Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V

[Astro Dude]

Lisa Ortiz was in 4 different yugioh series. She was not in this one.

 

SHE'D BETTER VOICE AOI IN VRAINS! It could be perfect for her.

 

[spoiler If I am to be blunt]

Clemont, go back to your inventions you're a horrible Yuya.

 

 

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

There's no guarantee that Ortiz will be voicing anyone in VRAINS, let alone Aoi (or whatever this gets changed to for dub purposes). What is to say that she chose not to do any dubbing roles this generation? (Also you're the only one in here who even cares about the VA for the dubs)

 

====

Agreed on Reiji needing a lot more screentime than he did, as he really didn't duel that much throughout the entire series (as opposed to the other rivals who actually did stuff).

[Expelsword]

There's no guarantee that Ortiz will be voicing anyone in VRAINS, let alone Aoi (or whatever this gets changed to for dub purposes). What is to say that she chose not to do any dubbing roles this generation? (Also you're the only one in here who even cares about the VA for the dubs)

 

====

Agreed on Reiji needing a lot more screentime than he did, as he really didn't duel that much throughout the entire series (as opposed to the other rivals who actually did stuff).

 

Reiji should have just done everything himself.

Every Lancer other than Yuya turned out to be jobbing trash except Tsukikage, and he was only good for his actual ninja skills, not his dueling skills.

[Brinolovania]

Reiji should have just done everything himself.

Every Lancer other than Yuya turned out to be jobbing trash except Tsukikage, and he was only good for his actual ninja skills, not his dueling skills.

Selena was pretty good. Her only loss (when she was un-branwashed and using her own deck) was against Yugo who had plot armor coming out of his ass. But yeah, it seems like it would've made more sense for Reiji to just sheet on all of Academia himself...

 

Also maybe I missed this earlier in the discussion, but am I only one who thinks the Synchro arc felt really disconnected from the rest of the show? Like, that arc had its own villain (Roger), its own final boss (Jack), even its own cards the protag gets as he learns more (Enlightenment and Nirvana High). They said they were going to look for more allies, but in the end, the only person they brought with them was Crow, and then Jack came by himself later. I can't think of a single thing either of those characters did, outside of Jack's duel with Yuya at the Friendship Cup finals, that another character couldn't have done. The main plot in Synchro didn't even seem to be about Academia. It felt more like it was about Yuya trying to improve his entertainment so he could save the City. Standard, Xyz, and Fusion were all directly connect, but Synchro, for most of it, seemed like the writers just inserted a totally separate, largely irrelevant arc in the middle of a larger story. But then, kinda of contradictorily, the writers added almost no new characters for the Synchro dimension, and only one or two of the new ones were any good. So they were totally relying on characters from outside the dimension, plus Yugo, despite the fact that almost nothing else connected to the world outside Synchro. 

 

Like, you could legitimately have changed a couple characters a little bit and modified a few episodes and tell me the Synchro arc was the first season of a new Yugioh show and I'd probably believe you.

[evilfusion]

I'll concede that Yuya's GROWTH throughout the series was spectacular, and I really did enjoy his Dueling in the last few episodes for the most part. It was true to his origins, but with confidence and he did much better with his phrases and execution than he did in the early show, when his spectacle was him trying too hard to emulate his father.

 

Yuya WAS a likable, good character, especially considering the premise and how the plot messed with his life and ideals. When I think about it much more, I DO like Yuya as a character, even if he isn't quite what I normally expect and want from a Yugioh protagonist. His uniqueness in a sense was a plus. I guess my only real major issue was how his "Entertainment" tended to be really cringe-worthy at times, and when combined with how the later arcs were clearly rushing (Xyz and Fusion and how his entertainment made Academia forces change sides), it hurt his credibility by breaking my suspension of disbelief. So maybe I'm being too hard on his character due to how the rushed story arcs mishandled his entertainment philosophy.

 

It never really bothered me, compared to others here, that Yuya didn't get Clear Wing or Starve Venom earlier. They were hyping up the idea of Yugo being a rival to the other Yus, starting with the misunderstanding and recurring conflict between Yugo and Yuto, due to the actual involvement of Yuri, suggesting that Yugo vs Yuri was a big event to come. And obviously, Yuri has to win that Duel, because Yugo is not the main protagonist, and Yuri has been hyped as a MAJOR threat without us actually seeing him do much on-screen, such as Roger being terrified at the mere THOUGHT of Yuri being sent to the Synchro Dimension. And since Yuri won, he's the one who gets Clear Wing.

