#yugi i think had a lot more influence on like. the vibes people like + is more popular generally

[riddlerlesbian]

also say what you want about kaiba but he had the most drastic impact on men's fashion since the invention of the suit

like he changed the whole silhouette people go for with their coats for an entire generation after him, with the tight form fitting torso and the absurdly flared waist, plus the shoulder pads and the high collars for everyone

even pro duelists with less dramatic styles like ed still favor lighter colors and you can't tell me that's not because kaiba wears a white statement piece everywhere

[bakawitch]

I know that it's likely been a while but do you still remember what you had planned for that Kakegurui/Yugioh au? I would love to hear about it.

Woah it's been a hot minute since that crossover has been on mind! I'll share some of my plans without spoiling too much, since I still wanna get back to it sometime.

As of now the story mostly follows the plot of the original Kakegurui series, XX, and some elements from Twin with some changes here and there, since I still want to keep the yugioh characters somewhat true to their original personalities.

Now, for a quick rundown on some of the characters!

Muto Yugi and Shobami Yamiko are the protagonist and the deuteragonist, respectively. This is mostly shown by us (the audience) always being able to hear Yugi's inner monologue, but only hearing Yami's thoughts through Yugi, when it's clear they're doing their weird wordless language (kind of like Yobami and Inbami). The two of them are almost creepily close with each other, always groking the other's intentions to an unnerving degree. Is their relationship romantic? Platonic? Or some secret other option? No one really knows, including them! They're too busy hyperfixating on their next gambling match to think about that! The story basically follows Yami dragging Yugi down into an adrenaline driven crazy gambling addiction, but unlike with Yumeko and Ryota, it's going to happen a lot faster and it's not just gonna come out of nowhere in the last moment. For a bit more info and art on them, you can check out my original post here!

Now for our Saotome Meari stand in, Jonouchi Katsuya. Like Saotome, Jonouchi is very proud and essentially rules his class at one point. He originally came to the school for some quick cash to pay off his father's constantly increasing debt. There was a point in his life when he was forced to become a house pet in the service of a certain student council member for a week, but after successfully raising enough money to buy himself out under the span of three days, he became extremely popular as a self made gambling genius. Most people in school either respect or fear him, and despite not coming from a rich background like most other students, he has an unreal amount of influence over the student body. Or rather had. After Yami beat him and put him in debt with the council again, his resolve alongside his reputation has been dwindling. Right now, he's getting more desperate by the day to pay off his debt, desperate enough to ally himself with a housepet and the very man who put him in this situation to begin with.

And now, for the main rival, the student council president, Kaibami Seto. Honestly, you guys probably expected this, lol. This character will be wildly different from Momobami Kirari though, 'cause well, this is Kaiba we're talking about. He's not gonna have that careless, seductive, whimsy, murderous vibe Kirari has. He's gonna be equally intense as he is in yugioh, I literally can't imagine him in any other way. Throughout the story, Yami and his friends will work their way through each of the council members through gambling matches, like in the show, until they reach Kaibami. Kaibami is a lot more present than Kirari, but he's still elusive and very closed off. He finds it extremely annoying that his supposedly unbeatable and highly influential councilmen are falling like flies in Yami's way and he often takes it out on his poor office (true to Kakegurui I also made him more dramatic lol). Once him and Yami finally confront each other, they have a life or death outcome gambling match, but funnily enough Yami loses interest near the end of the game, because Kaibami has become predictable to him and he doesn't find their game exciting anymore or worth the stakes. Yami makes the proper moves to end the match in a draw and leaves Kaibami in the dust. Kaibami has the most dramatic meltdown of his life, and if he wasn't already obsessed with Yami enough, he swears vengeance and murder against him. Shortly after this word gets out to the Kaibami family of Seto's incompetence and unstability and the other clans send their spawns to the academy for a new student council election.

To be continued! Obviously, this is just an extremely simplified version of the story, and there are so many other characters I still want to introduce! Like the Bakura triplets, the council members, and the other clans, but most stuff dedicated to the au is still only in my brain unfortunately XD

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-Yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 1

It’s been a while since I visited the many times Yugi should have gone to jail, AKA season Zero, and I’m excited to visit it again.

If you just got here, this is Season Zero, which is very different vibe and a different direction plotwise than the other seasons and you can read the season zero recaps from the start in chrono order here: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi%20muto/chrono

So be warned, this is a 90′s anime, and it will do 90′s anime things, and I expect y’all reading this aren’t like 12.

Like I said in an earlier post, I wrote this out fully when I was going through the symptoms from my second dose--which PS, is worth it--but those symptoms knocked me out for 10 days. I was kind of a space cadet, and yo, I made some mistakes. Including writing this post out in full and then not clicking “save” on this post and then not realizing I had done that until several days later.

So long story short, I don’t remember what I originally wrote here, but lets all assume it was weird, and didn’t make sense and wasn’t funny. We’ll just assume this was for the best that it was deleted forever.

So this episode is about 2 things: Yo-yos and Jounouchi. Both get used as a tool for violence, and both need to get just a little bit cursed by Yugi to scale it the hell back. So, understandably, we start off this episode with Jounouchi, who has eagerly identified with this off brand yo-yo he apparently got out of a dumpster for being just a huge ass defect.

