Why Yugioh 5ds is the worst yugioh series

[potatoechips302]

Hello peoples! This is my hate thread for yugioh 5ds, which explains why it is the worst yugioh. Agree or disagree, but feel free to post your opinions here! Anyways onto the explanation.

 

Most people say yugioh 5ds is the best series because it is "mature" and "dark" when i say it is the least mature an dark of any yugioh anime. This is solely based on the reason the bad guy never wins any duels againest the good guys. For example, Am i the only person who noticed the dark signers didnt win ANY duels? (not counting Carly's win over Sayer because it was pointless filler). The dark signers couldn't even win duels against non-signers, as shown in Crows victory over Greiger or how that monkey dude couldn't beat Leo. Those were two characters who at the time in the story could've let die without too much impact. Also in the final duel of the dark signer arc, Goodmin didnt beat a SINGLE duelist! Jack and Crow were both left with 1 lifepoint and could still activate their traps on their duel runners. If this was any other yugioh series their life points would have hit zero.

 

Another reason i hate 5ds is that Yusei is the only protagonist to never lose any duel in the series. The closest he comes to losing is against is againest Kalin Kesslar but his duel runner breaks for sake of plot which keeps him alive. Yusei never losing creates a very weak, predictable storyline where the good guy always wins no matter what.

 

Third reason 5ds is the worst is absolutely horrendous character development. Yusei's personality never changes throughout the anime. He's always preaching the importance of friendship just like a watered down tea. Akiza goes from being a cold ruthless duelist who enjoys sadism to the official tea character of the series, once again preaching the importance of friendship. Finally Sayer was the biggest missed oppurtunity in my opinion. I feel like the arcadia movement would be a great villan organazation which could possibly have its own arc. However Sayer is a very minor villian who holds no importance to plot despite being the series equivalent of bakura.

 

Anyways this is just my opinion and i created this thread to see if anyone agrees with me. Please post your opinion on why you like or dislike the series!

[Blake]

It's the best we've had because until the end of the Dark Signer arc it had actual good development and solid enough plot for what it was. After that it went to s***.

 

Other 3 were just constant s***.

 

Arc-V shows some promise at least.

EDIT: Also GX Dub isn't totally awful BECAUSE they filled it with satire a good deal of the time

[Brinolovania]

I really see nothing in here that isn't an issue with every Yugioh series, except the fact that Yusei never lost and the other main characters did. Of COURSE the bad guys don't win, because the important characters die if they lose. And you think 5Ds has bad character development compared to other Yugiohs? Please.

[Βyakuya]

You can complain about whatever you want about how protagonists always win and villains always lose, but that really has nothing to do that much with the plot if most have lost. I'm sure if there were some duels that went the wrong direction that could have led to some other conflicts, that would be something to point at, but fact is, during that time people would either die or be eliminated from losing. Hey, the thing you didn't look at much was Yusei vs Kalin, where it was clear at that point he had to step up his courage.

 

But you never really compared this spin-off to any other of the series nor contrasted so it's as if you're saying Zexal can be better than this....which it is not. 5Ds is not the recent magnum opus of the spin-offs thus far but really, bickering about some minor flaws in 5Ds is nothing compared to a lot of the other spin-offs.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

If you want to see bad character development, go look at ZEXAL. Only Yuma grows up (and most of the Barians); rest of the main cast [excluding Kaito] only dueled, what, once or twice and never did it again. If you think about them, you'd probably forgot who they were and how were they important to the series. Heck, Kotori had even less duels than Tea/Yuzu for crying out loud; factoring that the latter is still new.

 

OT: Yusei did lose once, but that was a flashback episode.

 

The Dark Signer arc was great, yes. Later stuff wasn't as great (with exception of a few notable scenes), but still good nonetheless. Granted, Yusei did star in more duels than he should've (and loss record could've been better; considering he was fighting the 5Ds equivalent of the God cards and Z-ONE with hand traps and Timelords among other things; but then he gets two new summoning mechanics [including Over Top Clear Mind that was essentially one-shot only during said match])

 

While 5Ds wasn't exactly the perfect Yugioh anime, it still was a good series. But we all have our opinions on the show, so no further comment there.

[potatoechips302]

imo i dont see how anyone can say the dark signer arc was great. In order to explain this you need to do a side by side comparison of the other yugiohs and their closest arcs to the dark signer arc.

 

Dm:Orichalchos.  The orichalchos arc is one of my favorites partially because dartz is one of my favorite villiains. It is similiar because the Doma swordsmen use the seal of orichalchos to exact revenge on those who wronged them by stealing their souls and ultimately awakening the great leviathen. (sound similiar to dark signers revenge/soul stealing/awakening earthbound immortals?) The reason it's better then dark signers is because the doma swordsman actually manage to take out main characters. (joey, mai, kaiba, even yami but yugi prevents the soul from being taken). Not to mention during the final duel Dartz vs Yugi and kaiba (same as goodwin vs yusei/jack/crow) actually managed to defeat kaiba. 

 

Gx:Shadow Riders/Spirit world/Darkness: Torn between these three arcs but shadow riders  is most similiar. Same concept of dark duelist stealing souls in order to awaken great monsters. Reason its better is that the shadow riders and main characters are pretty even untill the shadow riders defeat and steal the souls of the ENTIRE main cast except for jaden. In the spirit world/alternate dimension arc when a duelist loses they die (sent to stars in dub). Once again a large majority of the cast actusally DIES during this arc (chazz, alexis, atticus, tyranno). Also in the final darkness arc, nightshroud manages to imprison everone on earth into the equivalent of hell until jaden saves them.

