Astral tells Yuma to use
Hope’s effect like Shark said, Yuma uses the trap instead even if it
puts him further in the DANGER ZONE of low LP because he’s hoping
on the slim chance he’s getting a card that will let him combo with
Hope so he can win. Rather than defensively, offensive thinking again,
even if he has to sacrifice some LP.
Hope’s combo attack has it’s first appearance: a useless
first try, followed by a second attempt that has doubled attack. It’s a
really good card game metaphor matching Yuma’s attitude as a person.
EVEN IF IT DOESN’T WORK, TRY AGAIN. KATTOBING.
Shark continues to pressure Yuma to give up, and Yuma turns the question back on him– why
is he so insistent that he give up? Did Shark also have to give up
something important to him? (shark: !) Yuma continues, Did you have to
abandon something precious to you!? Even in the heat of things, I think
this shows he’s pretty empathetic. It’s not just stop, but he notices
Shark’s issues. After the duel is done too, even after the high stakes,
he tells Shark he had fun and tries to reach out to him.
Shark is SO PISSED by Yuma refusing to give up. “I won’t give up, I
won’t give! Guys like you piss me off the most!” I mean, he says it
directly, but we also get a cut to his face looking angrier every time
Yuma says it. Of course, when he refused to give up and tried to cheat
to win, that ended rather poorly for him. It’s no wonder he gets so
pissed off being reminded of himself.
I love that Astral just assumes that Yuma can draw whatever card he
wants. geeze just shining draw yuma that’s normal right? I’m sure this
was a comedic line but it was nice the way they worked that into the
Astral world worldbuilding in Zexal II… even if we only got a little
bit there, haha
Astral just interrupting while Yuma is
adamant HEY IT’S MY DUEL HEEEY. It’s also clear the difference in their
play styles. Astral plays defensively and looks turns ahead, Yuma is
straight forward and wants to get the higher attack and go ATTACK!! He
faces things straight on and doesn’t necessarily think them over while
Astral is like why. Why but strategy, Yuma why.
But while Astral is clearly the better duelist, able to look turns ahead into the duel, it’s Yuma’s
play that wins them the game. Astral is the one who understand the
flow of battle, but Yuma has the spirit to go put himself out there,
take risks, and get things done, while Astral is way more cautious and a
defensive player. Astral might be able to avoid losing, but since he’d
avoid taking risks, he’s also in danger of deck out rather than
victory, haha.
They both provide something the other lacks,
strategy-wise, so it’s a good set up for what these characters have to
learn from each other. Astral might seem like the wise mentor type, but
really, he has a lot to learn.
Rules of the stakes laid out
plain and clear early: win or Astral dies. Honestly, whenever a YGO has
LOSERS DIE as a thing I always think of Kaiba, haha. Kaiba’s
philosophy echoes in the world building of YGO a lot, even if not
necessarily in the characters themselves.
I love Kotori early on especially (because she gets to do slightly more,
haha). Tetsuo’s so quick to give up but Kotori’s always got the
encouragement ready to remind Yuma to KATTOBING.
In this ep, Tetsuo is the negative one, Kotori the positive audience reactions.
It always makes me laugh that his friends’ first reaction to all this is to
assume he’s gone crazy. And his own second reaction. Tbf, HAUNTED
BY DUEL GHOST is not usually what you expect to happen.
I’ve been in a weird unpleasant mood lately, and Zexal was the show that kept me going through one of the rocky patches in my life. I’m not expecting a repeat performance, but I’ve been meaning to rewatch and what the hell, why not? It’s time.
Zexal opens with our protagonist high on a harrowing narrow ledge, traversing the abyss, a closed door. Dramatic violins strike high sharp notes and the door asks: “He who opens this door shall obtain a new power. However, as price for this power, you will lose that which is most important to you.” Hell of a bargain to strike, right? What the hell is this goofy-looking kid’s most important thing, anyway?
A question the show is gonna ask more than a few times before we hit the end, and get the final word on our answer like 145 episodes from now.
We don’t get to find out for now, because he takes a step backwards and the world crumbles out from beneath him and WHOOPS TIME TO WAKE UP, TIME FOR SCHOOL.
rolandsvaria asked: Please, do tell, what didn't you like about the episode? I thought it was decent, but my personal beef with it is that the show skipped over the numerous opportunities for character moments for Lancer and non-Lancer characters alike, just to get the plot on the road faster.
Quite a lot! Because of my tendency to just talk and talk and <i>talk</i>, I’ll be splitting this into parts so no one gets fatigued from the tl;dr. My apologies in advance for how long this will get.
–
So, my biggest complaint with the first part of the episode is an on-going one. Every time an episode harps on the egao theme I get really irritated, and yes, I’m aware that is basically most all of Yuuya’s episodes going forward from Yuuto’s death.
There’s a lot of reasons “smiling faces” annoy me, but the first one is: it’s a meaningless empty theme that keeps being applied to situations where it makes no sense. It’s one thing to want to make others smile as an entertainer, but when lives are on the line, protecting them so they can live and smile another might be a more sensible priority. This movement away from allowing Yuuya to have any sort of important serious thoughts on the events in-play, and keeping his focus on the very shallow egao motivation is really chafing. Also, this insistence on egao and joy is almost counter-thematic to the very set up of the show.
