#yugioh dm villains

[orenjineechan]

Yami Bakura being a chaotic cat person.

[roselyn-artist]

"Do you really think you can stand against my God Cards, Seto?"

Commission for @rosalind-hawkins 🤩 This is a picture for her fanfic, the villain Noah with the Millenium Eye! 😱 I enjoyed drawing this too much and I hope you like it too! 😊

[its-to-the-death]

Villain Song Showdown Preliminary Round #24

Top two will make it into the bracket

Songs below the cut

Daisy Daisy - Villain: Hal 9000

Agatha All Along - Villain: Agatha Harkness

Face Up, Face Down - Villain: Maximillion Pegasus

Gaunter O'Dimm theme - Villain: Gaunter O'Dimm

Prowler's theme - Villain: Prowler

Why Does the Huntsman Hunt? - Villain: Kraven the Huntsman

The Phantom of the Opera - Villain: The Phantom of the Opera

I Remember/Stranger Than You Dreamt It - Villain: The Phantom of the Opera

The Beauty Underneath - Villain: The Phantom of the Opera

[shitpostingkats]

8 and 18 for the YGO ask meme? P.S. Helloooooo ^.^

8. Favorite antagonist/villain

You know? Shoutouts to Brron! He doesn't get enough love. I really love his design and they way he's animated in the show, this sort of creaky dusty mummy that doesn't have any bones and joints in all the Wrong places.

18. A random headcanon

Ooh I can't narrow it down to just one so I'll do some for each series I've seen.

DM: Atem is stupid nearsighted and this is why he does the squinty squinty whenever he takes over. This is really impressive because he's the one who actually passed the drivers test for Yugi (Yugi's a fine driver, he just couldn't get through the exam without having a panic attack) and to this day no one knows how he did it because the man is coke-bottle-glasses-blind and needs help crossing the street most days. Yes, this means Yugi has technically driving illegally his entire life. No, he doesn't feel one bit bad about it.

GX: Listen to me. I am looking directly in your face. Tyranno Hassleberry would be an amazing principal/chancellor of duel academy. He's a friendly leader type who loves learning and being in charge of rowdy hooligans. He effortlessly takes command of the student body like three times in the series. He's weird and fun and would be utterly beloved by his students because yeah he talks like a retired army colonel but he also goes off on hours long tangents on the cretaceous period and lets any student who wants avoid going home over the holidays tag along on his archeology digs and/or camping trips. He seems to be friends with the entire work force of pro duelists and duel historians and duel physicists and regularly invites them to the island to give presentations. I know Shepard set the bar low but Tyranno Hassleberry is going to raise it.

5Ds: I haven't posted any art of it, but I like to draw Yusei with tattoos! He gets a new one for every person that's important to him, so he has a full sleeve on his right arm (though his tattoo for Martha is right over the scar on his stomach) and even gets the dragon head inked back on after the end of the series. Also as stated previously I fully believe in my heart of hearts that Carly Carmine is a lesbian. And I believe with certainty that she should go on a date with Stephanie (the server from blue eyes coffee). Stephanie opens up her own little queer coffee shop called "Les Bean" or smth and Carly becomes a full on investigative reporter who keeps getting in trouble with the cops because she and her six foot tall emotional support himbo investigate leads by picking fights with violent criminals and there's really nothing anyone can do about it.

Zexal: I haven't finished with the series yet but I am full to bursting with headcanons for what astral world is like and if the show wants to contradict me it is welcome to try. I think astral world is completely underwater and filled with bioluminescence and weird deep sea creatures. Everything is floaty and sways in the currents and an astral's hair is like the fronds of a sea anemone and it is customary/fashionable to have schools of fish swimming around in it. Some astrals decorate their bodies with coral and plants and are floating ecosystems. There's a good deal of Societal Value attached to how many creatures you are in symbiosis with. Astral himself doesn't know exactly why he feels so grief stricken when he sees Yuma fiddle with the beads in his hair, or feels so lonely when he looks in an aquarium, but he's working on it, and as far as he's got Yuma, then he's not alone at all :)

[fizzingwizard]

it's the end of 2023 and "thief king bakura had a point" isn't a hot take now anymore than it was twenty years ago when we first learned about aknadin's crimes in kul elna

[penandswords]

Liz's Affiliates!

This is just a list of people that Interact with me often! Just a Gentle wink / appreciation post! (If you want to be on this list! Dm Me. I don't want to add people unless they tell me they want to be on this list! ;) ) (If you are missing from this page it is because we have not had a conversation about it. please don't feel excluded COME TELL ME. I'm dumb and am scared about accidentally crossing someone's boundaries. COME shake me. Odds are if we are interacting a Lot I want to add you.) And Yes, duplicates can be found on here. I don't practice exclusivity ;) Cus i'm greedy and like making friends!

The DAD/Mom Squad (Her Adopted parents)

@heroic-endeavors | Rima's main enji! + Several other muses | (and the MAJORITY of Her found family too but hey ;) | Rima will 1 v 1 anyone to defend Enji | She also loves hawks | And several other muses of vics @erxsxre | Aizawa | Another stand in Dad! / And probably rima's main UA bully. (It's okay though she needed tough love. ;) ) @truly-quirkless | Yagi and Fin | Dad-MIGHT! the protective and will bully the Hawks / Potential partners for Rima. | And the Wonderful Fin! A friend / Fellow villain family sufferer @ninthnocturne | Myde | The Fun Dad! | Will teach all the irresponsible behavior to Rima / And is her main doctor.

