of his hair looks similar to Kusanagi's, as well as the brief glimpse we saw of Kusanagi's younger brother. Said glimpse, seen in Yusaku's flashback, could well be from around the same time as the other flashbacks he has alongside, in which Yusaku is much younger - if that was the last time he saw Kusanagi's brother, there could well be time for him to go off and join Hanoi.

• Jossed, from what's been shown, Kusanagi's brother is too traumatized to be doing anything.

Yusaku was once a member of the Knights of Hanoi.

Yusaku was a member of the Knights of Hanoi, until a hack gone wrong seriously injured/killed Kusanagi's younger brother, after which Yusaku decided that this wasn't what he signed on for.

• Jossed, Yusaku was never part of the Knights of Hanoi. He pursues them because the experiment he was forced into was called "The Hanoi Project", so they might be connected.

there will be a duel that has Yusaku getting a bumb draw from a data storm

He could still win, and the card can still be useful even in future duels, but it will be worthless or inconsequential in his current duel or he will have to pull a combo to win the duel using that card's effect.

Ema Bessho is the assassin for SOL Technologies

Because Revolver mentioned he thought Playmaker might be SOL Tech's assassin, that implies it's normal in-universe for large companies like that to have one. Plus Ema was very interested in dueling Playmaker, and Akira has to tell her that she isn't to hurt him- which implies that she normally does just that to her targets.

• Jossed as she's just a mercenary hacker. She also only wanted to duel Playmaker, not hurt him.

The Data storm Link cards respond to Yusaku's desires

Yusaku will instintively create link cards that will help him overcome his current predicament due to the nature of the "storm access" skill. The cards he creates will always skew towards what he needs as a side effect of it's design. It's like that one spider kid that was one of the antagonists in the Zexal manga who manipulated his personality to control what his number cards become.

Yoshimasa Hosoya will voice at least one character, regardless of their role in the story

Dick Pitt, IV, and Reiji Akaba... what are the chances he'll voice someone for the fourth time in a row?

• Or even... a IVth time?
  • Hah, very witty. xD

Yusaku will have to duel with his decoy deck one day.

VRAINS Isn't technological in nature, it's magical

A nice twist on the prevalent science themes of this season may be to reveal that VRAINS actually runs and/or is made up by magical elements that are being controlled by programs instead of being programs in of themselves.

• The Cyberse is under no ones control, and as far as we know it has no known creator. it just... exists. The Data Storms are also inexplicable; when Cyberse was sealed off, they just disappeared, and no one could re-create them. It's possible that the Cyberse is naturally occurring, and magical in nature, and LINK VRAINS was built around it using methods analyzed by SOL Technologies.

Yusaku will learn to use the older Extra Deck Summoning methods

As unlikely as this may seem especially due to the latest revision of the Master Rules, it'd still be cool regardless to see him utilise Extra Deck Summoning methods other than Link.

• It's subtle, but the extra monster zones they use has a horizontal rectangle going across it, like the main monster zones. This would only be useful if someone can summon a monster from the extra deck in defense position, i.e. not a link monster.
  • Not sure something as superficial as that is a significant indication of anything though.
• It's not an Extra Deck Summoning method, but since his Duel against Bohman, he demonstrates his capability of Ritual Summoning.
• Fusion Summon confirmed since Playmaker vs. Blood Shepherd, where the former Fusion Summons Cyberse Clock Dragon.

Aoi will be a Tsundere towards Yusaku/Playmaker

For extra points, Aoi will be more Dere-dere towards Yusaku in her Blue Angel persona and tsun-tsun as Aoi.

• Jossed

At least one Duel will take place outside of LINK VRAINS

Just a bit of a breather from Duels taking place in LINK VRAINS.

• Confirmed. A non-LINK VRAINS Duel occurred in a flashback in Episode #61, involving Takeru and Ryujiro.

Revolver is the one who motivated Yusaku as a kid.

Episode 11 shows that "the one" is who taught Yusaku to keep thinking of three things to keep himself going. Revolver himself makes a list of three in one episode and seemingly recognises Yusaku's speech pattern at the end of episode 12. Assuming Revolver is of a similar age to Yusaku as his real world appearance suggests, he would have been a kid at the time too, which is what Yusaku heard.

• As of episode #43, this is confirmed. Revolver was eight at the time of the incident, so he is 18 in present day. He really was also the voice who encouraged Yusaku. Revolver noticed the irony in this; Yusaku is Revolver's enemy yet he saved Yusaku. How ironic indeed.
• Confirmed in Episode #43, though Revolver regrets it not because he was evil, but because his father was imprisoned by SOL Technologies for three years in an attempt to cover up the incident.

A large portion of the Knights of Hanoi are Vietnamese

I mean, Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, after all... so would it be surprising if some of its members happened to hail from Vietnam?

• Unlikely. The Knights of Hanoi group got the name from the mathematical game puzzle "Tower of Hanoi" (also called the Tower of Brahma or Lucas' Tower), the name of the 32th episode is literally "The Tower of Hanoi".

Akira will have a plan to have Aoi befriend Yusaku.

He would specifically name drop him as the one who found her after she slipped into a coma on the roof of the school.

Playmaker will fight against an AI version of the Pharaoh.

Sometime during his exploits in LINK VRAINS, Yusaku can end up uncovering and dueling a data version of Yami Yugi that Kaiba created in Dark Side of Dimensions. After an epic battle, Playmaker defeats the AI and becomes a legendary duelist if not the King of Games in part of his victory against the Pharaoh.

Yamamoto, aka Frog, is one of Naoki Shima's parents.

The overall shapes in their designs are similar (round eyes, the distinct 'piano' style teeth both have, etc.). Additionally, this would make sense with Yusaku's statement that Naoki is 'also a loner' / lonely, in the case that Yamamoto is raising Naoki alone and is constantly working. This does make the recap episode where Yamamoto spends both their and Pigeon's paychecks for the sake of possibly getting a scoop on Playmaker the definition of harsher in hindsight, though.

Yusaku's Duel Disk is a hybrid model, also capable of using Solid Vision with Mass.

While Ai's eye can be explained as it just coincidentally following the curve of the screen, when he gets his body back, he pops up out of it, even in the real world. That could work if it can use holograms, a technology that the franchise has used extensively before. But, it has no play area, so either it folds up like the ones from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, or the holograms make it like in Arc-V.

Spectre was one of the 6 children from the Hanoi project.

Irony at its most blatant, if he really was one of them.

• Confirmed during his duel with Playmaker.

An Extra Link will occur at least once

For those unfamiliar with the term, it involves having a series of co-linked Link Monsters connect from one Extra Monster Zone to the other.

• It hasn't happened as of Episode #42, but Topologic Gamble Dragon does have an Effect that applies while it's Extra Linked.
• If Episode #45's preview is any indication, it sounds like one will occur that episode.
  • CONFIRMED.

