Yu-Gi-Oh In General

There's a common school of thought in fandom that any person holding the purse strings is guilty until proven otherwise. We've all heard stories, often half-remembered, about executives warping the original vision into its pale shadow, including one of the most frightfully extensive TV Tropes pages around, and there's a tendency to dismiss any failings in the finished product as the result of "meddling". And while this certainly happens, I must say, it's a bit dismissive. Writers are quite capable of bungling works by themselves, thank you very much.

So, stop me if you've heard it: Crow was a character designed to be a villain, probably the final boss, Crow's cards sold well, Konami petitioned to have him become a good guy and a main character instead, and against the writer's wishes, Crow became a main character alongside the heroes and got a Signer mark and a dragon and to be the only character of any importance. We've heard it, we've felt it, and it fits all the facts.

Only it doesn't.

I have heard the story many times, but I've never once heard a source on it. No Twitter links, no translations, no scans. If someone can provide them, that would be nice, but if it is true, then I must say, I've heard far too many variants of it for me to believe it unreservedly. In one variant, Crow is a Team Rocket-esque character, a petty thief repeatedly confronting Yusei and getting beaten every time. In another, he's a Dark Signer, wielding Rasca in the final battle with Yusei and Jack. In yet another, he becomes a Dark Signer but he isn't by any means the "main" one. A further one suggested that he was a good guy, but a considerably more minor one. I can't even set the record straight because I can't find a record to set.

So that's a major hole in the theory already. And I've heard many stories about 5Ds's development and issues that had to be cut, and all of them flow quite well with the discrepancies in the second season. Demak being part of an Earthbound-worshipping cult being cut out makes sense. Bommer originally rematching Rua, as well. But Crow? Crow is introduced as a thief with a cool bike, not an all-consuming archvillain. Rex's status as the final villain, even if it was messily-handled, was foreshadowed all the way down to his shirt. Crow, not so much.

But all this is supposition, lack of knowledge, and hearsay. And you know what isn't those? Dates.

Crow debuted in episode 30 of 5Ds, on October 22, 2008, and in that episode, he was already being characterized as a friend to all children. The first wave of Blackwing support arrived in Crimson Crisis, which released in Japan on November 15, 2008. How can Konami have petitioned for Crow's character to be changed when Blackwings came out three weeks afterward? The only way this could have happened is if they were basing it on advance sales, or an executive taking a shine to this random set of Winged Beasts.

And more to the point, this sort of thing has never happened before or since. There are many, many characters with meta decks that appeared without ceremony and vanished quickly, and just as many characters that stayed prominent when their decks failed to make a splash. In the prior GX, consider Ryo, who, after Cyber Dragons revolutionized beatdown, actually dropped them in favor of Cyberdarks. Consider the Monarch players in GX, who are completely irrelevant to the overall plot. Consider Judai, who kept using Neo-Spacians all the way to the end despite their lack of impact. Move on to the future, and we see much the same thing happening. Rank-Up-Magic stayed important to the end of ZEXAL despite being nonexistent in tournaments. Dennis in ARC-V, despite Performages dominating for a good while, got carded about halfway in, and Sawatari trades out his meta-relevant Yosenju and Mega Monarchs for Abyss Actors. Even in 5Ds itself, Kiryu's Infernities were one of the most dominant decks, but Kiryu himself showed up again for only one short arc, and Plant Synchro was the top deck of the later years - a deck named after cards used by Aki and Ruka!

And to nail this coffin, surely, if Konami had the power to make Crow a protagonist, they would have been able to make the later waves of Blackwings worth using. Konami likes Crow, absolutely; if they didn't, they wouldn't have given him a Duelist Pack or releases in Dragons of Legend, but their love was not what led to his role in the anime.

So the idea that Konami would petition the anime writers to push Crow to the forefront is, to put it kindly, not likely. They've never done it before, and it's extremely unlikely that they could do it at all. They've absolutely had certain cards added in, like Yuri's Ancient Gears or the first two Seven Stars using Structure Decks. But they've never done anything on the level of upgrading a tertiary villain into the tritagonist. So does that mean Crow was always meant to be a main character?

Not in the slightest.

There are simply far, far too many discrepancies to say that Crow was intended to be as he was from the start, and everyone knows it. It's why this explanation is so common. He appears late. He isn't mentioned before then. He's barely in the Dark Signer arc openings and endings - hell, he's outright absent from a shot that included him in the series. When one looks at Takahashi's early Signer designs, Crow is nowhere to be found. His Dark Signer opponent is someone he's never met. His fridge survival feels bizarrely contrived. His becoming a Signer is wholly inconsistent with what came before. And of course, everything to do with Black-Winged Dragon. Even the first four Blackwings look... well, evil; all gnarled and disproportionate and faceless, looking uncannily like the Infernities.

So was Crow intended to be a villain? I think, yes. But when we blame Konami, we're barking up the wrong tree. So who was it, then?

Well, one thing I do know is where Crow's last name comes from. According to a tweet by series director Katsumi Ono, it's a reference to Kuro Hogan, a title of General Yoshitsune. He also mentions that he took great care to make sure that the names of Crow's cards would call to mind Yoshitsune's tactical skill. And though this is apocryphal on my part, I don't believe Crow's surname was revealed for a good while, which would suggest someone came up with it later.

Hm.

