Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V

[Neutrality Man]

Remember Jack will be summoning his new synchro monster beside his new ace next episode, is very likely that Jack will be summoning that monster on his first turn

Okay then. Turn 1, Jack Syncs that Synchro instead of a random L5, (I'mma laugh if it's Dracoknights) and Yuya's turn isn't changed in the slightest, then tunes with that to make RDAS.

 

Point is Jack is going to OTK the moment he has the ability to attack.

[Pchi]

I didn't forget about Yuya's "egao" philosophy, but he does need to learn that there are certain occasions where it is not appropriate to try pushing it around.

He wants to make people smile, but reminder that while he has succeeded in most cases, there are certain ones that he has failed to make an impact on.

 

As already mentioned, it's fine that he wants to make people smile (because of his Entertainment Duelist dream), but balance that against surviving your matches; especially since Yuya is going up against a very seasoned duelist. How long do you think circus animals are going to survive against RDA Scarright and whatever else Jack throws out?

 

But the thing is, it's not just about making people smile; it's about not falling into despair in face of calamity, not letting your pride or other negative feelings come before the others' well-being, etc.

Though one could argue that Yuuya may not have fully understood that concept entirely - thus why Jack chastises him for his views next episode.

... now I realize I might've worded my last comment in an overtly agressive fashion, sorry for that.

[evilfusion]

Part of what makes Jack popular is he actually got significant character development, recognized the flaws of his thinking, and strived to become a better person for it, which he DID. He also has a taste for theatrics, which was in sharp contrast to Yusei's perpetually serious demeanor, and makes his downfalls more amusing without turning him into a joke. Being able to lose Duels also made him more relatable, whereas Crow took an eternity to lose a Duel officially (without deliberately throwing the match). Off-hand, the first Duel Crow officially "lost" (LP to 0, not losing on purpose) was against Team Taiyou.

[mshends]

[spoiler=65 spoiler]

Yuzu, who is worried about the defeated Yuya, is in danger...!?
Yuya keeps thinking about the words that Jack left him. At the same time, Yuzu is surrounded by Security!

 

 

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

[spoiler=65 spoiler]

Yuzu, who is worried about the defeated Yuya, is in danger...!?

Yuya keeps thinking about the words that Jack left him. At the same time, Yuzu is surrounded by Security!

 

 

[spoiler=Response]

Well, I suppose this means Yuya indeed loses his fight against Jack. 

Although that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

 

As for Security, suppose that Roger really intends to arrest her and Yugo.

Yeah, Roger's pretty much an jabroni in this series + definitely has some ulterior motive.

 

(Hell, even Goodwin was better than this guy. Heartland was probably as bad as Roger is now.)

 

 

[evilfusion]

Personally, I think the point IS that Yuuya hasn't understood the concept entirely. I personally think he'll have his epiphany when he visits Heartland... I'm looking forward to see how the writers address this. It's an important part of Yuuya's future character development, and also the most interesting theme in the show for me.

 

I agree that it's probably deliberate that Yuya's understanding and/or execution of the concept is flawed.

 

Genuine bad writing would make him consistently change the viewpoints of those around him. Without fail. Without any trace of irony. He'd be a Mary Sue protagonist if he was doing that. But because he's either failing entirely, or having a limited impact, the writers are doing it on purpose. They want it to be an overly idealistic theme, and that the protagonist spouting it is doing it WRONG.

[Timeline15]

The conversation between Crow and Yuya a few weeks ago is proof enough that Yuya doesn't understand the full concept. He seemed to think that as long as he made people smile, everything else would just magically be ok. This is true of Yuya in general, like how the response he got from his mom was "and then what?" when he mentioned his plan to save Yuzu. The whole smiles thing is an emotional crutch for him, so he assumes it will work on everyone else, to the point where he's been putting on circus acts in front of trained police officers.

I think this is all very deliberate on the part of the writers. Yuya isn't the brains of this show. Reiji comes up with all the plans, Tsukikage covers their asses when they fail, Shun is the one with actual tactics. Yuya is there to pendulum summon and sell cards.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Remember two weeks ago with Yuya and Sawatari getting better food at that time?

Yeah, his argument about "smiles" being more important got trashed at this point.

 

When food is involved, everyone smiled; even Reira, who is essentially a depressed little kid for the majority of the series.

If smiles are involved, not so much. Yuya tried to make Reira smile a few times, but failed.

 

Indeed, he did try his Entertainment Dueling in front of the Security sent to capture him, and they sure as hell weren't amused by it.