The six Ignis seen in episode 1 (including Ai) were created by using the thought patterns of the six children from the Lost Incident as the basis.

The reason they were forced to duel so often at such stakes is that their ability to quickly adapt to the situation, as well as creativity, was recorded and then used to create an autonomous, digital copy which could do all that, but also utilize super computer tier data processing ability along with it.

• Confirmed during Playmaker and Revolver's second Speed Duel.

The AI duelists will start a rebellion.

Not because A.I. Is a Crapshoot, but because they will see themselves as a Slave Race.

Aoi will return and be important in season 2.

A man can dream, okay?

• I always thought it funny if Aoi would return as Akira's Dragon. She is far more loyal than Ghost girl even if she lacks her skills at infiltration. And I would use her to spy on Playmaker and Go. Even if Playmaker doesn't allow many confidants she is far closer to them than Akira could ever hope to be.

Playmaker's final opponent in the first season will not be Revolver, but Kogami

The Knights of Hanoi exist to realise Kogami's ambitions, after all.

• Jossed. His heart stops beating towards the end of Playmaker and Revolver's second Speed Duel, which throws any opportunity of Playmaker facing Kogami out the window entirely.

The Ignis will be the villains of season 2 and the Knights of Hanoi will have been right all along

The knights will probably get taken down by Playmaker after the Tower of Hanoi arc so we are gonna need a new villain. So why not the Ignis? They could break out and pissed off about their capture declare war on humanity. Killing off the remaining Hanoi and forcing Revolver on the run. They could introduce a summoning upgrade since they are the Barian emperors 2.0. and Revolver could HeelFace as a SOL agent under Akira or above Akira since both parties would be pretty desperate at this point.

• They will have a lengthy discussion during their imprisonment and rebel then. Since Ai wasn't part of it, he may end up staying on the side of the heroes.
• Considering recent revelations Ai may have always been Locked Out of the Loop from the very start regardless of what Revolver thinks. The reason there was no smoking gun in Ai's memories is because there never was a smoking gun to be found in the first place. Ai is just a mere munchkin whose simple good deed spiraled into a life of misery for the guy.

Ryoken/Revolver was the whistleblower who exposed the Lost Incident/Hanoi Project, but no one else knows this.

Still a kid himself at that time, Ryoken couldn't bear the six children suffering from the brutal treatment and secretly contacted the authorities. The result was that the kids were saved, but that in turn also started a chain of events that led to SOL Technologies taking an interest in the Ignis, more specifically the Cyberse and orchestrating Kogami falling into a comatose state. The reason why Ryoken is so devoted to his father is not so much out of pure filial piety as he is secretly feeling guilty over inadvertently causing his father to get bedridden in the first place. All of that because he wanted to save the six children.

• Confirmed in episode #43.

Revolver will expand his deck to include the other variants of Mirror Force

For a guy that hyped up a nearly 18 year old card, and the fact that he used Mirror Force Launcher, a card that litterally tutors for a Mirror Force, it would not be out of the question for him to have something like Blazing Mirror Force or Storming Mirror Force.

Takeru Homura/Soulburner was one of the six children kidnapped in the Lost Incident/Hanoi Project.

Since Yusaku was one of the six children and he has Ai as a partner, it wouldn't be surprising if Takeru was also one of the six as he has Flame as his partner.

• Seemingly confirmed, based on what ED3 suggests.
• Fully confirmed in Episode #50.

Jin Kusanagi knows something

There has to be a reason why out of all of the Hanoi victims they would go after Jin. Considering they would risk the wrath of Playmaker the one who destroyed the knights of Hanoi in the first place. It also brings up the question of why is Jin so messed up compared to even Yusaku, Specter, and Takeru? Did Kogami do or show something else to Jin during the experiments that the new villains would be interested in?

Tag Dueling

In the wake of Yusaku having Takeru as a partner, and the Tag Duel event in Duel Links, we might be having these soon. The format of Tag Duels introduced may be similar to that of Duel Links or GX as a new function of New Link VRAINS and tailored depending on whether a Speed Duel or a Master Duel is taking place. If it is a speed duel, there may be a glowing colored cable connecting the duelists from either side to prevent the partner from falling off accidentally.

• If Episode #49's premise is any indication...
  • Jossed for the time being as Bit and Boot become one duelist sharing the same deck a la Paradox Brothers.
• From what Episode #55's premise suggests, it will involve Playmaker and Soulburner Dueling Blue Girl and Ghost Girl in a Tag Duel.
  • Jossed. It was a buildup episode, and the following episode has Soulburner Duel Blue Girl.

Haru is lying about a LOT

Basically instead of Takeru being the Vector as everyone thinks its Haru who is pulling everyone's strings posing as Bohman's brother. After all much like the Knights of Hanoi outside of the Kogami's we never see their real faces so he could be anyone behind the avatar. Proving Revolver's claims about Link VRAINS true. Also the way Bohman freaks out is more akin to how Aoi acted when Specter put a virus on her. Which suggests that Bohman doesn't have amnesia but a virus is repressing his memories and altering his personality. If Haru can block Ai's absorption powers then surely he can create viruses that match the Hanoi's in potency. Takeru is basically a big Red Herring for the fanbase to latch on to since The Vector has been done to death in Yu-Gi-Oh!.

• Episode 49's duel is pretty much painting Haru and his group as the second coming of DOMA. With Judgement arrows being a Seal of Orichalchos that can actually be used in competitive play.

Soulburner uses Fusion Monsters

If the booster name "Soul Fusion" is any indication...

• Confirmed. His Duel against Blue Girl showcases the first instance of him performing a Fusion Summon, where he brings out Salamangreat Violet Chimera.

Takeru has an inferiority complex and will duel against Yusaku and lose horribly

In Episode 50 it was shown that Takeru was only able to fight against his own demons and not against enemies like Yusaku did. This eventually causes him to duel against Yusaku in order to see how their skills compare with each other. This will end in a Curb-Stomp Battle in favor of Playmaker or possibly even multiple losses for Takeru. This might cause him to make a deal with Haru and Bohman's boss to become stronger. In other words it will be something like Aichi accepting PsyQualia and the Shadow Paladin deck in Cardfight!! Vanguard.

Ai is responsible for the destruction of Cyberse World

Albeit indirectly. Remember that stunt he pulled in the very first episode? Releasing the data material from the Cyberse world may have given Haru and Bohman’s faction a clue as to it’s location, allowing them to attack it later. Whoops?

The reason for the new villains to steal Jin's soul is to steal his body later

In a repetition of the Virtual World arc of the original, the Big Bad (that does not have a physical body and is possibly his Ignis) wishes for a physical body and is only waiting for Jin's oblivious brother to connect him to the Net to use his soulless body as a physical host.