 

I think part of the Synchro Dimension Arc's disconnect is because the writers were probably informed late into the production of the Synchro Arc plotline that they had to trim content, and that's why Xyz and Fusion had to be rushed. It's likely that the Amazoness Duelists and Edo were going to be more significant plot characters in the Xyz Dimension Arc had they not been pushed for early completion, and Kaito would have been given a bit more proper development before becoming an ally as well. Then they could have gone to Academia together.

 

Even the BB arc made logical story sense in the grander scale, but was rushed. The Academia student soldiers weren't REALLY aware of the severity of what they were being involved in. The "top students" that were pitted against the Lancers started freaking out when their peers were being carded. And this was like...a very intense simulation, not even "REAL" war. This would have instilled the seed of doubt among the others and made it more reasonable for Yuya's ideals to come through. That was probably the story intent of that section, and it just was handled badly due to time constraints.

 

Against Zarc, I DID like the idea of the gauntlet, but maybe it's more the way Zarc's effects were handled as being essentially lockdown effects, rather than just a collection of really powerful abilities that let him overpower everyone. I mused at one point that his effects being "unfun" and ridiculously win-focused was deliberate, based on Crow's comments about it, but whatever.

[Sleepy]

I don't know how legit my complaints are because from the second Yuya vs Aster duel all the way to the professor's explanation of Zarc, I skipped. I also understand that networks don't really approve a series for 100+ episodes in a secured fashion. They usually would only go by about 12-episode "season" bundles or if proven successful by confirmation of 2 or 3 of these bundles at a time. Arc V could have easily turned out to have been screwed up by its network's agenda and it could very well be the reason we are getting this month-long hiatus before VRAINS. If that has screwed up the narrative of even shorter shows in the past (looking at you Avatar, Legend of Korra), how could it not do it to long-running ones like Yugioh?

 

I think when they make a series in the future they pre-prepare shorter versions of their drafts preemptively in the case of future contingencies. Changing things in a more improvised manner can make the new version messy. I know 5Ds was meant to have more episodes and Arc V clearly needed more time on all archs past the Synchro Dimension (and less time in the Synchro dimension, why did they do that for?). Writing on shorter notice while the series itself is still running did work for them during GX since that one I remember meant to permanently replace Yugi's cast after Kazuki Takahashi decided to end DM and not make Yugi the next Ash Ketchum, so he gave them Jaden as the new Token protagonist. However, the aimless slice of life flow started to drop the series' popularity so they had to introduce a plot. Shadow Riders were pretty out of nowhere and Sartorius' arch was meant to be a movie initially, but we eventually got Yubel's season so at least things worked out.

 

Yuya in Arc V has a few struggles I am bothered with.

 

First, their "Champion" token for the introduction duel. All non-pro duelists throughout the series duel better than Strong Ichijima by a longshot. He especially is laughably weak when you compare him to even Yuya's dad's duel who he pretended to beat. Yet he was champion for 3 years. Really this is telling us he was still the best active pro duelist during that long. I don't think "beat the champion" is a good premise for the first duel anymore. That first duel in any series is always a tutorial so that downgrades the tittle of champion. Plus, Strong just brushed himself aside after his loss never to be heard of again, and I'm pretty sure the bulky guy in the poster of VRAINS is gonna be something similar to this. Yugi vs Kaiba have clear parallels here down to the asspull win-condition, but Atem was already skillful at games and confident (even though the basic gameplay of the time doesn't let it shine much) and both get steadily better as the game evolves with them. 

Vanguard had another example of a better introductory duel. Kai vs Aichi had Kai be very strong while main character Aichi just had his cool ace and was otherwise a beginner. Even though Kai is a serious rival he gradually explained the rules as he went along. This even served to show Kai wasn't just the typical badass rival with a killjoy attitude but rather somebody passionate and serious.

 

In Arc V, the contrast is way too big in power level. They kind of want to show that at the beginning more or less the average duelist will Tribute Summon a Level 7 using 2 monsters. Even the champion does it and a lancer from the previous generation has Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth as its ace, and they specifically say these lancers are better than just the students who run Constellars or X Sabers. Then most of the main cast and villains everywhere have what I could only describe as unfairly superior cards compared to the rest. Pretty much two different games there. Makes the world feel smaller, like only those directly tied to the plot will get to be strong enough.