In his defense, he was trying to show that he wasn't Yugo, but yeah it was not an appropriate moment to use that.

 

I know that Yuto did request that Yuya make everyone smile with his duels before disappearing, but Yuya does need to know that not everything is solvable by smiles.

That's like saying that diplomatic talks are the solution to all of the world's problems; sometimes they work and other times, they will not.

 

-----

Yuya's basically the poster boy for ARC-V, so that much is certain, yes.

 

Then again, the same could be said for Jaden/Yuma; although they did improve over time and became respectable fighters. Heck, Yuya was pretty clumsy at his debut, but he got better.

Yusei filled this one in 5Ds, but for the most part, he was skilled from the beginning, so not much to say.

Yugi didn't really do much in DM until the end; most of the starring roles were attributed to Yami Yugi instead.

 

We haven't seen too much of Tsukikage yet, aside from him rescuing Reira/Serena from things. We'll see him do more later.

 

---------

It should be noted that unlike the others, Yuya doesn't have the ability to see spirits or talk to them.

Yugi = alter ego, Jaden = Yubel/Winged Kuriboh, Yusei = spirit of his father and Yuma = Astral.

[~British Soul~]

[spoiler=Response]

As for Security, suppose that Roger really intends to arrest her and Yugo.

Yeah, Roger's pretty much an jabroni in this series + definitely has some ulterior motive.

 

 

[spoiler=response to response]

I do remember JMR saying that if he were to arrest Banana and Yuzu at the friendship cup, it'd be a message to those in the commons or something like that.

 

 

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Yeah, Roger did say that he'd arrest Yuzu and Yugo at the Friendship Cup in episode 62 or something, once he saw the forms that Yugo filled out.

So that likely shouldn't be a surprise that Yuzu is surrounded by Security out of the blue.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Given the episode leak that mshends posted, it's likely that he's still going with his own agenda; even after the Executive Council told him that they'd decide whether or not Yuya and company are threats, and not him.

 

Indeed, we can never be sure what he's planning to do, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious of them.

[Pchi]

Remember two weeks ago with Yuya and Sawatari getting better food at that time?

Yeah, his argument about "smiles" being more important got trashed at this point.

 

When food is involved, everyone smiled; even Reira, who is essentially a depressed little kid for the majority of the series.

If smiles are involved, not so much. Yuya tried to make Reira smile a few times, but failed.

 

I think you didn't get the point of that argument.

It wasn't about how Yuuya's philosophy is foolish in face of extreme poverty; it was about how essential it is to attend to one's basic needs, specially in situations like that, but also how empty life can be without abstract concepts like fun, affection, knowledge, etc., even if they may seem superfluous at times. Neither side was supposed to be seen as entirely wrong on that matter.

[Timeline15]

Not to mention that he tends to go all depressed the instant his performances don't work, though he's getting more control over his beserk form (when are we seeing that again by the way? It feels like ages since it happened). Still, I'll take him over Yuma any day. At least Yuya handles problems quietly, rather than screaming at the top of his lungs.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

He probably will go crazy in episode 65 when he hears about Yuzu being arrested + everything unfolds from Roger's machinations.

But indeed, it's good taste that he isn't spamming it everywhere (although there haven't exactly been situations where there'd be enough anger to evoke it).

 

Eventually, he'll have to learn how to summon Odd-Eyes Rebellion without needing to go berserk (or whatever they decide to call that mode in English).

[evilfusion]

Yuya has Summoned Odd-Eyes Rebellion twice without going berserk. His rematch with Sora had him in a normal mindset (although he briefly went berserk before the Duel started), and he kept his head in his rematch with Reiji. He's only gone fully berserk in a Duel twice - when using Dark Rebellion the first time, and when acquiring Odd-Eyes Rebellion.

[Pchi]

Hell, I'll take him over all the other protagonists bar maybe Yusei. As for the berserk mode, I'm actually quite happy that he isn't spamming it. It's good that the writers are keeping it limited to very important occasions. Though you can bet what you want that he's definitely gonna go berserk during the Friendship Cup. Most likely when JMR tries to pull his coup.

 

I don't know how Yusei get a pass from the fans despite being the most blatant Marty Stu in the story of the franchise.

5D's in general is terribly overrated, IMHO. Not that it's bad, it's just that people tend to lick its boots way more than it deserves and overlook its faults much more than any other series (bar DM maybe). I only managed to watch it in full until episode 64, because the rest of the series (that way surpasses the genuinely good part in length) I found to be rather underwhelming.

