The Failings of 5Ds

[Max Darkness]

I'll admit; this is more a thinly-disguised rant than a piece of fan-fiction. However, it does fulfill the description of originally created work, so here it goes. As for why I did it, I've been watching the recent episodes and I've seen it slip into its own cliches and create huge plot-holes. And the last point of irony is still eating away at me, for Konami have truly messed up in that respect.

It was originally in script form (and was better in that guise), but since that's not allowed here, I've re-formatted it to prose.

[spoiler=[b]Love it or hate it, this is simply what I've noticed happening recently[/b]]“Can it be, Dragan being asked to lose on purpose by Godwin?” Akiza began, pondering what she had heard.
“You say something Akiza?” Asked Yusei.
“I was just saying-“
“No, that wasn’t an invitation to continue. I was just wondering why you were talking. It’s not as if you have a role in this show any more.” Yusei interrupted.
“What?” Akiza replied, surprised at the remark.
“He’s right. Apart from fan-service, you don’t really have a point.” Crow added, matter-of-factly.
“Wha-“
“Face it. Your usefulness to the plot ended when we defeated Godwin. And by ‘we’ I mean me. Since around episode 74, you haven’t had any character development, which is a sure sign that you’re superfluous. I mean, sure you got that bit in 110 when you helped that kid in the hospital, but otherwise, nothing.” Yusei explained.
“But what about Rua and Ruka?” Asked Akiza, attempting to find a counter-argument.

“Those two?!” Laughed Yusei, “Well, Ruka is like you. An interesting character to start off with, but now has no purpose other than to fill empty space and backgrounds. And as for Rua…well, his lot can be summed up as that duel he had with Devack, the one he was about to lose I might add. I mean, he is truly useless now.” Akiza remained silent.

“Since season one, Team Taiyo have had more screen-time than you. And they only appeared for five episodes. As of this moment, all you do is make inane comments and point obvious things out, especially when this gets dubbed.” Yusei continued.
“At the beginning you had a lot of development as you were introduced as a possible equal to me; more intelligent than Jack and with a chequered past. And so we got several episodes exploring your jaded childhood and the origins of your relationship with Divine who wanted to use you in his diabolical plans for world domination. We looked deep into your psyche when you duelled Misty, revealing that your strength came from the anger that you felt and the loneliness-fuelled depression that had haunted you for almost all your life. And at the end of the Dark Signer arc, you got your long-deserved redemption by finally controlling your powers and using them to help us (again, I mean me) defeat the King of the Underworld. Powers I might add, that are now non-existent.”

“That’s not true! I can still use them!” Akiza replied, indignantly.
“Don’t kid yourself.” Yusei retorted flatly. “You tried to save yourself with your 'Rose Tentacles' when you fell off your card-game-playing motorcycle called Bloody Kiss, but failed. In fact the only times they’ve worked since the fight with Godwin is when you had to save me from being crushed or kidnapped. Your powers increase when you’re important to the plot. And as of now, you’re just excess baggage, so your powers are nil.”

Akiza began to cry as the reality began to dawn on her. “I mean you don’t even have an upgraded form of your dragon! Not one! I have three!" Yusei carried on, brutally forcing the point home. "And since the ‘Majestic’ versions of our dragons probably aren’t going to show up again, it’s not looking good for you having an episode dedicated to you where you get a shiny new dragon for yourself.”

“I got a ‘Majestic’ dragon; so did Jack. Then, we got the ‘/Assault Mode’ forms. And in this season, I received ‘Shooting Star Dragon’ from god and Jack sealed the devil into a card to form ‘Scar-Red Nova Dragon’. Do I see you getting a new dragon anytime soon? Nope!”

“But Crow doesn’t have one either!” Akiza became desperate, trying to justify her existence.

“That’s true, but you’re missing one important point; he became a Signer and his dragon replaced the original ‘Fifth Dragon’, now it appears in the flashbacks. If nothing else says ‘central character’ then that certainly does. And all the fans think that to compliment my ‘Clear Mind’ and Jack’s ‘Burning Soul’, Crow will get some sort of ‘Body’ ability. And coupled with that, you don’t even appear in the intro anymore! It’s just me, Jack and Crow. Only main characters appear in the intro. So, logically, you are no longer a main character.”

“I do appear in the intro!”

“Yeah, for about ten frames. And is it your dragon that’s shown at the end becoming upgraded? No, it’s mine, Jack’s and Crow’s. You’ve fulfilled the role of every female Yu-Gi-Oh character to date. Remember Asuka? Important in the first season, then quite quickly forgotten. Tea? Had a little development during Duelist Kingdom, and then faded into insignificance. You’re the same. You’re nothing to this show anymore!” Yusei finished his monologue.

“I hate you!” Screamed Akiza as she ran out sobbing.

“Shouldn’t we do something?” Asked Crow.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if she’s going to appear in the rest of the episode…” Replied Yusei calmly.
“I heard that!” Shouted Akiza from outside. After a brief pause, Crow sighed.

