#either this or Johan vs Yubel

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 115 & 116 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 113-114 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-115: Giese the Spirit Hunter

Cobra's second assassin was sent after Judai and the others--that assassin being Giese, who is capable of seeing Spirits. He captures Sapphire Pegasus, one of the Gem Beasts, alive and uses him to coerce them into dueling. In Judai's stead, due to his exhaustion of stamina, Johan confronts him, and a duel between Johan and Giese begins. Giese activates his Hunting Net Counter Trap, as if to hunt down Johan's Gem Beasts, and captures Amethyst Cat. Johan attempts to save his Gem Beasts, but even more traps would await him.

TURN-116: The Gem Beasts VS Hell Gundog

Giese proceeds to capture the Gem Beasts with various Trap Cards, while also summoning his Hell Gundog to pour on the attacks against Johan. Feeling anger at Giese's dirty dueling, Johan starts his counterattack, anticipating his Traps and overcoming them strategically by summoning Topaz Tiger and Emerald Turtle to attack with. Cornered, Giese goes for Johan's weakness, making him hold off on any of his attacks. With Johan unable to interfere with his moves, Giese activates his Substitute Pain Permanent Magic to inflict damage on him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sooo, accidentally ran later with these than intended--not helped by realizing while drafting this full release post over the past two days that I missed a couple spots with a few of my usual animation fixes 🙃--buuut with that out of the way, finalized!115-116 are now up and ready to go! This isn't a catch-and-release I promise

These are always a nice pair of episodes in terms of establishing more around Johan's bond with the Gem Beasts and how he sees his relationship to Spirits, as shown as he encountered Tom and when he finds out that Giese was the one who stole his card and Spirit (meanwhile, the dub decided to give them history for reasons); that Pegasus cameo as he introduces them to the Gem Beasts was always cool, and his "Jesus!" line is iconic haha. Also notable for showing the start of the "What am I dueling for?" question starting to stir within Judai's head after his duel with Satou (which is also conspicuously absent from the dub). Always did find Giese's ultimate fate after Johan crushes him--to "Camula's Theme," at that, which always slaps (and is especially nice given the easter egg that Johan's VA, Kanako Irie, also voiced Camula)--a bit ambiguous since we never do follow up with him, but it is implied the Spirits he hunted (and the one he actually saw as a friend?) either consumed him or took him to the Spirit World or what-have-you; I wonder if they would've added a quick follow-up had they had some room in the episode runtime.

Animation error-wise, well, that was part of the reason for the delay, as overall I handled about 31 throughout both episodes, split roughly evenly between them; varied from smaller quality-of-watching things like split-screen timings (with some border errors mixed in, at that) to card errors (moreso in 116 given how often Hell Gundog wound up on Johan's Disk...) making up the bulk of them, along with helping Topaz Tiger see better well good in 115's preview for 116 due to an error with his eye. Given the amount of fixes worked on, as with 113-114, I'll once again go through the usual edit breakdown in this separate post for the interested!

Anywho, enjoy! Up next, I'll hopefully be working on the Judai vs Cobra three-parter in 117-119 together; I'll be detouring back to TFSP to work on Crow's events in the 5D's character stories, mixing in some work on 117-119 as I go. In particular, looking forward to revisiting 119 since it's a favorite (between the art/animation, music, Cobra's message to Judai echoing Satou coming back later... *chef's kiss*), but 117 will also be interesting for the Yubel/Amon interaction, and of course the surprise fight sequence! Stay tuned!

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

Yugioh Characters Tier Lists

Duel Monsters:

DM either has the most amazing characters ever (Kaiba, Marik, Mai, Bakura, Joey/Jonouchi) or the most boring useless ones (Tea/Anzu, Tristan/Honda, everyone else I put in the dislike category). There’s really not much in-between. Noah and Gozaburo meanwhile are in hate because they’re OP and obnoxious. Bandit Keith meanwhile is obnoxious but a weak bitch. Overall those characters in the love category were the main ones keeping me coming back to this show.