 

 

I am not really satisfied with the final outcome of the counterparts. They are suddenly all OK with it. Yugo had a specific dream and life, but now he's gonna have to live Yuya's dream instead, and even though the 4 are combined into 1 again, Zarc is not there but rather in Reira's body. Then Yuri, Yuri just became good all of a sudden. That is a plot that should have been shown. He was pretty much irredeemable.

 

 

Yuya had a few opponents that he never really surpassed. Serena's bodyguard was owning him, but here comes Sergey to conveniently rescue Yuya. Serena's bodyguard never shows up again as far as I've seen. Then Sergey proceeds to beat Yuya too, and then he dies after Jack's duel. Yuya pretty much beat everybody else he dueled against, except for maybe Aster and Reiji on each respective first duel.

 

 

Action duels give me a hard time wanting to go re-watch some of these. I also know of a couple kids out there that liked making a deck and testing out against characters in the anime. Around 10-ish years ago I had a habit of trying to have my decks survive against Crowler's first game. Though now in Arc V everything is more chaotic with the plot giving the characters however many more cards as they need. Yuya much of the time plays his strategies naked, as he just seems to trust whatever Action Card he gets will help him out, as opposed to what other previous series did where traps and defensive tactics were thought out into the deck. Action duels is not something I really enjoyed, plus it clashed with Riding Duels and they decided to off Speed Spells because they wanted Action Cards to be used. It would have made more sense for them to be adapted to the place they travel to, not having the environment adapt to their needs. Yes I know Reiji helped prepare the event with the Synchro dimension bosses but still.

 

 

Yuzu could have been the best female lead but the world and plot was built around her being a damsel in distress most of the time. I expected her (well... Ray) to at least get a final duel with Zarc but even those bits she was struggling to get even a body and only played the Spells and went away as every other duelist paved the way with loses that set her up. Which was also cheap on the other duelists. I would have preferred if, for example, Zarc's Pendulum strategy involved gradually using each of the 4 dragons and have his opponents face a back and forth with each, getting to beat part of the strategy in the process, and have Zarc (the card) come out afterwards. I think I had the same complaint in ZeXal with Nach just swarming with CNumbers and skipping proper summon and gradual growth as the duel progresses, or how Don Thousand just asspulled OG Numbers 1-4 like that because he had bigger bosses the writers wanted to quickly get to. Guess it reflects the IRL game nowadays where you need to really start on turn 1 or you are creamed....

 

 

I had more thoughts on this but I'm gonna be late for work if I write anymore, so I'll leave it like this for now. Not gonna edit this, just gonna make another comment when I need to xD

[Just Crouton]

[spoiler=Wall of post-series rambling]

Didn't like the show that much.

 

The art style is gorgeous, and the character designs are far superior to Zexal, but the show was kind of boring. I tuned out partway into Synchro arc, then didn't pick it up again until near the end of Fusion arc.

 

Recently, I've been watching episodes of DM (mostly Battle City and Doma) and GX on YouTube, and find myself watching the same duels over and over, something I sadly can't say about Arc-V's duels.

 

That's the thing about DM and GX. Yugi vs. Kaiba in Battle City is arguably the greatest protagonist vs. rival showdown in the show's history, one of the big reasons being that Life Points were never used to create tension. It focused on what really set Yugi and Kaiba apart, with Yugi utilizing weak monsters with Spells and Traps, and Kaiba consistently maintaining enough damage on board to wipe Yugi out. Yugi had 1000 more LP than Kaiba for large a portion of the duel (3000 LP vs. Kaiba's LP), but Kaiba was always the one on the offensive, constantly stopping Yugi's attacks and forcing Yugi to rely on unorthodox tactics to save his monsters.

 

All of this was helped with a diverse, energetic soundtrack to set the mood at critical moments of this battle between 2 spiky-haired weirdos dramatically reading pieces of paper at each other, occasionally preaching about how totally rad friendship is.

 

It also helped that the characters described their monster effects in a way that gave these monsters personality. Raphael took Dreadscythe's effect text "If this card would be destroyed, you must discard 1 card instead (this is not optional)" and described it something to the effect of "Dreadscythe's ability forces me to sacrifice a card from my hand, and I don't have a choice. This is Dreadscythe's will." It really made the monsters feel like characters.