“Yusei, it’s not as if we’ve exactly been geniuses ourselves recently.”
“Hmm?”
“Remember the episode ‘After Sealing Synchro Summoning’? We were morons in that one.”

“Oh yeah! When I tried to beat Jack without using Synchros…by using a Synchro Deck. I mean, it’s not as if I even changed a single card in that Deck. I still kept the Tuner monsters! You would have thought that if I wanted to stop using Synchro Monsters, the Tuners would be one of the first things to go!
“Yeah, and I wondered whether you could even duel without using Synchro Monsters… Konami are really trying to make us forget about Fusion Summoning-“ Crow began. Yusei interrupted him, stating, “Not if they involve Synchros though.”

“Oh, off course.” Crow continued, acknowledging the point. “They want us to forget that Contact Fusion, Ritual Summoning and even Tribute Summoning even exist anymore.” He paused again, thinking, “I mean, when you think about it, the old meta Archetypes of the ‘Gladiator Beasts’ and ‘Monarchs’ would actually be really good against the ‘Machine Emperors’.”

“As in?” A confused Yusei replied.

“Well, the ‘Gladiator Beasts’ are fast enough to get ‘Gyzarus’ out quickly and blow up sections of ‘Wisel’, then attacking before re-summoning it to blow more up. And of course ‘Heraklinos’ could negate any of the Spells and Traps Placido used to upgrade ‘Wisel’. And the ‘Monarchs’, especially ‘Caius’ could wreak havoc with ‘Wisel’, since all the parts are DARK. Simply special summon a monster, get ‘Caius’ out and remove ‘Wisel Infinity’ from the game, dealing 1000 damage in the process.” Crow explained.

“When you say it like that, it makes you wonder why we have such problems against them, considering we’re apparently really smart, so we could have worked that out in an instant.” Yusei admitted, baffled by his own inability to come to the same conclusion.

“And of course, that battle with “Wisel” started the thirty or so episode build-up to Accel Synchro Summoning…” Crow groaned, remembering the events involving Dark Glass and the final battle with Placido.

“Oh yes. That huge build up, and that incredibly long drawn out duel in which I travelled through time and space to pick up a children’s trading card from god who seems to live in a 1990s Windows screensaver…” Yusei replied.

“And after you summoned 'Shooting Star Dragon' and won the duel, all the fans were expecting it to become quite regular…and it simply disappeared. And to add insult to injury, when Jack summoned 'Scar-Red Nova Dragon', it wasn’t even an Accel Synchro monster, it was a ‘double-tuned’ Synchro monster. It sorta made the build-up to Accel Synchro summoning a bit pointless. Konami must have got bored with Accel Synchro Summoning at that point…”

“And that was before Konami started to try to introduce time travel and altering history into the plot.” Yusei mirrored Crow’s exasperation as he analysed the actions of Yliaster. “I mean, serious sci-fi shows like 'Star Trek' always try to avoid time-travel plot points, or if they do, they make it wrap up nicely or we find out it was a temporal loop that they escape from. But in this show, apparently when you travel through time and change history, a gigantic shockwave rips across the planet. Oh, and the change is not instantaneous, although it would have to be. But the real problem is of course the paradoxes that it throws up. It’s like in ‘Pokémon Movie 12’. Ash and co. can never end that movie since they altered history so much.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Arceus in the present is angry because of what happened in the past and comes to Earth. So Ash goes back in time and makes it so Arceus never got angry. So the present is changed. Arceus never comes to Earth. So Ash never goes back in time. Arceus gets angry all over again. And the cycle continues. And the problem is the same in this show.” Yusei continued, his tone becoming more agitated “I mean, recently, Yliaster erased their own time machine from history. How do you do that without becoming trapped in an infinite loop?! You just can’t! It’s almost as if the people writing this did no research whatsoever before they wrote this stuff!”

“At least we know how this story arc is going to end. We beat Team New World and then the Crimson Dragon resets everything to how it should be. There’s no other way.” Crow shrugged as he realised he’d second-guessed the exact ending to Season 2.

“Yep, you’re right.” Yusei too relaxed in the thought that he knew how it would end. “And of course before that, we’ve got to face the DIVINE Synchros. What were Konami thinking…taking the Attribute that was never supposed to be used and slapping it on Synchros? I mean, there are no DIVINE Ritual or Fusion monsters, so why do Synchros get the special treatment?” Yusei looked to Crow for an answer.

“Err…Because Synchros are Konami’s new absolute bestest favourite thing in the world ever?” Crow said quickly.
“That’s exactly it. So, most likely I’ll summon some sort of DIVINE version of ‘Stardust Dragon’ to defeat the ‘Machine Emperors’.”
“Probably. But of course, from the moment you started striving to summon ‘Shooting Star Dragon’; the irony of it all has been almost unbearable to those who spotted it at the beginning.”