The most cut-and-dried antagonists are currently the fusion dimension. Dennis, a definite antagonist, two-faced and working as a spy is very entertainment themed– in fact, he’s taken on a lot of Yuuya’s early characteristics that were later dropped. Yuuya’s pendulum motto that his father taught him had a part about swinging forward and swinging back, something that Dennis brought back with his trapeze. Yuuri is stated to be following the Professor’s orders for his own enjoyment. Even Sora, the most sympathetic of the fusion boys, in his fight with Shun is very firm on his hunting being a game, that it’s something he enjoys. Basically, the antagonists don’t need any help with this smiling theme– they’ve already got it down pat in a way the protagonist doesn’t.
Meanwhile, the XYZ kids who are all framed sympathetic, are serious. Serena, the singular character we have gotten from the fusion dimension that is not framed in an antagonistic light, is also framed serious. You’ll notice the narrative doesn’t seem to be saying the solution was for her to learn to enjoy her fusion dimension role, but to fight against them. In this, the story’s theme is quite literally at war with itself.
Egao is being used as a bandage, now that the studio’s gotten cold feet from the story as it was originally set up, and would like to move away from that. The XYZ kids have forcibly been aligned with the theme of smiles via. Yuuto’s death– you’ll notice that when Yuuto is invoked it’s always his singular death scene. Nothing else about his behaviors, his past, his actions matters to the story as it it is, anymore. Only that he asked for smiles.
It’s also fairly consistent across the different YGO series that, well, the dueling for entertainment characters tend to be kinda sketch. IV from Zexal with his FANSERVICE, Tron I believe actually phrases things with enjoyment (tanoshimi) to talk mockingly to his opponents, as well as Yubel. Jack’s false king persona at the start of 5Ds, who dueled and had many fans and cheerleaders was Jack at his lowest point and most negative character portrayal. Judai is the most… positively aligned entertainment character, and Judai uh. I think everyone knows the season 3 GX spoilers, right? GX and toxic enjoyment themes all up in here.
[pictured above: one of Tron’s tanoshimi lines. Kimi ni ato de bikkuri suru otanoshimi matte iru kara ne. If I were to make a clumsy literal translation, he’s saying that Waiting after this he has a surprise [for Kaito] toenjoy.]
So, yeah, I uh. really don’t like that egao thing! Whenever it comes up as a major episode theme, we’re already off on the wrong foot!
And then, to make it worse, Yuuya swaps his personal pronoun to Watashi as part of his entertainment duel. The last time he did that sort of swap was in the first episode, when it was all being framed firmly as kind of questionable. Yuuya used Watakushi there, a set up in politeness from Watashi, and he was dressed in his clown’s guise. While being an entertainer doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, in this case, most of the entire first episode was dedicated to how Yuuya was hiding his true self away behind the mask of a clown. If we accept that he experienced forward character motion in the first episode, that he never again starts using the masking more formal Watashi or Watakushi but sticks with his own rough informal ore, that he’s going back to a Watashi now is. well. that’s like make up your mind, this seems like a backwards movement more than anything but the story wants me to swallow it as positive.
[An exchange between Yuuya and Gongenzaka in the first episode. Yuzu and Gongenzaka are on his case for never taking anything seriously– his father made people laugh, but it was different than being laughed AT. Yuuya’s perpetual clowning made sure people laughed at him no matter what– if he, like his father is going to end up being a laughing stock, he may as well do it on purpose. It’s
definitely
not the scene of a well-adjusted young man. A lot of these traits were dropped, so this is part of why seeing a return of something unseen since the first episode is startling, and why I object to it showing without the trappings that originally made it clearly negative.]
Yuuya’s specific personal usage of Watakushi is also– originally, when he does it, it’s a scene where he’s mocking Strong Ishijima. He’s shown up late to the duel dressed as a clown, he’s refusing to take him seriously. It’s something that pisses off both Yuzu and Gongenzaka in the audience, too, so everyone notices the connotations, with his over the top politeness. (In this scene, his grammar matches his Watakushi and is Very Formal.)
[THAT IS NOT HOW YOU RESPECT THE OPPONENT, YUUYA. I could have capped yuzu and gongenzaka yelling at him, but this is already long. Anyway, like, rest assured, they’re in the stands yelling at him. ]
Also, the swapping of personal pronouns– that’s typically a negative ygo-verse thing. Yubel is a boku to Johan’s ore (alongside the typical ygo thing of don’t trust the boku). Tron swaps between Watashi and Boku. IV uses Watashi, Boku, and Ore. Bruno has Boku and Watashi. Just, yeah, this is not a super trustworthy lineup? Which I wouldn’t mind if this was setting up Yuuya for a fall, but all current narrative cues point elsewhere.
This has gotten pretty long and I’ve covered uh. One point of Eight. So let’s cut this off here for now and I’ll continue in another text post!
So, I’m thinking of reposting some of my arc-v meta from my main tumblr over here, but due to it being written for Stierhai and not Thaymet, my tone is even less professional than usual, and it’s more heavily opinionated. So heads up, I might be cross-posting some of my more negative posts. Maybe give me an unfollow if you don’t want that on your dash.
Past that, I don’t have a whole lot of interest in Arc-V speculation and analysis on my own, though I’m always happy to talk about things if prompted with questions! But I might switch to using this tumblr primarily for character analysis and other things from the previous YGO series (Zexal, 5Ds, GX, and also the DM manga) instead.