Yusaku will use Fusion, Synchro, Xyz and Pendulum monsters in future episodes and most of them will be based on Monsters he uses regularly

Since the new enemy faction know Yusaku's deck, he will be forced to use the other summon methods in order to catch them by surprise and overwhelm them. They will be evolutions/upgrades on cards he uses regularly like with Cyberse Magician being the evolution of Cyberse Wizard.

• The Fusion Monster will be the evolution/upgrade of Linkslayer
  • Confirmed as of his Duel with Blood Shepherd, though he Fusion Summons Cyberse Clock Dragon, which appears to be an evolution of Clock Wyvern.
• The Synchro Monster will be the evolution/upgrade of Backup Secretary.
  • Jossed since the revealed Synchro Monster for Yusaku is an alternate evolution of Clock Wyvern.
• The Pendulum Monsters will be the evolutions/upgrades of Bitron, Digitron and Draconnet
  • Pendulums would be a bit tricky in VRAINS due to the series' heavy focus on Speed Duels in which the Pendulum Zones are completely absent, since they share Zones with the leftmost and rightmost Spell/Trap Zones, which aren't present in Speed Duels.
  • Pendulums could work, in theory, if the rule is the outermost spell and trap zones are always only pendulum zones that you can't put other cards in. No canonical occurrence of Speed Duels has had pendulum monsters as of yet, so there is no way to tell (there is the semiofficial article where pendulum summoning is outright impossible, but those rules have never been used anywhere officially so they might not count).

Jin will either play a deck that revolves around wind, light, or water monsters

The Ignis are based on attributes, and the divine attribute is not included. We have met Yusaku's ignis (Dark) and Takeru's ignis (Fire). Assuming that the type of cards used by the victims of the lost incident gives a clue as to what ignis the person has, we can assume that Spectre has the Earth ignis, leaving the wind, light, and water attributes.

• WATER would be out of the question since the Water Ignis was created from a female victim of the Lost Incident/Hanoi Project.
• Seeing as Lightning is Jin's partner, he will most likely play Light monsters.

Bohman is a victim of the lost incident, and he has the wind Ignis

Bohman does have a wind monster. Also, whoever took Jin's consciousness had a wind Ignis program, and Bohman was the one who took Jin's consciousness. Considering that someone is erasing Bohman's memories, it is possible that even though Bohman is paired off with the Ignis, someone else is controlling the Ignis, and erasing Bohman's memories so he doesn't remember being a victim of the lost incident.

• Semi-jossed in that the Wind Ignis, Windy, is not partnered with anyone (except for an AI program he created by himself) and acts on his own accord.
• If his word in Episode #57 is to be believed, he claims to be the real Yusaku, while labelling Playmaker as fake.
  • Jossed.

Blood Shepherd is Windy's Partner

In episode #70, Revolver revealed that Windy caused his partner to be involved in a reckless driving accident. Blood Shepherd was involved in a reckless driving accident because the AI controlling the car malfunctioned. Perhaps the AI in Blood Shepherd's car didn't simply malfunction; maybe Windy tampered with it. It's possible that Blood Shepherd is an older victim, and Revolver never mentioned if Windy's partner survived the accident or who he even was.

• All of the Lost Incident victims introduced so far, except for Yusaku, play cards that correspond to their Ignis's attribute—Fire for Takeru, Earth for Spectre. Blood Shepherd plays Wind-attribute Drone monsters.
• Maybe Blood Shepherd tried his best to get over the trauma of the Lost Incident because he loved his mother that much. When the accident happened, he might have succumbed to his darkness. His immense guilt over inadvertently causing his mother to become paralyzed—as well as him losing an arm—would definitely contribute too.
• From what we have seen so far, Windy seems to be a sadist. He might have hated humans even before the Knights of Hanoi attacked the Cyberse World. And seeing as he hurt his partner so he wouldn't be able to get attached...
• With Blood Shepherd's amazing hacking skills—seen with him deciphering the complicated Ignis algorithm on his own when Yusaku and Shoichi couldn't—he could easily hide all traces of his survival. Plus while in public, he conceals his identity with a scarf and sunglasses—much like Shun Kurosaki did. Perhaps he wants to operate under the radar. He might have also created a fake identity when he started working so he could make money while still hiding himself.
  • He's not just a good hacker, he's able to emulate an AI's program, something only people connected to the Lost Incident had been shown able to do before. It would also explain why he's so focused on taking the Ignis alone: he doesn't want just to do his job, he wants revenge first (notice that, in the flashback, ha was manipulative but had no issue with being in a group, but he refuses to work with others while going after the Ignis).

Jossed. Windy's Origin is unveiled in Episode 88 (albeit without his name revealed), and his hairstyle doesn't match Blood Shepherd's.

Soulburner has a Link-4 Monster

When he drew Monster Reincarnation, the most logical play that would lead him to was bringing back a monster and summoning it to Link Summon with the Link-3 Heatleo. While he could also have used a Link-2 monster, Link 4 seems like a more likely option.

• Confirmed, Pyro Phoenix.

SOL Technologies will become a Self-Disposing Villain.

All the signs are there already. Aoi and Emma will eventually butt heads between Akira's orders against Playmaker which will cause the two to fall apart and Emma to finally quit SOL. Go is obsessed with Playmaker and will butt heads with Hayami who will be trouble going down the line. Blood Shepherd wants money and his hatred of AI will likely make him a candidate to defect to Hanoi once they show up again. And the other two guys have no idea what they are getting into so they will be killed off soon enough. Which will force either Queen or King to reveal themselves personally to deal with the situation.

The Earth Ignis will want to Kill All Humans.

He's partnered to Spectre so it's understandable. He would also be Windy the Wind Ignis' foil.

• Jossed. He does, however, challenge Playmaker to a Duel to determine whether or not humanity is as malicious as they are made out to be.

The breaking point for Revolver to actually report his own dad to the authorities was one of the Lost Incident victims nearly dying/having some form of heart failure on account of the Hanoi Project shocking the shit out of them, and that Lost Incident victim was either Bowman or Haru.