I’ll talk a little about the characters I put under conflicted. Dartz was admittedly a decent, albeit bland villain for most of season 4. I like how he cleverly manipulated everyone into joining him. His out of nowhere redemption meanwhile is worse than Pegasus’s. By a lot. Rebecca is conflicted because she’s annoying but does cool stuff in season four. Valon is conflicted because he has an interesting backstory but I hate the way he treats Mai. Take no for an answer you dickwad.

GX:

Yes, I fucking hate that principal. Every single time something goes wrong at the school, he takes off and leaves the kids to die. Chronos is the one who’s actually there to make sure the kids aren’t fucking dying, and he gets zero credit for it! In conclusion, Chronos: good boi, principal: SCUM OF THE EARTH.

Tania is conflicted because I don’t like her in her intro episode but I do kinda like her in her minor role in season 3. Rei is the same way, only I like Rei more. I used to really not like Rei but now I kinda do. Fubuki is conflicted because I hate the way he treats his sister but he’d be really funny without that and honestly, I like his connections with Ryo and Yusuke. Fubuki vs Hell Kaiser is a great duel. Anyone vs Hell Kaiser is a great duel but you get my point.

Also, this show has the best cast of any of the Yugioh shows, I love these darlings. Judai best protag, Yubel best villain, Ryo second best villain, Manjome best rival (I relate so hard to him feeling like a failure in his family), and Johan and Yubel best love interests. I KNOW WHAT I SAID >:D

5Ds:

YUSEI YOU PRICK. I MAY NOT HAVE BEEN BORED BY LARGE CHUNKS OF THIS SHOW IF THERE WAS A PROTAGONIST WITH A PERSONALITY OUTSIDE OF “Oh I’m such a badass, I never form relationships that are in any way interesting or talk to anyone unless it’s to tell them how wrong they are for not wanting to forgive their abusers.” When he’s not pretentious, he’s boring. If any other character had been the protagonist, I might have seen this show as the masterpiece others do.

Also, this tier list left out Martha and it upsets me. She is among the handful of characters I like from this show. She’s a good mom to her three adopted children, two of whom are also great characters: Jack, the second best rival of YGO with a great character arc, and Crow, who is just the absolute sweetest. Also, Aki and Carly are the best YGO girls. Carly’s pretty much the only time the “doesn’t duel much if at all” character actually worked and it’s because she still had development, (and even a profession outside of duelling which is really rare for this series actually) it was just rooted in something that wasn’t rooted in dueling or a shallow love interest. Yes, she develops as a person because of Jack. Jack was the catalyst to her growth. But you know what? That actually went both ways, Jack grew as a person because of Carly, Carly grew as a person because of Jack. She’s wonderful and amazing and I love her.

Also, I don’t think I need to argue in Aki’s favour, but she’s fucking amazing and I relate to her narrative a lot.

Zexal:

Anna scares me. I’ll admit she had some character development in Zexal 2 but she still terrifies me. Why does a 13 year old have a flying shotgun and an inability to take ‘no’ for an answer?

Is it hypocritical that I call Anna a demon and yet like Cathy and appreciate her development in the background? Probably. BUT WHY DOES SHE HAVE A FLYING CANON?!

Besides Anna, most of my disliked Zexal characters are petty. Orbital’s there because of the Obomi romance and Tetsuo is there because of his simping for Rio. Everyone else is at least tolerable. The best characters are the aliens, especially the sexy awful bastard Vector and the sweet bean Astral. I won’t say who the other aliens are, because that would be spoiling and Zexal seems to be one of the least watched shows.

Arc V:

I love Arc V dammit. I love seeing alternate dimension versions of characters from past shows, I love that all the summoning types are in it, I love how the characters learn to use them and combine them and alter their styles based on them, I love the four counterparts thing. I admit Synchro dimension and onward have problems (and some characters got completely fucked by the narrative) but you know what this show had almost 100% of the time? CHARM AND FUN. And that’s what I watch Yugioh for :D

The one character I’m conflicted on is Reiji/Declan Akaba. He seemed cool at first and then was callous about bringing kids to war (the way he treated Layra especially disgusted me) but he does have some badass moments here and there and showed at least the slightest amount of growth by the end of the series, which is more than I can say for some.