@welcxmetxthechaxs | Miss Jokes and Odette | Stand in Moms / Influencer of bad PUNS, and Good cop to Rima's mischief.

More to be added.

Found Family Squad! (all other relations that are NOT the adoptions)

@deathonate | Bakugou | ADOPTED Brother | will 1 v 1 any hawks / Potential partners for Rima. | Rima adores him @nitronapalm | Bakugo / Nitro | ADOPTED brother | SKETCHBOOK thief. (Rima will 1 v 1 someone in a dennys parking lot for him)

Hawks Harum!

@winguhiro | Hawks | Guardian Angel -winks- | WILL gift him shiny things / IS startled when she SHOWS up on her balcony in the pouring rain.

YuGiOh Crossover / Hero verse! - A verse with Yugioh Muses with My Hero Verses

@frogsonalotusleaf | Kaiba (And various other My Hero Muses) | Failed Romance / Rimas stalker (Or number one rima fan in Kaiba's eyes. ;) )

Bleach Crossover - Rima has gotten attached to Ukitake and Shunsui!

@inmensapotentia | ShunSui and Ukitake (and many others) | Dads? Adopters? Protectors? (She doesn't really know but she's attached to them now)

(If you WANT to be added to this list. You can dm Me, OR go to this post and interact with it. ODDS are if we interact I WANT to add you!)

[fanfic-lover-girl]

Yuma & Astral > Yugi & Atem. Fact

As usual, my disclaimer. Yugioh DM and Yugioh Zexal were the only two Yugioh series I watched completely. I watched DM in the dub and Zexal in the sub. If I had known about the sub as a kid, I would have watched DM in sub :'(. But I was not watching the whole series again. I have watched several sub clips though so I have a fair idea of the Yugioh DM sub.

Now that I have listed my credentials...let me start what may be a hot take.

I love both partner pairings though I like Yugi & Atem more just because I was never a huge Astral fan. But objectively, Yuma & Astral are the superior pair when I look at their story arcs.

The problem with Yugi & Atem is that Atem feels more like the main protag than Yugi. It was not until the Memory Arc during the Yugi vs Bakura duel that it hit home that Yugi was meant to be the main protag. Sure, Yugi has his moments but Atem does all the heavy lifting. Yugi and Atem had great teamwork in the Pegasus duel and it was epic to witness. But otherwise, Yugi does not really have any memorable duels until the last arc. Yugi only duels when Atem is unavailable (eg. in the Bandit Keith duel) or for emotional duels (eg. possessed Joey). Atem is the guy who ultimately defeats the main players: Bakura, Pegasus, Kaiba, Marik, and Dartz. Yugi is basically Atem's support guy and is delegated to the background. Which is why I was never a huge fan of their ceremonial duel. It felt totally unearned to me. First, Yugi has the advantage of knowing Atem's deck while Atem has little knowledge of his. Frankly, the ceremonial duel is quite forgettable and underwhelming. The main moments were Yugi defeating the Egyptian gods and that last symbolic move with the Ressurection of the Dead card. I like Yugi but he never felt like the main character of the story. Atem fought all his battles for him. When things got tough, Atem took over and Yugi took the backseat and got all the glory. Yugi deserved better and I wish his title of King of Games felt more earned in the narrative because Yugi is canonically a prodigy gamer too. In the dub, Yami's thoughts while dueling sound like Yugi so it makes it appear that Yugi is contributing. It's a nice touch but hardly enough to compensate, especially since the sub does not have anything like it as well to bolster Yugi.

Now Yuma and Astral. Thank goodness I found the sub. Dub Zexal is annoying to watch. Yuma is one of my fav Yugioh protag. Honestly, a lot of times I have Yuma as my favourite. Yuma's development was incredible and he is unlike the others who were just naturally amazing duelists. Because Yuma started off as a bad duelist, he relied a lot on Astral. However, what makes the dynamic between Yuma and Astral more interesting than Yugi & Atem is that they are separate entities during the duel so we get to see their interactions. So instead of just possessing Yuma's body, we see Astral coaching Yuma and even some amusing situations such as when Astral played reverse psychology on Yuma when the kid was being stubborn and refusing to listen to him. As Yuma became better, he became less dependent on Astral and we even see Astral congratulating Yuma on creative plays that impressed him. Then we see Yuma and Astral as equals when they fuse with the power of Zexal (cool power by the way **squeal**...although it can be too OP lol). Because of this, I always saw Yuma as the main character of the story, despite Astral's amnesia driving the plot. We see Yuma defeat the villains, sometimes without Astral. Yuma's rivals are HIS, not just Astral's. We see Yuma and Astral working together on screen. We see that Yuma and Astral's goals begin to conflict when Yuma befriends the Barians who are the enemies of Astral world. Therefore, Yuma's ceremonial duel with Astral had so much more buildup and was way more climactic. Yuma grew as a duelist to the point where he could defeat his teacher and step up to save the world from his best friend if need be. All with a smile on his face. I don't care what the Zexal haters say! Yuma is such an awesome character, despite being one of the youngest protags.