• If it was Bowman : It's possible that much like Jin, Bowman was really messed up by the incident to the point that theoretically the 'real' Bowman with his real memories legitimately can't duel without breaking down/having something fairly analogous to a panic attack, or otherwise repressed a large portion of the incident. If this is the case, then the mysterious figure inserting memories of Bowman being a member of the Lost Incident but altering them to say he was Yusaku/to react to the incident like Yusaku did is... even more atrocious than it already was. In this option, Haru is most likely not Bowman's actual brother since it's hard to imagine any situation where you'd wipe your severely traumatized older brother's memories and then use him as some low-level grunt to do things that, from the few small pieces of no memories inserted! Bowman we've seen, directly clash against what he himself considers good and bad. Then again, this is from the same series which brought us a number of asshole relatives, so who knows.
• If it was Haru : Haru was retrieved along with the rest of the Lost Incident children, but died in the hospital. The Haru we currently know is a backup, as described in the most recent episode but without the entire 'swapped bodies with the real one' thing. Bowman is either an ai or Haru's actual big brother who for various reasons has had the fact that the 'real' Haru died entirely scrubbed from his mind at some point, possibly a reasonably long time after the incident. The reason why Bowman's memory is so screwed up then is basically 'fake' Haru having to remove over ten years worth of memories and knowledge that is heavily dominated by the fact that his little brother died and there was nothing he could do about it, which would also form a parallel between them and the Kusanagi siblings. Haru does appear to try and keep Bowman from getting killed/his data eaten by Ai, so even if Haru is 'fake', he still probably would remember having a big brother who cared about him, even if otherwise fairly cognizant of the fact he's not the 'real' Haru due to spending a while rotting on some random server bank Sol took hold of and not aging/having a body to return to.

Either option would also make the line Bowman says when accused of stealing Jin's consciousness/kidnapping him, "Why would I do such a horrible thing?", really, /really/ dark. Either revelation could also possibly bring Revolver and theoretically even Specter back into the plot, with Ryoken reacting just about as well you'd expect to either option being true, and one of the duo just plain decking Specter if he says any of that 'you must have had a happy life if this is the worst thing that happened to you' garbage, for similarly understandable reasons.

• Jossed for now, since Bowman and Haru are AIs created by Lightning thus negating the whole "either Bowman and Haru were victims of Lost Incident."

A Battle Royal will occur in Season 2

Given the Męlée ŕ Trois nature of the second season, which involves the Confidants, SOL Technologies' bounty hunters, the unnamed faction that possesses Link Spells, Blue Girl & Ghost Girl, and the Knights of Hanoi, it wouldn't be surprising if such a Duel occurred in this fashion at least once.

The unnamed faction were created by a rival company.

Basically a semi-successful attempt at reverse-engineering the Cyberse of SOL. Technologies whose creators Gave Up Too Soon. And now they act independently and preemptively attacked the original Ignis to prevent relevant opposition in the future.

The Light Ignis is the mysterious superior for Haru and Bohman.

This is going to be a doozy, so brace yourselves as Fridge Horror is a big part of it:

After Hanoi attacked the Cyberse World 5 years prior and Ai went into hiding, the Ignis really did debate what to do next, but it wasn't quite like what Flame described it. It was the Ignis themselves who created the Judgement Arrows and the monsters to destroy the Cyberse world:

• Why the Light Ignis? Given that Ai is the Dark Ignis, so no one else would be a better Evil Counterpart for him. Not the mention that the mysterious figure's appearance is concealed by light, no less.
• Why? Having realized that there was loads of security issues, they decided to scrap the original Cyberse world altogether and build a superior new one after Hanoi and SOL were dealt with. It would also explain how the enigmatic faction had access to Cyberse monsters - who better to ask than the Ignis?
• Why is Flame with Soulburner and Cafe Nagi then? Soulburner and Playmaker are really glorified pawns of the other Ignis. If one watches closely Soulburner is always only one step behind Playmaker when comes to different summoning types. (Ritual Summon, then Fusion Summon.) The question that remains is whether Flame is a Manchurian Agent or The Mole.
• The whole deal with Windy is incredibly shady in hindsight, especially considering how Echo is vaguely similar in utility to Bohman. Both of them have the role of being an attack dog for their respective Man Behind the Man.
• Zarc was foreshadowed through the DT and True Draco story lines (he was basically an amalgation of El Shaddoll Construct and Infernoid Tierra as well as Vector Pendulum and Amorphactor Pain). This means that it is possible for Flame to be a Fairy Lee for Cafe Nagi; and we have seen◊ already how that went...
• It would explain why Jin was targeted. If you disclude the Knights of Hanoi and SOL from the list, the Ignis themselves are the only other source of information on the Lost Incident.

To summarize: Being impressed by Playmaker's endeavors against the Knights of Hanoi who were a step away from eradicating them, the Ignis decide to ditch the (original) Cyberse world and create Bohman. The goal of the Ignis (possibly spearheaded by the Light Ignis) is to create a blindly obedient replica of Playmaker in the form of Bohman. Soulburner was selected by the Ignis as the next most mentally stable victim of the LI either as a back-up plan should Bohman fail or to simply ensure that Playmaker isn't defeated before Bohman's development is completed. Jin himself could also be seen as a potential pawn for them.

• Both the Light Ignis and Bohman's superior are voiced by Issei Maeda, lending some credence that they could conceivably be one and the same. Episode 68 reveals the mysterious boss (a dark silhouette enveloped in light) to be the Light Ignis' personal program (akin to Echo for Windy), all but confirming this.

Yusaku will get an evolution of Linkuriboh via Storm Access.

Linkuriboh's evolution will be based on Winged Kuriboh LV 9 or 10 and it will have an effect similar to theirs.

Synchro Monsters will appear in Season 2

If the alliteration in the booster name "Savage Strike" is any indication, combined with the fact that Synchro is abbreviated "S" in the OCG...

The name and background of the booster are both also presented in white, the same colour used to represent borders for Synchro Monsters.

• If the title of Episode 70, "Tuning Bullets", is anything to go by, Revolver will be the first character to reintroduce Synchro Summoning.
  • The cover card of Savage Strike, "Borreload Savage Dragon", more or less confirms the reintroduction of Synchro Summoning in the second season.

Either Haru or Bohman is an AI, and they don't know about it

Given what has been revealed so far... Bohman is the most likely candidate...

Shouichi will participate in a duel at some point... against Yusaku!

Think about it: One villainous faction has stolen Jin's soul. It wouldn't be impossible for them to approach Shouichi and threaten him into fighting Yusaku. Plus, during the second season opening there is a brief moment where Yusaku is facing Shouichi, who has Face Framed in Shadow. Could be a Foreshadowing a betrayal.

• Confirmed per Episode 92's premise.

Aoi Zaizen isn't one of the 6 kids that got kidnap during the Lost Incident and she isn't connected to Aqua it was a different girl that got kidnap and is connected to Aqua

Their are many debate going on is Aoi our lost girl or not because of the strong resemblance between Blue Angel and Aqua. I personally think that she isn't one of the 6 kids and the one that got kidnap and based after Aqua is a another girl we have yet to meet. Here are my reasons to prove she isn't our water girl

• Aqua is a Water Ignis and all the victims will use the same deck attribute that is matching to their Ignis and Aqua's human will use a water attribute deck which is matching to her attribute. If the writers want to make Aoi one of the 6 kids then they can make her use a water themed deck and I don't think the writers will do that because her deck Trickster's is a light attribute deck and it is doing well in OCG.
• Young Aoi and the lost girl's pigtails are bit different. While they both look similar, young Aoi's pigtails are C shaped and our lost girl's pigtail is Shaped.
• I'm gonna go against the grain and say I've always had doubts about Aoi being that one female victim of the Lost Incident, because as far as her backstory goes, she was with her stepbrother (Akira) at all times during said incident; not to mention, she plays an archetype of pure LIGHT Monsters, rather than WATER. That said, I don't completely dismiss the possibility that even if Aoi wasn't the one female victim of the Lost Incident, she may or may not end up working together with Aqua, if only temporarily.

