Seto, I don’t feel so good.
Brenner's Wolves Fight Again
Yuma: Where is Tori?
Kaiba: Who is Tori?
Astral: Why is Tori?
Where there's life, there's hope.
Let's be real: No one loves Tori enough to do the thing.
Make it Yuya, Yuzu, and her real dad.
edited 11th May '18 11:44:15 AM by OmegaRadiance
Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.
Brenner's Wolves Fight Again
Wheeler: This is my friend, Fish.
Shark: I am Shark!
Yusei: I'm Yusei Fudo.
Where there's life, there's hope.
Kaiba = Tony I get but how does Joey = Thor?
He's blonde.
Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.
And boisterous.
Formerly G.G.
I found an interesting post on Shadi.
Basically, he’s a manipulative, cruel, and nearly unfeeling bastard who doesn’t give two shits about anyone outside of his “duty”.
First of all, he considers himself as having the right to judge people’s sins and punish them for them. Sure, the museum curator was an asshole, but did that mean he deserved to die in the way that Shadi killed him? I don’t really think so. And Professor Yoshimori, yes, he desecrated a tomb, and while I’m not 100% behind archaeologists disturbing actual bodies (it’s one thing to retrieve things of historical value from the tombs, its another entirely to steal corpses and put them on display, in my opinion), Yoshimori is a generally good guy, but Shadi was planning on killing him for just having the gall to want to learn about the past. He has a very narrow-minded worldview and anyone outside that is dispensable and useless to him.
And then let’s move on to what he does to Yugi and his friends. He kidnaps and brainwashes Anzu. He mentions that he sort of feels sorry for doing it, but that doesn’t stop him from my giving a crap about putting her in danger, threatening to order her to kill herself, and putting her life on the line in a game he had already assumed he was going to win. Think about that. He used Anzu as the stakes for his game against Yami no Yugi, and was legitimately shocked when Yami no Yugi won. He was fully prepared and even expecting him to fail and her to fall to her death. It just didn’t matter to him. In fact, the fact that he said he “felt sorry for having to brainwash her” just makes it worse to me. It’s like abusers who say they feel bad they “have” to do this to someone. He is not above manipulating and harming innocent bystanders to walk on the path that he has chosen.
And then there’s the matters of Pegasus and Marik, the two main antagonists before Bakura reappears. Both of whom never would have become Yugi’s enemies without Shadi’s influence.
I’m not saying that Pegasus didn’t develop his villainous tendencies on his own, because he did, but it was Shadi who gave him the resources and the motivations he needed to become the single-minded and ruthless enemy that he became. It was Shadi that forced Pegasus to take the Millennium Eye, taunting him with the thoughts of maybe seeing Cyndia again and persuading him to go through incredible pain for the sake of an evil item that was going to slowly drive him insane. It was then Shadi that gave Pegasus the nudge towards discovering the Shadow Games, bringing Duel Monsters into the world. It was Shadi that implied to Pegasus that gathering the Millennium Items might bring his love back. It was Shadi who led Pegasus to the tablet of the Gods and conveniently forgot to tell him about the horrors they would bring upon the world until after Pegasus had already created the cards, manipulating the man into creating the Pharaoh’s weapons.
And of course Marik. Marik was definitely messed up and definitely already had problems tending towards villainy, but it was Shadi who gave him a drive behind his actions. Shadi told Marik, for whatever reason, that his father’s death was the pharaoh’s will, turning Marik into the pharaoh’s enemy. Why would Shadi do this if he was supposed to be serving the pharaoh? It comes back to Shadi’s very narrow-minded and driven worldview. He believed, irrevocably, that the pharaoh had to win the God cards through his dueling, and for the pharaoh to have that motivation, it was necessary for there to be a villain to oppose him for the cards. So naturally, he first turned Marik against the pharaoh completely, giving the already troubled child something to turn his unhealthy emotions on, he then manipulated Pegasus into creating the God cards, which would fall into the hands of Ishizu, which Marik would find out about because that was his sister, and voila, one ready-made villain who desired to take the God Cards and you have an instant conflict for the pharaoh.