[evilfusion]

I don't know how Yusei get a pass from the fans despite being the most blatant Marty Stu in the story of the franchise.

 

My hunch is because early series, Yusei was unique. Both his parents were confirmed dead. He grew up in poverty, had a hard lifestyle, and had a motif regarding the idea that nothing is trash, no matter how worthless it may appear. And he was really badass.

 

Later in the series, though, it became clear that he was essentially the Yugioh Messiah. Almost all his important Duels could be summed up as "We know Yusei is GOING to win, but it'll be awesome to see HOW he does it". Which...actually kind of happened. All the WRGP matches involved him being the final member of the team, facing seemingly insurmountable odds and yet coming out victorious. Team Unicorn required him to beat all 3 of them in a row, with the middle opponent running Deck Destruction. (Even the utterly BS writing of the ending isn't Yusei's fault - it's Jean's). Team Taiyou forced him to fight Zushin, after Jack and Crow failed to prevent it from being Summoned. Team Ragnarok had the entire team facing increasingly difficult situations, but pulling through relatively even, yet making the next opponent harder due to the Polar Gods. Yusei ended up facing all 3 at once. And Team New World had Yusei face the same thing Crow did - a 15500 Granel with Jose at 12000 LP, plus had to overcome Aporia and Machinicle after that trial.

 

Once the audience had more or less accepted that Yusei was going to win the Duel because he obviously had to, the rest of the Duel was purely spectacle. No real plot involvement or twists. He's going to win, but let's see the fantastic show he puts on for us.

 

The other Yugioh protagonists didn't quite have this type of relationship with winning vs spectacle/tension. Yugi would win because he had to. But his Duels weren't necessarily uber climactic ALL the time. Jaden would PROBABLY win, but he had the biggest on-screen losing record. Yuma could lose unimportant Duels, but the plot REQUIRED him to win any Duel involving a Number (or else Astral would die), which really killed the credibility of the tension of his 'barely surviving' scenarios and the Shining Draw was BS plot device to the millionth power.

 

Yugioh always has the lucky, climactic draws. In Arc-V, I'm convinced all characters have this going for them at all times. ALL times. Every character. Which makes the Duels exciting, weirdly enough. Heck, a good example is Gogenzaka vs Yaiba. Yaiba topdecked his anti-burn Quick-Play, with absolutely no knowledge he was about to get burned to death. Sora twice topdecked Des-Toy Fusion. Shun topdecked Revolution Force.

 

But 5Ds make the climactic draws more like combo pieces than outs. Which made Yusei seem cleverer despite using weirdly subpar cards.

[Neutrality Man]

My hunch is because early series, Yusei was unique. Both his parents were confirmed dead. He grew up in poverty, had a hard lifestyle, and had a motif regarding the idea that nothing is trash, no matter how worthless it may appear. And he was really badass.

 

Later in the series, though, it became clear that he was essentially the Yugioh Messiah. Almost all his important Duels could be summed up as "We know Yusei is GOING to win, but it'll be awesome to see HOW he does it". Which...actually kind of happened. All the WRGP matches involved him being the final member of the team, facing seemingly insurmountable odds and yet coming out victorious. Team Unicorn required him to beat all 3 of them in a row, with the middle opponent running Deck Destruction. (Even the utterly BS writing of the ending isn't Yusei's fault - it's Jean's). Team Taiyou forced him to fight Zushin, after Jack and Crow failed to prevent it from being Summoned. Team Ragnarok had the entire team facing increasingly difficult situations, but pulling through relatively even, yet making the next opponent harder due to the Polar Gods. Yusei ended up facing all 3 at once. And Team New World had Yusei face the same thing Crow did - a 15500 Granel with Jose at 12000 LP, plus had to overcome Aporia and Machinicle after that trial.

 

Once the audience had more or less accepted that Yusei was going to win the Duel because he obviously had to, the rest of the Duel was purely spectacle. No real plot involvement or twists. He's going to win, but let's see the fantastic show he puts on for us.

 

The other Yugioh protagonists didn't quite have this type of relationship with winning vs spectacle/tension. Yugi would win because he had to. But his Duels weren't necessarily uber climactic ALL the time. Jaden would PROBABLY win, but he had the biggest on-screen losing record. Yuma could lose unimportant Duels, but the plot REQUIRED him to win any Duel involving a Number (or else Astral would die), which really killed the credibility of the tension of his 'barely surviving' scenarios and the Shining Draw was BS plot device to the millionth power.