(more Yo-Yo crimes under the cut)

I see you dodging copyright infringement, Yugioh. Eireboy.

Also whenever I read “Eireboy” I do it in my mind in the same pacing and vocal tones that Pegasus uses to say “Kaiba boy.” Something about it’s conjunction to Yugioh, I see anything with “boy” at the end of it, and it’s voiced by a weird guy with one eye.

So I wrote these caps under the influence of my second dose, just assuming y’all understand the life I lived, but I realized writing this episode...traveling bands of yo-yo performers that go to your school and shill yo-yos with yo-yo shows in the hopes that it will get you so obsessed with yo-yos that you will not join a gang and do drugs and have sex may be just an American thing.

So when I saw a yo-yo episode I was like “Tight! Clearly, the yo-yo clowns have come to town!” and I assumed everyone in this class would be draped in yo-yos, because I just assumed that at some point at School you will get MAD OBSESSED with yo-yos for about 2 weeks.

But in this episode, everyone was like “Jounouchi, why are you playing with a random yo-yo?” and it didn’t occur to me until typing this out just now: only Jounouchi is doing this. He did this unprompted, without the encouragement of a bunch of middle aged performers doing tricks to techno music.

So instead, I have to think of Jounouchi as Ralphie in this scenario, and he just got a official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time for Christmas, but he’s gonna shoot his eye out.

Because yo-yos in this episode are basically guns.

...Kind of like a duel deck was also just a gun...

...or the wands in Harry Potter...

...which honestly...I’ve probably said this before but where I’m from, we just use straight up guns in these elaborate analogies because we freakin have to make the point crystal clear. The moment Ralphie finally got his hands on a bb-gun, he very nearly shot his eye out and broke his glasses. And that scene will haunt me until my dying day...

...but fine, we can use yo-yos, I guess it works, although to me, yo-yo’s are just teachers hoping you’ll become such a dork that no gang will accept you (and then in this universe, it does the opposite? So freakin weird).

The beginning of this episode is Jounouchi trying do his best to impress with his skills, but in actuality, getting very close to clubbing Anzu with a yo-yo. And, while Anzu is the strongest person in Yugioh in the later seasons, I feel like Season Zero Anzu is another level. It’s a serious tempt of fate that Jounouchi is doing, so Honda wisely cuts him off from doing any more of that so she won’t end up strangling yet another person in broad daylight in the middle of school.

Remember your yo-yo safety, children.

Straight up, Honda’s version of yo-yo safety is to just Never Use a Yo-Yo and that’s the most gun safety thing ever that they’ve slipped into this Yugioh Episode. I almost expected Yuugi to pull a “well, actually, I use a hunting yo-yo to get enough venison to feed my family.” But youknow, he lives in a city, so while Yugioh is pretty weird and Yuugi has to worry about a lot of things--he doesn’t have to worry about that.

This is actually foreshadowing, which I only realized in hind sight, mostly because I just can’t associate a Yo-yo with crime. Joey knowing how to use a yo-yo was foreshadowing that he was absolutely part of this gang in a past life.

Yeah that one went completely over my head the first time and the second time and it really wasn’t until just now that I finally caught it. Hoo boy, sometimes I wonder why y’all let me analyze this show.

Jounouchi decides to confront the yo-yo bandits and everyone else is like “Silly Jounouchi, he’s not gonna do that. That would be stupid.” And...in S0, they don’t know him well enough yet to know that he really is that much of a well meaning dumbass.

I think a S1-5 Yugi would have been sprinting out the door to keep Joey from killing himself (again), but Season Zero Yuugi had hope that Jounouchi would just naturally tucker out and fall asleep or something.

And he was so wrong.

Anzu’s “New Tricks” line was from the dub itself and man that’s a good line. I love Anzu’s sass in Zero.

So, Honda decides to help them find Jounouchi so all of them together could give Jounouchi an intervention for skipping school. This is the same Honda that once skipped school to babysit a tomagachi and said it was because of “Maternity leave,” but don’t worry about the hypocrisy, because from this episode we learned that Jounouchi needs a very short leash.

So this episode is a great Jounouchi episode to explain stuff that still hasn’t been explained in 5 seasons of Yugioh. In S1-5, we don’t get much about his home life other than his Mom left and his Sister lives far away and is like sickly as hell. We know nothing else. But this is the episode where we finally get to find out why Yuugi and his Grandfather decided to basically adopt him from S1 onward.

Yugioh is tackling some pretty heavy territory, but I respect the show for not trying to magically change Jounouchi’s parents like they did to Dartz. Instead, the crew decide to reach out and try to find their friend who clearly didn’t go home last night (and won’t be going back for a while), by checking every alleyway in Domino.

Fun fact Yuugi drops this episode, Domino is one of the biggest cities on Earth. This makes the Battle City Tournament even more crazy when you realize Kaiba shut down several blocks but, it also makes a tiny bit more sense how we have so many Millennium items in one place. (Yet...it still doesn’t explain Bakura and Joey’s accent.) And, I guess if your city is just extra large, you get an extra large warehouse district, too.

Speaking of, they eventually find Jounouchi at his new (but also old) crime antics mugging some random stranger next to this Game store that I just realized was cropped so it looks like it says “GANG.”