 

Zexal: Nothing even remotely close, that said Vector did try to trap them in an alternate dimension and Vetrix used his sons to try to kill astral.

 

5ds:Dark Signers: Same concept as the gx and dm equivalents in that a group of dark duelist steal souls to awaken monsters. NONE of the main cast loses any duels. This is an insult to me bacause both crow and leo could have lost and it wouldnt have affected plot. Goodwin could've beat jack and crow beat the writers were scared to kill them. And anyone who says they cant kill of the cast just remember after the dark signer arc everone who was killed is brought back to life. This means their is no excuse for having at least one character death (signer/non-signer dosnt matter just one good guy death would gain some respect in my eyes)

 

As for Zexal the reason i rank it higher then 5ds is because it isnt scared to let main charcters lose duels. Yuma loses every duel that dosnt involve plot, Also is the only yugioh to have the rival beat  the main character fairly. As for character develop zexal has barley any (ray/vector's development was great imo) it's better than 5ds in that at the end of 5ds every single character preaches friendship and happiness(kalin, Akiza,Yusei,Jack, Crow, Leo/luna all are tea gardnerized)

[Blake]

imo i dont see how anyone can say the dark signer arc was great. In order to explain this you need to do a side by side comparison of the other yugiohs and their closest arcs to the dark signer arc.

 

Dm:Orichalchos.  The orichalchos arc is one of my favorites partially because dartz is one of my favorite villiains. It is similiar because the Doma swordsmen use the seal of orichalchos to exact revenge on those who wronged them by stealing their souls and ultimately awakening the great leviathen. (sound similiar to dark signers revenge/soul stealing/awakening earthbound immortals?) The reason it's better then dark signers is because the doma swordsman actually manage to take out main characters. (joey, mai, kaiba, even yami but yugi prevents the soul from being taken). Not to mention during the final duel Dartz vs Yugi and kaiba (same as goodwin vs yusei/jack/crow) actually managed to defeat kaiba. 

 

Gx:Shadow Riders/Spirit world/Darkness: Torn between these three arcs but shadow riders  is most similiar. Same concept of dark duelist stealing souls in order to awaken great monsters. Reason its better is that the shadow riders and main characters are pretty even untill the shadow riders defeat and steal the souls of the ENTIRE main cast except for jaden. In the spirit world/alternate dimension arc when a duelist loses they die (sent to stars in dub). Once again a large majority of the cast actusally DIES during this arc (chazz, alexis, atticus, tyranno). Also in the final darkness arc, nightshroud manages to imprison everone on earth into the equivalent of hell until jaden saves them.

 

Zexal: Nothing even remotely close, that said Vector did try to trap them in an alternate dimension and Vetrix used his sons to try to kill astral.

 

5ds:Dark Signers: Same concept as the gx and dm equivalents in that a group of dark duelist steal souls to awaken monsters. NONE of the main cast loses any duels. This is an insult to me bacause both crow and leo could have lost and it wouldnt have affected plot. Goodwin could've beat jack and crow beat the writers were scared to kill them. And anyone who says they cant kill of the cast just remember after the dark signer arc everone who was killed is brought back to life. This means their is no excuse for having at least one character death (signer/non-signer dosnt matter just one good guy death would gain some respect in my eyes)

 

As for Zexal the reason i rank it higher then 5ds is because it isnt scared to let main charcters lose duels. Yuma loses every duel that dosnt involve plot, Also is the only yugioh to have the rival beat  the main character fairly. As for character develop zexal has barley any (ray/vector's development was great imo) it's better than 5ds in that at the end of 5ds every single character preaches friendship and happiness(kalin, Akiza,Yusei,Jack, Crow, Leo/luna all are tea gardnerized)

SO BASICALLY

 

The ONLY reason you have to actually say 5D's is bad is that no one loses. And that it's a basic card game anime plot. That they all are.

 

And who caress if no one lost? In and of itself that has nothing to do with the quality of writing.

 

Originality is dead, and the character development in early 5D's is what makes it shine.

 

ALL of their plots suck, Vector had 0 development past his initial reveal, and so on.

 

You've offered no actual points that don't apply to all of the series, and you use VECTOR as an example of good development. The hell? Entertaining for sure, but he didn't really develop at all.

[potatoechips302]

I''ll admit i am a little biased towards vector because i love the marik-esque feel that imo he gives off. But the definition of charcter development is a character developing overtime. If you look at all barian emperors you can see them struggle with the reality they used to be human. I will admit though that zexal has the worst character development and the vetrix/dr.faker arc was the worst in yugioh history. But the mythyrian number war is actually watchable and entertaining (in large part due to vector)

 

Also more proof 5ds writers had no idea what their doing can be sumned up in 4 words.    Card games on motorcycles.    I usually turn the other cheek when it comes to this in large part because it is a unique/original idea but unfortunately unique and original dosnt always mean good. Lets be honest and think about this... Some writer thought it would be good idea to combine the yugiverse with nascar(no offense nascar fans). Not to mention lets pretend the yugiverse is real for a minute, if you were watching a duel would seeing a duel taking place on race track on motocycles really be more entertaining than a regular duel? definately not in my opinion. Duel runners are more ridiculous then a school that teaches kids to play card games (that said i love gx but i'll admit the school idea is stupid).