Like couldn’t there have been a more peaceful and less dangerous solution? Sure the pharaoh needed to win the cards, but why did Shadi think that the battle for them had to be world-threatening and dangerous? Why couldn’t the pharaoh have won them through a low-stakes ceremonial duel or something? In my opinion, the short answer is that Shadi is a dick. He believed the Pharaoh needed a villain for some reason, and when one didn’t seem forthcoming, he made his own.
tl;dr Shadi is a manipulative asshole who created villains for the Pharaoh because he’s a dick.
I might be wrong about this but Shadi to me comes off as being a much more ruthless version of Yami Yugi or at least that is how he comes off. I don't know if I can call Shadi the true villain of the series but he definitely isn't really a good guy and he seems to more ruthless than Atem. I never thought of Shadi as a villain or even an antagonist even before being exposed to the manga or Season 0 bu he seems like more a ruthless anti hero who just doing his job as a tombkeeper. What do you guys think of this?
"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."
Like reflections in the glass!
He does tend to have Man Behind the Man tendencies. DSOD even adds connections not with only to that film's Big Bad, but Bakura as well. Its certainly an interesting interpretation.
I noticed earlier that every morally ambiguous/evil thing Shadi did was before he ran into Yugi and co, and in the manga before they beat his test. Guess the power of friendship really blew his mind XD
It's also interesting to reread his first manga arc cause even though he was killed before then chronologically (Yami Bakura puts the I-killed-him death date at least 5 years ago when hearing Marik's story), he acts more alive than he does later on or in flashback, crying over a mummy and getting to places physically. I think him being Dead All Along was a bit of a retcon XD;
edited 22nd May '18 10:25:54 AM by lalalei2001
The Protomen enhanced my life.
Recently I've been running through Yu-Gi-Oh GX, in what started out as kind of a quick joke / desire to relive some memories, but ended up with me getting carried away. Watching the dub, up to episode 13 — if I'd known it'd go this far I'd probably have set it to the sub, but when I was a kid the only episodes I saw were the first few dubbed ones, so they're the ones I remember.
I don't know how it is subbed, but man, I forgot some of how bizarre this show is. An actual line: "The world of politics, finance... and Duel Monsters! If we control them all, then we will control the entire world!" From Chazz's brothers (they've already got the first two locked down, evidently). There's a knowingness to some of this, but it's truly glorious. I remember in the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh where Tristan's all 'Oh, Duel Monsters? What's that?' It's the centre of all political and social life, Tristan. A great scene is Syrus talking about a bully, then we flashback and see their vicious confrontation is not, say, a kid beating other kids up, but Syrus and him dueling it out.
My favourite realisation, that I wouldn't have fully made as a kid, is that 1) either these duel disks are all programmed to set duelists aflame, electrocute them, etc.note or 2) everyone in this world mugs for the camera like they're taking a minor in melodramanote .
Favourite dub moment is the episode where, okay, it's Chumley's father, he comes to pick Chumley up and force him to take up the family business. In the sub he's the owner of some sort of alcoholic business. In the dub? Hot sauce. He's running around, he's giving people hot sauce, they're drinking cups of hot sauce, they give the cat a saucer of hot sauce. His deck is all based around hot sauce and he has this angel, who's clinging to a bottle of 'hot sauce' and mellowly swaying and dancing around because he's just, he's just had too much hot sauce. It's great.
They change all that and then keep the scene — or I don't know if they added this — where a man is clearly eaten alive while he attempts to make out the words 'Tell my kids I love them!' before he's completely smothered and suffocated by little teethy black blobs. Meanwhile Jaden's all standing around going 'Man, great special effects!' as cheerfully as possible. All he ever did was run around beating people in card games while putting on a spooky voice. And I guess chloroforming people and putting them in coffins, but, uh, no one's perfect.
Shout-out to Bastion's voice acting for being so bizarrely, inhumanly posh and restrained. Just watched what was essentially a focus episode on him. Picks up a baseball bat and is all, yeah, I calculated everything here, I've got the perfect formula for a perfect swing, what you gonna do about it?
edited 23rd May '18 3:29:02 AM by Lavaeolus
Like reflections in the glass!