Say hello to our crime clown. He’s sort of like a discount joker, and that beanie is...man it is green.

I forget this green exists sometimes, but Season Zero has it as one of their prime colors. Good ol’ Retro Kaiba green.

I’m a little tempted to swatch Season Zero a bit and figure out their full color scheme--it’s really saturated, which is interesting when you compare it to the later seasons which are a lot more muted since...the 00′s were like that, they greyed a lot of colors out. But I’ll do it later if I do, maybe another post for another day.

Jounouchi and Honda, before they moved to the school with Yuugi in it, used to go to the same school and up until now I just assumed they were close friends. But apparently they were a lot more distant than that. I’m sure they met up several times as Jounouchi destroyed stuff and Honda came along in his volunteer janitor outfit to put the stuff the hell back, and maybe that’s how they got to know eachother better?

But basically, Jounouchi was the freakin worst, and Jounouchi’s best friend was Hirotani--this 45 year old 15 year old with the blue pony and turquoise fade--and Honda has SO MUCH hot goss to say about it.

I really get the gist that Honda may not have liked anyone else at his old school, like at all. Like maybe Honda likes cleaning up trash so much because his school was just trash top to bottom.

As is tradition, Yuugi got his tar beat in by Hirotani. Another concussion to add to his list of issues to tell his future therapist that lives in that puzzle he wears around his neck.

I still expect him to do a double cross, but it seems they wanted to keep it a relatable and more realistic fall-out, where Jounouchi has just bounced on them without even a goodbye. He and his Dad had a bad fight, and Jounouchi was like “well so long to all of this and everyone that has anything to do with it.”

In later seasons, Joey is the one trying to save other people. He’s saving his Sister, he’s saving Mai, he’s saving Yugi, but in this season Jounouchi’s friends had to save Jounouchi from himself a few times now.

I like this depth to his character, I’ll be honest. I can understand why S1-5 don’t touch on it, and I don’t think it’s because they didn’t want to have an abusive Dad storyline, because they did that several times over with Seto Kaiba (man the Dad situation in Yugioh is DIRE.) Instead they probably just felt like Season Zero already did it, so why do it again?

It’s just a shame that it wasn’t talked about in the other seasons. Joey makes a lot more sense to me now because we get to see why Jounouchi is so hard set on saving people. S4 Mai Valentine, who ditched everyone and joined a gang? That’s basically a Joey move, and that was why Joey Wheeler was all over that.

Really would have added a lot to that particular arc if the show...actually talked about Joey’s history at all rather than assume I would have watched something that was never released in the States. Instead...it just looked a lot like he had only romantic motivations, which may not have been what they were going for.

Speaking of romantic, check out this sunset. Like the sun is exploding for some reason--just a wild sunset you only see for a still frame before a commercial break.

As Joey, youknow, takes on an entire rival gang single-handedly.

Hey guys, I lived near a pretty big city most of my life and I have been on a roof...once. Just the one time when I was doing an internship in SF with a painter and we needed to take a reference photo of his painting for a gallery (and it was hella sketch, and we weren’t exactly allowed up there). Who are all these people giving teens Roof Access? It’s so hard to get! Even if you live in an apartment of a tall building, I can count on zero of my fingers the amount of times I was allowed on that roof. But TV shows and movies--they freakin love roof gardens and roof hangouts and roof fights.

Am I missing out?? How did y’all get on the ROOF? I know I’m on S5 of Yugioh now and I have seen a lot of roof stuff, but like...is this normal for everyone else? I know there’s schools that have roof sport--that’s common in the city everywhere--but that’s like...specialized roofs with 30 ft chainlink fencing and really good supports to your body doesn’t fall straight through it when you jump too much. The hell is using their normal ass roof?

This gang should have their legs swinging halfway into the floor below them, is all I’m saying, if my roof couldn’t handle our solar heating, then a normal ass roof cannot support a gang fight.

But it does look really, really cool.

Anyway, Anzu does some offscreen snooping and finds out where the crime hangs out, and suggests that we step right into crime zone and just yank Jounouchi out of there. Which is something you would only do and say if you were Anzu and cannot fear death.

If it were Jay’s it would be with an ‘s. That’s how you do a plural Jay. But it’s the 90′s, so we put a “z” on the end of everything that should have been an “s” and that’s how you get the...

I mean, thank you, dubbers, for not saying “Jizz” but for reals...that be Jizz.

Please don’t flag me, Tumblr. (which, PS, I think they turned off the flagbot, Tumblr hasn’t flagged me in forever and I’m so thankful. Mods are asleep, we can talk about anime again)

So even though Honda decided that he was fed up with Jounouchi and didn’t want to save his ass, he decided to give it another go but complete with some new sash. He also did this without telling any of the others, who just kinda spectated him for a little while.

Honestly, if they weren’t laughing at him, I wouldn’t have known that this sash was any weirder than any of his other sashes. I don’t know really know what a school uniform should look like. It’s a shame, I feel like this series has a lot of jokes and puns probably soaring right over my head.

A little bit embarrased he was caught being vulnerable, Honda decides to give us a little more context to why he ever decided to give Jounouchi the time of day in the first place.

They had PE class once, and Honda apparently loves the hell out of PE. Jounouchi ran really fast in a straight line that one time, and that is why he’s trustworthy friend material. He just needs to stop joining gangs, and he’ll be solid.

