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number-1-kuaidul-fanboy · 2 years

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I Have Some Concerns About Aki’s Arc

Okay let me clear: Aki has been nothing but excellent from the moment she was introduced. She’s my favourite character and just aspect of 5Ds so far. She’s a badass but she’s also very emotionally damaged and repressed due to brainwashing and a dark past, that I inwardly theorised for a while could’ve been due to abuse. She’s honestly very relatable to me personally.

And that’s why I’m saying this now: the way Aki’s parents were handled is problematic to put it lightly. First off, her mother barely exists. Her mother might as well not exist: the narrative would’ve been stronger if Aki had a single father, thus her only family/positive connection early in life who never had any time for her as a child and later in life unintentionally abused her. It would’ve also been stronger if Aki’s father realised himself that it was his fault Aki turned out the way she did rather than his wife having to be the one to tell him.

(This moment really makes it feel like Aki’s father doesn’t even fully think he’s to blame when the way Aki’s backstory is framed makes it abundantly clear Aki’s father is to blame for a lot of what happened to her psychologically.)

Second, and more importantly, Aki’s father abused her. It was clearly unintentional, the narrative makes that clear, but not all abuse is intentional. Some abusers believe that they’re right to treat their victim the way they do and in some aspects, Aki’s father does believe he’s in the right. He believed he was right to fear his daughter even when she was a small child, he believed his job was more important than her (or at least his actions hammer in this point) and that he was right to never make any time for her, thus making Aki feel emotionally isolated from a young age. Aki’s father makes it clear he never meant to hurt her, and some of it wasn’t even his fault like Aki assuming her parents were happier without her just from seeing them through the window and some of the times he’s legitimately too busy to spend time with her, but intent does not matter. Whether he meant to or not, he still abused her. He emotionally neglected her, he called her a monster, and treated her like one by further distancing himself from her.

And I haven’t yet addressed the fact that he HITS her.

Sure we only know for sure it happened once and he regretted it but you can’t say he did that by accident. You don’t accidentally slap someone across the face, that’s an intentional choice. He could’ve left the room if he was that pissed off. There’s no excuse for that moment.

Whether he meant to or not, Aki’s father was abusive and both the audience and the character himself know for a fact Aki internalised what he said and did to her:

I sound negative but so far all of this is actually really good writing. Besides Aki’s mother’s lack of involvement, this backstory perfectly explains how Aki ended up the way she did, and makes her even more sympathetic and relatable than she was before. What bothers me about this narrative is its resolution. As I discussed, Aki was abused by her father, and while her mother is never shown directly abusing her, she did nothing to stop it. Yeah, that could be due to the narrative being sexist but my point is this: Aki is justified in not wanting to be around her parents. Even if the abuser regrets their actions, the victim is in no way obligated to forgive them or even give them the time of day, much less let them back into their life.

So why the holy hell is the narrative not just pushing but forcing Aki to forgive her parents?! It’s not just Aki’s father pleading Aki to forgive her, that would be one thing, but both Yusei and the narrative itself act like Aki needs to forgive her parents in order to heal:

(This phrasing in particular really gets under my skin. “Incorrect hatred?!” Sure, ‘hate’ might be a bit far but Aki has every right to be upset with them! THEY HURT HER. It’s not your place to tell her that she’s wrong for being upset!)

Also, before you comment, for the love of god do NOT say “because it’s Japanese culture! They believe in more traditional family values!” Traditions that hurt people have no place in modern society and need to GO. This is just wrong. And harmful. Not all abusers regret what they’ve done. Making amends isn’t always possible, even in cases where there is regret, and it shouldn’t be treated as the end all be all solution. Of course I’m happy Aki was able to come to a place where she could forgive her parents but it never should’ve been the point of her redemption. The point should’ve been for her to move on from that resentment/trauma and not let it define her and that shouldn’t require making amends, otherwise many of us would never move on…

If the narrative wanted Aki and her parents to reconcile, it should’ve come after this. They either shouldn’t have been there or Aki shouldn’t have been forced to forgive them the way she was. That’s a harmful thing to enforce.

For a quick example of this idea being done right (within Yugioh, and I’m sorry to do this again if you’re getting sick of hearing me gush over how good GX is but this instantly came to mind), Judai wasn’t forced or even expected to forgive Yubel, not by the narrative, not by any other characters, not even by Yubel themself. It was a choice Judai made all on his own. And it wasn’t a last resort either. Judai was about to win the duel, as proven by this line:

Judai was about to win. He instead chose to activate Super Polymerization and fuse their souls. It was his choice to forgive Yubel and repair their relationship (that Judai was barely remembering existed) and the narrative treated it as such:

I know these are two very different relationships: Judai and Yubel’s being romantic and Aki and her parents’ being familial, but you should never be required to make amends with someone, regardless of whether you’re related by blood. At the end of the day, blood ties don’t automatically make a relationship meaningful or positive. If someone is hurting you, you have every right to cut them out of your life and never look back, and no one should ever tell you otherwise.