[captainsaltyparis]

GX Month Day 5: “Pass the Salt”

I can’t art much so I haven’t done anything else for other days but what I am good at is being sad at things so here we are!

Most of my wishes are for season 4. Season 1 is pretty bad but the show wasn’t quite sure what it wanted to be so we got a show that was half cute happy slice of life and half dark but with villains that mostly got no development, but on the other hand the cute happy slice of life stuff is necessary to make season 3 so sad. Season 2 had maybe too much exposition but that’s kinda whatever. Season 3 is perfect and I’d probably change at most really minor things.

Season 4 though! Season 4 got really hurt by being rushed because you can tell the writers wanted to do two things in it: a) have Judai push through depression with the help of his friends and enjoy duelling again and b) simultaneously fight the world ending threat of Darkness. Cramping those two things together was never going to go particularly well, so parts of season 4 feel really unsure where they want to go, and I think that’s only really fixable with either more episodes or ditching one of the themes...but to ditch one of the themes you either end up back with slice of life or Judai being constantly depressed, and neither of those sounds great for s4.

The final fight with Darkness was terrible, as well. His deck feels really thrown together and the majority of the fight is him using a dumb gimmick, Yubel going ‘lol ur using a dumb gimmick? arent you meant to be a god?’ and then his dumb gimmick getting beaten. Like really, this guy is the big threat? Fujiwara may have been an absolute idiot for thinking he could somehow turn Judai and Johan against each other but at least his deck felt cohesive and strong. (And on that note, one thing I’m sad about is they only ever kept hinting at Judai/Johan, and of course I know they’d never have been able to do anything about that. Even today, I wouldn’t have expected them to confirm anything, but I’m still going to be sad about it.)

So basically, my ultimate wishlist would’ve been: full length season 4, Fujiwara is the mid-boss and there’s some slice of life episodes with him, Ryo and Fubuki after he loses where he gets rehabilitated, also get to see how Ryo is handling being disabled now. Move the ‘Judai has to re-learn how to have fun’ stuff to post-Fujiwara, add in Edo vs Trueman and such prior to the Fujiwara fight (honestly, Edo losing off-screen is so sad), and keep Johan around for a bit for some slice of life because those two boys deserve some happiness after season 3, and to be honest, even though season 4 hits you with the ‘only Yugi can remind Judai to be happy’ thing (for some reason), I really feel like Johan could have done it too.

For the final boss, then, you could either use Darkness still but build him up a bit more (and maybe give him an actual deck rather than make him a gimmick lord), or change it up since it doesn’t necessarily have to be connected to Fujiwara now. Its kinda weird as well that the final boss is Darkness, given that’s also Judai’s power, and I know ‘the dark of one’s heart’ and ‘the Gentle Darkness’ are different things, but its still a bit strange thematically? Plus it meant there was no final showdown between Judai, Yubel and the Light. 

Oh, and one other thing, it was kinda weird that season 4, for the majority of it, went with the idea that ‘Judai and Yubel are now entirely one’ and so we didn’t see Yubel until the very end. Like, I feel like we’d either expect to see 0 Yubel (because they’re now one and can’t be separate) or a decent amount of Yubel (because they’re one but still seperate and so Yubel will help when they can). Think they should have committed one way or the other, or at least had some throwaway line about ‘Yubel was recovering so couldn’t appear for a lot of it’. 

So there you go, there’s my salty rant on season 4 and what I’d change. Feel free to call me a moron in the replies if you disagree on anything lmao

[booksanditsseriesormovies]

Ep. 180 done aka I AM CRYING BECAUSE OF A DAMN KIDS' SHOW

Finally. It's done. 180 episodes of a 12 y/o series yes.

Once again, Darkness was a sort of underwhelming character with cards that were way to fucking broken. His goal of losing everyone's identity ti merge with it sounds a bit similar to the Light of Destruction (while Kagemaru's and Yubel's goals were clearly different). I still think we needed more buildup.