 

Which is what made Arc-V frustrating. The duels are so goddamn boring. These characters literally read the cards in an dull, mechanical way that makes their monsters, which stand around and do nothing until told to move (yes, I know this is standard in every series,) feel like pieces of paper that stand around and do nothing until told to move. This was made more painful with a dull-as-hell soundtrack that makes 3 minute scenes where the characters stand like gargoyles and read walls of text feel like 10 agonizing minutes ("White Hot Fighting Spirit" is probably the only BGM that ever got my blood pumping.)

 

Then they introduced the Action Duel gimmick, and do the bare minimum with it. The point was to interact with the monsters and the surroundings, yet the monsters stand idle until the player does something instead of interacting with the surroundings. The players run around...at a speed barely above walking...and it's boring barring that one legitimately good duel where that martial arts guy was using the Action Duel to beat the crap out of Yuya.

 

Action Duels would look amazing if they placed more emphasis on the characters physical talents, Yuya and Yuzu being skilled acrobats, other characters being martial artists, ninjas, dancers, whatever, with their monsters designed with secondary modes to support the characters doing cool sheet.

 

The CGI was far less offensive compared to Zexal, although I wish they used stronger sound effects when things blew up so I could actually feel the loud, explosive impact caused by the colorful anime nonsense on screen. I see the impact, but feel nothing.

 

I liked the Synchro arc, in concept at least. Watching the Synchro arc on and off, it's really what 5D's should've been. In GX, the world was kind of naturally heading towards what the Synchro dimension was like, a cruel world where losing a card game means losing everything. GX did show that life post-Duel Academy was going to suck, (though that could just be life post-high school.)

 

Zarc's character reminded me of GX, and how it subtly criticized its, and later show's premises about societies obsessed with, or built around a single popular cardgame. Basically, it would suck. Societal pressure wearing down duelists, seen with Zane's downward spiral into Hell Kaiser, and Mr. Stein's growing health problems eventually causing the audience to turn on him, and forcing him to retire. Yuya becoming Zarc after his friends cheered him on to win was the first time in the franchise I ever thought "damn. That was a good twist."

 

Yuya's the best protagonist the show has ever had, mainly because The Chazz wasn't the star of GX. Except I don't care about him. Never clicked with me. Not an issue with character development or whatever. I just don't care much for a character whose goal is to make people smile. Personally, I would've preferred more a Dick Grayson-type, where he's a showman breaking away from a father he used to look up to in order to find himself while chasing redheads (speaking of Dick, Battlewasp guy always looked like a Frankensteining of Yusei and Nightwing's second costume to me.)

 

If I had complaints about Yuya, his character design would've been better if he either ditched the jacket, or wore it normally outside of duels like Yugi. The jacket-cape looked kind of clunky when Yuya did more athletic stuff. Minor stuff.

 

I'd jabroni about the lack of The Chazz (and Bastion...and Axel...,) but considering that Arc-V's gags never made me smile, I should probably be grateful he wasn't here.

 

 

 

[Bringerofcake]

Gonna spill my thought in no cohesive order:

 

 

I also think Action Duels were severely underutilized. Hell, one of the reasons the Sora/Shun duel is so fondly remembered is that the ACTUAL FIELD KO'S SORA. I mean hell with how much emphasis Synchro had on Riding Duels, we could have seen a lot more liberty with how they were played. I'm pretty sure the only reason Cross Over was a thing was internal consistency, as despite the field being in play there were only a few instances where people would actually move and utilize the battlefield to its potential instead of "whoops here's a conveniently placed action card".

 

And that's how I thought Arc V would actually go: Yuya (and the rest of Standard I suppose) shows people that dueling can be more entertaining than people standing around yelling card text at each other. It certainly could have been built more toward that goal, utilized the gimmick of the show (aside from Pendulum), and like Machismo above me said, showcased the characters' distinctions. The first Kachidoki duel is actually one of my favorites, because Kachidoki himself is actually fighting and involving the players in the game, as well as the monster fights.

 

And then the show just stops remembering that action duels are a thing after a while, using it as a means to make plot device cards without actually making plot device cards.

 

I honestly didn't have that much of an issue with the legacy characters, except that they didn't commit as fully as they should have. let's look:

GX:

Rival guy: Edo

Best friend guy: Askuka (I mean I know it's supposed to be sho, but he wasn't serious enough???)

 

5D's:
Rival guy: Jack

Best friend guy: Crow

 

Zexal

Rival guy: Kaito

Best friend guy: ?????