I’ll admit Aki’s narrative isn’t the worst version of this I’ve seen. Her father feels legitimately regretful and actually worked to earn his daughter’s forgiveness.

(This moment is really powerful and did legitimately hit me in the feels)

Really, I have nothing against the fact that she forgave her parents in the end. That was her choice to make and her parents showed they were deserving of that forgiveness. My problem is that it felt like the narrative and Yusei, a character within that narrative who has absolutely nothing to do with this situation and shouldn’t have a say in it whatsoever, were forcing her to that conclusion. It’s something that prevented me from feeling the weight of the moments that actually did work, which sucks because with some tweaking, this could’ve easily been one of the most powerful arcs in all of Yugioh, and I know to some people it still is. I assure you I’m not looking for reasons to dislike 5Ds. I desperately want to see it as the masterpiece others see it as, but with a storyline as intense and personally familiar as this, they needed to get it completely right or not try it at all. I can’t accept only halfway with something like this.

It’s honestly a shame is a shame because this story came so close to true greatness. I mean, just look at it:

Aki’s power being symbolized by these rose petals, something you’d normally think of as beautiful causing all this destruction and pain, her range of expressions as her mask of sadism slips off to show that she’s truly just a scared child who only ever wanted acceptance, the dialogue feels very grounded and real and the way the actors deliver their lines really does sell it. I really did mean it when I said a simple rewrite could’ve fixed all my issues with this. It was so close to being something truly fantastic. Maybe the following episodes will change things but as of episode 41, I’m disappointed.

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number-1-kuaidul-fanboy · 2 years

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I Finished 5Ds (OLD, SUB AND ONLY BASED ON FORTUNE CUP AND DARK SIGNERS)

Well, I finished the Dark Signer arc that is. I mentioned a while ago that I had no interest in watching the rest of 5Ds but would officially decide whether or not I would skip it once I finished the Dark Signers arc and well… I’ve made my choice. These first two seasons are actually able to stand on their own as a complete story, kind of like Zexal 1. However, that definitely had more solid hints of what would come in Zexal 2. Meanwhile, the only thing these seasons of 5Ds really leave up in the air is the status of Jack and Carly’s relationship, one of the few things I was deeply invested in that I know the second half shits all over so I really don’t see a point in watching it. I might watch it later but since a lot of people seem to consider the first two seasons separately from the last three seasons of 5Ds, and the series was originally going to end with the Dark Signers arc from what I understand, I figured it would be okay to at least put off watching the second half for now, as I really want to watch the newer shows. Maybe if I’m starved for Yugioh content sometime or the rest of 5Ds catches my attention I’ll pick it up again but for now, I’ll give my overview of this first half.

So into the meat of things: I hate to say that this is the first Yugioh series that I was overall disappointed with. Not the ending, the ending is mostly fine (besides Carly forgetting everything, which was definitely just to set up her joke character status in the later seasons), this series as a whole just didn't grab me as much as the other ones did. Even when the main story started, I didn’t feel as invested as I felt I should have, because I wasn’t very attached to most of the characters. I found myself not caring much when Yusei was in life threatening situations because a) I knew he didn’t lose a single duel in his whole series and b) I just didn’t like him very much. Sure, I didn’t like Yugi or the Pharaoh from the original much at first either but that show was just more… well, fun to watch, even in its early episodes when not much was going on. 5Ds wasn’t fun. Not until the introductions of people like the twins and Carly. I watch Yugioh because it’s fun and silly so maybe the dramatic tone/genre shift threw me off a bit. I will admit the story overall is well written. It’s set up early on and has a nice flow to it, like even if the pacing lags a bit at times, there’s faith that it’s building up to something epic. However, some of the plot beats were… well, frustrating.

The second duels of both Aki vs Yusei and Aki vs Misty are good examples of this. Aki was a character I overall loved but they really squandered her potential in these duels, her final two duels besides some mild involvement in the finale by the way. The Yusei one that involved her being forced to forgive her abusive parents and being told she's wrong for not wanting to reconnect with people who hurt her is something I've discussed in length but to put it simply, the framing of that duel sends a toxic message and was a bothersome conclusion to an otherwise brilliant arc. It brought the whole thing down a bit in my mind, which really sucks.

Then her second Misty duel barely involved Aki, the real Aki, at all. The idea of Aki coming to terms with the horrible things she did in her past, realising her actions hurt and even killed people, was a great idea. Unfortunately, the responsibility is immediately taken off of Aki with Divine's return: mind controlling her to be the way she was before and admitting that he killed Misty's brother, who Misty and Aki both believed Aki killed. Misty turns her vengeance on Divine and Aki gets off scott free. Yes Aki was 100% a victim of Divine’s manipulation and couldn’t fully control her powers but that is the understanding the characters should’ve come to at the end of the duel. How much harder would it have been for Misty to see Divine controlling Aki and realising that he was the reason Aki killed her brother? Or just not have Divine there at all because he suffered the exact same fall that killed Carly so him being alive makes absolutely not sense whatsoever.