Both ceremonial duels have heartwarming endings. But I think Yuma and Astral had a better dynamic than Yugi and Atem. Yugi's only moment against a main villain was in the Duelist Kingdom arc but he never got a moment to really shine after that until literally the last minute.

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

List of villains I don't think should've been redeemed

THE FINAL CHARACTER IS A GO RUSH ONE SO SCROLL WITH CAUTION

Pegasus (DM)

I've heard the manga killed him at the end of Duelist Kingdom and... yeah that would've been better than the awkward and unexplained change of heart he had. His sort of good guy role in Waking the Dragons (and I guess Pyramid of Light) probably should've been filled by another character. He's kind of funny in GX though, sue me-

Dartz (DM)

This was just... a total asspull in the last episode. I like Waking the Dragons more than most and even I can admit that. Dartz was a really cool twisted mass manipulator with no trace of sympathetic qualities and then they just decide last minute that he was turned evil by a rock... okay. It lines up with the lore, I guess, it just feels kind of pointless and weird.

Aki's Father (5Ds)

I've said my piece on this and I refuse to start this crap again:

https://www.tumblr.com/overobsessedfanboy23/688979888324132864/i-have-some-concerns-about-akis-arc?source=share

Faker and Tron (Zexal)

Putting them in the same place because I have the same issue with both of them: they're more abusive parents. The Tenjos and Arclights respectively weren't pressured by the narrative or other characters to forgive them like SOME parents in this series but they did absolutely nothing to forgive forgiveness, especially Faker. I could maybe be okay with this if it was just one of them who was redeemed and the other ran off or something (like Heartland did) but both of them being redeemed is a step too far for me.

Leo Akaba (Arc V)

Yet another horrible dad who did not deserved to be forgiven (one of Yugioh's worst habits if you ask me), except this one is also a conqueror who started a war and Yugioh-murdered millions of people by turning them into cards (something they didn't know was reversible until late in the series) and he gets off scott free. Chilling with the others and not incarcerated or anything. Why.

EARLY GO RUSH SEASON 2 SPOILERS IN THE SECTION BELOW. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Phaser (Go Rush)

Okay this one's actually kind of complicated. I think a redemption for him could have worked if there was more leading up to it and more that deconstructed and challenged his views. But there wasn't. So I'm left feeling confused why his wimpy ass "I'm sorry, a box told me to do it" was immediately taken seriously and his horrible actions were forgiven while Manabu's pleas of "I was a double agent and was trying to do the right thing!" were ignored and lead to him being repeatedly bullied. Why did these two things happen in not just the same show but alongside each other seriously what the hell?!

[ifellbecausegravity]

ok I love that duel monsters cards are used for divination throughout the yugioh series, but the importance of it varies a lot so I rated them from the top of my head:

dm: Yami Bakura reads Pegasus' entire life to him by playing tarot with his deck before he carves the millennium eye out of his socket. 7/10 for characterization because it tells us a lot about both YB and Peggy, 4/10 for plot relevance because it's part of an important plot point but also a one-off in the story

gx: the s2 villain has an entire card archetype based on tarot that he uses to predict the future (and also to brainwash people). 10/10 for characterization (or maybe 0/10 because this guy has basically no personality besides using tarot cards), 11/10 for plot relevance because it drives the plot of a whole season

5d's: Carly constantly uses her fortune fairy/lady deck to read fortunes, but it's treated more as her own superstition (except that time she was evil and it was taken a bit more seriously). 8/10 for characterization because it's a big part of her worldview, 1/10 for plot relevance because the one time her evil self predicts Jack's future SHE DOESN'T EVEN USE HER CARDS

I don't remember if any other shows also had duel monsters tarot but if they did please add them

[cyberdragoninfinity]

malik for the ask meme?

GUY I LIKE

First impression: god i really adored malik/marik from the second I first saw him when I was like 8. My childbrain just honed in on this cackling charismatic bad guy SOO so bad... I had a crush on him lol

Impression now: HE REALLY IS ONE OF THE DUEL MONSTERS GREATS. TO ME. He's my second favorite DM character behind Rex, his backstory hits like a truck, his dub voice just completely enchants me, he just still hits different after all this time. Marik is like the perfect encapsulation of Battle City nostalgia and Yugioh Villain Realness to me. love him to bits. 16 year old of all time. live laugh love motor cycle

Favorite moment: gooooughh gotta go with when he regains agency and control of his body in the Yami Marik vs. Yugi duel and then forfeits of his own accord. Batttle City finals go so so hard but that bit especially just rocks.

Idea for a story: anything with him and Yami Bakura just getting to be little shithead teenagers. I want them to throw glass bottles at cop cars together.

Unpopular opinion: I think he is still gonna be a little bit mean and cunty even post-redemption and post-canon. this isn't a bug it's a feature.

Favorite relationship: do still love me some thiefship but my fav Marik dynamic is his relationship with his siblings ;__; Ishtar sibs still make my heart acheee his bond with Odion/Rishid makes me BANANASSS. SO MUCH LOVE THERE. SO MUCH COMPLICATED GROUND THERE. At the end of it all they have each other and it's fantastic. top fav ygo siblings, to me.

Favorite headcanon: paints his nails gold, absolute Dolly Parton enjoyer, going to settle into eventual he/she bigender realness a little bit later in life, gets along better than you'd expect with Tristan...they talk about motorcycles. <3

[headingalaxys-spicy]

For both America and Canada:

❣️ - What are their love languages?