I have no idea if the fandub put that in there or if that was native to the show, but Miho legit stans Honda/Jounouchi and acts as if she’s off to write some fanfiction about it. Honestly if she did, it would make her so much more interesting of a character.

And so, until next time, we shall have to wait and see exactly what Yami Yuugi is going to do with a freakin Yo-yo and I’m sure it’s all sorts of real effed up. Excited to get there, honestly. A shame it had to happen on the part that isn’t dubbed yet, but I’ve done these subbed before, it’ll be fine!

[seqka711]

Ranking the six main boy/girl ships in Yu-Gi-Oh from best to worst!

Not all main girl ships are created equally, I'm afraid. Let's take a look at each ship and see what's up! (Except Sevens because as I mentioned in a previous post, I am way too far behind to comment on anything in that show.)

First up is Anzu and Yugi! And YES I do ship them! However, I don't ship Atem and Anzu. Anzu was friends with Yugi, and started to see him in a different light when Atem started showing up. However, those changing feelings also started to influence her feelings about Yugi as well. We saw that in Duelist Kingdom. Then in season 2 when she realizes they're two separate people, she gets really confused! Anzu doesn't know how to feel anymore! Then Atem and Yugi are both playing wingman for each other, so that's not helping matters. I don't really ship Atem and Anzu because Atem just doesn't seem super interested in their date. I know he had other things on his mind, but if they wanted me to ship it, now was the time to show off some chemistry and they didn't.

We saw in GX that Yugi grows up to look just like Atem and he also grows more confident over the course of the series. After the end of Duel Monsters, I think they're both too hurt by Atem's passing to be digging on each other. But, distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I feel like she's gonna come back from the states and have some heart-pounding feelings when she sees him again. And Yugi's feelings didn't change, they were just put on the back burner. So hopefully when they meet back up, sparks are gonna fly! At least, I hope so. <3

~

Next up is Asuka and Judai! When I watched their first duel, I was 100% on board with this ship. They were cute, they had great banter, it was a fair fight. I loved it! But over the course of the series, I started losing interest in their relationship, fast. By the end of season 2 I was pretty convinced they had abandoned Asuka x Judai for Asuka x Manjoume, and honestly, I was 100% on board with that, I love a good romcom couple and those two have dysfunctional romcom energy. Plus they had evil power couple vibes when they were running the Society of Light together, so I thought for sure they were gonna have Manjoume and Asuka be better friends post possession.

Then season 3 came a long and I was like "woah, they DID do that on purpose! I was right!" when we saw the Judai x Johan x Yubel love triangle they spent the entire season on. Asuka and Manjoume were of course relegated to background characters, as was everyone who wasn't a transfer student. And then the series ended with a pretty definitive Judai x Yubel ending and I was like "cool I like it".

But then season 4 made me question everything by making it clear that Asuka was still crushing on Judai?!?! Uhhh.... what? You haven't mentioned this crush in OVER TWO YEARS ASUKA. You've both changed so much! I thought the whole point was "she had a fleeting crush on him in year 1, but people change and so do our feelings"! I thought they had her fall out of love with him on purpose!! You're telling me the writers just wanted us to ASSUME she was still in love with him this whole time?!

I honestly love the whole "had a crush on him, now that I know him better, he's an amazing friend but I don't like him that way anymore" dynamic and they RUINED IT so bad. And for what? To say "well they fought the whole time, but now look! They can tag duel together!" Well, jokes on them, because a few episodes later Judai and Johan will show off some of the tightest teamwork in the show and I'll have to throw Asuka x Judai in the trash. </3`

~

Yusei x Aki!!!!!! AHHHHHH I LOVE THEM. Their first duel is very romantic in my opinion. Yusei lives to help people, and it's actually a flaw of his that he'll help people no matter the cost. Usually that's sort of a "who cares" flaw in a protagonist, but for Yusei, it adds a lot of depth to his character. The reason he helps people even at the cost of himself is because he feels enormously guilty due to his parents' involvement in Zero Reverse, and he feels like he owes the world (but especially Satellite) everything. Yusei tried to go to jail in Kiryu's stead, but failed, and I think that only compounded his guilt even more.

Then, when Yusei sees the chance to help Aki, he does it. He's scared of her, but he rallies his courage to face her so that he can help her. And it's only natural that Aki would fall hopelessly in love with him after he continually put himself at risk over and over again JUST to help her. I love the episode where she rescues him from being kidnapped and then accompanies him on a riding duel. I think it hits me harder because it reminds me of how much I want to drive a motorcycle but can't because of reasons I won't go into. But part of her desire to learn to riding duel is because she wants to feel the same things Yusei feels. And that's so cute!

Unfortunately, I do have a certain headcanon that gets in the way of my shipping desires. I won't get into the whole headcanon, but I think Yusei might have ended up time travelling back in time to fix Zero Reverse and prevent Zone's future. And Aki wouldn't have come with him because we see her in the flashforward. Yusei is still giving her strength though. And I like to think that maybe a much older Yusei was able to help a much younger Aki control her powers and not enter a cult in the new timeline. And if my headcanon isn't true, then GET MARRIED AND HAVE BABIES GUYS. <3

~

On the one hand, I love Kotori x Yuma. They’re so adorable! Not only is Kotori surprisingly self-aware of her crush (usually the YGO girls love to deny it) but Yuma clearly treats her differently from the rest of his friends, even though he doesn’t know why (yet). Kotori’s confession at the end of the show is SO CUTE AND ADORABLE and Yuma accepts and I love it!