What was interesting is that he is the only one who manages to snatch away Yubel from Judai (which must have been a bit scary considering they are literally one soul).

Yubel's powers are what protected Judai from Darkness' mind control and what allowed him to materialize Neos in times of need. We suddenly see this guy who gains control of them and even makes them attack Judai (tho 0 ATK points so joke's on Darkness)

(Can I say I love Yubel's snarkiness towards Judai? Seems like purging the Light out of them made them a much more likeable character, we don't see their obssession anymore and looks more like the protector they are meant to be).

Just last post I had said i loved the continuity of Johan not disappearing into Darkness because Fujiwara said he and Judai could not join it. Well they spat it right back at me 1 episode later with Johan effectively joining the darkness (thx pals). But well it was nice to see everyone pulling through the darkness.

The graduation ceremony and party had me almost in tears. It does give off the sense of letting go of childhood and growing up. Asuka even said it, Judai took a bit of their childhood with them, even as Johan said Judai changed the most (and you weren't there to see him duel a damn monkey, my child).

But it was a bit painful that Judai wasn't there, so he didn't say goodbye to any of them (like the whole cast was there to see you mate wayd).

And when you think about how Judai started off wanting to become the King of Games, to completely changing his goal to become a bridge between spirits and humans (cough like my rainbow child cough). It just puts into perspectice how much Judai has grown, switching from purely personal ambitions to dedicating his life to help others.

Also, did i know the final episodes were his duel vs Yugi? Yes. Did that stop me from fangirling like my life depended on it? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT.

This duel was just pure golden fanservice and idgaf it wrapped it up perfectly. Both super skilled duelists, taking each others' ace cards out. AND THEN FUCKING ATEM SHOWS UP AND SUMMONS SLIFER LIKE HOLY SHIT ON A STICK.

I want to point out I would have loved to see who won but I think YuGiOh is not about to put one protagonist over the other. Each are meant to be viewed as the best within their universe and that's it.

(That being said Slither did have more ATK points than Neos and Judai promised to grow more and face him again so sounds like Yugi won. Then again Judai said Gotcha which he never said when he lost but maybe is just his newfound love for dueling talking).

All in all I enjoyed these series a lot. It dealt with human growth in a more down to earth way than DM did. It also dealt with human problems much more darker than DM ever did and that came as a shocker to me but made me love it even more. I feel like Judai is a much more relatable protagonist, he doesn't have that air of invincibility that someone like Atem had (except for maybe in Waking the Dragons when Yugi is taken by the Orichalchos).

He started off as a kid who just wanted to have fun and reach his own selfish goal. He grew through trials and sacrifices, he collapsed emotionally and mentally, he had to learn to stand up again, to think about others. And ultimately that made him lose a part of hinself which he ultimately recovers. I fucking loved all his character growth. I know some say the cast of GX is underused (and I agree like seriously in 1 season I learned to care more about Jim, O'Brien and Johan than Asuka, Sho or Kenzan), you can't possibly expect every character in a 20 min episode anime to have the growth Judai's did. That's why he is the protagonist.

I can now confidently say thay whoever hates on GX or Judai either didn't watch it at all, watched just the dub or didn't get to season 3. I get it it's hard to like a series when you have to endure 100 meh episodes before you get to the good stuff but it's worth it. Or you could read the synopsis of s1 and s2 (or have someone tell you about them) and then watch s3 and s4. Because, as kind of indifferent as I feel towards s1 and s2 (specially s1) you do need the context they provide SPECIALLY of Judai's personality or you would never motice the change and growth and he just becomes a Yusei who is just badass all the way and that's it.