 

As for character development in 5ds it definately occurs but all characters turn into friendship loving good samaritans by the time its over. (cant hate too much because this happens in every yugioh, in gx sartorious still disliked jaden after the society of light arc). I also think after the dark signer arc the world is too perfect. The finish building that bridge and the duel runner highway thing(seriously?!) and everone in new domino befriends everone in the satellite, this is despite the new domino people treating them like trash and beleiving their superior before the bridges construction. I dont recall them explaining this (besides a minute long montage explaining that they now work together)

 

I will say that i honestly beleive 5ds had the most potential of any yugioh but the small details when you compare the other yugiohs really ruins it in my opinion. The reason why im not as critical to zexal is because it plays things safe and dosnt take huge risks when it comes to the plot (safe dosnt mean good, zexal still sucks cept for vector). But not taking risks prevents things such as a world where people duel while racing on motorcycles.
 

[mitchermitcher]

A racing duel also serves as a race, in addition to being a duel. So yes it is more exciting than a regular duel in a sense.

 

...Is all I wanted to say regarding this topic. I never finished the Dark Signers arc, or any ygo anime actually.

[Just Crouton]

5D's had a lot of great ideas going on with Divine and the Arcadia Movement...

 

...and then, they tossed out all those great ideas in favor of ripping off The Terminator and giving us villains who were sympathetic to the point there was no reason to care whether Yusei or Z-ONE won because either side would've probably saved the future.

 

The second half of the series was contingent on the heroes being either dumb or useless, or both.

 

And, building a power generator fueled by human emotion is the most retarded idea ever.

 

Where does said power generator learn to and acquire the parts for building a robot army?

 

Who in the office thought Aki's treatment in the second half wasn't sexist? Yeah, I went there.

 

What window-licker thought the reveal about who Z-ONE and Aporia warranted over a year's worth of buildup when all they said was "humanity died to anime Terminators because humanity sucks, so we're here to do a mini-colony drop on the city to save the future?"

 

If Z-ONE and Aporia aren't really bad guys, why is their Plan A dressing up like supervillains and plotting a colony drop? I mean, Yusei battled gods controlled by pseudo-zombies and a shirtless meathead on a flying temple. I'm pretty sure Yusei will believe robot men from the future who say "stop Synchroing or the power generator will kill everyone."

 

Why didn't Placido deploy the Diablo army at the Momentum and wreck havoc while everyone was at the tournament?

 

If Aporia's Mekanikle can wreck buildings, why didn't he just summon 3 and destroy Momentum on day 1?

 

If the bad guys can do the aforementioned things, why are they planning a colony drop?

 

If Yusei is supposed to be the smart one, why does he brood about Accel Synchro when he can just run existing cards to counter the Meklords?

 

If Z-ONE can send Aporia and Paradox into the past, why doesn't he send them to the time before Pegasus started making the game and waste him?

 

If Z-ONE can alter history, why doesn't he erase Pegasus?

 

Why were Psychics tossed out for two generic villain archetypes when Psychics could've been the villain deck with Divine, and could've sold Accel Synchro as a thing?

 

Why was Crow made into a Signer when it was clear that Rua would become one?

 

If Rua can face a giant monkey god, why is he terrified of the phallic robot dragon?

 

Why is this mess nearly 90 episodes when the last 15 or so those episodes actually mattered and the rest was pointless fluff?

[J-Max]

Haven't seen 5D's yet myself but the First Dubbed series of YGO is much MUCH worse. Duels can go into Dragonball Z lengths at times and so much talking.... Later series made the Duels no more then say 2 or 3 Episodes which was much better to stomach. I saw you mentioned the Orichalcos Arc. To me that was one of the weakest (only Virtual World being worse). It just stank of Yugi, Joey and Kaiba having a past version of themselves (The Legendary Knights) and monsters with Infinite Attack Points! Only decent thing about it was Yugi losing to Raphael and little Yugi sacrificing himself. This was Dan Green's best moment of voice acting.

A lot of people give 5D's crap for being Duels on Motorcycles but at least its something different.

[Cin]

1) How can you say it's the least mature? It has the oldest main cast (On average because Season 0 and Series 1 had the oldest with Another Yugi and Another Bakura). The most mature is obviously Season 0, but 5Ds isn't too far off.

2) I still count that incident with Kiryu a loss, because Yusei's d-wheel was wrecked. Episode 2 forgotten also?

3) Rua is later revealed as Signer so your point is invalid. Until that point you could call the twins one Signer. Crow was a Signer, I think you've missed alot of episodes.

4) Divine was no Yami No Bakura believe me. If you believe that you've clearly missed the last episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.

5) I admit in places development was weak when you look back at characters like Kaiba Seto who was the most developed of the entire series with his backstory, but as Death Note and other animes have proven character development isn't the be all and end all.

6) I'm glad the Orichalcos series did not exist in the manga, I found it didn't really add anything to the series and never did miss it when I read the manga.

7) Is Sho not in the main cast then or Hayato? They clearly didn't lose their souls. The majority of the cast 'lost in the second half of season 3 not through duels, but just by getting picked off without duels.

:cool:  That only happened because Fujiwara turned back time, thus making Fubuki lose. As much as I enjoy the Darkness arc,I did find myself getting a little annoyed with his repeated combo.