As is known well, Crow debuted right after the series switched composers. Much of his first episode, with the monstrous Blackwings, his OTK on the Security officer, his general superiority, and the end with him and Yusei having a staredown, would imply a villain's introduction. Almost as if it were rewritten to add some scenes of Crow being a Friend To All Children. Almost as if, in a time when the series was in flux, someone decided to repurpose an existing script to change a planned villain into a hero. Someone established in the show's management, like the lead director.

Hmm.

Katsumi Ono also directed ARC-V. Were there any Blackwings being sold when Crow showed up? No. A number came out a few months afterward, but at the time, Blackwings were a severely outdated rogue deck that hadn't had new cards aside from a handful of year-old legacy releases, and Synchros were a pretty dry well. But Crow came back anyway. Crow even got to come back from the dead in the battle with Zarc, and got to be the one to get under Zarc's skin. Obviously, there to advertise a set of new Blackwing cards - that didn't exist. The episode came out in January, and the most recent Blackwings had shown up in April of the prior year.

Hmmm.

See, that last note was what motivated me to make this post. Ono's love for Jack is often discussed when people talk about ARC-V. But Jack's appearance in ARC-V, messy as it was, did serve a purpose in the overall plot, and Jack is very popular. If one were returning to 5Ds, Jack is the first thing one would return to. But Crow? Is Crow really popular? Again, hard numbers.

In the recent V-Jump poll to determine the most popular duels in each series, the final results for 5Ds were the last Yusei/Jack, the first Yusei/Aki, Yusei/Z-One, the last Yusei/Bruno, and the second Yusei/Kiryu. Obviously, none involve Crow.

On Pixiv, "クロウ・ホーガン" (Crow Hogan) has 1263 results. "不動遊星" (Yusei Fudo) has 6018, "ジャック・アトラス" (Jack Atlas) has 1985, "十六夜アキ" (Aki Izayoi) has 3029, "鬼柳京介" (Kiryu Kyousuke) has 2286, "龍可" (Ruka) has 1870, and "龍亞" (Rua) has 1627.

On Nico Nico, those same queries give Crow 99 videos. Yusei gets 833, Jack 515, Aki 318, Kiryu 473, Ruka 205, and Rua 185.

Far from being popular, in Japan, anyway, Crow appears to be the least-liked Signer, by a wide margin. So perhaps he could be a tribute to Blackwings? Not impossible - but if it is the deck being given its due, then where are Infernities in ARC-V, which were dominant for far longer? Where are Plants or Synchrons, which were similarly common and remain in use today? What about Six Samurai, which was getting support during ARC-V's run? No. Far from being forced upon ARC-V, Crow was someone they wanted.

Which leads to the question, then: why would the creators of ARC-V want Crow? It would only make sense if he was a character they already liked. A character they were experienced with writing. Perhaps, even, a character they helped create. Such a person would have to have been prominent in the managing of both ARC-V and 5Ds.

A person like Katsumi Ono.

Now, am I saying this is a definitive fact? No. I have very little evidence aside from circumstance, dates, some statistics, supposition, and a tweet. But until I receive very compelling evidence to the contrary, I'm going to say: Konami did not create Crow. Crow is not Konami's pet character. If he's the pet character of anyone, it's one of the show's creators - likely Katsumi Ono. I myself have no idea why Ono would rewrite Crow's character, if it was Ono - but that is the only possibility that seems to fit the facts.

Now, feel free to pick me apart and tell me why I'm wrong.

EDIT: Wow, thanks for the response, guys. I'm incredibly grateful for the praise, and for the critique or counterarguments. In the name of the latter, I'm gonna answer some mentioned points here.

What if the actual point where Konami stepped in was the bit with the fridge? That was after Blackwings showed up.

While the fridge does seem like it was a turning point, Crow was already clearly a good guy by then. Why couldn't the person who turned him from villain to hero also turn him from hero to protagonist?

What if both Konami and Ono were involved?

That's not impossible, but it's not logically sound, either. We already know that Ono likes Crow, and we already have reason to think that someone in development was changing Crow's role for reasons unrelated to the card game. Konami is unnecessary to this equation.

You say that Konami never did this before, but what if they did it now?

What if they did? There's no evidence to suggest they did. There's no pattern of them doing this. They've never shown signs of wanting to do this. What reason do we have to believe they did it now? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this is the very definition of an extraordinary claim.

But Crow was clearly going to be a villain; look at him!

I'm not disputing that.

But Konami makes the cards. The anime just advertises them. Blackwing support in ARC-V had to have been pre-planned, and the anime writers introduced Crow to advertise it.

In that same arc, we have a Goyo Fusion. In the prior arc, we had Gem-Knights totally unrelated to the prior lore and playstyle. Do they seem like something Konami would have made on their own? The anime creates cards of its own volition all the time. Why couldn't they create new Blackwings? And again, this doesn't explain why Crow stayed prominent long after the last waves showed up.

But I remember a scan of a page that said he was a Dark Signer!

Great! Provide it. Because the last person to tell me this said that this page said he was a sympathetic recurring villain. I've provided links that you can check whenever you want; you can do the same.

So are you trying to defend Crow?

My dispute is with how he became what he was, not what he was. Whether you like Crow or not is entirely up to you, and I'd happily argue he was one of the blandest characters in the series. But I'm not dealing with opinions - I'm dealing with facts.