#and the emotional mess that is the Dark masters arc they don't get split up like this again

[curedigiqueen]

Mimi notably never directly refers to Yamato over the course of both adventure and 02. However there IS an implication of interactions in the first half of the show.

Mimi is one of the youngest in the group. Though she and Koshiro are the same age, Koshiro's quiet serious nature and computer skills often lead him to be treated more seriously while Mimi's penchant for complaining (no matter how justified), makes her treated a little more like a junior. There's a hierarchy of protection, that Mimi sits only above Takeru for. Mimi, being on the younger side, is more free to complain about her situation. Sora clearly looks after Mimi as the senior girl, as does Joe as the oldest over all, but Yamato also seems to look after her, at least in the first half of the season, as an extension of looking after Takeru. For instance, very early in the series, Yamato advocated for taking a break, presumably on behalf of Takeru, but it was both Takeru and Mimi who were struggling. And in episodes 5, 7, and 19 Yamato seems to be tasked with looking after the younger kids, Takeru and Mimi, Koshiro sometimes, even if I don't think it was necessarily purposeful in 5.

As such while we don't see much of Yamato and Mimi directly interacting it does stand to reason that they get along and do work well together. Yamato is generally rather considerate of people's negative emotions, such as with how he treated Sora's breakdown in episode 26 and how he handled Mimi's graves early in the dark masters arc. I would imagine that Yamato is relatively tolerant of Mimi's complaining. Conversely I would imagine Yamato is someone who Mimi holds a lot of respect for.

As a side note, the fact Taichi leaves Hikari in Yamato's care I think also speaks to Yamato's unspoken role of "babysitter", the complimentary shield to the role of sword Taichi plays. Yamato's tendency to prioritize the group's well being, over Taichi's tendency to take initiative and confront enemies. It also of course makes sense in the context of their crests, Taichi is courage (to do things), and Yamato's is friendship (to look after people).

And of course on the other side we get Joe Taichi and Sora as a group, the initiative takers, the ones who are more likely to do a dangerous job. Joe who went out in episode 7, Taichi and Sora who went to find him. Those three were the ones dealing with Andromon while the others looked around the factory, and the ones who went in for Sora's crest. Koshiro goes either way depending on if his skills are necessary or not.

[linkspooky]

Hi! I love your meta btw, your recent posts reminded me that yu gi oh exist lol i used to watch it as a kid but I don't remember anything so I wanted to ask you what's the best watch order and (maybe) your general opinion about the various spinoff

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters: I'd recommend watching this one first because every spin-off after this one either recycles archetypes, or subverts tropes from the original so it'll enhance your viewing experience.

Afterwards, the simplest is release order. GX -> 5DS are in the same continuity as Duel Monsters, and they have a crossover Film Bonds Beyond Time.

Zexal's basically a standalone it has no connection to the previous, but I'd reccomend watching it after Duel Monsters because there are a lot of references in plot and tropes to the original.

You need to have watched GX, 5DS, and Zexal to understand Arc-V because they reference settings and characters from the original series. It's basically every single Yu-Gi-Oh! Series fights in a Denny's Parkinglot.

You don't need to see any previous series to watch Vrains.

You need to watch Sevens before Go!Rush because the main character of Sevens shows up in Go!Rush, and Go!Rush is a prequel sort of kind of.

As for my general opinions and reccomendations, below the cut:

Duel Monsters is the original and sets the standard. I think the manga is better on this one because it acknowledges Death-T, which I think is crucial for Kaiba's development. He did more than just steal one of Yugi's Grandpas cards. The arc of the main characters Yugi and Yami with Yugi learning confidence and Yami unlearning arrogance is really good, especially in the manga where Yami starts out as a lowkey serial killer. Battle City and Duelist Kingdom are also two really good tournament arcs, Battle City in particular is probably the best Tournament Arc in the Series.

Yu-Gi-Oh GX! Is my personal favorite but it's a mess. I've once heard it described as "GX is two seasons of absurdist nonsense, and then a complete emotional breakdown." In my opinion there's a lot of good foreshadowing and buildup for what will happen in Season 3, and Season 3 is one of the best shonen deconstruction arcs especially of it's main protagonist in anything ever.