9) If you'd watched whole series you would have realized them losing would have been detrimental to the plot as they later become important characters. As for JACK, he lost repeatedly during the later season and against Aporia only won because of Rua's awawkening.

 

No series is perfect, I probably need to reread the manga, believe me half the time that is better.

 

I'm too tired to spell right.

[Tentacruel]

I never got around to watching it regularly, but I always found it the most interesting. 

[-Dom-]

I think 5ds definitely has some of the most interesting ideas: it deals with themes of inequality and poverty, and the extreme social contrast between Neo Domino City and Satellite. Yusei tries to escape through a waste disposal tunnel, gets arrested (thrown into a prison with unfair treatment by the warden), and is marked for life!

 

Plus, considering your dislike for "card games on motorcycles", the turbo duels (silly name, I'll give you that much) were actually well thought out in terms of new game mechanics, Speed Spells/counters, and both of the following series have since tried to replicate it (having a new type of duel) in some way: Augmented Reality and now Action Duels.

[asterr259]

5D's was bad? Nah.

 

Ofcourse Yusei had little development. He was already mature and pretty much pro-level. His Win-ratio shows that. Racing Duels, although a silly idea I thought at first, did what it was suppose to do; be interesting and fresh. Same goes for the duel academy idea. In a world where you can duel as a profession, and get paid for it, of course a school is going to be made for it.

 

Yugi is pretty much a meh for me. Not a lot of development either. Or rather too far and few between imo until awaking the dragons?

 

Jaden? Don't even wanna talk about Jaden.

 

Yuma, despite being a bit of a crybaby, had the most development. He goes from a newbie relying on Astral, to a champion noticably being pretty much independent of him as far as taking instructions goes. All while growing up and facing reality while still keeping his beliefs. Everything else has been pretty much said. If you just want to watch a card game anime where the main character(s) loses frequently (as if that proves much?), go watch Cardfight Vanguard. No offense to the series, but they do lose more than Yugioh characters do. What matters most is that the duel is interesting imo.

[Dr. Cakey]

As far as I'm concerned, the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise goes:

 

1. Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL

2. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

3. Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's

4. Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

 

Yeah, that's right. Check that hipster ranking right thar. ZEXAL and GX speak for themselves - they're the two most mature series. I don't mean "mature" as in "ZOMGZ PPL DIE SO EPIC!!1!!!!" (although they do have the highest body counts), I mean "mature" as in developing characters and possessing notable thematic depth. GX is the hardest nut to crack in the whole franchise, because it jumps around with a dozen different ideas without developing them fully, but it starts out as a sort of parody of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! with the Sacred Beast Arc, does some weird comic book-type crap with the Light of Destruction Arc, and then Season 3 comes out of nowhere and it's just a beauty. Season 4 is a nice capstone to the series as a whole.

 

ZEXAL holds its place just because of the World Duel Carnival Arc and especially the story of the Barian Emperors. I mean, come on, the antagonists go from literal monsters who enslave people into the good guys. And the dueling in the latter half of ZEXAL is probably the best the franchise has ever scene. No, I don't mean it's smart or inventive or any of that other stuff (which is good to have and I wish was there), I mean the duels have been refined into what they always were in the first place: a dialogue between two people. Kazuki Takahashi, in creating Yu-Gi-Oh!, said the part of games he wanted to stress was "communication between people", and ZEXAL has that more than any other series.

 

5D's has the Dark Signer Arc, but more importantly has Yusei flying into space, going Super Saiyan, tuning five Synchro Monsters together with a super-ultimate-more-than-ultimate summon to summon a super-ultimate-more-than-ultimate monster.

 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters is okay I guess. Pegasus is cool.

 

(I don't feel like trying to rank "Season 0", and Arc-V is too young to rank yet.)

[Agro]

Zexal dub was the best one. Honest. (i mean at least the first season)

 

If GX was satirical yugioh, Zexal was basically Birdemic: Shock and Terror.

 

It got really funny.

[Fusion X. Denver]

I liked 5Ds, despite its flaws.

Z-One should've been Future Yusei instead of Weird Yusei Cosplayer though, IMO.

[Sleepy]

You can't base body count in this case as a plus. It is true that the Dark Signers didn't win any duels, and that IS bad, but when losing = dying, and we put ZeXal on the other side of the scale, I prefer a crappy "no casualties on the good side" than "lots of deaths but everybody revives happily at the end anyways".
 

That said, I do also share the opinion that the Dark Signer arc wasn't good either. At X point all main characters decide to go to Satellite and find all Dark Signers lined up together saying "let's just all duel here and now". Which to me it was rushed and much less interesting than having each Dark Signer running around on their own for a more personalized climax. I think that's part of what made (IMO) Kiryu's second duel with Yusei boring. Then there was the fact that Yusei didn't even have him as an ultimate nemesis. No, Yusei had to still duel at least 2 more times and get past the center before the other outer pillars even had their duel....

 

Rua's opponent didn't have any background story whatsoever so it was a kind of "I don't care" duel with half the time Ruka running around with Fairies in a filler-ish looking way, then he didn't even deliver the finishing blow so he didn't shine in the "beat Signer duelists with no mark on him" department. Meanwhile Ruka didn't get anything either because she arrived within the last two turns just to play what was already mostly Rua's hand. Crow was the cool "I beat signers without having powers" guy, until they make him a Signer. Not to mention Boomer was a filler Dark Signer, and originally Crow was gonna get the Condor and become the bad guy, not Godwin.