💓 - What are some signs they’ve fallen for someone? How do they show their affection?

💝 - What gestures do they really appreciate? How do you get on their good side?

🧸 - Do they have any stuffed animals? If so, are they decorative or do they sleep with them?

Going to be speaking in the context that reader is a nation. So a Nation AU or if I’m terms of character x character in the show.

❣️

🇺🇸America’s love language is definitely acts of service. This mainly includes if you cook for him or even go out to get food for him after he’s back from a world conference. Man’s is busy so doing anything that can make his life easier will not be something that will go unnoticed.

🇨🇦Canada’s love language is physical touch. He loves to be cuddled after a long day of playing catch with his elder brother. He loves to feel the warmth of a great hug and hand holding is another way to ease this Canadians mind.

💓

🇺🇸America is straightforward as hell about who he likes but some early signs would be that he goes out of his way to say hi to you every meeting, he’ll sit next to you, and he will slide in your DMs and like your IG photos EVERY . SINGLE. ONE. That you post from the moment of his inception that he likes you. He will show his affections by always wanting a hug from you or handshake when you’re about to sign a contract or something. He will also give you better trade, military, or infrastructure agreements than he would anyone else.

🇨🇦He will look in your direction (on occasion you can catch him blushing while doing so) a lot during meetings, send you notes about how boring the meeting is and if you want to grab lunch later or dinner. He will at first discuss whatever topic the meeting is about and then go foreword from there to get to know you personally. He will also find a way to snag a seat next to you every time there is a world conference. He will want to go to build a bear with you and make a customized bear.

💝

🇺🇸 America will really love it if you’d join him on a run to game stop or the local game store where they have live sessions of D&D, YuGiOh, and live matches of Smash Brothers etc. He’s a huge nerd in his spare time. Root for him stroke his ego a bit because due to his heavy workload he’s become more of a casual gamer. Getting on his good side is easy just hang out with him and be confident being yourself even if you’re his polar opposite he can respect someone

🇨🇦 Canada will love it if you send him a small note at the world conference saying how nice it was for you and him to hang out and hint that you’d may want to do it again. Also if you complement him on how his cute side hanging curl makes him look adorable. Man’s will be like playdough if you do that.

🧸

🇺🇸America yeah he has that one large Alien plushie in his closet he sleeps with whenever he’s watched something that was too scary that he knew he shouldn’t have been watching. He also just has a lot of figurines of his favorite hero’s and villains.

🇨🇦He has them all over his house practically! All in variations of red or white some do have that patented maple leaf on it. He has them decorating his kitchen windowsill, 10% of his King Sized bed, he has a special chair in his spare room he uses for art projects and other things dedicated to a giant bear decorated in a Canadian Mountie Uniform complete with a hat and tiny fake gun. He also has them on one of the three white couches he has in his home. Once Couch is covered in the cute things white the other two just have a large brown bear with a red bow and the the other a white polar bear holding a heart.

He got it from Russia.

[wardenmages]

watching someone's top 25 villain summons across every Yugioh series list and getting judgmental about their choices like I've watched anything after Zexal so I only have opinions on like a third of the list

the DM/GX/5Ds picks were fine and I agree with a couple of them but also I Have Opinions and the creator is a very nice man who I watch regularly I just also think some of the picks are boring

honestly most of my strong opinions are about 5Ds because I have a frame perfect memory of it compared to a mostly clear memory of DM/GX which unfortunately makes me insufferable

[entamewitchlulu]

I posted 2,197 times in 2022

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I tagged 2,193 of my posts in 2022

#epic art - 1,115 posts

#pokemon - 373 posts

#videos - 238 posts

#yugioh arc v - 143 posts

#in the tags - 92 posts

#pokemon trainer volo - 91 posts

#spy x family - 90 posts

#kitties - 89 posts

#shojo kageki revue starlight - 87 posts

#gifs - 79 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i'm actually more annoyed about it in hindsight than i was when i was emotional and crying about the finale last night when i wrote the post

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

hi i was thinking about how i like komanami again and i feel like i’ve never seen anyone mention the Drama, the Tragedy, the Romance of komaeda essentially committing suicide to save the traitor from himself and the others whom he believed were irredeemable Despairs, and without his knowledge, the traitor was in fact Chiaki, the girl whose loss caused them all to become Despair in the first place. Whether he knew he was doing it or not, he sacrificed himself to save Chiaki, the girl he couldn’t save last time, and i just think that’s full of so much angsty romantic emotions that it makes me wanna curl up in a ball and think about it for several hours

50 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#4

also my favorite thing about volo is even though he’s completely unhinged and obsessed he’s also just, genuinely, a very cute person who actually genuinely loves his pokemon a lot. like, he’s got a togekiss, you can’t get that pokemon without loving it a lot.

he’s not a villain for evil reasons, it’s more of like...an excess of love, i think.

58 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#3

I think a friend said it (maybe in the tags of something? sorry i don’t remember who it was ;w;), but thinking about Yu-Gi-Oh today and the loss of Takahashi recently...despite my growing away from DM out of all the yugioh series somewhat, it does bear saying that Yu-Gi-Oh is probably one of the few shonen series out there that doesn’t end with an epilogue where everyone is happily straight married.