Honestly the worst part of Season 1 and 2 for me isn't even the pacing, it's that it recycles plot points from Yu-Gi-Oh! but less good. The Seven Shadow riders just do shadow duels because they did that in original Yu-Gi-Oh, there are three super powerful cards like the Egyptian God Cards. In season 2 there's a villain with a split personality like Marik, and the Genex tournament is really bad plotless meandering tournament arc compared to Battle City.

Season 3 is also masterful at utilizing things that were foreshadowed in the past 3 seasons, especially in regards to Judai's flaws which have been swept under the rug until now.

I think YGO GX is one of the best casts, and also one of the best at balancing screentime of its cast so characters show up when they're relevant and disappear when they're not relevant, and every major character has an arc. However, it's very much the Judai show, and if you're invested in a character that's not Judai you'll likely think your fave didn't get used to their fullest potential.

Yu-Gi-Oh 5DS has one of the best beginnings of any Yu-Gi-Oh series and it's excellent at building Fortune Cup -> Dark Signer and jacking up tension. Dark Signer, Barian Arc and Gx Season 3 are probably my top 3 arcs. I won't talk about it much because I don't want to spoil.

Season 2 is still good, and the ending is excellent as well as the villains, but the pacing becomes abysmal due to production issues. Carly and Aki are probably the two best female characters in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, and all their screentime and relevance gets erased. If you watch Yu-Gi-Oh for the duels, the relay duels suck and last 3 whole seasons and nobody gets to win a duel if they're not Yusei Fudo. As someone who really enjoyed Yusei in season 1, him becoming a perfect hero who always saves the day and never makes mistakes and never gets challenged signifcantly by the narrative because he's always right makes him super uninteresting. I want to clarify I think Yusei is still a character with depth and character flaws, but the narrative doesn't challenge him on this flaws. Aporia and Z-One do a lot to redeem Season 2 though and it ends on a real highpoint.

Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal is probably the highest quality Yu-Gi-Oh series overall, especially since there's no drop in quality ever it ends on it's highest point. Shark is probably the single best written character in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Vector is the best written villain.

I actually don't have much to say on Zexal because I don't want to spoil what's good about it. My only complaint is that it's cast is padded with way too many characters who do nothing. You could cut Yuma's entire friend group and lose absolutely nothing. The female characters in Zexal are abysmal too, the worst in any series. The characters with arcs though are all good and iconic.

It's also the only show that manages the ambiguity where none of the villains are actually villains, almost every single character has a sympathetic reason for what they're doing even the ones that are wrapped up in revenge plots. It gives a really interesting challenge to Yuma the pacifist protagonist who doesn't want to pick sides. Yuma's up there with Judai too in top ten protagonists.

Arc-V.... I think you can still have fun with Arc-V, but the Z-arc plotline just was not a good idea and it makes the show fundamentally flawed because everything from episode 20 onwards is built around the Z-Arc plotline.

Vrains has some solid ideas and themes. I especially love the emergent ai ideas that are present with the ignis and bohmann it's one of my favorite topics in science fiction. I've got two main problems number. I enjoy playmaker as a character, but much like Yusei I feel like over time he's not as challenged as character by his narrative. THough, the final season does a lot to rectify that.

Vrains second and biggest problem is that it plays it really safe after the production disaster that was Arc-V. Which means the first two seasons while enjoyable enough feel kind of by the numbers at times. The third season is amazing though, but it suffers from the series being cut short so it's only about 20 episodes. Still ending on a high note is always a good thing.

Sevens is kind of the closest to a slice-of-life Yu-Gi-Oh which makes it hard to compare to the other series. I do enjoy the main cast of characters, but to be honest it's really hard to get invested for me personally, when every arc is just "I hate Rush Duels. I'm going to try to destroy Rush Duels. Nevermind, Rush duels are awesome actually." Every. Single. Arc.

I'm only 16 episodes into Go-Rush and it's not finished yet, but my main take so far is: Yudias! Yudias! Yudias!