 

Maybe it was problems in negotiations, or maybe Ono just didn't like him, or maybe he got cut along with half the season for Xyz, or maybe he lost a poll, but I was personally irritated by the lack of Shark in the Xyz Arc. It seemed like a perfect fit, especially with how dark his storyline gets in Zexal 2.

 

I didn't like the final duel one bit. Both players kept using cheat cards to summon bosses, and in Reiji's case they were wholly unnecessary and uninspired (both the summoning cards and the bosses themselves). And while the touch of forcing Reiji to ACTUALLY ACTION DUEL was nice, to me it played out similarly to the end of the battle royale with Gongenzaka, complete with all the tension the writers expected there to be and there really wasn't.

 

A lot of my other thought can be summed up in "wasted potential", but I'm happy to discuss individual points.

[Sleepy]

Ideally, I would have liked a more consistent "best friend and rival" set of cameos.

GX would ideally have Chazz + Jessie. Aster was beaten by Chazz at the end of the series and Zane became more of a couch after having Syrus inherit all his Cyber cards. Then Jessie would maybe compete with Syrus but Syrus was such a late bloomer of a duelist and wasn't directly involved with Jaden's duels on the second half so those are my picks.

 

Jack + Crow sounds about right for 5Ds.

Kaito sounds about right for ZeXal, but the lack of Shark was glaring to me. Then again, Shark was directly more involved with the Numbers than Kaito was so it'd be harder to detach him from and put him into a universe where Numbers don't seem to exist.

Joey + Kaiba also lacked just to make it a real homage to all previous series.

 

Then again, I'm actually glad they didn't bring out all these characters. The cameos were half-baked IMO. It felt more like a disservice to the ones that did show up. Best treated one was Jack.

 

I'm undecided on if I would rather have them go all the way with these, or not at all.

 

It would have been cool to have them really travel to the worlds of the other shows. Do Riding Duels with Speed World 2 on, name the Crimson Dragon with its Signer Dragons and shout out BURNING SOUL. Face against Numbers and their BS no-battle destruction clause and their S and/or C evolutions. Then again, it is Yuya's series so every big thing from all other series would wind up losing to Zarc so I'd probably rather not.

[Blake]

ftr jack was treated like sheet

 

he got screentime, but he was written to be a funking jabroni almost all of it, without any reason behind it

 

rip dark signer arc jack

[Sleepy]

Yeah he was the best treated cameo but that doesn't really make it good. I would have rather seen a full on cross-over series or have Arc V not touch them.

I like the little support cards like Red Resonator or Distopian Guy, but all in all, I liked Arc V much better before they started jumping into other dimensions. 

[Astro Dude]

In my opinion, a disappointing end, to a disappointing anime.

[~British Soul~]

It would have been cool to have them really travel to the worlds of the other shows. Do Riding Duels with Speed World 2 on, name the Crimson Dragon with its Signer Dragons and shout out BURNING SOUL.

Technically, the Crimson Dragon was mentioned by name whenever Jack summoned Tyrant.

[Sleepy]

Technically, the Crimson Dragon was mentioned by name whenever Jack summoned Tyrant.

 

He did? I'd need to re-watch those scenes. Sounds like if they did, it just got all like "not my problem broh" xD

Reminded me of the abridged movie dialogue of Yusei and the Crimson Dragon lol.

"You can time travel too? Can you take me back in time to see my parents?"

"Nooooo.... That would be a lame use of my powers!"

Maybe what happened is that in this reincarnation of signers not all of them are around....

 

 

- - - - -

 

 

*cough*

Something that's been bothering me is that they said the dimensions are now together again, but it's kind of abstract...

We never really saw clearly what the original dimension's world was like. I mean, we see a little bit but not the world itself.

Now that they are all fused, we are pretty much only shown Miami being the same as ever.

 

I originally was hoping for a finale in which the Yu boys and the girls remained separate and where their locations changed from dimensionally located to geographically located close-by (which would ironically make them more of a pain to travel to). Then we'd see the life of the boys and girls back in their place, with an overview of how those locations evolved ever since the lancers passed by. Even if they used a ton of still frames it would have been great IMO. Then have the last scenes be something along the lines of Reiji or maybe Yusho making a new tournament in which all the boys and girls are partaking on, showing they can now safely be together without need of the bracelets to pull them away.

 

^The show didn't exactly line up with that at all, but that's what I was hoping for halfway into the series.