Other than just being really nice to not have something like that in general, I think it says a lot about what kind of a story Yu-Gi-Oh is. Yu-Gi-Oh accepts the fact that stories never really end, and doesn’t bother putting a tidy bow on things. The story of Atem was over, but the story of his friends will continue on, and to go forward and time and see them all paired off as adults would be against the spirit of the story. It’s all about beginnings out of endings. Our stories keep going in the people we leave behind, even when we’ve stepped off the stage.

I meant to write something about how much Yu-Gi-Oh meant to me in honor of Takahashi-sensei’s memory, but I think this rumination turned into all I needed to say while I was typing it out. Yu-Gi-Oh is important in a lot of ways. It’s so much more than a commercial for a card game. At its heart, it was a story that Takahashi wanted to tell, and the stories that came after it in his universe were also told by people who wanted to tell emotional stories, not just stories that sold toys.

Takahashi-sensei’s part of the story has come to a close, but the story won’t ever end because we are all still here with the memory of it.

Thank you, Takahashi-sensei. You’ve changed a lot of lives.

151 notes - Posted July 14, 2022

#2

From Far Away is the superior isekai because it is the only one, to my knowledge, to have the protagonist not understand the language of the fantasy world she goes to, and have to take the time and effort to actually learn it. This is both excellent from a worldbuilding standpoint, a narrative standpoint that stands out in a sea of isekai in which the world seems to bend into shape specifically for the protagonist, and also because it gives us great moments like this

[image id: a manga page. In the first panel, a girl with short hair says “Good job, honey,” to a man with long black hair, who is jerking back with a blush and a look of surprise. In the next panel, the dark haired man, still blushing, says, “Honey?” The short haired girl has a confused smile on her face, thinking “What?” In the last panel, the two are surrounded by three older men who appear to be teasing them. They are saying “Aha! So you’re a married couple, eh? What a young couple!” “To be honest, I was wondering about you two all this time. I get it, you’re husband and wife!” The dark haired man, still blushing responds “No!! That was...” Another man replies, “It’s okay...Don’t be embarrassed.” /end id]

[image id: A manga panel of the same dark haired man and the girl with short hair. The dark haired man has his head in his hand, blushing, while the girl looks at him with a slightly nervous, confused expression. A caption is pointing at the girl that reas “she wants to ask about the phrase they’ve been saying over and over again, “married couple.” What does it mean? But she’s afraid to ask.” /end id.]

158 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

this came to me in a vision

544 notes - Posted February 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[namitomoon]

Soooo I just finished the Doma arc of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (also known as Waking the Dragons or the Orichalchos arc) and I wanted to share my brief thoughts about it.

To begin with, I was quite interested in this arc. I already read the manga fully, watched GX, 5Ds and I was going to start Zexal but decided to at least finish DM before moving on from the "original trilogy". The main reason I was interested in Doma is the fact that it's 100% an anime original arc that doesn't follow the manga. Moreover, its lead writer was Shin Yoshida (the same guy who made GX S4) which AFAIK is somewhat controversial among the fandom. I was interested in seeing how well could Gallop use the setting made by Takahashi to create an original story as the previous filler arcs (Noah, Legendary Heroes and Rebecca's arcs were quite short).

I have to say I liked it. I'll go over a few points that I loved about the Doma arc:

Yami Yugi got an insane development. In contrast to the overall heroic almost invincible development he got in the previous seasons (which is helped by the fact Gallop skipped the first 7 volumes where Yami has a more, let's say, violent attitude) we see Yami falling to the temptation of darkness and losing, showing himself vulnerable. He feels more human and deep. The famous (meme) moment where he goes berserk on Haga gave me some brief reminds of early Yami.

I really liked the idea of past characters like Ryuzaki, Haga and (especially) Mai getting more development and closure.

The 3 Musketeers of Doma are pretty good. I like their designs even if they kinda feel like they tried to fill archetypes (Rafael being the strong bulky guy, Amelda the androgynous and Varon having the design you'd expect a shonen protagonist to have) and their tragic backstories. I especially liked how with Varon and Amelda, the story got into darker themes related to organized crime and war. It reminded me a bit of Gundam.

I loved how Gallop took over the notion of the Duel Spirits and developed them more. I like the idea of the Duel Monsters not being mere tools but also beings of their own with their will, desires and such. I find Rafael's character arc and initial ideology to be interesting for that reason.

Unlike Noah's arc (which had the issue of being so awkwardly placed in the middle of the Battle City finals) or the Domino City battles arcs (which feel like a breather between DK and BC), the Doma arc not only doesn't feel awkwardly introduced but it honestly feels welcome because I remember the transition from BC Finals to the MW manga arcs to feel kinda abrupt.

As someone who has finished GX and 5Ds, watching the Doma arc for the first time is funny because it's where you can pin the point where the Yugioh anime franchise just went berserk. From the careful and lowkey "magical realism" approach of the manga to the wacky "the fate of the world rests on a card draw" type of science fantasy.

It teases and foreshadows some elements of the Egyptian arc. In general, I appreciate how they tried to make it feel connected.

I like how the Musketeers are presented as strong and almost invincible Duelists and they ARE strong and almost invincible.

The change of setting was nice and it helps make the Yugioh world feel bigger.