But… I can’t love it as much as I WANT to love it. Kotori’s character, especially in Zexal II is kind of boring. I liked her a lot in Zexal I actually. I thought it was fine to have a character not duel as long as she was doing something else. In season 1 she occasionally gets shit done. Or she’s there for comic relief like when she’s riding the duel coaster. Or arguing with Orbital 7. It wasn’t much, but it was something. In season 2, she’s a total non-entity. I thought the duel where she gets possessed was very funny, but I almost wish that her getting possessed by a Barian was played for drama rather than laughs.

I think what could have been cool is either a) after she can hear Astral, her and Astral team up for a duel or b) when watching Yuma she started to memorize his strategies. Or both. Or neither, just get this girl something to do BESIDES watch Yuma! In the end, my love for how adorable these two are is always somewhat soured by Kotori’s squandered potential. <3

~

Speaking of squandered potential, Yuzu and Yuya are next on the list. I love these two A TON! I’ll be perfectly honest and admit my biases here, I am NOT the biggest fan of Arc-V. The show had a lot of problems, and I’m harsher on it than most.

But one thing I really did like about the beginning of the show was Yuzu! She was independent, driven and her dueling was getting better as the show progressed. Just like Kotori, she became a non-entity in the latter seasons. However, I ship Yuya x Yuzu more than I ship Yuma x Kotori because Yuya was always keeping Yuzu in mind during the latter seasons. So it still felt like the ship was in focus, whereas with Kotori x Yuma, the ship kind of disappeared since more important things were going on. For Yuya, nothing was more important than getting Yuzu back, so really I had no choice BUT to ship it. How could I not? It was so sweet! She was his whole world! I wish we got more scenes with the two of them together though. Them never tag dueling is a crime against humanity. Also its total BS that only Yuya and Yuzu got to come back, but whatever, I guess. I was happy that the two of them reunited and even HAPPIER that the show was finally over. <3

~

Last and basically least, Yusaku x Aoi. Or Playmaker x Blue Maiden. I’ll be honest, I don’t ship this at all. The show doesn’t go through any effort to get us invested in their so-called “relationship” and if I had watched this show on its own, unaware of the series’ tropes, I wouldn’t have assumed they were a “ship” at all. With Judai x Asuka, I actually liked the fake out (at least until S4 when I wondered whether or not the fake out was actually on purpose or if the writers are just morons) but with Yusaku x Aoi I get frustrated because it wouldn’t have been that hard to GIVE them some chemistry. They’re both interesting characters, and I think Aoi and Yusaku could have had an interesting dynamic if Aoi had learned Playmaker’s identity a lot sooner.

What I think the show should have done was have Aoi discover Playmaker and Soulburner’s identity at the same time they discovered each other. Then have Aqua come into the fold a lot earlier. Trios are popular in fiction for a reason, and I think Yusaku, Takeru and Aoi would have been an excellent trio. Specifically, with both Yusaku and Aoi being so reserved, their relationship would be very understated. But that’s not a bad thing. It just means that the writers would have to put more focus on the little things. Like, maybe after a while of being friends, Yusaku sits next to her in class. That would be a small thing for other people, but for those two, that’s huge! I could also see there being a fun episode where Ai tries to trick them into going on a date but fails spectacularly. The two of them end up spending time together to foil the plan. That could be really cute! LITERALLY ANYTHING is better than NOTHING.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t ship this because the writers thought they could get me to ship it just by having boy meets girl and then having them shake hands over a hundred episodes later. And no. I refuse. I need a LITTLE more than that, please and thank you. </3

~

That was a very long post! All in all, 4/6 ain’t bad at all! Or maybe it’s more like a 3.5 since I only gave Kotori and Yuma a small heart? It doesn’t really matter, I’m a multishipper. At my heart and soul, I’ll ship anything. Like I said I don’t ship Judai and Asuka, but I totally have shippy fanart of them on my phone, lol. It’s more like… which of these ships would I defend in court and which ships do I only like because I’m trash that’ll ship anything?

Oh, I guess I did title this as a ranking... Well, I'm sure you can figure out my most and least favourites by how much I used caps lock, so it should be fine.

Give me ANY Yu-Gi-Oh ship (straight, gay or in between) and I’ll dissect it like I did these six.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Episode 30 Season 4: The Dead Joey Shuffle

Lets ignore everything happening on planet Earth right now and talk about old ass anime, shall we? Yes, my sky turned a horrible end of the world yellow/orange color for an entire day because of a LOT of fire in my state. But thankfully, the winds have changed, the sky is blue...and I can write about Yugioh again.