• Confirmed. Aqua's Origin is revealed to be Miyu (a childhood friend of Aoi's) in Episode #76.

Prediction of our lost girl if she isn't Aoi Zaizen

• Unlike Aoi Zaizen/Blue Angel our lost girl will be very serious, cold, aloof, and The Stoic similar to Yusaku and Jin.
• If she has dark hair she could be a Aloof Dark-Haired Girl.
• She will be Tsundere to everyone she interacts with
• She will use a water theme deck.
• She will feel comfortable talking with Yusaku the most because of their similar personality.
• She will be good terms with Takeru and Jin but not very close with them.
• She and our new lost boy could be brothers.

Jin's Ignis is the Light Ignis

The Light Ignis shares the same VA as ??? and they could be same people. The main reason why ??? ask Bowman to take Jin's soul is because Jin is his partner and people who are associated with light they tend to be calm, elegant, graceful, and The Stoic which fits Jin's personality very well. Jin has been trapped in darkness for 10 years and to escape from darkness he needs light.

• Confirmed.

The Ignis will be polarized.

A 3 vs 3 stance. 3 in favor of sparing humanity and 3 wanting to destroy them.

• Team 'No To Humans':
  • Light Ignis
  • Windy
  • Aqua/Earth, depending on whether Earth is ultimately willing to go along or against Aqua.
• Team 'Humans Are Ok':
  • Ai
  • Flame
  • Aqua/Earth, depending on whether Earth is ultimately willing to go along or against Aqua.
    • Considering that Earth doesn't take it well when he finds out that Lightning was responsible for Aqua's disappearance, team "no to humans" will probably consist only of Lightning and Windy.

The Light Ignis will have a Villainous Breakdown by the end of the 2nd season.

The likes of which could best be compared to Jean-Michel Roget after the defeat of Sergey Volkov. Would be especially satisfying after all those Yank the Dog's Chain moments when Playmaker's victories against Bowman were all for nought. Provided it really gets confirmed to be the Arc Villain.

Varis/Revolver will use Synchro Monsters

An upcoming episode is named Tuning Bullets, suggesting a synchro summon with Varret monsters.

The victims of the Lost Incident gained superpowers.

Or Link Sense in this case. In theory, the electric shocks from the project awakened a portion of their brain that granted them extrasensory perception or ESP depending on what Ignis was assigned to them in the Hanoi project. Based on what I saw from the victims shown, Yusaku and Ai can sense the flow of data in Link VRAINS, while Takeru and Flame can discern someone's online identity from their real world identity. From there, we can safely assume that the other victims have this 'Link Sense' and from what we know of the WATER Ignis, her partner will be a Living Lie Detector.

Aqua didn't just betray the Ignis. She sold them out to Hanoi.

She knew about the schism and essentially gave the Knights the location of Cyberse as well as sabotaged the defenses. Essentially kickstarting the war Because Destiny Says So.

Roboppy will be the final villain.

Ai promised to make them smarter. Once he does give them intelligence using his Cyberse powers they'll try to destroy the world and Ai and Playmaker or only Ai would have to beat them in a duel proving humans and Ignis can live together in peace.

Earth is a Red Herring. The Ignis based in Spectre is Aqua.

1- Spectre is fan of a character that is suspiciously similar to Aqua.

2- In the Duel against Spectre, AI referred to Aoi as Blue AI. Considering that being one of the victims of the project contradicts Aoi's backstory, this cannot be foreshadowing about her.

3- During the Duel against Earth, Yusaku deduces that he is Spectre's Ignis because of the G-Golem animation. The same episode shows that Aqua also plays G-Golem.

• The reason Yusaku suspected Earth was Spectre's AI was because he turned a tree trunk into a puppet he could use to duel. It didn't have anthing to do with the G-Golem archetype.

Bohman will absorb all the Ignis, but...

The 4 Ignis who are for coexistance will influence him the most and cause him to free the other Ignis and decide to live alongside humans the opposite of what Lightning and Windy wanted.

The new Link VRAINS was built on top of the Tower of Hanoi

The damage done to Link VRAINS and the ammount of data accumulated in the tower of Hanoi is irreversible and impossible to fix, so SOL Technologies decided that the next best thing was that rather than discard the current Link VRAINS and build a new one from scratch is to build another more upgraded one top of the Tower of Hanoi, a clusterfuck of data that can produce it's own Data Storms with a couple fail-safes so that it cannot be used to destroy the network again.

A Massive Enemy Mine will occur due to the threat of Lightning and Windy

Lightning has proven on of the most dangerous characters in VRAINS, manipulating multiple factions in order to lure the other Ignis out of hiding and justify his attempt to subjugate humanity. Even if Playmaker defeats Bowman for the third time, as he is still featured in the fourth ending its doubtful he'll be deleted, meaning Lightning can continue to upgrade him with the Duel Data Playmaker provides him. So with Lightning and Windy being targets of Hanoi, threatening the coexistance of human and Ignis that Cafe Nagi desires, being responsible for the disappearance of Aqua, and being malicious Ignis like Akira's group suspected, Cafe Nagi, the Knights of Hanoi, Akira's Splinter Cell in Sol Tech, and Earth will be forced to ally with each other to stop them.