Now, some things I didn't like:

While I do appreciate Gallop picking Mai and try to give her some closure in contrast to how she is simply written off in the manga...it could have honestly been better. Don't even get me started on her anticlimactic ending and (off-camera) duel against Dartz.

Dartz is interesting and cool, but I personally find him a little boring compared to the rest of the villains. Maybe because I already watched GX and 5Ds so I'm a little burnt out by the whole "evil esoteric villain who wants to destrot the world". I'd say Doma itself is an interesting villain because of the whole notion of them controlling the world.

As said before, this is the moment where the Yugioh anime definitely establishes its own wacky line that would go further into fruition in GX and 5Ds...but some moments just feel so silly to be taken serious (like the whole US Navy asking Yugi, Kaiba and Jounochi to destroy the Eldritch horror villain because "they couldn't")

I know it's a filler arc (by definition, not in the pejorative sense) but, just like the rest of the DM series, it has some pacing issues (although not as big as the BC arc) with some moments just dragging for so long it becomes mind-numbing. It rubbed me off the wrong way that Gallop decided to waste the final episode of the arc (184) in making an unnecessary pseudo-recap episode instead of, you know, giving a bit better closure to Mai, Ryuzaki, Haga and the Musketeers.

It's pretty much common knowledge that the DM animation peaked at DK and then afterwards became quite inconsistent. This was (along with the awful pacing and artistic direction change) what I disliked the most about the Battle City arcs and it's repeated in Doma with some episodes (the ones made by Yumeta or by Gallop in-house) being beautiful and others (the ones outsourced to DongWoo, SSC and others) being terrible. The contrast gives me whiplash (the Mai vs Joey duel in Industrial Illusions HQs is a prime example).

All in all, I still liked it and I appreciate it as the true divergence point between the manga and the anime franchise.

[shitpostingkats]

Yu-Gi-Oh Review Roundup: GX!

Favorite main character: Chazz Princeton

The Chazz. The yugioh rival who, barely five episodes into the first season, gets fed up with being in the show, sails away on a yacht, shipwrecks, is rescued by card game playing russians, gets adopted by said russians after beating all of them back to back in a 50 man gauntlet, and returns to the main plot triumphantly riding a submarine with an entire crowd of slavs chanting his name.

In, uh... *checks watch* episode 25.

Chazz is one of those yugioh characters who’s just always doing the most he possibly can, and you gotta love him for it. And unlike some prideful anime rivals, he actually has the skills to back it up. Skills you actually get to watch him build himself, from the ground up, after having his fall from grace/russian sabbatical. Which just makes it even more satisfying to see him tear into duels, because his archetype of choice, and his whole arc in general, is about using the most unintimidating, unwanted, and least powerful monsters. It’s like the pokemon trainers who threaten to beat you into next week, and then bring out. A magikarp.

Except he then absolutely trashes you with said magikarp. And clomps away in his big goth platforms, loudly proclaiming that magikarp are annoying, and stupid, and he definitely doesn’t like them. Nu-uh. Ignore the maxed out friendship stat.

Up until the heavier plot kicks in in season three, Chazz has hands down the best character arcs of GX. His fight to break free of his abusive brothers’ control, his crabby assimilation into the Slifer Squad, his brief stint and subsequent escape from a Literal Cult (yeah that happens in gx don’t worry about it). Chazz is such a charismatic and well developed character that, when he kinda vanishes for like a dozen episodes, only to reappear, having won an entire tournament offscreen, being heralded by banner-bearers, and carried on a freaking PALANQUIN

I stood up and CHEERED.

Favorite antagonist: The Dark King

The most stunning of trope subversions in a season chock-full of them. Yes, Yubel may be a more threatening and complex villain, but they have so much going on between the dub vs. sub battle, they may get the final save-the-world card game at the end of the season, but the Dark King is such an equally nuanced and menacing antagonist.

Because he’s the protagonist.

 The dark king is every concept I loved about the Yamis in DM, the idea that parts of ones soul aren’t wholly power of friendship goodness, the idea that you can still choose to be an anime protag even if there’s darkness living inside of you. Because being kind is hard. And the act of pursuing it hits so much harder when we see how much it costs to turn down the other path.

Again, I’m a sucker for any character arc even remotely analogous to mental illness. If you see a pattern in the way I review media, I wholeheartedly claim it. I am a simple creature.

But the Dark King also functions so fantastically as both a metaphor and a subversion because we’ve seen the trope of a Superpowered Evil Side before. The show is betting on that. The twist comes in that the Dark King is not some malevolent, foreign entity. That it’s Jaden. Just a scared kid, lashing out at the world and forced to deal with the consequences. And he’s not evil.

Whereas Marik shows with dealing in the part of yourself that wants to commit atrocities, Jaden takes it the next step, and has to accept that you can’t just get rid of it. You have to live with it. Rein it in. But be kind to it. Because it is you, and it just wants to keep you safe and it may be wrong and a base impulse but punishing your worst instincts is not only self harmful, it is impossible.

You may have instantly internalized any negative emotion out of shame, and yes, you may somedays even be controlled by it. But do not fear it. Learn to work in tandem with your rage. Do not let it possess you, but do not imprison it either.

The Dark King is one of those stories that I really think I needed to hear as a kid, but even now, consuming the series as an adult, doesn’t make that message any less impactful.