Last we left off, Tristan, Tea, and Yami stumbled across two fresh corpses. Now, when Joey died a season or two ago (I honestly can’t remember when), we had my favorite storyboarder at the helm just sweeping emotion all over the field and the intense weeping for Joey Wheeler lasted for like 30 minutes. Yugi freaked out in the puzzle headspace for like half an episode and nearly gave up playing cards again, Yami punched a wall and then put a duel disk on Joey’s arm like a funerary send off to the afterlife, Tea started losing her mind and begged Yugi to drop out of the tourney so Yugi wouldn’t die, and Pharaoh was like “yo Tea, Yugi can’t talk right now can we do this later????” And then Tristan, out of nowhere, just started shaking Joey and screaming at him to wake up (and I think he punched him in the face and it got censored? Yo that episode is wild.) Joey got plugged to some Kaiba Corp med bay that had like 2 dozen weird sensors attached to his chest and feet to keep him alive. Serenity was like hyperventilating in the back, just a LOT of stuff was happening all at once.

But this time, with an ordinary animation team, these three kids are so distracted by the other corpse, that they only cry just a little bit before being like “woah what?”

And like this is their second time. Maybe they’ve gotten used to Joey being dead? Maybe they got it all out of their system and are now a lot more accustomed to the fact that they all must die. Several times.

Confronted with this Agatha Christie brand debacle, Tristan makes an incredible reach that is also completely correct. Like this is such an amazing incredible reach.

Hire Tristan as your detective, hot damn. There are like 7.8 billion Orichalcos-possessed people on this planet right now trying to kill Joey Wheeler and Tristan actually called the right one.

Yami never tells us who he blames, but it’s OK, because the show immediately cuts over to Dartz’ silicon valley fortress to tell us without telling us. So while this animation team isn’t as insanely extra as our previous animation teams, they still know how to edit their cuts to work alongside their dialogue just fine.

(read more under the cut)

Lets take a little while to just take this in. Someone took a while to make it, so rather than look at it for half a second before it passes--please lets count the number of floating streets in this scene.

3.

So before when I talked about the history of San Francisco, I mentioned the old Embarcadero, which was a double decker street wrapped around the peninsula. (we still see parts of this double decker set up on parts of the highway to this day.) But what if--they actually have no idea that the Embarcadero was a thing before it fell down in an earthquake?

What if they just...wanted San Francisco to be vaguely cyberpunk in this universe and that floating freeway was supposed to be futuristic and not just an 80′s throwback?

Because there’s 3 streets stacked on top of eachother right here and yo there is no where in the city built like this. This is a Gotham situation where the poors live on the lower levels and the rich just kind of hang out on the top. We have too many Earthquakes in reality to ever support this setup but Yugioh...wow. They went for it.

Also, our art deco architecture isn’t quite in this style as Dartz’ mansion. Mind you, this isn’t full deco, and the structure has more of an ancient world vibe. But...while San Fransisco does have a lot of deco, it’s just different (sorry you’re not really here for the architecture but youknow, I’m an artist so I do think a lot about why concept artists may have gone where they went)

++++++++++RANT ABOUT SF DECO VS COMIC BOOK DECO FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++

So I’m not going to dare say this is a mistake on the Yugioh team by any means, since Deco is Deco and who knows when Dartz built that building. But like I’ve seen the SF skyline many times in this show and it’s got some funky shapes in it that are just sooo off to me. They keep drawing a more Futurist New York. Truth is, we don’t have that many skyscrapers in SF.

Most of the pictures you see of scaling buildings are of this one area around the financial district--everything else is...pretty short. So in those photos they very carefully crop out all the really squat as hell buildings on either side of it, to give the impression that our city is super tall, much like a dating app.

And, as far as Art Deco Gotham-esque skyscrapers go, we got ones like this guy:

Where at a glance it’s like...that’s barely deco (and barely that impressive. This is 1/3 the height of the Empire State building.) Compared to a lot of cities in America, our skyscrapers aren’t as...clearly deco from far away? We don’t have the huge ass humps and long ass gilded lines of the Empire State building or the Chrysler building. You only really get those details when you zoom in.

Our other skyscrapers are kinda understated or modern in comparison. And the reason why we just don’t have many deco skyscrapers is because...our ground ain’t good for building skyscrapers at all, so it took us kind of a while to build up.

Like we got this tower that we built recently (the first skyscraper they built in SF in a good while) and they decided to name it the “The Millennium Tower” which...I know...good job, team, clearly you wanted to get cursed. Well the tower started leaning about 3 or 4 years ago, like well over a foot from it’s original spot, it’s just tilting and sinking away, and people are freaking out because it’s surrounded by other tall buildings so they’re like “damn it we’re gonna dominoes.” The people in charge were like “well...we don’t know why it’s leaning...but I’m sure it’s fine” and it’s like “the ground. It was the ground...you dumbasses” not to mention that it’s clearly cursed by at least one angry Egyptian Ghost but...what do you do?

I would absolutely watch the Yugioh spinoff season about the Millennium Tower and the SF tycoons that got possessed by a ghost and have to play card games to keep their tower from squishing all of San Francisco. Yo you should hire me, Yugioh, I got IDEAS.

Man...Yugioh predicting the future, how did they call the ill fate of The Millennium Tower????

But anyway, most skyscrapers in SF are kind of boring because they have to be sturdy as hell. But, they have some neat modern shapes (like the Transamerica Pyramid--in the shape of A PYRAMID that hasn’t shown it’s face once this entire Egyptian influenced anime)

I mean, come on Yugioh, it’s right there.

