#give it up for best directionless boy Johan

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 106-107 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episode 105 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-106: Judai and Johan of the Gem Beast Deck

A new school term has started at the Duel Academia. Invited to the Academia as transfer students and becoming new friends are the Academy Champions known as Amon, O'Brien, Crocodile, and a mysterious boy--along with one Professor Cobra. Meanwhile, atop the school building rooftop, Judai meets a boy who can see Spirits--who turns out to be the "mysterious boy," Johan. Cobra proposes an Exhibition Match, pitting Judai against Johan. Johan turns out to be a duelist in control of the rare Monsters known as the Gem Beasts.

TURN-107: The Neo-Spacians VS the Gem Beasts

Johan summons one Gem Beast after another, from his Amethyst Cat to his Topaz Tiger. Judai also has Neo-Spacian Flare Scarab and Neos perform a Contact Fusion to take them on with his Flare Neos. Then, Johan destroys Judai's Field Magic and activates a new Field Magic, Ancient City of Rainbows -- Rainbow Ruins, sending his Neo-Spacian back to his deck. Seeing these skillful attacks, Ed begins to speak of the unknown relationship between Johan and his Gem Beasts.

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...so, didn't mean to let these take about a month and a half since 105 was all finalized, but heremst we be *sips indie coffee*

Season 3 gets into full swing with these two episodes as it starts us off with a hint of our upcoming big bad right off the jump (RIP Hiromi Tsuru, your Yubel is still fantastic), then introduces us to the big foreign players we'll be seeing quite a bit of going forward. Judai has a nightmare taking place in an area similar to his vision with Saiou--which I'm sure is unrelated to anything--and then opening ceremonies ensue before we're introduced properly to our new transfer students, and the Ancient Roman lore around Johan's Gem Beasts which was pretty cool to include; Judai and Johan then have a fun duel together as we see the Gem Beasts in action facing Judai's Neo-Spacians. These episodes also see the debut of some of my favorite OST tracks from Season 3, like Fervent Duel (used really well in 107) and A Pinch here. Ed coming in for 107 and giving us the background on Johan from Pegasus, featuring cameos of Dark Yugi, Kaiba, and Jounouchi (from the Warriors and Unstopping Overflowing Feelings OP/EN in DM--these nods were kept in the dub, so it was the first time those particular shots of Kaiba and Jou were used in the West), as we learn that he gifted the Gem Beasts to Johan during a tournament in Europe was good, and I still love Johan's little fakeout at the end with the Rainbow Dragon he doesn't actually have yet. A fun duo of episodes with a fun, low-stakes duel that we should enjoy while we can.

Quick side-notes for the dub, but want to take a sec to shout out Jim's dub VA who perfectly nailed his Australian voice for the guy, and who I hope comes back if we're ever lucky enough to get a more accurate GX redub (though I think he was recast in DL? But still sounded pretty good). Dub!Yubel, though... I'm still baffled by the decision made with that voice, and I'm glad they eventually went with a better voice in BBT. 107 also saw them make a bunch of--I assume--time cuts, including most of the cold open which featured our first in-series look at Martin, and other shots as Cobra set up his evil lair in the old SAL lab (continuity!), but also the ending shot as Cobra looks at the duel energy he collected and comments on their impressive duel--most of those are fair as far as time cuts go, though I think the ending scene should've been kept. It's also interesting that, with Johan's southern accent being a thing in the dub (which has grown on me, though I like his later no-accent voice more), that they had Pegasus say the tournament he went to with him happened "down south;" according to a comment on the Crunchyroll upload, the venue's the "All-England Lawn Tennis Club where the Grand Slam Wimbledon" happens in the UK? lol

Animation error-wise, there were just over a handful that I picked up on in each episode that I went ahead and fixed up--mostly quality-of-watching ones along with a couple of card errors, and I also translated the bio on Amon that O'Brien hands to Cobra early in episode 106. As always, details below the cut if interested, along with Translation Notes for the bio.

Anywho, enjoy! The next two-parter features our fiery boy O'Brien, and with some really nice art/animation in 109 that I always love to revisit; I'll begin work on that once I finalize some special side work that I should hopefully get to post about soon, too, though I'll also be going back to episode 1 to fix up a card error I forgot to tackle, lol. Stay tuned!

Fixes/Edits! (106)

Early in the episode, Professor Cobra enters O'Brien's room on the ship and asks who else would be visiting him; he hands him a bio pointing to one Amon Garam. As detailed here, I translated Amon's bio in this shot, first compiling a full image to edit from its later appearances in 111 and 121, then keyframing it into the rotating zooming-out shot that happens here with AfterEffects and Sony Vegas. (The full text of the bio is in that detailed post)

In the next shot, Cobra asks if Amon came to see O'Brien, noting that he seems to be a meddler but suggests that he doesn't pay him any mind, turning to pass the bio back to him--as he does so, a few quick animation errors happen: 1) Cobra's face/mouth glitch for a few quick frames as he shifts his face into a smile (likely his current face being left over his moving face behind it); 2) the bio page in his hand jitters a bit in the frames leading up to his turning towards O'Brien; and 3) once O'Brien's holding the paper and moves it down, there are a quick few frames where a small part of his hair (the one bang on his left) is missing before it comes back. As detailed here, I edited in my translation to the bio while Cobra's holding it and as he passes it back, masking in Cobra and the rest of the frame over it for blending, while also fixing those errors for the Japanese scene by holding Cobra's face pre-glitch over the glitched frames, editing the Amon bio so it's steady throughout, and masking in O'Brien's full hair bang over the frames where it's cut short.

Later, as the Judai/Johan duel gets underway, Judai and Johan give their "Duel!" shouts and draw their hands, but a few things happen as they jump into a split-screen for it: 1) Judai moves a frame before Johan starts to slide in on his split; 2) once the screen pans down to their decks as they draw, the split-screen border seems to have been drawn in oddly, as part of Judai's side ends up just on top of the border (also seems to be slightly cut off in width halfway down); and 3) as they split apart, more of Judai seems to have made it to the left of his split's border. I fixed each one in Vegas by first sliding in Johan a frame earlier as Judai moves, then enhancing the split-screen border a bit to cover up what ends up on top of it and to its left as they split out (I generally try to avoid making redone borders that much bigger, but thought it was the only way to cleanly/consistently fix that).

After Johan plays Gem Beast Emerald Turtle, we cut to the Overseas Champions watching on, with Jim whistling before Amon expresses his surprise at the Gem Beasts--but a coloring error happens in the rapid pan from Jim to Amon, with both having odd coloring spots. A quick fix in Vegas by redoing the panning using a frame of Jim post-whistle and a frame of Amon before his mouth moves.

After Judai summons Neos, Johan laments that he can't ask for his autograph while they're dueling, but notes that he was waiting for him to summon a new Monster--Judai slides in on a split-screen to question that, but a few things happen: 1) Johan starts moving to make room for his split a frame before he does so; 2) a coloring error happens as Judai and Johan then split apart before Johan activates Triggered Summon (more noticeable on Johan), and 3) Judai's uneven slide-out leads to it taking a frame longer than Johan's to get offscreen. Fixed each one in Vegas by sliding Judai in a frame earlier as Johan moves, masking in Judai and Johan's pre-slide-out splits over the frames as they slide out to fix the coloring error, and making Judai's slide-out match Johan's by masking one frame in earlier.

[continued below, just split thanks to stupid text-block character limits]

(6) A bit later, after Johan talks about not having any destruction cards in his deck so he can see his opponents going all-out, Judai notes how neat he finds him; as they split apart and Johan tells him to bring out his new Monster (due to Triggered Summon's effect), there's a quick frame where the border is missing on Judai's split. Quick fix in Vegas as I just added it back on by duplicating the one on Johan's and touching it up as needed.

(7) As Judai then summons Neo-Spacian Gran Mole, we see it pop up in front of him, but Judai has black rectangles on his Disk where Gran Mole, Neos, and Aqua Dolphin should be. Fixed using AfterEffects to slap on proxies for each in one frame, which I then took into Sony Vegas and shook around position-wise frame by frame to add it to the full shot (thankfully, this was just shaking around and not zooming in or out lol).

(8) During the preview for 107, we see Judai on a split-screen jumping as Johan declares an attack with his Amethyst Cat, but as they slide apart, two quick things happen: 1) there's a quick frame where there's just black behind them (and Johan's split's border isn't as glowy as Judai's), and 2) some of Johan's split's border hangs on for two frames after he and Judai slide offscreen. Fixed each in Vegas for 107 proper first, then applied the fixes here, masking in Amethyst Cat behind Judai and Johan as they split apart, then masking in some of the whooshing background behind Amethyst Cat to cover up the remaining bit of Johan's split border for those two frames.

Fixes/Edits! (107)

After Judai summons Flare Scarab, he has it do a Contact Fusion with Neos for Flare Neos, but as he declares Flare Scarab's name for it, we see that the cards on his Disk--for Gran Mole, Neos, and Flare Scarab--are flipped upside-down. Fixed in AfterEffects first by applying proxies as Judai swings his Disk around, then on one frame during the zoom-out on Flare Scarab after he moves--I then took the latter frame into Sony Vegas, where I redid the zoomout on it for the whole shot, masking in Flare Scarab on top of it.

After Johan plays Rainbow Ruins and Judai's Battle Phase ends, we see his Disk as Flare Neos returns to his field, but not only are his cards upside-down again--he also has regular ol' Neos where Flare Neos should be. Fixed both in AfterEffects by applying the Mole and Flare Neos proxies correctly, masking in the orb part of Judai's Disk over the Gran Mole one.

A bit after the eyecatch, as Judai realizes that Johan hasn't played his ace yet, he starts to ask about it, startling Johan as he slides into a split-screen with him to ask as much, but Johan starts to move for it a frame early. Fixed in Sony Vegas by sliding Judai in a frame earlier there.

Later, after Johan explains that Ruby Special-Summons itself and the other Gems in his Magic/Trap Zone when placed there (rude of the OCG to remove that part of its effect), we split out of the split-screen there as Ruby's summoned, but the border on Johan's split hangs on for an extra frame. Fixed in Vegas by just masking in part of the whooshing background over it.

A bit later, Johan declares a direct attack with Amethyst Cat, and Judai jumps as their split-screen splits apart to show Amethyst Cat pouncing at him, but as they slide apart, 1) there's a quick frame where there's just black behind them (and Johan's split's border isn't as glowy as Judai's), and 2) some of Johan's split's border hangs on for two frames after he and Judai slide offscreen. As noted for the preview version of this shot in 106's list, I fixed these here first before applying the fix there, masking in Amethyst Cat behind Judai and Johan as they split apart, then masking in some of the whooshing background behind Amethyst Cat to cover up the remaining bit of Johan's split border for those two frames.

Later, after summoning Air Neos (who), Judai slides into a split-screen to explain his ATK-gain-per-LP-difference effect; as they slide apart, Judai's uneven slide-out causes his side to take a frame longer than Johan's to slide offscreen. Fixed in Vegas by just masking part of Judai's slide-out a frame earlier to even up the slide-out.

A bit later, after Johan hypes up Rainbow Dragon only to end in a "just kiddin'," Judai clicks in for a split-screen in confusion before they split apart to show Air Neos's attack connecting with Amber Mammoth--as they split apart, parts of the border on Johan and Judai's splits hang on for an extra frame. I fixed this by just using the touched-up version of this shot from the recap in 108, which had Judai and Johan's splits slide out more naturally.

After the duel, Cobra walks out to congratulate the two on a duel well fought; he beckons them towards him, but as he walks up to the center of the arena to do so, his still feet jitter as Judai and Johan start to walk over. Fixed in Vegas by masking in his feet from the frame as Judai and Johan start to walk over over the 2-3 earlier frames as he gets to the center of the arena to keep it consistent.