Favorite side character: Tyranno Hassleberry

Back in the early days of 2021, before the first season of yugioh dm was even a passing consideration of a thought in my mind, I decided to poll my online friends and determine what they thought the Best Worst Name in localized yugioh.

These were people that had never watched yugioh, never so much as glanced at the card game.

We started with 32 names.

After five rounds of voting, only one was left standing.

Tyranno Hassleberry beat Maximillion Pegasus, and thus was crowned the ultimate champion of Best Bad Yugioh Name.

Some might say this championship gave me a bit of a preemptive bias towards the funny dinosaur man.

They’d be right.

Imagine my delight, however, when this already-primed-for-stupidity name got a face, and we learn that big, dumb, real himbo of a yugioh name is attached to an equally big and dumb himbo of typical yugioh absurdity. I mean, truly, Tyranno Hassleberry is everything I love about yugioh worldbuilding, personified. In a series that takes an up close examination of the partnerships between man and monster, and the terrible psychological effects thereof, Hassleberry stands as the shining example of a character so full of love and stupidity that he is immune to the horrors.

While Jaden “What is attraction” Yuki is off getting ptsd from his partnership with a dragon demon that hyperfocuses on relationships so hard that it has put people into comas, Tyranno is also there. Just vibing. Hassleberry, do you have such a strong spiritual connection to your ace monster that you might be genuinely inhuman? Do you also have special anime eyes and mild superpowers? How’s that going? Good? Good!

The world of yugioh not only can provide rich, nuanced explorations on mental wellness and the very idea of identity, it can also provide a man who is half dinosaur and it is only ever lightly remarked upon. Apparently, the solution to surviving an ever expanding universe of unreality and cosmic horrors beyond your imagination is just. Be kind. Be happy. Talk about dinosaurs.

Favorite duel: Yubel vs. Zane

A masterclass on how non-plot-relevant duels can still contribute SO much to the show and its characters.

Zane is a funny little weirdo. The walking personification of Gifted Kid Burnout, this dude graduated valedictorian and then immediately proceeded to get kicked in the ribs by the realities of non-academic living, causing him to sink into a deep and self harmful depression spiral, obsessed with pulling others down to his level and proving to them that happy go lucky positivity is only a naive shield in the face of true adversity and cruelty.

*Laughs a bit too forcefully* What a funny dude!

Zane has basically been on a downward slide in mental wellbeing since season two, and at this point, seems to have reached a natural stopping point in his corruption arc. Tired, washed out, and pessimistic, but at least comfortable in his status quo of being An Absolute Mess. He’s teamed up with Aster as sort of the token chaotic neutrals of the party, the only ones edgy enough to do things like casual torture and murder, but he’s attempted to reach out to his brother, and has even begrudgingly been roped into protecting the gang as they make their final stand against Yubel. He seems to be operating under the belief that while he no longer has to try so hard to rid the highschoolers of their delusions that the power of love and friendship will save the day, he’s still a depressed snot rag wrapped in a black leather overcoat.

That fantastic bit of ex-villainous personality gets to go head to head against the current villainous personality, and it is a treat. Yubel and Zane carry entire scenes through sheer force of presence, and seeing them snark and attempt to out edgelord each other is a delight.

But it also is a very pivotal point for Zane’s character because, for once, he is not the most mentally unstable person in the room. That honor goes to Jaden, newly traumatized, and about to start rolling down the same hill. Zane recognizes those self destructive behaviors, even attempts to warn Jaden that refusing to acknowledge his actions will only lead to further harm, but before he can properly sit down and explain to Jaden that self harmful behaviors are bad actually, and that electrocuting yourself to feel any semblance of emotion is actually a massive holy shit red flag, Yubel interrupts them.

So now, Zane, Failure Big Brother Extraordinaire, has to come to some semblance of peace with his own emo demons, while battling Jaden’s for him (both literally and figuratively).

The sheer panache of two of the most wonderful anti-heros of yugioh, the emotional turmoil of Zane’s inner conflict, the realistic portrayal of how we process trauma, plus the absolute YUGIOH MOVE that is choosing to die of card game induced heart attack. Honestly, I could go on about this duel forever.

Favorite arc: Quest for the Rainbow Dragon

I mentioned previously that I started watching yugioh as something to have on in the background, usually while I sewed. The Quest for the Rainbow Dragon is the arc that made me put down my needle and actually devote my full attention to watching the show.

GX is a show full of subverting audience expectations. I have my own opinions on the prioritization of shock-bait over consistent plot writing, but I also can’t deny that when Adrian Gecko just shrugged off his shirt and engaged in freaking fisticuffs, I was speechless for a whole five minutes.

In between one blink and the next, GX went from a weird early 2000s merchandise advert that occasionally had character writing and the oh-so-rare taste of legitimately serious writing, to a full on survival horror anime. The surreal, empty desert environment of the spirit world, the main cast slowly whittled down and frequently split up, the eerie monologues of Yubel and their legitimately unnerving horror visuals; all contribute to this claustrophobic feeling of dread. The panic of the students feels real.