Also the hell is this weird UFO on this picture I lifted off of google?

Like I think it’s 4 jets? 

I may have lifted this from an alien website, so forgive me, q-anon for lifting your image, I’m trying to talk about architecture in my Yugioh blog.

In fact the only building I (and google) can think of that is both really tall and deco-ey is this one:

And it’s a Marriot hotel built in the late 80′s. And honestly, it looks way more 1980′s Las Vegas than it does Deco. (It honestly looks like photobashing but made real, this is a weird building.)

And I could be wrong and overlooking a very important structure, but most of the city’s really cool art deco buildings are in the form of theaters, libraries, churches, schools, and houses--which are only a few stories tall. They’re gorgeous buildings with cool and different silhouettes, it’s just not very big.

Like I believe this is an old high school?

also a lot of our “art deco” has no idea if it’s victorian, deco, or art noveau so they’ll just hit all of it to see what sticks. It’s a lot more eclectic than other places where Deco is typically more...straight-lined. I kinda hate defining art styles as masculine or feminine but honestly it’s the quickest way to really hit home the difference between a Bruce Timm art deco that you’d see in a comic book, (which is very New York inspired) and what we have in San Fransisco which is really decorative and decadent.

The Yugioh SF just has no curvy nonsense and that really sticks out to me.

Ornate swirls get shoved Everywhere. Willy nilly. Just everywhere randomly. And it sits next to other structures that are modern and simplistic. It’s very San Francisco to have this old world next to new world.

And it makes sense. SF is the other side of the continent from New York, and about as far West as you can go from the movement going on in Europe. So...we made our own take and tl;dr the art deco in our city doesn’t look like Gotham at all.

And, while it’s not as grand or dark or iconic, it’s a good thing. It’s what helps make San Fransisco look really unique compared to other American cities--the fact that we're...short and eclectic. Our district with the skyscrapers is where it’s kinda boring, actually--the good stuff is when you get away from that. Where every little building has a spunky wild personality.

But in a show like this you gotta make it seem more grand and less homely so--they scaled up the buildings a lot more than we really have and homogenized all the stylings into one (and they axed every Victorian swirl because they don’t want to draw that). They really just turned SF into comic book New York--especially since I’ve only seen like...one steep hill since we got here.

It’s fine, and it makes complete sense why they did it, (I’m more confused as to why most of California is a Nevada desert so I can easily forgive a San Francisco without the right Deco) it’s just a very different energy.

and honestly...it’s an energy influenced by the tone of the show. Everything has a very dark blue-gray palate, and it’s because it’s literally the end of the world, Joey has died, everyone is sad...maybe it would be out of place to have a building that looks like it sparks joy? The harsh and cold lines do add to the gravity of the situation.

Maybe I would have done the same thing? In the end, the legibility of your story matters more than the accuracy of your story--especially when it comes to TV. Which is somewhat a controversial statement, and there’s exceptions when it comes to cultural stuff. But while the culture of San Fransisco was erased (a culture that they did draw in the beginning of the season! they did show alcatraz, a trolly, and the golden gate!), it is at a point in the show where...all of humanity is being erased anyway. Could also be symbolic? Maybe?

+++++++++++++END OF THE ART DECO RANT+++++++++++++

So anyway, stepping away from lovely buildings and into this gross ass abandoned park, Yami decides he’s gotta get himself to this gaudy ass Batman building ASAP.

He can ride a horse but he absolutely will not ride a motorcycle. Or touch Joey Wheeler’s dead body.

Which is wild because apparently there’s a Yugioh spinoff where all they do is ride motorcycles??? But from what I heard, Yami is not in it. Which is the most wild thing.

So uh...you know how much I love art details, lets take a long look at this one.

AH no.

Nope nope nope nope.

I hate this logo. It looks like an emperor penguin’s eyebrow thingies. Like a face with just four huge eyebrows.

Not sure why we randomly have a new logo. It’s nearly the end of the season, we’ve already shown the Orichalcos logo so many times. Was this episode made earlier in development than the rest? Is that why there were like - I dunno, put this random logo here... Maybe we’ll figure out the rest of the logo later?

I don’t know. This weird logo feels so out of place.

And then because I’m thinking about buildings...maybe it’s influenced by our Shell building?

Maybe? Or not? Just saying you got a round thing with radial lines hovering over a trellis...the possibility is there that they were inspired but had to edit it down for animation? Eh, I’m reaching desperately for anything that looks like San Francisco at this point.

Anyways, the front door of this building is an elevator (????) and in a somewhat confusing set of cuts, out of this elevator comes the murderer herself.

And she’s dead.

SO HAPPY I didn’t have to watch that card game but like...c’mon. There’s no way Mai would lose to Raphael.

Maybe that’s why they couldn’t show it? Because she’s the only person on this show who uses a themed deck with cards that actually sync with eachother? (outside of Pegasus’ toon deck and Grandpa’s voltron deck ((sorry it’s name isn’t voltron, I’ve forgotten the name of the robot that you build out of other cards. Exodus? Exodysseus?

It’s Exodia isn't it? Wtv. 2020′s been a real long one, all y’all.)) )

(don’t ask where the smoke came from, we don’t know. Maybe Yami felt like making it to be more aesthetic. It is a fun visual tic to the show.)