Speaking of GX, I noticed that a certain transfer student is missing form the character pages...
If you think the GX dub is meta now, just wait until you get to season 3, where the older supporting characters like Chazz and Syrus actually point out how they're losing the spotlight to the Overseas Champs.
In the next episode of GX I watched, the gang were out looking for Chazz when suddenly a lab monkey turned up and kidnapped a girl. Then Jaden sees the monkey's got a duel disk on him and is like, 'Yeah. I'm gonna duel him.'
So many questions with this premise. Why's there a lab on the island? Are the scientists affiliated with the school? Maybe they set up there independently. Why are they running 'top secret' experiments to tortuously turn a monkey into the ultimate duelist? Surely there are other ways to utilise your invention of a device that allows monkeys to speak English / Japanese? If you're gonna do it anyway, I know it ruins the monkey theme but maybe you could give him a proper deck?
Odd series. I'm having fun so far. I think we're out of all the episodes I actually saw when I was younger. I think I saw the next one, seemingly about tennis, at some point.
edited 23rd May '18 4:40:38 PM by Lavaeolus
If you're serious about watching GX, I'd tell you to drop the dub and just watch the sub. The dub never goes past season 3, which would leave you with an incomplete experience.
The GX dub did add a couple neat things. though, like season 2 where the dub keeps Aster's father's fate a mystery until the final confrontation between Aster and his stepfather. In the original, Aster knows he's dead from the beginning, but in the dub he disappears the same night he was robbed of his best card, and Aster searches for him for the majority of the season. This ultimately adds to the horror when it's revealed his soul has been swallowed by D-HERO Plasma, and the nightmarish sequence that results is completely unedited.
I've heard a lot of people say season 4 isn't that great (mostly cause it got cut in half due to behind-the-scenes stuff), though it does lead into BBT where the dub's version of 3 is a cliffhanger. I think.
The Protomen enhanced my life.
Dub additions being good are a subjective matter, I'm just giving Lav a heads up in case it matters to him.
The Unknown
The dub has "Chazz it up!" so it's objectively better.
Real talk there's some stuff like the Dmitri duel being better in the dub due to writing changes and the English VA's hammy Dan Green impersonation.
edited 23rd May '18 5:01:01 PM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
I'm just repeating myself.
edited 23rd May '18 5:02:11 PM by VeryMelon
@Melon: I don't disagree, and I know the dub outright doesn't have one of the seasons. (Off my head I know 5DS also has a lot of episodes removed, so if I ever watched that one I'd go sub by default simply because I never watched either before.) But initially I just wanted to relive some memories; if I ever get passed the first 30 episodes I'll probably stop and go back through the sub and see how it differs, assuming I don't wander off again. I know Crunchyroll has a subbed version of the series; I don't know if anyone has any warnings or positive feedback about their one.
Apparently in the original series the Paradox Brothers don't rhyme? Man, that throws me off. That's a lot of dialogue you have to rewrite wholesale just for a quick gimmick. Anyway, they returned a few episodes ago. I was a bit disappointed by their reappearance; it felt a bit like fanservice, but it put the original duel in my head throughout the episode, and by comparison it's a lot more plain. The Labyrinth Duel is kinda mad if you try to examine how it'd actually be played in real life, but it's a lot more fun and inventive than what in GX is basically just a fairly standard duel.
edited 23rd May '18 5:16:28 PM by Lavaeolus
It's amusing realizing they gave human Yubel a male voice in the dub.
In the original they gave him a more feminine one to go with it being his main voice and Yubel could easily be mistaken for a girl.
Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.
So I think I'm mostly done with GX for the moment. Watched episode 20, it was fine and I don't really have any overly negative things to say, but I wasn't intending on going through it all to begin with. It has given me a bit of a YGO urge, so probably I'm going to either go back and watch the first series subbed (only watched dubbed Duelist Kingdom and snippets of other arcs before). Thought about watching the newer series, see what's up with the franchise these days, but I'm not sure how much they'd be my jam. Incidentally, prepare yourself for a bit of Wall of Text.