(I will definitely watch season 3 and 4 again...the other two ehm....yeah)

[higuchimon]

@ravenfal sent the request in for these. So, here they are :)

Yubel

Why I like them/why I don't: I love Yubel. Yubel is in my top favorite of GX characters. Why? Because Yubel is awesome. Yubel is either bigender or agender or nonbinary in general. Yubel laughs at the concept of a gender binary and I love that. I love how determined they are and how much they love Juudai - and how they mirror Johan. That mirroring is at the core of why Yubel hates Johan so much. The two of them did almost the same things but Johan sacrificed nothing for Juudai and has the nerve to claim him as a friend, let alone the fact Juudai might love him! Johan's lucky that Yubel didn't hang his guts on a fence.

What I like about their appearance: Everything. But especially the wings. I love wings!

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?: Same thing.

OTP: Yubel x Juudai. And it's canon which adds an extra flavor of glee.

NOTP: Anyone who isn't Juudai unless it's a threesome with him. Yubel would never, ever love anyone who isn't Juudai. Figuring out Yubel's role in Reversal AU was murder, since Yubel exists in canon so much in relation to loving Juudai and I'm shutting up here because otherwise, spoilers!

OT3: Yubel x Juudai x Johan. I think it works the absolute best, once Yubel and Johan work through their issues.

Favorite card they use: Yubel. All flavors thereof.

Favorite moment they were in: The soul-fusion is far too beautiful and I tear up every time.

Least favorite moment: ...I guess the Amon vs Yubel duel? Mostly because the duel itself bores the blazes out of me. Nothing against Yubel.

Would I fuck, marry, or kill them: None of the above. Nasch/Shark

Why I like them/why I don't: I love all of his character growth so very much, and even his turn to the Barians was caused by his growth and experiences with Yuuma, by having him start to care about other people. If he didn't care, like he didn't in the beginning, then he wouldn't have bothered.

What I like about their appearance: His hair. I like hair! ... that sounded strange.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?: Ryouga. Definitely.

OTP: Ryouga/Nasch x Durbe. I didn't start off liking it, but then one day I turned around and it was an OTP. Who knew?

NOTP: Nothing I run screaming from. I try hard not to read things I don't expect I'll like.

OT3: Ryouga x Kaito x Yuuma. One of my first OT3s, really. Also, maybe Ryouga x Thomas/IV x Durbe. I keep meaning to write one of those.

Favorite card they use: I like all of them, really. A serious fish user!

Favorite moment they were in: Every single moment once he accepts that he's Nasch. Every. Single. One.

Least favorite moment: Nothing jumps to mind right away. Some of the early season 1 stuff is a bit irritating but other than that...

Would I fuck, marry, or kill them: Marry to Durbe.

[shionuzukis]

❤, 💀, ♂♀, ☯, ☒, 💑, 🍁, 🐍, 👍 👊 💋 🌟 ♞ 💬 💞 📺 🎮 ♬ 🎵 🎶 ✍ 🍊 🐧 🌼 ☁ 👏 🔃 👯 :D

youre a gem, pal!!! bless u.

❤: judai is quite literally the only option. jounouchi is a pretty close second, though!

💀: either yami bakura or vector. both are just pre hysterical to watch. the animation on vector in particular is soooo good. they manage to have him emote so strongly even as a barian and the whole not having a mouth thing!!!

♂♀: excluding judai or jou, my fave boy would have to be manjoume or jack. best girl is yuzu, though. asuka, anzu, and aki are all real close to my heart, too. and oh god, carly, too!! and rio, too. i love like all the ygo gals a real lot.

☯: kenzan bc i also have DINO DNA. jk but really pegasus bc he i also like to drink juice out of wine glasses while i watch cartoons on my private island that i bought with card game money.

☒: ahh, i feel bad, but probably most of yuma’s friend group that isn’t plot relevant. like cathy and tokunosuke. the show did incredibly little with them, and honestly they could get kind of annoying. its pretty disappointing how much i tend to like the little protagonist friend groups. : (

💑: manjoume/judai otp, man. but, also, yugi/jounouchi is super cute, and i love anzu/mai. pretty much any combination of team 5ds is also so good in my book, especially if you throw carly into the mix. it’s really tough to just give brotps, too, since i also ship pretty much any combination i can think of lmao.

🍁: the cute ones lmao. 