• The Fourth ending, Glory, supports this idea, as it depicts all the previously mentioned characters (+ Naoki) irl◊ together, just before the line "The War is just beginning". Revolver and Spectre were more than willing to let Playmaker, Ai, and Bowman try and kill each other, and Akira's group doesn't care about Sol Tech's plans and would prefer getting rid of the malicious Ignis, so if the threat is great enough, Yusaku may be forced to ask for their aid.
• Regarding Earth, while he was supposed to make his decision regarding humans himself, after learning Lightning orchestrated Cyberse Worlds destruction and is the reason Aqua is MIA, he'd possibly ally with Cafe Nagi on principle.
• Kusanagi's scene in the 2nd Opening may contradict this idea, in that he seems to be leaving Yusaku, possibly due to gaining hatred for the Ignis after what they did to Jin, it isn't unreasonable to suspect he'd return if Yusaku relented on his coexistance idea for at least Lightning and Windy, causing Kusanagi to return. The addition of the Hanoi Knights would further help his decision as they'd be more than willing to kill Lightning.
• Lastly, that leaves Naoki and Aqua.
  • Naoki's inclusion may not be on purpose, but could be the result of an accident. As he is essentially Playmaker's number 1 fanboy, he may attempt to follow Playmaker and accidentally overhear about a meeting in the real world, causing him to go there and learn about the identity of his idol in the process, forcing the others hand and make him join them so he doesn't spill anything to the public.
  • Aqua could be a case of being freed from Lightning and Windy. As Bowman is supposed to be the vessel for all six Ignis meant to fulfill Lightning's desires, Bowman may have already absorbed Aqua. Playmaker defeating him for the third time could possibly free Aqua in this case, and allow her to flee Lightning by hiding in Playmaker's duel disk like Ai. It has been shown to be capable of housing more than one AI, as evident by Ai sharing the disk with Linkuriboh.
  • Jossed. She was never absorbed by anyone; it's revealed she was imprisoned by Lightning and banished from the Cyberse World after she finds out what he's really up to, and was eventually found by Earth and freed by him.

Some of the Ignis will be partners with humans who aren't their origin.

Even with the Enemy Mine against Lightning and his faction, it seems unlikely that Earth, assuming Playmaker's guess is true, would team up with Spectre, seeing as the latter would probably try and delete him as soon as their common enemy is defeated.

Furthermore, episode 71 used the term Origin to designate the six children the Ignis were based on instead of the word partner that was used in the preceding episodes. While this may be just a case of using a more fitting term, it could be the writers wanting to dissociate the concept of an Ignis' partner being the human it was based on, thus justifying them partnering up with other humans.

• Confirmed, Aqua's Origin is Miyu but she partners up with Aoi.

Queen is Aqua's origin or is related to her.

Queen seems to be associated with water as whenever she appeared in the series has her appear near a pool. This even extends to the second opening which shows her in front of a body of water. And while the fact that she is an adult may disprove this theory from the get-go, it must be noted that we have never seen her talk to Akira in person. For all we know, she could be using an avatar to disguise her true appearance especially since this guess being true would mean that Queen is likely a teenager and thus much younger than a person with her position in the company would normally be.

Alternatively, she could be a relative of Aqua's origin, making her a potential foil for Akira later in the series.

• Aqua's origin being a relative of Queen's sounds more plausible than Aoi being Aqua's origin, especially since as far as Aoi's past is concerned, she was in Akira's company at all times.
  • Jossed in that Aqua's Origin is Miyu, a Childhood Friend of Aoi's.

Go is no longer human.

SOL technologies did something to Go in Episode 74. And it was fucked up beyond all reasoning. Whether they performed a procedure similar to the Lost incident, turned into a Hollywood Cyborg, or flat out murdered the guy and replaced with an AI copy. Something isn't right.

• Partially confirmed. Go fused himself with an AI turning him into a Half-Human Hybrid between human and AI.

Yusaku's final monster will be a LINK-5 Link Monster.

It's obvious there is going to be a LINK-5 Link Monster one day, but the question is how the monster will be. These are the following possibilities:

• The monster will be the evolution of Decode Talker since that is the first card Playmaker got through Storm Access.
• The monster will be the evolution of Firewall Dragon to show it's truly his Ace Monster.
• The monster will be the evolution of Linkuriboh since that's the monster Ai is closest to and has always fought against Bohman and interfered in his victory attempts.
  • The monster could also be a mix/fusion between these three monster such as a combination between Decode Talker and Firewall Dragon or Firewall Dragon and Linkuriboh or all three combined since it's possible they all could be used to get a Link Rating of 5 together.
• Alternatively it will be a fusion between the alternative summon methods ace monsters Yusaku uses which are Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz and Pendulum just like how Shooting Quasar Dragon was summoned with every Signer Dragon except Stardust Dragon.

This is what happens in Playmaker, Soulburner and Blue Maiden's battle against Lightning

Playmaker will duel against Lightning to get Jin's consciousness back and the reason why Lightning duels against him is to get data directly from him for Bohman. Playmaker will win and get Jin's consciousness back, but Lightning will have more then enough data to make Bohman even stronger.

Soulburner will duel against Bohman to put an end to Lightning's plan while Bohman wants to absorb Flame. Soulburner will lose the duel and Flame, because Bohman uses Storm Access during the duel or gets more data about Playmaker to become stronger.

Blue Maiden will either duel against Windy, Haru or another Ai Lightning has created that holds the cure for Miyu's condition in his stead. She will win and is able to cure Miyu and will later be informed of Playmaker's and Soulburner's true identity.

The revenge of Raid Raptors.

Raid Raptors Wise Strix looks way too much like a Cyberse even for a Link monster. And with the rumors of Xyz fusion and Windy not being dead yet. Raid Raptors would be a perfect deck for him to make his comeback with. Even making the fact that he only has one link monster instead of a dedicated link toilet like everyone else a big plot point.

SOL Technologies will complete their own Ignis through the use of Bohman.

After Bohman's final defeat. SOL Technologies will find his remains and use it to complete their Ignis. However while it may work well at first, it will eventually rebel or remember the data of Bohman and become the true final boss of Season 2.

• Alternatively Bohman will absorb SOL Technologies's Ignis and become more powerful than ever before.

Queen and Lightning have some connection.

Essentially both of their evil master plans boil down to capture all the Ignis. Stuff them into a high spec God Ignis. And use said God to achieve world domination. Something that is far too similar to be a coincidence. Which means that either Queen is in cahoots with Lightning, someone stole someone else's idea, or there was more to Dr. Kogami and the Lost incident than what is known so far. And both Queen and Lightning stole their ideas from him.

The AI implanted in Go's brain will be upgraded with elements of Earth's code.

And thanks to that Go will have gained access to Earth's G Golem monsters. Since, with the exception of Crystal Heart, all of those are EARTH monsters that require other EARTH monsters as materials, they could fit in Go's Dinowrestler. Furhermore, him summoning, say, Invalid Dolmen would be rather shocking for Playmaker and Ai which fits with the preview for episode 81.

• And behold, he summoned Crystal Heart and this is in fact what happened. Wait for 12/19 to see how horribly wrong it probably goes.

Windy will use Blood Shepherd as a puppet similar to how Lightning uses Jin.

Considering that the latter was turned into data which presumably is in Lightning's possession, it's not a stretch to think the latter will not let said data go unused and give it to Windy. Even more so if he can manage to block Blood Shepherd's consciousness but retain access to his skills in hacking and dueling, both of which could prove to be assets for his and his faction's goals.

This is how Go's rematch with Playmaker will end.