And QftRD, despite being the first entry in GX’s much darker and grander second half, makes wonderful use of smaller scale episode plots. Entire episodes are devoted to the struggle of moving from one room in the school to the next, or negotiating for enough food to survive just another day. Every main character gets to shine in aspects that we’ve only seen hints of in their lives of status quo card games: whether it’s Alexis’ natural leadership, Hassleberry and Axels’ military skills, Crowler’s actual want to protect the students’ well being, or Jaden and Jesse just finally getting to explore their connections with duel monster spirits. Heck, even the unnamed students get to shine, using their knowledge of the school to navigate through hidden passages.

It’s such a shock to the system, after two and a half seasons of decidedly not small scale apocalyptic survival. The transition from Saturday Morning Cartoon Weirdness to PTSD War Crime Hours is very jarring and unexpected, even if you know it’s going to happen. But the duel zombies arc goes a long way to make that pivot feel deserved, to give actual weight to the sacrifices and choices the characters are about to make.

Also, I somehow managed to write this entire thing without realizing this is my second time my favorite arc in a ygo show has been the one with the word ‘dragon’ in the title.

Greatest strengths of the series:

The slow burn from shonen cartoon to cosmic horror trope subversion.

Truly, I can only compare GX to a handful of other shows that have ever come within the same ballpark of a viewing experience. The closest I can get is maybe relating it to Red vs Blue: One of my favorite shows of all time. And one that it’s absolutely impossible to get into.

See, with both GX and RvB, they’re shows that start out silly, unconnected, and (don’t worry, I love both of these shows with almost my entire heart), bad. Now, an impatient viewer might be tempted to just skip to the point where the show takes off, where it quote unquote “gets good”. But the problem is, if you attempt to cut out all the chaff, you lose what fundamentally makes the sudden spike in writing quality so compelling: the unexpectedness of it.

GX grabbed my attention by the throat in Waking The Dragon, because, up until then, I’d been using it as chill background fodder. Jaden felt so real to me as a protagonist and a person, because I’d spent fourty hours watching him be a normal protagonist/teenager. The previous episodes might not have done much to advance in terms of the plot, but they delivered something equally important: A status quo.

And when that status quo is broken, it feels much more powerful to the audience because it feels so fundamentally wrong. Just like it’s insane to watch in real time as RvB goes from being a bunch of outdated loosely strung together skits to a military drama waxing poetic about morality, GX spins on a dime from “Saturday morning cartoon” to “Cosmic horror meta tropefest”, and every episode you want to look up from the screen and go “How. Wh- Who let them just... do this?” Who let them set out to write one kind of story, and then not bother to correct them when they started doing something completely different? And why is it so good?

That is a very rare feeling in media, I think. To be so truly and utterly thrown off guard by a change in story direction, yet having more fun than you possibly could with some so-called “good” stories. And I think it’s a feeling worth cherishing.

Weakest points:

The slow burn from shonen cartoon to cosmic horror trope subversion.

The other reason I compare GX to Red vs. Blue is the fact that they are both shows that I cannot in good conscience recommend to friends.

“Here’s this show I like,” I say.

“Oh, cool, I’ll check it out!”

They return, minutes to hours later.

“So, I started that show you like and uh. Are you aware it is? Bad?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, it gets better-”

“Oh, sweet, cause I was really worried-”

“-Just give it a couple seasons!”

“I, uh.” They tug at their collar. “Can I skip the bad parts?”

“No. :D”

Hours and hours of time sunk into a mediocrity on the off-chance it “gets good” is a tough pill to swallow for most people. It’s a tough pill to swallow for me, and I willingly aspire to watch every yugioh anime. Add on top of that poor production quality,  bloated plot bunnies, and some writing that has aged like milk, and you have. Well. A benign watching experience, at minimum.

And like I said, there’s good ingredients to the final storyline buried in all that early stuff! Just skipping directly to the middle in a hope to reach “the part everyone talks about” fundamentally waters down the experience, leaving you struggling to understand what has fans going bananas.

Why does the show hit you on the head 200 times with a hammer? Cause it feels so good when it stops!

Now, I’m not your parent, and you can watch tv shows however you want. If you only watched seasons 3 and 4 of GX, then by god, you watched GX, and you are welcome at the discussion table. Get in here, amigo. Your opinion matters just as much as mine.

GX is very difficult to review, in comparison to all its other sister shows, because the aspects some people praise are the very aspects others could never really get into the show because of. Its greatest strength as a story and its greatest weakness as a show are one in the same. It’s sort of this weird child of the family, unable to be talked about without a lot of contradiction and conversational backtracking. Is GX the best show of the three? Maybe. Is it my favorite? No, with an asterisk. Is it some people’s favorite? Absolutely.

If you changed it, made the plot tighter, the writing more concise, had a planned narrative from the beginning and slowly worked in elements of the larger endgame, would those same people still like it, in the same fervor?

I don’t think so.

Most yugioh moment:

YA SEE, A FEW YEARS BACK, ON A ROUTINE DIG FOR DINOSAUR FOSSILS, A LANDSLIDE BROKE OUT AND NEARLY BROKE MY LEG IN TWO. THEY HAD TO OPERATE QUICKLY, SO THEY USED THE DINOSAUR BONE I FOUND TO SAVE MY LEG. EVER SINCE, I'VE HAD WHAT THEY CALL DINO DNA. THE DOCTOR SAYS IT MAKES ME STRONGER THAN THE AVERAGE JOE.

[solarskitty]

Actually the MOST fucked up thing about yugioh dm is that they gave the final villain a huge dragon penis for no reason