But no, Aki and Carly can’t have consequences for their actions. I know murder is a big deal and all but neither of them were in full control of their actions during the murders they seemed to have committed, the narrative straight up tells us this. Aki didn’t even know she killed people, she lost control of her powers in something the narrative literally calls an accident. Meanwhile Carly accidentally became a dark signer, the power of which has been shown to change the way their host thinks and even completely control them at times. When Carly regained awareness, she couldn’t remember what she’d done and then when she found out, she was horrified that she’d just killed someone and broke down crying, despite him killing her first.

So erasing these deaths does nothing but take away from the impact. It doesn’t destroy the plot but it does cheapen it a bit to me.

What does destroy bigger chunks of the plot to me is Yusei.

Okay, I’m gonna try to tread carefully here, because I know Yusei is a fan favourite. I don’t think he’s a bad character but honestly, there are times in the show where I absolutely cannot stand him and want to punt him across a room. I already mentioned him pushing Aki to forgive her abusive parents, something he has absolutely no right to be doing as he’s only heard about the situation from the ABUSER’S PERSPECTIVE.

Okay, I have to sidetrack for a second because this gets worse the more I think about it: please for the love of god don’t ever tell a victim of abuse that they’re bad for not forgiving their abusers. That should never be an obligation, even if the abuser expresses regret, because that could easily be them faking their emotions to take control of the victim again. We know that wasn’t the case with Aki’s parents but Yusei had no way of knowing that and Yusei had no right to even speak about this situation, not to mention being as involved as he was in it. And this isn’t the only time he does crap like this. There’s also Bommer. He thinks the Signers killed his entire family and destroyed his village and Yusei’s response is basically “bro you gotta chill” then he never thinks about it again until Bommer pops up again AS A DARK SIGNER.

Characters express very justified anger throughout this series and Yusei shuts it down with his bullshit friendship talk, even to characters he has absolutely no connection to. He acts like he has the moral high ground over everyone he meets and the show frames him as the good guy in these situations. He’s framed as always right in every situation he’s in, and the very real flaws he has are never treated like flaws by the narrative. Yusei never grew or changed and according to the narrative, he never had to. Maybe this is different in the second half. Like I said, I can only judge the first half as all I know about the second half are some rumours and I’ve heard no rumours about Yusei in part two (besides him and Aki being almost confirmed?) but I can pretty confidently say that in the first two seasons (which was originally all 5Ds was going to be), Yusei is not a good character. One bad character doesn’t destroy a show but if the character you don’t like is the main focus of the show, you’re not gonna have a good time.

Also, this isn’t a knock against 5Ds itself, but it was such a prevalent issue I feel the need to bring it up: Crunchyroll, what the fuck is going on with these subtitles?

There’s so many typos and weird phrasings and so many wordings that don’t make sense and it actually takes away from the story. The Zexal fansub I watched did a better job than this and the other official subs on this same website, GX and Arc V, didn’t have this many issues.

Anyways, I want to make it clear that I don’t hate 5Ds. Trust me, if I saw no merit in it, I wouldn’t have stuck with it as long as I did. Like I said, the story does flow well (besides the social inequity/poverty issues in Satelite being mostly ignored in the second season and eventually resolved by a fucking bridge) and honestly, this animation is peak. I make fun of the CG blending in every show post GX but really, 5Ds doesn’t use that much compared to Zexal and Arc V and it doesn’t look awful like some of the early Zexal animation did. *shudders* Also, I do like a handful of the characters. The twins, Leo and Luna, Lua and Luca, Rua and Ruka, Lua and Luka, who knows what their names are. They’re fun characters. I don’t care for Luna’s spirit world shenanigans but she and Leo are good as characters. I also love Crow, which was to be expected after how much I latched onto him in Arc V. And then there’s the three characters that were basically my reasons for watching this show: Aki, Carly, and Jack. While Aki’s potential was squandered somewhat, I still found her narrative very relatable and tragic. She’s also really really really hot. I mean look at her, oh my god.

Carly and Jack meanwhile never went downhill at any point WITHIN THE FIRST HALF. *glares at the rumours I’ve heard about part 2* Carly was adorable and sweet and pure and oh my god her turning into a literal demon was such a gut punch and in my opinion, Jack was the character who developed the most in my opinion. His personality is a little too similar to Kaiba but his story is its own and holy shit he and Carly are adorable. I’d love to write something about them if I have time.

Overall, 5Ds is an okay show. I wouldn’t have watched as much of it as I did if it weren’t Yugioh but I’m glad I watched what I did. It drags a lot but the good things, Aki, Jack, and Carly’s stories, are honestly downright great and were worth the journey. I wish the rest were as good as they are so I could see this show as the masterpiece everyone else sees it as.

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