 

Yugioh always has the lucky, climactic draws. In Arc-V, I'm convinced all characters have this going for them at all times. ALL times. Every character. Which makes the Duels exciting, weirdly enough. Heck, a good example is Gogenzaka vs Yaiba. Yaiba topdecked his anti-burn Quick-Play, with absolutely no knowledge he was about to get burned to death. Sora twice topdecked Des-Toy Fusion. Shun topdecked Revolution Force.

 

But 5Ds make the climactic draws more like combo pieces than outs. Which made Yusei seem cleverer despite using weirdly subpar cards.

 

That, and as far as I've seen, he's the only protagonist so far to not cheat in any way.

 

The only time his Extra Deck would have surpassed 15 was the final Duel against ZONE, and we saw him take cards out to make room for the Signer Dragons onscreen... after which he still had 1 slot left for Quasar to spawn in. (I don't consider card ex deus cheating since it was explained in a way.)

[Pchi]

Later in the series, though, it became clear that he was essentially the Yugioh Messiah. Almost all his important Duels could be summed up as "We know Yusei is GOING to win, but it'll be awesome to see HOW he does it". Which...actually kind of happened. All the WRGP matches involved him being the final member of the team, facing seemingly insurmountable odds and yet coming out victorious. Team Unicorn required him to beat all 3 of them in a row, with the middle opponent running Deck Destruction. (Even the utterly BS writing of the ending isn't Yusei's fault - it's Jean's). Team Taiyou forced him to fight Zushin, after Jack and Crow failed to prevent it from being Summoned. Team Ragnarok had the entire team facing increasingly difficult situations, but pulling through relatively even, yet making the next opponent harder due to the Polar Gods. Yusei ended up facing all 3 at once. And Team New World had Yusei face the same thing Crow did - a 15500 Granel with Jose at 12000 LP, plus had to overcome Aporia and Machinicle after that trial.

 

And that's the main problem with him for me: I don't care about how much of a spectacle he might put on, him constantly hogging the spotlight of all other main characters, getting to duel way more than any of his companions, even Jack and Crow, irks me a lot, and him overcoming such insurmountable odds repeatedly all by himself only manages to make him look even more Stu-ish. By god, he never lost one single duel over the course of the series (save for that one flashback against Jack, and off-screen on top of that)! And I don't care if he'd lose to Kiryu had his D-Wheel not broken the first time they faced off - the fact that it conveniently stopped working just he was about to lose is jarring by itself. Yeah, he'd "die" if he lost, but it was still really stupid, and the could've written the scenario in a more convincing way. Everybody finds him awesome - HE'S THE HOPE OF SATELLITE!!! -, and if you don't, either you're an irredeemable jerk, or you're going to be converted sooner or later. He's got the most beautiful, smart and badass girl in the whole show - well, at least until Part 2 derail her entire characterization in order to amp her infatuation up to eleven - all head over heels for him, but he barely notices her feelings or show reciprocity (not that treated her badly, though), and few things annoy me more in shounen(-esque) works than that stupid cliché where the main girl's feelings for the male lead (as well as his other supposed love interests) are made very clear from the start, but he hardly shows any interest for her, with the implication that romance is a girl's thing, and no boy in his right mind would waste time with that ¬¬. I'm sorry, but with ZeXal and Shining Draw, Yuma at least had an in-universe justification for his most implausible achievements - Yusei, on the other hand, only had the writers' favouritism to blame. You can all call me a heretic, but I'd rather have a extremely flawed protagonist than one without a single one (Yusei's only "flaw" in the show, that is, his occasional fear of opponents he felt that could beat him, wasn't properly explored either).

That, and as far as I've seen, he's the only protagonist so far to not cheat in any way.

 

The only time his Extra Deck would have surpassed 15 was the final Duel against ZONE, and we saw him take cards out to make room for the Signer Dragons onscreen... after which he still had 1 slot left for Quasar to spawn in. (I don't consider card ex deus cheating since it was explained in a way.)

Majestic Dragon.

And, to me, remaining unbeath for so long despite facing increasingly higher odds, while regularly topdecking the key card for his victory is, effectively, no different from cheating to me.

[mshends]

I'd personally point out that Yuma (IIRC, he's really just a random shmuck who got sucked in the plot and decided to screw destiny because friendship) is possibly the only YGO protagonist to break the pattern - and even he in the end becomes some sort of messiah.

But isn't Yuma a part of Astral? (That would explain how he shining draws and stuffs)

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

It's likely the inverse (pretty similar to how Yugi interacted with his other half back in DM).