“What irony?” Asked a baffled Yusei.
“The fact that you’ve had a monster in your Deck this whole time that could defeat the ‘Machine Emperors’, and what’s more it’s a Synchro Monster.” Answered Crow, trying to guide Yusei to an answer.
“Which monster?”
“’Turbo Warrior’. Its effect renders it unharmed by the effects of Level 6 and lower monsters. And since the 'Machine Emperor Infinity' monsters are all Level 1, they can’t target or equip ‘Turbo Warrior’. And it has enough strength to take down ‘Skiel’ unaided and a small power boost is all that’s needed to crush ‘Wisel’ and ‘Grannel’. It’s the perfect solution to the whole problem! It’s a way to easily to defeat Yliaster, and it’s a Synchro monster, so Konami should love it!”
“Huh. Must have, err, forgotten about that… Konami must have too…" Yusei realised "Idiots…”
[/spoiler]

[BlueDragonOmega]

... Wow. It's so true.

... Ah well, the Recent 5d's episodes have had some epic moments, so I can't really complain.

[Lexadin]

Lol, this is so true.

Good work Max, as always.

[Weather Report - Stand]

The hilarious thing is that I completely agree with you, and all I ever did was look at episode titles for the second season.

Once I heard that they were throwing Duel Academy back into the plot, along with Ancient Gear Golem being thrown back in for filler, along with AN EPISODE ABOUT AKIZA GETTING A DRIVER'S LICENSE, I decided not to ruin my current opinion of the show and just wrap up that first season and end it there. For me, there is no second season, and I don't care if there is. Now, if there's a THIRD season as good as the first, then I'm happy.

Oh yeah, and I instantly hated Crow once I noticed that there were around FORTY different Black Wing cards now. ...WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!

[Max Darkness]

Thanks Weather Report. I'd forgotten about the Duel Academia filler episodes (Aki schoolgirl fanservice), so I'll need to go back and re-watch some of that filler half-season.

[Weather Report - Stand]

Woo!! Wait... THAT'S NOT GOOD!! AAAAAAAARGH, DON'T DO IT unless you really want to do more extensive research. I'm glad to be of help/hindrance.

[Max Darkness]

Now that you mention it, they are terrible episodes. Anyway, bump.

[Coro Kouhai]

That literally made my day.

You write with such a sarcastic, nasty tone.
I like it.
It's...... refreshing, I think the word is.
And your points were absolutely dead-on, Konami's really effed up huge on this one.

I mean seriously......
How many times has Turbo Warrior even been Summoned? Twice?
Him, Road Warrior and Drill Warrior are crying in Yusei's Extra Deck.

Have you written anything else I can read?

[Max Darkness]

Thanks for the rate. The problem is that all the stuff I've written is in script form, and it would be too much of a hassle to dig it up from my computer and then re-write it. If I find any of my older (mostly Pokemon) satire, I'll message it to you.

[Just Crouton]

Write some more! There's so much to say about the first-half season filler episodes, like Jack's crime-fighting and the other episode where Jack fights crime in the exact same setup. Let's not forget that episode with the guy who uses Time Wizard on Crow.

I don't like how season 2's plot randomly shifts from the alien robot time-travelers and the tournament to random, pointless plots like the 7-parter Crashtown, characters like Sherry, early GX-style episodes, episode plots within it's own season recycled and reused again twice, and retarded, overused, cliche anime plot devices like Yusei having to have a specific state of mind to play a trading card. State of mind to use a special power only made sense in Masked Rider Kuuga and Agito because they had magic-based powers that mutated to their personal desires, and those were both live-action shows. This season also did a horrible job writing episodes to sell cards.

Did I mention the pointless 7-parter Crashtown? Yay! Kiryu's back just in time for kids to get new cards! Wait! He's not part of the main plot and gets 7 episodes based around him? Lolwut?

[Max Darkness]

Crashtown can be summed up quite simply as "Hey kids, we've expanded the "Infernity" Archetype! Gets yours now! As used by Kiryu!"

I'll write some more in a while, I'm currently re-watching the season, since I'd forgotten about a lot of the episodes.

[Brinolovania]

I love this...I give you lots of reps.

[Max Darkness]

More should be coming soon, currently in the form of a conversation between Jack and Carly drinking obvious-attempt-at-nostalgia Blue-Eyes Mountain Coffee... (Who names a mountain after a children's trading card? Methinks Kaiba was the first one to climb it...)

[legendhiro]

man, i was actually gonna do this...

but yours is so much better than mine woulda been that i'm actually glad yours went up first.

PURE AWESOME!!!

[Corvidae]

Epic. I don't really have anything more to say. Can't wait for the next part.

Epic. I don't really have anything more to say. Can't wait for the next part.

[Brimtosis]

0-0

Awsomeness incarnate in script form.

If there was anything more true than this, and some of the stuff I know and Believe in, then I would never come to this thread in the first place.

Wait, if I didn't come here, then I wouldn't know, so I'd come here, and then if I found something more true, I would go back and not go here, and...Damn, it is easy to get in a loop of confusion.

But still, this is better than good. And truer than true.

[DARKPLANT RISING]

Jack Atlas: I normal summon battle fader.

Anyhow, I'm going to fave this thread for obvious reasons.

[Max Darkness]

Thanks for the rates and favorite.