 

After the Dark Signer Arc:
Team Taiyou? Enjoyable
Andore? Good
Ragnarok? My favorite set of duels in 5Ds

Bruno vs Yusei? More touching than whatever ZeXal ever made.

Z-One? He should have been real future Yusei, but is still the most threatening last boss of the franchise hands down.

Appearance of Shooting Star? Iconic

Everything else I didn't mention above was disappointing to me, so 5Ds only have good "moments" rather than good arcs after the Dark Signers arc, which is also not among my favorites. I personally more fondly remember the first 26 episodes, even if people say they are boring.

And yes, Aki's boss was a waste. Not only could he have had his own arc since he had huge plans that could have generated a good amount of chaos, but he also was most of Aki's conflict and purpose to overcome in the series. She stopped getting Divine's influence because he is dead, not because she could actually fight back his mentality imposed on her if he was around. Her development was all just "Yusei, help". 

 

 

I won't lie, by the start of 5Ds I was very excited, but by the end of it I was annoyed at the series because of its many flaws. Still, every time I hear "worst Yugioh series" and hear anything other than ZeXal being it, I just think "bullshit". It was on a different scale to anything I had ever seen in the franchise. It has so much waste going for it that I can't believe people don't catch on to.

 

At the start of ZeXal II I couldn't watch it after Gilag repeated his cycle of "monster of the week" for the third time. I bet the series was aiming for cheap undefined prolongation with this and testing how much would the audience be willing to take before the ratings of the show went down.

 

In ZeXal, the aspect of actual interesting gameplay was mostly ignored in favor of giving the cards some sort of flavor or symbolic meaning, which is why some people liked analyzing that bit, but at the same time there was a ton of plain negation effects, burn effects, and Xyz summoning effects, which was most cards out there. The show also sends any and all sense of size in brute force out the window. In a game where 4000 is the starting life that should give you an interesting experience, you get too much Utopia overkill when turned into any CXyz version, paired with Double-up Chance, equipped with any ZeXal Weapon, or combined with anything any dueling partners of the moment in tag duels play at X point. It was abused so much that even Don Thousand's 100,000 ATK boss was more annoying than impressive. As a last point to bad gameplay, the last evolution of the duel styles of the strongest characters by the end of it involved Summoning a bunch of bosses in one go with stupid cheap strategies that bypassed all Summoning conditions they'd usually go through. This both rushed the duels instead of having characters steadily working their way through all the reverenced opponents they wanted to go through, and made said bosses look like simple fodder by cheating them into the field. Say what you want about GX, but I never saw Jaden bringing out 2+ Fusions with a single card, and in 5Ds, Yusei's Synchro Panic card required all those Synchros to have touched the field at some point, so there was actual effort in the choreography of duels there.

 

Quick EDIT: Can't believe I forgot the "Shining Draw" here. This series actually gives priority to "I draw what I need, creating it on the spot with the most situational effects just perfect for one-shots" over other shady strategies that are ironically more fair. For example, many talk about how dirty Vector was when he gave Varian cards to Yuma to ultimately tend him a trap with a very harsh deck-out strategy. Say what you want, but outside of Vector's carefully planned masquerade and situational response that depended on it, those cards were actually legit cards that gave Yuma a lot of power-ups, so it WAS actually helping Yuma outside of this scenario. Also, once in-duel you can tell he thought about this beforehand. Deck-out is a legit strategy for a game. Yuma was cornered fairly when it comes to the stand-alone duel. He lost his entire deck and had a single carefully controlled card made into his next draw. Yuma's way of getting out can't encourage cheeting in-duel anymore than it already does. 

 

Yuma pretends he's not as bad in his winning streak as Yusei is, by having the show tell you he loses all the time and show him winning all important duels in the series except for arguably his shameful defeat to Shark early in the series in which he refused to use Numbers, broke his word, and still lost. If he's only gonna lose duels early in the series, off-screen, and/or duels that are casual everyday occurrences, you might as well not even count them at all. 

While on the subject of Yuma, Yuma's motto wasn't well implemented. He would try and try and stay positive, but he'd just repeat his mistakes and never analyze them. He'd crash against that jumping pile thing at P.E. class everyday because he wanted to face it head on, but did he make any plans to tackle anything differently? No, he was never shown to do that at all. He didn't practice that in his own time to make sure he'd overcome it tomorrow and would just go "free time yay it's time go off to duel". Even in his dueling style, he only knows how to band his head against the wall until something hopefully changes, and the writers served him said changes so he wouldn't have to change his ways. Have Volcasaurus now? Nah, let's give him a Hope evolution that takes care of that effect so he doesn't have to stop using Hope all the time. 

 

And don't get me started on how Kotori most likely costed more to animate than most CGI monsters they had in the actual duels.... you know, what is supposed to be the main appeal of the series... the duels.... Besides, she doesn't make sense. We saw Toddler Yuma with small Kotori in flashbacks, and we saw Tetsuo dueling Yuma with Kotori as a witness as an apparent regular happening in said flashbacks. How come she doesn't duel at all? "Yeah I enjoy looking at Yuma and his friend duel all the time, we've done it for a few years. Me? Duel? Nah I am evidently not interested in joining them but for some reason they are still my friends and I don't go do anything else with girls my age in exchange... just have been pretending to be excited since I actually don't really understand the rules of this duel. Yeah no kidding, can you believe everyone calls Yuma a loser in class because of how bad he is at everything he's into? Good thing they focus on him and not on me for their attacks though since they'd make me crap".