Instead what we got was "all the Yus get to live Yuya's dream without any hint of their personalities in him. He's still just Yuya and they are fine with that".

 

Reiji's bosses at the end were alright, but something I think is a very glaring flaw of Reiji's (which ties with the issue of his expensive VA causing fewer scenes with him on) is that his last duel's bosses just happened. There needed to be duels for him where he got to unlock those powers individually so that they would have more weight at that last duel when played together.... 

[~British Soul~]

He did? I'd need to re-watch those scenes. Sounds like if they did, it just got all like "not my problem broh" xD

Reminded me of the abridged movie dialogue of Yusei and the Crimson Dragon lol.

"You can time travel too? Can you take me back in time to see my parents?"

"Nooooo.... That would be a lame use of my powers!"

I also remember the Crimson Dragon in saying the abridged movie that if Yusei went over 88mph, he'd be violating the speed limit, lel.

(I will say this though; when Jack summoned Tyrant in the dub, the Crimson Dragon is not mentioned)

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

@Sleepy: For reference, the Crimson Dragon is referenced in Tyrant's summon chant. 
 
赤き竜の魂に触れ (Akakiryū no tamashī ni fure, "touch the soul of the Crimson Dragon"). That, and you should see the Crimson Dragon flying behind RDA-Scarlight when it's being Double Tuned (unless that got taken out of the dub).

 

Not exactly an explicit reference, but it's there.

 

*cough*

Something that's been bothering me is that they said the dimensions are now together again, but it's kind of abstract...

We never really saw clearly what the original dimension's world was like. I mean, we see a little bit but not the world itself.

Now that they are all fused, we are pretty much only shown Miami being the same as ever.

 

I originally was hoping for a finale in which the Yu boys and the girls remained separate and where their locations changed from dimensionally located to geographically located close-by (which would ironically make them more of a pain to travel to). Then we'd see the life of the boys and girls back in their place, with an overview of how those locations evolved ever since the lancers passed by. Even if they used a ton of still frames it would have been great IMO. Then have the last scenes be something along the lines of Reiji or maybe Yusho making a new tournament in which all the boys and girls are partaking on, showing they can now safely be together without need of the bracelets to pull them away.

 

^The show didn't exactly line up with that at all, but that's what I was hoping for halfway into the series.

Instead what we got was "all the Yus get to live Yuya's dream without any hint of their personalities in him. He's still just Yuya and they are fine with that".

 

Reiji's bosses at the end were alright, but something I think is a very glaring flaw of Reiji's (which ties with the issue of his expensive VA causing fewer scenes with him on) is that his last duel's bosses just happened. There needed to be duels for him where he got to unlock those powers individually so that they would have more weight at that last duel when played together.... 

 

Yeah, they essentially wrote off the other Yus and bracelet girls for Yuya and Yuzu to remain as their combined forms at the end; latter of whom did NOTHING for the remaining half of the series. Would've been nice to have them re-split apart. Let's face it, Serena did more than Yuzu ever did on-screen. 

 

Can agree that Reiji needed to duel more as to build up the fact he's a pro, but he got very minimal screentime fighting. 

 

====

Problem with this series:

• Too many characters to develop (Rin and Ruri didn't get a proper duel; as in dueling without being under the influence). Some of the cameos were OK, but others, meh.
  • Yusho only got one proper duel and Yuri kicked his ass hard later (but I suppose he at least did something). Other than that, where the hell was he for half of the show?
  • Yuzu started off good, but then got killed by Sergey and never again dueled. (Then again, Kotori was worse off by comparison)
• Expanded Synchro arc (I'm not really complaining about this) that cut into the Xyz/Fusion arcs being properly developed.
• Yuya's entertainment turning certain duels into literal circuses (and somehow the entire Academia is supposed to be persuaded after one duel)
  • I'm talking about the Battle Beast duel in this case; had promise, but you know what happens. (That, and what he did against the Tyler sisters and Aster)
  • Before someone decides to go after me for criticizing Yuya, yes, I know that he was supposed to be finding where he belongs in this world (and that it's his thing), but the fact remains that he needs to know when it's appropriate to turn the duel into a performance (and some instances were certainly not that). 
• Anime-level crap that will never be feasible in actual matches during the final episode (see Reiji spamming evolved Armageddons and Yuya with stuff that really should've come up earlier on). 
• Yuya got two new Synchros against Jack, but does he ever use them again? No.