Astral got involved with Yuma because of his key, and then the whole plot started.

 

But after episode 18 or something, you could probably say the two of them had become one at this point, and could pull off Shining Draws + whatever.

 

------------

As for the climactic draws, it does happen rather often in this series.

To be fair though, Yuya owes several of his wins to said luck draws; otherwise he would've lost a few times [especially with that match against Tokumatsu]. 

[Pchi]

I hope I didn't bother any of you with my over-the-top rant. To be perfectly honest, what annoys me the most is how willing are people to overlook what, to me, are painfully obvious and grating issues with Yusei just because he's "badass", than the character himself. For the most part, I'm actually pretty neutral to him (mostly because I skipped almost entirely the part where his messianic traits are most overplayed), and even appreciate some aspects and moments with him (I totally agree with the first part of Evilfusion's reply, for instance); it's just the fans' attitude makes it harder to bear his worst attributes. But maybe that's just me.

[evilfusion]

It helps that the writing for 5Ds in the first season was phenomenal. It went downhill from there, but was still good.

 

 

 

As for the climactic draws, it does happen rather often in this series.

To be fair though, Yuya owes several of his wins to said luck draws; otherwise he would've lost a few times [especially with that match against Tokumatsu]. 

 

That's my point, though. EVERYONE has this going for them. It's not just one character constantly lucksacking a win. All the characters seem to get exactly what they need for their situation, whether or not they're consciously aware they need it. And since Arc-V has been better about giving other characters the spotlight, this is more far palatable to see all the time, to the point where I legitimately believe the Arc-V universe runs this way - extremely good draws are given to everyone, all the time, villain and protagonist alike.

[Neutrality Man]

I have to say, I noticed the messiah nature of Yuusei's existance, but wrote it off as Shounen Protagonist Syndrome. Nevertheless, he still remains my favorite of the 5 because he's got a damn brain.

 

• Yugi: Needlessly Duel the security guard to get by while blathering about his Millenium Magic cheating Heart of the Cards.
• Jaden: Needlessly Duel the security guards to get by while spouting Tèa Gardner-levels of Friendship Speech.
• Yuusei: SHOURYUKEN! Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku! Open door, proceed to important duel against the antagonist.
• Yuma: Needlessly Duel the security guards to get by, Create a fake card that says "I win if I control Number 39: Utopia" and topdeck it. (Bandit Keith says hi.)
• Yuya: Put on a circus act for the guards while Captain Falcon gets s*** done.

[VCR_CAT]

One of the big differences that we see with Arc V is how more involved each of the cast are in larger duels. Because of these more frequent Battle Royals, we can see characters like Yuya, and Sawatari (especially) lose and do bad more often. For once, Joey isn't the only character to actually almost brick on an opening draw (but he kind of is).

Anyways, re: Yusei, the reason I've come to like him the most is that his card combos are a lot more intricate than most protagonists. Yuma used a TON of single-card wins and relied on Utopia to win 95% of his duels. While yeah, Yusei used Stardust a lot, he also had a lot of duels where he didn't use Stardust at all and had a lot of variety in his plays and duels. It's like he actually ran 15 cards in his Extra Deck! Otherwise, Yusei felt like a smart, complete character, but that isn't to say I don't have complaints. While he came across as mature, smart, and like a real person who knew how to actually approach a lot of situations; his character felt a little... under-developed and not as full as it could've been. It didn't seem like he had any interests beyond mechanics and dueling, and I KNOW most people have more hobbies than 2 in their lives. On top of that, it always annoys me how mature and complete his character arc was throughout the entire series. That is to say, he didn't have a character arc. I get that the point was to focus on the growth and development of his friends, and they did an EXCELLENT job of that; but I would've appreciated more apparent flaws with Yusei's character. As much as I like his character, it's still a little too close to Mary Sue territory for my liking.

That being said, I'm not going to fault Shining/Destiny Draws against any character, except Yuma because he blatantly MADE CARDS MID-DUEL. But I won't fault them because it's a problem with each series, not one in particualr. Topdecks like that totally do happen IRL, and I've experienced a lot of them on both ends. They just don't happen as consistently as each character gets them.

To improve this, I think the YGO series would benefit a lot from a round-robin format with matches in a tournament; make it so that they can afford to have the characters legitimately lose more often. Either that, or make their deck designs actually better and more consistent so that it makes a lot more sense on why they open well most duels. Or heck, maybe make the topdecks not even necessary; it's still possible to have very interesting and intense duels without clutch topdecks. Miracle topdecks are fine, just not EVERY duel.