 

Her entire shipping is based on fan-service and cheerleading. Yuma has Shingetsu "kidnapped"? Better lose your temper and start shouting his name out loud every few seconds so that everybody knows how worried you are about that mysterious friend that forced his way into your life "naturally" just a couple weeks ago. Oh but what about that Mr Heartland minion that trapped Kotori along with all your almost life-long classmates, including life-long friends (Tetsuo and Kotori) and seemed to have drugged them with something injected into their bodies? Yuma's reaction: *turns around, discovers them tied in the corner, gives a full second-long surprised expression, then turns back with an "enough of that, let's get to business (duel)" face* End/.

Or at least it WOULD be "get to business" face if it wasn't for the fact he was crying himself to sleep because Astral left him, and had to be dragged out by previous antagonist III to help him wake-up. Of course this happened past mid-way into ZeXal II, so you should have expected Yuma to show growth without Astral around so further into the series. Something like the ability to think independently, and handle himself, maybe?

 

If Yuma did eventually grow, it was waaaaay too late into the series. I remember loling at how him and Astral played a quick play spell that negated an attack in response to how many opponents negate Hope's effect and render useless his Double-up Chance combo. That was one of those few clever plays he ever did that he should have made around 100 episodes earlier into the series, much like most of his shining moments.

I liked the Barian characters though, and I'd say it's the only thing that has people saying ZeXal II was better. I'm not too sure about that, but I already talked enough of ZeXal in this post.

[potatoechips302]

I think most of you guys arnt getting the point im making when it comes to the win/loss record and deaths. I honestly wouldnt care if the dark signers won and the regular signers didnt die. But with any anime having the good guys always wins ruins any credibility in my opinion. It ruins any vulnerabilities/weaknesses the protagonist might have because they are booked to be invincible. It ruins any credibility the villian has as they cannot hold their own in a fight.

 

Simply put, i challenge anyone to find any anime that is viewed as good where the bad guys never win at all. (Imagine deathnote where light kill L without any hesitation and manages to kill all criminals without the cops or anyone caring. It  would suck. Imagine Naruto where Harachimaru gets killed during the chunin examines during their first encounter. Wouldnt be worth watching. The list goes on and on. The whole point of having having villians is that their supposed to be a threat to the hero. If the Hero is never loses and is invincible then anything the villain does wont matter as they are guaranteed to lose. For me this eleminates any suspense or actual reason to watch since every single fight ends in the same way.

 

As for why i rate zexal above 5ds is their are times it can completly surprise you. I for one was completely shocked when yuma lost his third duel with Kite (1st wouldve lost but undecided, seconed tied.Unless my memory is wrong  zexal is only yugioh to have the yu-tagonist not defeat their rival. Let alone have the rival win fairly.) I was also completely shocked when Number 96 tied with Astral during their duel in that torture room place. (If this was 5ds kite wouldve never beat yuma and Number 96 wouldve lost). Also when it comes to villians i challenge anyone to state that any dark signer was better then Vector as a villian. I'll admit the first half of zexal 1 was an absolute waste (only worth watching once Vetrix appears and starts dueling during the finals of the duel carnival). And as for voice acting i know Yuma's voice in dub is unbearable, but if you cant get used to the voice acting by episode ten, then your choosing to let it annoy you. 

 

As for "Shining Draw" All yugiohs have this (Dm=Heart of the cards, Gx=Jaden states if he dosnt draw the card he needs he'll lose, 5ds:Yusei uses the power of the crimson dragon to make that one dragon card thing appear on the top of his deck) I also enjoyed how in ZeXal Vector gets extremely pissed off when yuma uses shining draw to change the card in his hand. Vector almost even states that yuma is cheating.

 

As for more hate on 5ds i have to admit the Rex Goodwin is the worst of any antagonist in yugioh so far. Its been awhile since ive watched so correct me if im wrong here... But, didnt goodwin send the signers to fight the dark signers to save the world from destruction? Then as soon as he does that he joins the dark signers and attempts to take over the world as a dark signer himself? Does it ever explain this flip flop on motives?

[Toffee.]

the good guys always wins ruins any credibility in my opinion-

Nobody ever actually, realistically, lost in Ygo.
Yugi lost the 1st duel against Pegasus in order to set the plot.
Yugi gave up against Kaiba, because he felt sympathetic to the later's reasons(and because it also set him back, but Pegasus didn't give a shit).
Yugi lost to Rafael because the plot couldn't advance otherwise, because they needed an incentive to Yugi to go after Dartz.

Jaden lost to Kaibaman because it helped him get over some issues he was having.
Jaden "supposedly" lost some imaginary duel, because Jaden being Supreme King was a massive plot device.
Jaden tied against Yubel.

Yusei never lost; Who gives a shit? 5D's was more story driven, rather then the cards being played, which the previous two were more about.

Yuma only "lost" to put emphasis on the fact he can't even go to the bathroom without Astral holding his hands; ZeXal is an oddity in the sense that it was like the first series, with it's twin protagonists(Yugi and Yami, Yuma and Astral, or something like that), 'cept they played it out like Gurren Lagann, in which you watch one of the mains gain confidence and a more independent life from Astral.
'Cept that doesn't work, when Astral is still there, since it's not as dramatic, and the whole progression of Yuma's character doesn't really amount to anything.