After Neo Storm Access gets negated by Anti-Skill, Ai will remember the rage he has from Earth's demise and possesses Playmaker just like with Dark ZEXAL. He will then use a new Skill Dark Neostorm since Playmaker is technically 2 duelists now like BitBoot. He will get a Xyz monster and defeat Go. Or the duel will end with no conclusion, because of the interference of Kusanagi, SOL or Revolver.

• Jossed in that Playmaker doesn't gain a Superpowered Evil Side, or gets possessed by Ai at all. Confirmed in that he acquires "Firewall Xceed Dragon", an Xyz Monster, which he uses to defeat GO.

Bohman will eat Go.

Bohman's goal is to absorb the Ignis and Earth's data is inside Go. This will be both Laser-Guided Karma and horrifying as Bohman will use Go's body to go to the real world to attack Café Nagi. Both characters always did look way too similar.

Windy's origin is still alive and his origin isn't Kengo.

• It makes no sense for Kengo to be a LI victim. He could be in high school by the time when LI happen and not not mention he is Emma's older brother. Ema could be around the same age as Akira and Kengo could be in his late 20ties or early 30ties. All the victims are 6 years by the time of LI and Windy's kid could be 16 and is still in high school in the present just like other victims.
• It makes no sense for the writers to kill a important character off screen without even knowing his name Windy's kid just like other victims is very important to the plot and will play a important role later. He must have likely survived the crash but is badly injured and hospitalized.
• Since he is the last victim to appear he will make his debut by end of S2 or early S3. Since ep 1 Yusaku is confirmed as victim, in 19 Jin was confirmed as victim , In 35 Spectre was revealed as victim, In 50 it was Takeru and in 76 it was Miyu. So going by this trend Windy's kid will make his debut around ep 90ties and we have less than 20 ep to meet him.
• The accident that happen to Kengo and Windy's origin is different. Kengo's accident is car to car while

Windy's kid is car to building.

Go will duel Bohman and...

Go will duel Bohman in one final act of redemption after realizing how low he has gone since becoming a Bounty Hunter. After putting a hell of a fight, Go loses and Bohman will take Earth's AND Go's data and use his body in the real world.

Season 3 will have a new villain faction that works for SOL with Well-Intentioned Extremist motive.

• In season 3 Jin and Miyu will enroll to Yusaku's school.
• We have all the victims of LI in separate groups. Jin and Lightning will obviously join Cafe Nagi gang after the war with Lightning is over, Specter is with KOH, Miyu will likely join Aoi and Emma's group once she is out of her coma and Windy's origin will be working for the new villain faction in season 3.
• It will later reveal that this new villain faction will be Good All Along they just want to save the world and don't have any evil motives. It turns out that they were used as pawns by SOL.
• SOL will be the mastermind of all the things happening in Season 3 and all the dirty work their doing the blame goes to the new villain faction.
• Everyone will learn SOL's behind all this and this will cause team Playmaker to form alliance with Aoi's,KOH and Windy's origins group to defeat and expose their plans to public.
• The King will be the Big Bad of S3 and this will cause all the victims of LI to team-up with each other and their Ignis against their wish to defeat the King.
• The series will end with a ceremonial duel with Yusaku and Ai. The Ignis and their origins decide to live together at a hidden network in Link Vrains.

The losers in Mirror LINK VRAINS are not erased, but instead are...

• Absorbed into Bohman himself, because Bohman said during Haru's death that he will never forget him and that they always will be together. The latter could be meant symbolically, but it could foreshadow that Bohman means it literally.
  • Lighting is surprisingly okay with dueling the other Ignises in Mirror Link Vrains considering he wants Bohman to absorb them. It's likely what was happening when he was synchronizing with it, and why Lightning thought it was so important that he finish before the heroes get there. Now whoever loses, Lighting wins.

Jin will be Evil All Along.

• Even though Lightning took his data and body against his will, Jin will be revealed to actually like working for him. As another twist, it could be revealed that Jin was in control the whole time, but let Lightning act like he was puppetering him to lure in Playmaker and pals. The main evidence for this is Jin almost crushing Spectre's data after beating them, only for Lightning to tell him not to. If Lightning controls Jin completely, why did he have to tell him to stop?

Windy will still be the death of Soulburner.

Flame unaware of how the power of hate works on Yu-gi-oh will end up being corrupted and will lead to the death of both him and Soulburner. Leading Windy to have the last laugh from beyond the grave.

• Semi-jossed. Windy reemerges from Flame and attempts to mutilate him, only for Flame to resist and reabsorb Windy, which also costs him his life. Soulburner, on the other hand, is shortly after taken down and absorbed by Bohman despite his best efforts.

Lightining plans to hijack Playmaker's body.

From the way Lightning voices his intentions with Playmaker as their "greatest weapon", this is what will happen when Kusanagi wins his duel against Playmaker. Lightning will make do with his promise to release Jin because he will have his hands on a much more powerful duelist to utilize and become unstoppable.

Lightning wants to be human

That big secret issue that Spectre and Revolver say that Lightning has is that he secretly wants to be human. Why else would he start reading and quoting Dante's Inferno, hijack his origin instead of making a body to duel with like Windy and Earth did, and be incredibly pissed at them for potentially exposing his hypocrisy.

Lightning was the one who brainwashed Windy to hurt his Origin.

According to Revolver even the rotten Ignis like Windy hoped to co-exist with humans and it was Lightning that corrupted him to hate humans. Lightning likely used Windy's weakness and maniuplated him to kill his Origin.

Jin was replaced by an AI during the Hanoi Project

Lightning has no free will, similar to the non-Ignis A.I.s. He merely replaced Jin with Yusaku in Bohman's Fake Memories.

After defeating Soulburner, Bohman gained access to the technique of Reincarnation Summon

He'll use it against Playmaker.

• Jossed. He does, however, use Master Storm Access, which enables him to acquire a card from the Data Storm once per turn during either player's turn.

AI will use the same deck as Playmaker, just with Dark counterparts to monsters like Decode Talker and Firewall Dragon

Or....

• Jossed. although he does use two evil knock offs, otherwise his deck is evenly distributed among the six attributes.

Ai will use dark versions of ALL of Playmaker's monsters, like Dark Cyberse Gadget, or Dark Linkslayer

Jossed. Outside of two monsters that are counterparts to Decode Talker and Linkuriboh, Ai uses original monsters.

Ai will use a Ritual, a Fusion, and a Pendulum boss monster.

SO far, his deck is evenly balanced over three of the attributes, and three of the special summon mechanics. He has main deck monsters that are DARK, LIGHT, and WIND (one of each), and a DARK Link, a LIGHT Xyz, and a WIND Synchro, each of which requiring one monster of the same attribute as a material. Therefore, he's going to have a regular monster for each of FIRE, WATER, and EARTH. One will be a required material for a Fusion, one must be sacrificed for a Ritual, and one will be a low-level Pendulum monster that forms a scale with a powerful, higher-level Pendulum. The boss Pendulum may also be able to special summon itself from the Pendulum zone, so he can Pendulum summon, then summon it without having to have a second copy.