Which is to some extent fine. Yu-Gi-Oh as a series, or at least the two I've seen, is rarely interested in strict realism or the actual mechanics of trading card games. There's only a rudimentary interest in setting up a deck, only occasionally an interest in setting up a smart proactive strategy (unless you're a villain), and more interest in duels as a moment-to-moment thing. In this sense, Yu-Gi-Oh treats card games much like Ace Attorney treats law and due process: it's more a means to an end, a way of building up tension and mystery, dramatic moments, turnabouts, etc. The encroachment of rules was natural as the series came up, and not necessarily a barrier to creating an interesting turn of narrative events, but it's not surprising a lot of the first series was able to scoot by on whatever the plot wanted at the time.note
So any duel and deck in the series has to balance a few things: the literal established rules of the game, desires to create an engaging and easy to follow narrative ride, the expression of character, the creation of tone, and desires to keep things varied. So Yugi's deck messes with Dark types such as the Dark Magician, it has a few other mystical monsters like Summoned Skull, and it also has to parallel both Yugi and the Pharaoh. It's also got a lot of oddballs, because it's balancing variety, the series as a whole, and those two characters. It has cards that, say, stun an opponent for three turns, which largely serves to help tension (Weevill's got a big monster and it'll attack any moment!). Joey's deck relies on a lot of chance. Pegasus doesn't appear as much and can devote his whole deck to being cartoony. Life points and the current state of the duel are in focus and often easy to read. Etc.
Despite a lot of tonal change and a focus on cards more generally, this use of duels doesn't really change in GX. So, with all that said: Jaden's deck is boring. He has two main things: a liking for hero cards and their effects, and a liking for Fusion cards (to fuse heroes). I wouldn't be surprised if it got better down the line, but for the moment that's pretty much it. Geez, guys, how's Jaden gonna solve this crisis? 'I use some sort of card to draw heroes to my hand, and then I use Polymerisation to create <Whoever>!' That's his move. That's how he wins every duel. Or maybe he'll give a special item to a hero, whatever.
Sometimes interesting things happen, but they're always in spite of Jaden's moves, and they're usually undermined by him. Last episode, a young 8 year old girl sneaks aboard and has a deck themed around love. She has one maiden, and she uses its abilities to corrupt/convert monsters away from Jaden to her side (albeit at the cost of her lifepoints). That's not exactly a thematic masterpiece there, but it's something that distinguishes it from, say, another duel. And then Jaden returns his monsters to his hand, fuses them together, and one-shots her.
But this problem is kind of exacerbated by a few other things. Firstly: Jaden is almost always the protagonist and duelist in an episode. He gives way to Syrus or others very infrequently. Secondly: focus is always on these duels. GX so far has been incredibly episodic, one duel per episode (with occasional two-parters). It doesn't have many narrative arcs flowing through its early episodes (whereas, say, Yugi is fighting for his grandpa) so stakes are much lower.note Not a problem in-of-itself, but it means the card games need to be able to sustain the plot of an episode by themselves — and they rarely do. Thirdly: where Yugi was always reacting and trying to think about the opponent's current state, and seemed to genuinely entertain that he was on the verge of losing to their superior play, Jaden barely gives a toss. So you get less focus on the more interesting plays by the opponent, and more focus on 'Oh, is Jaden going to draw Polymerisation now?'
edited 23rd May '18 11:35:11 PM by Lavaeolus
Brenner's Wolves Fight Again
Thematically, I like the HERO archetype, but Jaden does overuse Flame Wingman.
But if you dislike Flame Wingma , then don't worry! One season later and J-man would replace him with a crappy Neos deck.
P.S. GX is the era where "archetypes" became a thing. Since GX onwards, most decks will follow an archetype (Yusei uses Synchron, Yuma uses Gagaga, Yuya uses Performapals, etc.) because archetypes give the decks a cohesive strategy that Yugi's clusterfudge of a deck cannot.
edited 23rd May '18 11:38:51 PM by RAlexa21th
Where there's life, there's hope.
So, where are Iron Kaiba and Thor Wheeler?
Wake me up at your own risk.