Arc-V is still in motion, so that one doesn't count.

But you get the idea.

[Sleepy]

I think most of you guys arnt getting the point im making when it comes to the win/loss record and deaths. I honestly wouldnt care if the dark signers won and the regular signers didnt die. But with any anime having the good guys always wins ruins any credibility in my opinion. It ruins any vulnerabilities/weaknesses the protagonist might have because they are booked to be invincible. It ruins any credibility the villian has as they cannot hold their own in a fight.

 

I seem to need to restate what the counter-point for that is yet again:
YES. Yes you are right, having all good guys win and all bad guys lose, with no real loses or casualties from the heroes is not a good thing. No one would be arguing that THAT specific aspect could have been better. It's the same thing that's wrong about the fight with the Espada in Bleach.

Yet, it's not like ZeXal had any actual loses either. I consider it to be even worse because it pretended there were loses, but everyone just pulled a "revive everyone and make them good guys" at the end. It was just a waste of effort because Yuma's cries were overacted, repetitive, and didn't even have actual emotion. My brother even laughed when Yuma went into doing it for the third time. If you think about it, it was half an arc of filler. At the very least 5Ds didn't make us go through it for that long.

Even then, Yusei had some great moments where he demonstrated that never losing doesn't mean his victories will necessarily be unsatisfactory. Everyone was sick of Yusei always winning when he fought the Nordic Gods, but when he won it was still soooo good. So winning too much, as much as it is a bad concept, it can be well executed every once in a while.

 

Simply put, i challenge anyone to find any anime that is viewed as good where the bad guys never win at all. (Imagine deathnote where light kill L without any hesitation and manages to kill all criminals without the cops or anyone caring. It  would suck. Imagine Naruto where Harachimaru gets killed during the chunin examines during their first encounter. Wouldnt be worth watching. The list goes on and on. The whole point of having having villians is that their supposed to be a threat to the hero. If the Hero is never loses and is invincible then anything the villain does wont matter as they are guaranteed to lose. For me this eleminates any suspense or actual reason to watch since every single fight ends in the same way.

 

 

As for why i rate zexal above 5ds is their are times it can completly surprise you. I for one was completely shocked when yuma lost his third duel with Kite (1st wouldve lost but undecided, seconed tied.Unless my memory is wrong  zexal is only yugioh to have the yu-tagonist not defeat their rival. Let alone have the rival win fairly.) I was also completely shocked when Number 96 tied with Astral during their duel in that torture room place. (If this was 5ds kite wouldve never beat yuma and Number 96 wouldve lost). Also when it comes to villians i challenge anyone to state that any dark signer was better then Vector as a villian. I'll admit the first half of zexal 1 was an absolute waste (only worth watching once Vetrix appears and starts dueling during the finals of the duel carnival). And as for voice acting i know Yuma's voice in dub is unbearable, but if you cant get used to the voice acting by episode ten, then your choosing to let it annoy you. 

 

That's odd, I didn't find that surprising at all. Yuma sucked on his own and was assisted by Astral in everything important up to that point. Now after not even the deus ex machina ZeXal transformation/shining draw were they able to beat Kaito, Yuma decides he'll duel on his own. Tough luck there.... Also, just as I said in my previous comment, it's one more "no danger" duel In ZeXal. Yuma only loses no danger duels, and Kaito needed some redemption after his god-like status was grounded by the Tron Family's existence because he had been looking pretty weak throughout the arc.
Technically Shark was as much of a rival as Kaito, if not more powerful, by the end of ZeXal, and Yuma did beat him, so when it comes to beating a rival, no great change there. Plus, Kaito was semi-retired of dueling, trying to force himself some inspiration and into the plot of ZeXal II, of course there was no visible "next duel" with him.

 

Vector was a good character. Cunning, smart, manipulative. Though his being amusing was all he had. It is a villain with no real motives but to be bad, and a character that appears at the end as a good guy just like every character in ZeXal ever (save Don Thousand)..  ZeXal did something good regarding that though, the concept is that other than Don Thousand, all other characters were good and bad depending on perspective, and that was a great premise. It could still have been executed much better though, and ZeXal's iconic villains were the Barians, being one of the very few things ZeXal actually did well, it's unfair to reduce 5Ds to just Dark Signers and call it a day. If we compare unbalanced factors isolated we can all agree Z-One >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Don Thousand.

 

 

Yuma is unbeatable and 5D's dub that I got to see was not much better. I don't think the dub work has much to do with the story anyways so w/e.

 

As for "Shining Draw" All yugiohs have this (Dm=Heart of the cards, Gx=Jaden states if he dosnt draw the card he needs he'll lose, 5ds:Yusei uses the power of the crimson dragon to make that one dragon card thing appear on the top of his deck) I also enjoyed how in ZeXal Vector gets extremely pissed off when yuma uses shining draw to change the card in his hand. Vector almost even states that yuma is cheating.

 

Atem at least respected deck-building. In his last duel with Yugi, Yugi made him fill his hand with Card of Sanctity in the last few turns. It was the point of the series where his will pretty much controlled his next draw, but he didn't asspull anything. Also, a good number of his top decks were either previously foreshadowed or chekov's guns. Lightforce Sword appeared against Exodia guy AND against Kaiba on the semi-finals. The Rituals, even if part of filler seasons, they re-appeared. Swords of Revealing Light became one of his iconic staples after he used it against Panic. Etc.