🐍: hmm, that’s tough...maybe black rose dragon?

👍: aki’s!!! 

👊: the only decks i own are a couple my sibling bought me based off of yugi’s in dm. i like his battle city one a lot!! id really like to have one based around xyz though!!

💋: pretty much any bit of dialogue from gx’s more goofy moments. stuff like when that ridiculous rich submarine guy dueled judai and was like boy, i want to open an underwater card game school!!! or judai trying to un-brainwash manjoume and throwing his flithy-ass coat at him and being like i’VE SEEN YOU WIPE SOY SAUCE ON IT. just silly stuff like that. its the best.

🌟: johan being all im gonna summon that rainbow dragon but lol nah he doesn’t actually have it. its absolutely ridiculous and basically when i decided i love johan. also anytime vector ja-jyans.

♞: AKI’S FIRST DUEL IN THE FORTUNE CUP IS LIKE MY LIFE. but also ceremonial duel, judai vs. yubel, and yuma and astral’s last duel are sooo good. vector vs. yuma in sargasso is great, too. MISAWA VS. THE TIGER LADY IN GX’S FIRST SEASON ALSO GIVES ME LIFE BC misawa is just so damn into that and im so happy they get to meet again in the third season. ;___;

💬: subbed all the way. i never really watched ygo when it was airing on american tv as a kid, so i don’t have any nostalgia for it. dm is mostly watchable from i’ve heard, but the severe alterations made to gx and 5ds is more than enough to keep me away. also, so many of the name changes are just so unnecessary?? and confusing??? 

💞: gx is my absolute favorite, then zexal, and then dm, 5ds, and arc v all nice and cozy together in third. i love them all so so much, though.

📺: i still havent seen any of the movies!! i was holding off on bbt until my sibling and i finished 5ds, but we’re slooow. and i just never got around to pyramid of light.

🎮: ive only ever played a little of one the gx tag force games, so uhh...

♬: BRAVING!!!!! BRAVING IS THE ONLY YGO OPENING THAT MATTERS!!! i like setsubou no freesia from zexal quite a bit too in terms of endings.

🎵: ;___; ive never really listened to ygo osts. theres a few songs i know i really like from 5ds, though. idk their names, but i think i started hearing them around the dark signers arc.

🎶: never really watched any!

✍: ahhh, i have like weird standards, so i havent read a lot of ygo fic, but there was one fubuki/ryo one i read on ao3 that was quite cute!

🍊: i havent really read any ygo doujin either lmao.

🐧: i find the abridged stuff to be a bit frustrating in how it bleeds over into just regular ygo, but ngl, i have a fondness for like the duelist kingdom arc in it.

🌼: i collect ygo keychains.....so i have a lot of those.........forty-two of them to be exact...... i have a really ugly atem figure and a dark magician one that my sibling got me for christmas! and i have the atem figma, and the kotobukiya jounouchi. i have the yami bakura and pharaoh atem ones on pre-order too lmao.

☁: SOMEHOW I HAVENT RLY HAD CARD GAME DREAMS. its weird.

👏: one time i played with my best friend and sibling. we were all really bad, but it was fun! ngl, tho, id love to get deeper into it.... 

🔃: i actually cant think of anyone tbh! once i love a ygo, i always love a ygo. i guess i got more frustrated with kotori as zexal went on? but that was less her character itself and more the narrative...

👯: ahh, not really! i do rly enjoy getting to talk ygo tho lmao. watching 5ds with my sibling is a lot of fun, too!!

[booksanditsseriesormovies]

Another depressing thought for S3

I just went through the opening and with each character I went “possessed by an evil spirit, doesn’t want to duel anymore, dead, dead, dead, also dead, alive, alive, dead, dead, maybe dead maybe possessed by an evil spirit”

Holy cow this is sad.

Edo gains extra points for telling Ryo that coming to the Dark World only for the ultimate duel is a piece of crap (like you wanted to face the Supreme King when Judai is there with a bruning fever and the worst case of PTSD you can think of and you just want to win another card game, like screw you Ryo). Edo went there to help save Johan since Judai saved Saio, and they’re friends. Yes Edo, you tell them.