• Confirmed in regards to Ai having a Fusion and a Ritual: the effects of the WATER and EARTH @Ignister main deck monsters can add a Ritual Spell and a Fusion Spell respectively. However, the FIRE one is a second Link monster instead of a Pendulum.

Ai's Heel–Face Turn is the result of performing simulations that concluded that AI-Human coexistence is no longer possible.

Remember at the beginning of episode 104? Ai had data streaming around himself? I think he was trying to simulate if Human-AI coexistence would still be possible based on the current situation and the results were... no.

Think about it... While the results of Kogami's original simulation declared it a possibility for every Ignis but Lightning... Lightning has already ruined it by this point. In the current situation, coexistence may no longer be a possible.

Learning this might have broken Ai, who is still reeling from being The Last of His Kind and made him conclude that if coexistence was impossible... Then Let Me Be Evil.

• Confirmed. However, another reason was that he ran a simulation where Yusaku is shot by the military for defending him, and decided that he couldn’t bear to have a future where Yusaku dies.

Ai wants to use SOL Technologies to make new Ignis

Maybe?

• Confirmed, though he only intends to mass produce copies of himself.

The last arc of VRAINS will be a Tournament Arc which...

Ai organizes to give humanity one last fighting chance to stop him and prove their worthiness in defeating him in a duel.

will be hosted by SOL Technologies led by Akira in order to let everyone heal from all the attacks. This tournament shall also have the grand prize of a duel against Playmaker which causes the whole cast to participate in order to defeat him in a normal duel with nothing on the line and to remind everyone that duels are supposed to be fun. It's also a reference to KC Grand Championship of the 2nd Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series.

• Jossed.

In Yusaku's and Ai's final battle, Yusaku will tell Ai this...

Be quiet! Ai!

• Jossed.

Ai stole Jin's memories of the Hanoi Project and fused them with Roboppy

Let's be frank, it is really unlikely that Lightning was this considerate. Beyond this, their personality fits the description of Jin's personality (kind, likes nature and animals) and includes a Kill All Humans mindset- and the Ignis created from Jin is the Ignis with the Kill All Humans mindset.

The final battle against Ai will be a Tag Duel

They somewhat foreshadowed it with multiple characters dueling together against a single one. The ones that will duel against him are Playmaker tag teaming with either Revolver or Blue Maiden for their personal reasons in the battle.

Alternatively Playmaker will be too injured as a result of physical or mental exhaustion in the middle of their duel which forces other characters to take turns for him to keep Ai busy or defeat him in his place.

• Jossed. It's just Playmaker vs. Ai.

Yusaku will rebuild Ai.

• Yusaku was devastated by Ai's death to the point no one had seen him for three months.
  • It's very likely that during the three-month time skip after Yusaku defeated Ai in episode 120, Yusaku spent that time rebuilding Ai.
• Seeing as Yusaku is Ai's Origin, the process to rebuild Ai has a place to start.
  • It seems like during the three months he was absent, Yusaku was collecting the data necessary to recreate Ai in a similar fashion as to when the Hanoi collected data from the Lost Incident participants to create the Ignis.
• At the end of the episode, it appears Ai was revived in his Eye Form.
  • Seeing as only three months had passed and the Lost Incident lasted for 6 months, Yusaku is probably only halfway done.
  • Ai appeared to be surprised that he had returned, indicating that he in fact is the same Ai as before.
    • Yusaku's has Ai's original data from when Ai sacrificed part of his data—which led him to temporarily missing one of his tentacles in his demonic form—to regenerate Playmaker's right arm in episode 42, so it's not like Yusaku will start from scratch and create a new AI that is not Ai.
    • Don't forget Ai got the data to recreate his original body from eating Revolver's arm and that Ai was able to completely recreate himself from a backup after being destroyed during Yusaku's final duel with Bohman.

Bohman's lack of desire to connect with others described in his final duel is directly related to the inserted memories of being in the Lost Incident from his second duel, and he might legitimately have trauma.

Let's look over some canon facts:

• In Season 3, it's confirmed that simulations, so long as they are realistic enough, are treated as lived experiences by A.I.s, according to Ai. Bohman, in episode 58, says he has 'clear memories' of the Lost Incident and being replaced. We know for a fact Lightning is not above crass manipulation, so we don't have any reason to doubt that Lightning would be willing to insert realistic memories of the trauma of the Lost Incident, if he believed it would help him better model Playmaker.
• In the preview for episode 58, Bohman's inserted memories are described in the preview as having caused 'an isolation that cannot be healed' .
• Bohman describes himself as being based on Yusaku's heart and as his 'evolved form'. Directly after this, he delivers the offer to put Playmaker in a simulation, and that Yusaku specifically 'deserves' that life, something he did not offer to Soulburner. In response, what does Playmaker say? That Bohman is lonely. Even more than that, the specific touchstone he immediately goes to is describing how he was afraid of reaching out to others after the Lost Incident.

So, in the end, the picture we could get from the in-canon text is 'Bohman has no desire to connect with others, because he has an isolation that cannot be healed, as he has inserted memories of the Lost Incident'.

One could argue that something like those memories probably could have been removed after they'd served their purpose, but there does not appear to be any evidence in favor of that concept.

The Ignis have the personalities of their templates had the Lost Incident not occurred.

The Ignis are based off of the brain patterns of their templates, but despite this their personalities differ. Flame's personality is the most similar to his template's, and Takeru is the most well-adjusted of the one's we see, so his personality changed the least because of it. Earth Is more socially awkward than his, but Spectre actually preferred his time during the Lost Incident to his life before and after, and he kept to himself a lot before. So, the Ignis are based off of their brain patterns as of the Lost Incident, but their personalities differ because they didn't actually go through the incident themselves. Which means Yusaku Used to Be a Sweet Kid if Ai is anything to go by.

Ryoken is a Proto-Ignis AND a clone of his father

Since the Hanoi insignia on his hand never got explained and because the Ignis were able to spring fully formed in the span of six months, I've decided that these two things are connected. Kogami, obsessed with mortality and legacy, as he were, decided to clone himself to prove that life could be formed and sustained in lab conditions and afterwards. Ryoken was the product of such testing; the insignia catalogues his unconventional heritage, further foddered by the fact that his mother is never so much as hinted at in canon. So it's possible that Ryoken doesn't have one and is instead all his Father's creation. Additionally, in real life, clones of livestock's appearances tend to look randomized hence why Ryoken isn't necessarily a carbon copy of his dad. Plus, it'd give explanation as to why Kogami was so gung-ho about letting eight year old Ryoken play backstage. Its because he came from the same laboratory.

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