 

Jaden's deus ex machina draw was on around the same level as Yugi's. It was mostly new Fusions, and he mostly re-used what he ass pulled. There was continuity and sense to some degree.

 

Yusei was more offensive but his combos were at least clever and varied and often involved old junk from the IRL game. Also, the Savior Dragon Tuner was his only shining draw-slike offense where the card clearly materialized on top of his deck, but it kept constant. You never saw Yusei get 10 different Tuners to chose from as one-shots. The Tuner dragon became the norm everytime you saw the scene so it was hardly different form "Hey guys I made modifications, this will be around from now on once in a while, at least side decked or something".

 

Yuma blatantly stated to create said cards and not just trust his deck-constructing phase and toolboxing from there. Then he went a step ahead and transformed a card that was stacked on top of his deck through a legitimate effect.... All other main characters don't go near the amount of lazy cheating Yuma did, even combined. To top if off all ZeXal Weapons were OTK machines with generic overkill effects or a bunch of situational effects smashed together to counter the strategy of the moment, never to be used again. You know how much he could have used Unicorn Spear only? No the writers never bothered with continuity on those. They were clearly meant to not be incorporated into his future plans whatsoever.

ZeXal transformation would have been cooler if he had been given a set of rules along the lines of "X is your limit of shining draw blanks. After you run out, you run out, so careful on what you create because you stick with it". It would have still been BS but at least not infinite BS.

 

 

As for more hate on 5ds i have to admit the Rex Goodwin is the worst of any antagonist in yugioh so far. Its been awhile since ive watched so correct me if im wrong here... But, didnt goodwin send the signers to fight the dark signers to save the world from destruction? Then as soon as he does that he joins the dark signers and attempts to take over the world as a dark signer himself? Does it ever explain this flip flop on motives?

 

 

Yeah Godwin is pretty bad like that. He wasn't originally gonna be the head of the Dark Signers. Crow was. So it was a bad patch in the plot.

[Shradow]

Now I think, and this applies to all series, not just YGO, it's not necessarily a bad thing that the hero wins pretty much every time. It's more about the how than the result. If the hero always wins in an awesome and entertaining way that's done well, than it shouldn't matter that he never loses.

 

Repeated Deus Ex Machinas would be the only exception, I think.

[Sleepy]

I'm back, and thinking about it, since ZeXal likes to have deep symbolism with possible interpretations it just occurred to me:
Around 15+ ZeXal characters were asspulling and running around at some point in time.

Astral

Yuma

All 7 Varians
Not sure if I should count the Legendary Numbers playing themselves

Not sure if the Tron Family

Don Thousand

That guy with the New Order Xyzs

Fake Numbers 1 to 4

Black Mist

Not sure if Kaito

 

Those were pretty much the most relevant duelists in ZeXal. I will imagine it's some sort of reference to all those people that win by stacking/soft-cheating/cheating at big tournaments IRL, telling us that their draws are so good that it looks like magic (and like BS, probably because it is). That's deep. Is it considered a subliminal message? Something along the lines of "If you don't cheat you have no chance going big"? Disturbing, but interesting. (points at thread of cheating at TCG section).

[Dr. Cakey]

You can't base body count in this case as a plus.

I didn't.
 

At the start of ZeXal II I couldn't watch it after Gilag repeated his cycle of "monster of the week" for the third time. I bet the series was aiming for cheap undefined prolongation with this and testing how much would the audience be willing to take before the ratings of the show went down.

Next you're going to tell me ZEXAL was a TV show.
 
Even so, in hindsight those segments were rather effective. Gilag (and Alito) were these silly, bumbling guys and very obviously not bad people, but you thought they were the "bad guys" anyway because The Show Said So. It doesn't get much cleverer than that.
 

In ZeXal, the aspect of actual interesting gameplay was mostly ignored in favor of giving the cards some sort of flavor or symbolic meaning, which is why some people liked analyzing that bit, but at the same time there was a ton of plain negation effects, burn effects, and Xyz summoning effects, which was most cards out there.

Symbolic and thematic meaning >>>>>>>>>>>>> "interesting" gameplay

And let's not pretend Yu-Gi-Oh! ever had "interesting gameplay". Maybe in Season 1 of Duel Monsters, but that's about it, and then the game barely had "rules" in the first place, so it's hard to call much that happened clever.
 

Simply put, i challenge anyone to find any anime that is viewed as good where the bad guys never win at all.

No Game No Life.

Give me a hard one next time.

As for more hate on 5ds i have to admit the Rex Goodwin is the worst of any antagonist in yugioh so far. Its been awhile since ive watched so correct me if im wrong here... But, didnt goodwin send the signers to fight the dark signers to save the world from destruction? Then as soon as he does that he joins the dark signers and attempts to take over the world as a dark signer himself? Does it ever explain this flip flop on motives?

I loved Goodwin. But if you find confusing the motives of a character who explains his motives to the protagonists, maybe this card game show for children is a little too advanced for you.
 

Yusei never lost; Who gives a s***? 5D's was more story driven, rather then the cards being played, which the previous two were more about.

Actually, Yusei lost in a flashback, would have lost to Kiryu (otherwise the result was inconclusive), and his duel with Sherry also ended in a draw. His win/loss record actually isn't all that different from everyone else's. I believe Jaden still has the greatest number of losses, but if anyone other than me wants to argue that GX is best Yugioz, be my guest.