Now I lowkey want Ryo to face Rainbow Dragon. Johan was putting up a serious fight in his duel vs Ryo without Rainbow Dragon. Now I want a rematch with it on Johan’s deck. Just maybe not in the Dark World because I’m not fond of Ryo but I don’t want him to die either thx.

Oh so Amon is still a thing? And he still has Yubel’s hand AND HE HAS EXODIA WHAT

[booksanditsseriesormovies]

Ep. 176 done AND MY RAINBOW CHILD AND HIS BF SHINE SO MUCH

Get ready for a HUGE wall of text because I am about to gush like nobody's business. And Theory time so even longer.

Having Johan in S4 was obviously fanservice because he was so beloved in S3 (same with O'Brien) but idgaf I will drink that Koolaid because I adore that guy.

And if we didn't get it in S3, S4 spits it on our faces: Johan and Judai have a STRONG DEEP BOND and they won vs Fujiwara because of this. It's not the first time we see Judai and Johan team up to duel, we got it vs Martin/Yubel and they even recall it in this duel. But most of the duel was just Judai until Johan appeared with Rainbow Dragon which he summoned almost inmediately.

But here we get why they are the ultimate dueling team, they took damage for each other, boosted each other's monsters or brought them back from the GY. Fujiwara was so threatened he decided to cheat and look into Johan's mind to bring darkness and tear them apart. I loved that his Crystal Beasts protect his mind seriously their bond is precious. And I loved how they fucking trolled us all and Fujiwara into thinking they were against each other and just straight up burst out laughing and attacked Fujiwara. THEY ARE THE GOLDEN TEAM OKAY.

Of course once again, Johan ends up sacrificing himself by taking the damage meant for Judai (because PWOTAGONIST). But Judai makes up for it by summoning Rainbow Neos which is the pinnacle of their teamwork.

I thought it was quite interesting that Fujiwara said the key to their bond and success when working together without as much as a word spoken between them is the fact that they are so alike. And I came to the theory that they represent what is good about Light (Johan) and Darkness (Judai).

GX has implied that both Light and Darkness have the potential to be either good or bad. We have Fujiwara's Darkness vs Judai's Gente Darkness, and the Light of Destruction vs the Light as a counter to Darkness. So Johan and Judai represent the good side of them both. They both have DM that protect their heads that match (the Crystal Beasts represent the Light while Yubel is the Darkness). Fujiwara himself said he was avoiding dueling Judai and Johan because they cannot be integrated into Darkness (I would say because they are just the literal opposite in the sense of representing everything that is good about light and dark).

It's then no wonder that the only shadow in Johan's mind is Judai who is his Dark counterpart, hence why they have the desire to beat each other. But since they are the "good" light and darkness, it doesn't go beyond friendly rivalry and their bond could not be polluted by the Evil Darkness.

I liked the continuity of Judai and Johan not being able to be assimilated by Darkness when Johan loses. Instead of getting swallowed by the Darkness like everyone else, he just lays on the ground unconscious with Ruby by his side. (Ruby was protecting him no one can tell me otherwise).

Also Johan, my sweet Rainbow Child bless your heart for literally causing Judai to laugh out loud for the first time in idk how long, maybe since the first half of S3? Bless you, my child.

Leaving all my Johan gushing aside. It's so damn obvious this season was cut short. It's all just too rushed and sudden and I miss the build up of previous seasons. I think Fubuki and Fujiwara were the ones who suffered the most character wise.

Like villains are meant to get better and better, more challenging and with complex motives so they still represent an obstacle to the heroes as they grow too. Saio was a better villain than Kagemaru and Yubel was obviously better than them both.

And then you have Darkness who just wants everyone to join his blub of senseless existence without memories or purpose. (And with fucking broken cards and time travelling abilities used to win duels that is such BS) That came out of nowhere and I like to think that the extra episodes would have added the buildup necessary to hype me for the villain.