So Yami goes into this elevator instead of anticipating that this is obviously a trap. Like most would just decide to take the stairs instead, but Yami loves falling for a good obvious trap every once and a while (or, in the case of this season--each and every single time a trap is placed in front of him) and so this takes him directly to the fightclub roof of yore.

Ah. We started this season on fightclub roof, in like...2010 or whenever I started this season. Feels like forever ago. How long has the year of 2020 been? 20 years of my life? 40 years of my life? Was I in fact never born before 2020 started? I honestly don’t remember anymore who I was before this year happened. Probably because I inhaled just a hell ton of wildfire smoke and now my brain is a bunch of jelly beans rattling around in a jar.

Anyway, Raphael just hands Yami (by hands I mean throws aggressively) Joey’s dragon card.

A little unsure why he’d do this since...this is the weapon to destroy Dartz. Why are you giving it back to the Pharaoh? But apparently, Raphael did that to prove that he is the murderer of Mai, who murdered Joey and...youknow...the stuff that we know but would be pretty difficult for the people in this show to follow.

Mai’s voice actor seeing “Mumbo-Jumbo” and being like “Well if I’m doing this, I’m going to commit.“

WE ARE NEVER DUELING DARTZ.

I refuse that a duel with Dartz, in fact, ever happens in this season.

Kind of surprised whenever I see there’s still people left. SF is basically abandoned in comparison.

Thing is...that’s just SF on a holiday weekend.

And then, because Tristan’s in the middle of the street, the rest of the party has to try and run him over.

It is really funny to me that Seto went out of his way to ditch these people so MANY times, but keeps ending up around them again and again, and each time in a wildly different vehicle, each and every time it’s when these guys need a lift...he’s very quickly turning into the group’s soccer mom. Should’ve gotten a minivan.

And then this happens?

I’ll just leave this here:

I’m sure that fanfic writers everywhere rejoiced when Seto reached out a hand to catch Joey’s face from hitting the pavement. In all this was a bizarre animation and now that I’ve figured out my blender settings for the new update, I can finally cap little segments again.

Just don’t you dare flag me, tumblr. Hopefully segments less than 10 seconds long are fine.

Like there was this part where they had to just drag around Joey’s corpse over this rail, and it was Mokuba and Tristan just prying him up there like he were a potato sack and like...

...Joey’s gonna wake up with so many rail-shaped bruises! They do not treat him gently!

Then back on fightclub roof, Raphael made me do a bit of a double take when he accidentally implied the existence of another bean within that Pharaoh bean.

And no, Bakura did not show up at this point.

I would LOVE IT if Pharaoh biffed it a second time and Bakura suddenly took the reigns and was like “Oi loves! that was bloody easy!” but I...have a feeling that this team didn’t actually watch the episodes where Bakura is just vibing in that puzzle piece.

If this never comes back to bite Pharaoh in the ass...

It might never come back guys...I don’t know. How do these writers have this much self control to ignore Bakura for like a full season. How do you do it? I can’t hold a plot twist in for even like 5 seconds. How....how do you do it?

Anyways, now that Seto has Tea who has a map, they walk up to the entrance (I honestly forgot if they drove or walked because knowing this show, Seto would absolutely ignore the car. Either way, the Ferrari isn’t necessary anymore. Written right out of the script. Cars are hard to draw. Get rid of it)

You know, Mokuba’s seen an awful lot of corpses for a kid! Like 20ish corpses if you count the 2 times the Big 5 biffed it. Really should have left him with Rebecca! Youknow, the other kid the same age as him!

But it’s fine, we gotta train Mokuba to suppress that trauma deep, deep down like a proper Kaiba.

Youknow when I started this series I was like “I don’t get why everyone talks about the Kaibas so much, these two seem kinda like whatever” but now I’m on like S4 and like...I’m SO concerned about the Kaibas. With Yugi...whatever...he’s gonna be fine, but the Kaibas? Oh boy. Either one of them could go completely evil and I’d buy it.

And probably root for them.

And I know they won’t go full tilt, I’m pretty sure--but like...they COULD. I can’t say that about the rest of the cast.

Everyone’s made it!

Even joey’s weird coma/dead body for some reason!

Lol also I love this random sci-fi tech water tower next to Tea. What is that?

My drought senses are screaming, is that a huge ass water tower the size of a 4 story building next to Tea? Chances are, it’s got a jet in it or something because this is Yugioh, but...man. At least it doesn’t look like one of those rusty New York rooftop water towers. This show just completely not getting what SF looks like.

Whatever, he can resurrect the leviathan, maybe Dartz can make water?

Youknow, all you have to do to make California worship you forever is make rain. Screw this lizard nonsense. The man can power water. What’s he doing with this stupid snake?

But youknow, Yugioh just never really figures out how to harness the weather. They CAN and they do it all the time. But, do they use it for their benefit? Like freakin never.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I went on a looong rant about SF but maybe I’m just sick of my own house? Been a lot of fire and quarantine over here. It’s been messing with my head a fair amount so thanks for bearing with me and my weird ass update schedule (remember when I used to be productive? Was that just a dream I once had?)

But if you just got here, here’s a link to read these recaps in order, from the beginning way back in S1.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono