#kusanagi LOVES to torture him more than anyone else tbh

[soo-won]

The real tragedy with Jaeha to me, outside of the recent events, is his realization that he's losing his usefulness for yona, and even starts to chain her down. I think. This is all in my head for now truly but I'm like,, damn he sure is taking the L a lot recently! so I pray this will be adressed later on but you know at the beginning of the castle arc when he tells Yona hey I told you I was your legs :) and she rejects him, because she can't risk it. Like, Yona wasn't in the wrong here, it's just that Yona in the castle arc was entering a battle that has no need for the dragons' powers. People in the castle arent chained literally, they're chained by their duties and the isolation that comes with having more power and information. That distance is not something that can be crossed literally by flying away. But anyway it was still painful for both of them, Jaeha quickly connects the dots and understands the reason behind that, but that only makes him more willing to find a way to help.

Then he is deployed in Kin Province, and as he realizes that Hak is fighting there he makes it his new goal to bring him to Suwon, only to fail to save him from the flooding, as he sees him be engulfed in that wave under his very eyes, and can't find any trace of him for days after it happens. Losing Hak is devastating enough given how much he cares for him, but it adds to the hypothetical feeling that he failed and his leg couldn't bring him to Hak in time.

But it's fine, his presence alone is enough, he is loved and he's like a big brother to Yona, if she needs comfort, because hell this is about hak obviously she will be devastated, he can comfort her...and then Yona hides her sorrow from him and confides to Suwon of all people instead. Sure breaking down in front of Suwon wasn't her intent at all, but she still did in the end. Yona used to cry and confides to Jaeha before (like in the Sei forts arc when she failed to protect Lili), so why? And how not to be jealous of Suwon that seems to have a bond with her that even death and betrayal will never completely break?

He plays an important role in the battle against Kai, so sure, at least his powers still have some use and raises the moral of the troops as well, but now these same powers causes terror instead.

And before that he got captured, again, and as much as Yona defied our expectations and showed her development with a cycle of similar events but a better outcome and way of dealing with it (ie: kidnapping scenario), that is not the case for the dragons. Yona had complete control over her capture, it was her plan, and she could free herself with her own power. Yona is moving ahead of them, never intending to leave them behind, but she doesn't depend on their powers at all anymore.

So really, what does Jaeha have left at this point? Now Yona is the one who has to save him from his own powers! Jaeha who refused to join Yona at first because he didn't want to be chained down by destiny and a prophecy is now the one chained her down oh the irony of it all...

It's no surprise that Jaeha would decide to leave the ddhhb for good, his legs literally can't bring him to them anymore and worse he risks to hurt them, no matter how much he wants to come home, to them, he just can't. He can't be what Garou was to him and selfishly weights them down.

Since the beginning of the castle arc he sees again and again that Yona and Hak are doing fine without him. If Yona is in a pitch or needs comfort there are other people she can seek out. Jaeha wanted to help Hak reach Suwon and in the end he did it all on his own (Just to be clear Hak could obviously not have emotionally done it without Jaeha's support). The encampment arc ended up being resolved by everyone but the dragons, the story in general is at a point where their utility reached their limit, so what now?

The crimson illness is very tied to the mental state of those who have it, worsening when they're under stress and emotional turmoil, so I don't think it's too farfetched to theorize it might be the same for the dragons now. Kija is able to resist it because he has always been the most strong willed and stable of them. So yeah tbh more than Jaeha dying to me I think it's more him isolating himself to protect yona&co and he's not done done for. for now. I don't think he's lying about reaching the end of his lifespan etc(it's the same word as the end of an object's useful life in japanese btw.) but anyway oh well. All that to say I don't think he's dead and this is very much the occasion to finally break the connection the dragons have with their tragic fate and their powers that bring far more bad than good. What Jaeha needs is the reassurance that he is needed and that this does not depend on his powers at all.

[vrainsrewatch]

episode 8 thoughts

i was gonna watch later, since i’ve got other things to do, but i burnt the shit out of my hands making hot chocolate like an idiot so i watched an episode first LOL. 

this episode starts out with that really strong fairy tale scenery i absolutely adore, with yusaku and ai trying their hardest to get blue angel to wake up.

i seriously could talk about the imagery in this scene for days lmao. i love the sleeping beauty aesthetic, but i also really love the colors. LV goes through so many different color palettes through the series, but i love the purples and blues of this area here. i’m not sure if the intention was to make blue angel seem like she was meant to be there, while in contrast playmaker stands out due to his hair, but i seriously replayed this section twice because it looked so nice. 

i have a lot to say about this episode, and it will also be my most screenshot heavy post so far lol, so once again, buckle up! 

this episode starts to really build up yusaku as a character - his sense of justice, his core values, etc etc. on top of that, it takes its time to flesh out akira, and to show his worse qualities, which we’ll get into in a minute.

first, though, is one of my favorite awkward exchanges in the series lmao:

i’m surprised he even caught onto what akira was getting at, tbh with y’all. vrains started out ship teasing yusaku/aoi really hard these episodes, but drop it almost completely up until the minimal tease we get in s3, which i find really funny. i was always really invested in them becoming friends, though, so while i’m happy we had that happen in s3, i would’ve really liked to see it happen earlier. not this early, though - yusaku’s nowhere near ready for that.

I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN VYRA WAS HERE. yugioh hair makes it known that she’s going to be an important character, but i had really completely forgotten she was working as one of aoi’s doctors during this part lmao. i love this so much, actually.

moving onto everyone talking shit about blue angel on forums and stuff. this kinda shit:

would be really awful to deal with. it’s very real, though - cancel culture, anyone? but seriously, this is so brutal. on top of that, does this imply that she’s never really lost before? she is the number 2 charisma duelist in LV, so i wouldn’t be terribly surprised if that meant that she hadn’t really lost since starting to make it big as an idol. once again showing off how good of a duelist aoi actually is, even if the show makes her lose a lot. tbf, her loss/win ratio isn’t that bad looking at the other main girls - 5 wins, 5 losses on screen, and considering the kind of opponents she faced (soulburner, bohman, ai), that’s seriously not bad.

next up we get the chess pieces again, and boy howdy, does this conversation make me seethe.

i understand it’s partially a cultural difference thing, but i can’t help but get angry about it LOL. 

i didn’t remember how often the chess pieces were actually utilized in these first few episodes, either. i guess i can understand why people were irritated they were just dropped, but i don’t really see them as a plot point, more like... just a kind of weird way to run a company? just show your faces and have normal meetings like everyone else, y’all don’t have to be so extra.

the akira/emma meeting is nice because it shows you more of emma’s character, but it also gives you more of akira’s stupider (and ruthless) side.

you don’t see him like this very often, but honestly, when you think about all the unsavory jobs he was doing to keep him and aoi afloat way back when, it kind of makes sense. even if he was originally a gentle person, you don’t last doing... any of the jobs he’s done, being that way. even a higher up in a company like SOL tech would have to be a bit harsher to get to that point imo. i don’t see a lot of people talk about this side of akira’s character tbh which makes me kind of sad.

also, seriously, he’s an idiot. how did he arrive at this conclusion? when he saw that it was aoi who was baiting him into the duel? no matter what direction i approach this from, i can’t understand how he ended up on that conclusion lol.

also, the worst father ever award goes to....

seriously! i hate that man so much lmao. to say that directly to your own child, on top of everything else...

it’s a nice look into revolver, too, though you wouldn’t know it at first glance. his reply says everything, though. he fully accepts his role in his father’s life and has an incredibly toxic attachment to him, and wants his approval more than anything. we never see him get physically abused by kogami or anything of the sort, but you can’t deny the mental anguish he must’ve been going through in order to keep on his father’s good side. 

i know a lot of people like to say that revolver is kind of not a great guy, seeing the tower of hanoi arc, and how he probably should’ve went to jail etc etc but really, he was manipulated hard core. and extremely suicidal. i could really talk a lot about this all day, but i’ll cut myself off and instead say how much i love how vrains sets up revolver as a character. this, combined with “i’ll fulfill your wishes, father” from episode 3 gives you his motivations nice and clearly, but this specific scene also gives a bit of a hint as to where his character arc goes and what he has to work through. just thinking about this makes me so excited to get to 116 again lmao.

anyways, though. another excellent exchange comes up. seriously, lmao, ai being like “waaaah that’s illegal !!!!” and kusanagi’s just very casual 

makes me laugh every time i see it. they are criminals, even if what they’re doing is for the greater good. they’re not exactly innocent here lmao.

then there’s the talk about the virus infecting her, and it’s a nice way to bring up how that works before the another arc comes up in.. a couple of episodes, right? tbh it’s the arc i remember the least about, so i’m looking forward to rewatching it.

actually though, the idea of viruses in LV being able to infect someone’s body is so, so interesting. i really, really wish they had done more with the whole LV/rl merge idea, but guess i’ll just have to write more fanfic instead lol.

i mentioned at the beginning of this post we get into yusaku as a character more here, and this is one of the lines that really made him interesting to me originally:

he has such a strong sense of justice, but what sets him apart from other ygo protags is that he is not defined by it. he’s not the classic, stereotypical do-gooder who gets caught up in something and has to make it right, his justice is more so that he is not okay with seeing other people hurt because of what happened to him. his justice is driven by his trauma, almost entirely.

revolver even brings it up this episode:

where he talks about how some rando wouldn’t have done them any good because it wouldn’t have been public enough. yusaku doesn’t really care about the little people, not in the same way, say, yugi would. it’s not that he wants them to be hurt or see them get hurt or anything, it’s just that unless it effects him directly, it’s not on his radar. but once he gets involved, he feels fully responsible.

while he didn’t plant the hanoi virus into her, he probably knows it was to intentionally draw him out thanks to ai (and the fact that he beats them up all the time). he feels fully responsible for what happened to her, and he’s prepared to do what is needed to make it right again.

i really like yusaku for this. i find those kinds of characters really interesting, and yusaku is no exception. 

we get the whole emma/blue angel/yusaku scene, which is pretty sick tbh looking at it again - just shoot a church straight up from the ground for dramatic effect! - and i’ll bring up more of akira’s ruthlessness here.

seriously, this is not a line from someone who is just angry about his sister. and it’s also him being fuckin DUMB. playmaker willingly lets himself get caught into your trap, and he tells akira straight up what he has to do to save his sister - no sugar coating it, no trying to make it cryptic or difficult despite being caught in that hand and in that trap. he’s incredibly honest, and akira still does this lmao.

then it’s probably the wildest turn of events in all of vrains:

where’s that post that’s like, “remember when playmaker gets caught in a gothic looking church while he’s getting tormented by a giant demon hand controlled by his classmate’s brother and then his rival who he hasn’t met yet shows up in a lightning bolt to save him”? bc really LMAO what the fuck. it was so hype watching it the first time, and it’s still awesome watching it back.

and why is this never really??? brought up again later???? and when he leaves in that datastorm to go prepare to fight playmaker LMAO i know it’s supposed to look cool but the animation is so dorky, i love it. 

more on yusaku, though. before playmaker goes to fight revolver, who he’s been gearing towards for awhile now, we get this exchange:

to which playmaker responds with “i don’t hate you. i only hate the knights of hanoi”. which is another really good moment for his early characterization and very, very consistent with his backstory that we find out in about 12 episodes.

everyone who wasn’t involved in the LI in any way just... exists to him. they’re completely neutral. if something happens to them because of him, he feels directly responsible, because he feels like he got them tangled up in a mess that nobody should be in. i mentioned that briefly earlier, but this really drives that point home.

he doesn’t even hate akira for torturing him mere minutes ago. because he’s been through worse. because akira was doing what he thought was right by his sister, no matter how stupid he was being.

and even more so than that, he’s not seeing this as fighting for akira. he feels responsible for blue angel, but also, here’s his chance to fight revolver. it’s a two birds one stone situation here for him. 

anyways, i’m gonna stop myself there lol this is really long OOPS. gotta take care of a few things, and then onto the first rev vs playmaker duel!