#Bakura certainly is a hypocrite!

[millenniumringg]

Back on my Cornered obsession and I’ve got several thoughts to share

1) Bakura must have had a really weird life prior to meeting Ryou if the only reasoning he could find for Ryou looking for him again after almost killing him is “because he loves me”.

2) Bakura is a hypocrite; he keeps making Ryou kiss him and tell him that he loves him without ever saying it back.

3) In the Bakura “happy” ending, did they ever consummate their “marriage” and go on a honeymoon? That’s where I would think the brainwashing started, probably with overdosing of lithium. Bakura is a doctor after all.

4) My god, I love this fic xD Thank you for writing it.

Thank you for these observations I love love love hearing your thoughts :]

I will say that I have my own idea about the brainwashing …. But I left it open for interpretation :] I like the lithium idea tho I never thought abt that one!

[thiefkingreincarnate]

What if the ghosts had become less crazy when they left Bakura and weren't all screamy but were more capable of rational thought and speech?

All eyes were on Ryou. It was his fault - he had made the mistake of choosing one of the lone chairs in Yuugi’s TV room, and all of his friends had piled up in the couch across from him. Ryou still did think it a tad hypocritical, though; they had certainly seen Yuugi talk to empty air before when the Pharaoh was still around.

… Well, he supposed it was a bit different this time. Going from one spirit to ninety-nine was quite the jump.

“Pharaoh? Pharaoh?” One of them, with a voice that sounded vaguely feminine, said nervously as it spun around his head. Ryou would have been more concerned if he hadn’t tried to alleviate their concerns about ten times over now.

“Not the Pharaoh. He’s a friend,” Ryou said tiredly.

“Friend,” another one repeated after him, and he sighed as he heard a chorus of ‘friend?’ ‘friend?’ ‘friend?’ ripple through the crowd of ghosts. That would satisfy them for maybe fifteen minutes before they became suspicious again. It was definitely the hair.

“What’re they doin’?” Jounouchi said from his hiding spot behind the couch. It was awfully brave of him considering his near-phobia of ghosts - when Ryou had told his friends about the 99 spirits he had honestly expected Jounouchi to bolt.

“Asking about me again, right?” Yuugi said, and Ryou nodded gratefully.

“Do they have poor memories?” Anzu wondered aloud. “You keep correcting them about their name too, right?”

“They must, right?” His fingers twisted around each other in his lap. “You’ve heard me. I tell them my name is Ryou. They’ll call me that for a few minutes. And then they go back to calling me….”

“Son,” Yuugi finished, when it was obvious Ryou wouldn’t. Again, Ryou nodded, but this time the movement was much more somber. The silence that fell over the room felt heavy.

The ghosts had come to him in the night in the middle of his school semester abroad. It had been sudden and traumatic - he had honestly, for a few days, thought he had lost his mind. He had woken up the next morning thinking their appearance had been an incredibly vivid dream, only to have them floating en masse over his bed.

It had taken five days for Ryou to phone his friends - five days of him first trying to ignore them, then trying to rationalize it, then worry about making too big a deal of the situation, and then finally struggling with the idea of bothering them with his problems. After them doggedly following him no matter where he went (including one incredibly embarrassing half-hour where he forced his terribly out-of-shape self running across the campus in an effort to lose them, to no avail), he finally conceded that they wouldn’t be going anywhere without some outside help.

They didn’t seem dangerous, though - rather, they seemed equal parts happy and concerned. In broken sentences, they would be pushing past each other trying to speak to him. One would be trying to speak to him about his diet (if you could call shrieking ‘eat!!’ at him on the third day when he contemplated aloud about skipping breakfast a ‘dietary discussion’) while another would attempt to warn him about the dangers it had spotted nearby (the first time, a moped; the second, a car; the third, a goth classmate with incredibly pointed nails). All the while, no matter how many times he corrected them, they would call him the same thing: Son. It seemed to be more of a title than a term of endearment, followed by the name of some place none of them could properly say. Either way, they were absolutely adamant about calling him that way.

The breaking point, as it always seemed to be, was the first mention of the Millennium Items. The ghosts had proven themselves to be a nuisance at worst, but one he could deal with. There was no need to worry about pushing some new problem of his on Yuugi’s lap. It was definitely a weird problem, but one Ryou felt comfortable asking for help about in the future. When the Millennium Items were brought up though - that was a different story. This was something he shouldn’t deal with alone. And maybe - just maybe - he could take an active role in the story this time.

Yuugi, upon hearing the situation, immediately invited him to come over during his next school break. And luckily for him, there was a perfectly convenient break week coming up. The ghosts had appeared to him just a week before midterms and though he had been worried about how they would impact his studies, they apparently understood and respected the words, ‘Quiet, please.“

Until he had finished all of his midterms and had been on the plane back to Domino, he had shut off every part of his brain that wasn’t focused on studying. It was only now, in this silence, that the full gravity of the situation was dawning on him.

Surprisingly, it was Honda’s voice that broke the silence.

“You should tell him.” All the heads in the room turned to Honda immediately. Ryou’s expression was confused, as was Jounouchi’s, but Anzu and Yuugi seemed to understand immediately. “If they are who you think they are. He’s got a right t'know, y'know?”

What were they talking about?

“….. Bakura,” Yuugi finally said, and the ghosts tightened their formation around Ryou in a way that could only be read as protective, “have you ever heard of a village called Kul Elna?”

[quarkie-blog1]

Thoughts on Arc-V

Welp, finally finished it. Now that more than a day has passed, I’ve been able to properly sit down and think about it more carefully. This is just really a ramble of what I found was cool and what was terrible in the series. Some of them were from reading online (with points that I consider valid), others were more of my own observations/opinions. 

While I don’t have very strong opinions, I may be brutally honest...

So let’s start with the beginning, what I found was really awesome about Arc-V. 

1. Yuya’s personality Following the cheerful and naive Yuma, we have Yuya the entertainer. The first thing I had noticed was that his father had also disappeared, like Yuma’s. Yuya does act goofy, but one could easily tell that he was doing it purposefully, to make others get a laugh out of it. For me, this way of speaking and acting intentionally is something I can relate to on a very fundamental level. While the first season shows that it’s not the best solution to simply laugh it off, I was impressed that he did something rather than staying depressed. The other that did make Quarkie like him is that he handles kids well. It’s just that in the previous series you don’t see it too often (Even with Yuma, who was only looking after Haruto for a little while). Yuya was able to make the kids at Yushow school laugh, and he certainly cared very much about Reira. 

2. Entermage/Performapal deck I know a lot of people found it laughable, but I found it refreshing. The previous MCs had decks with warrior/dragon/magician monsters as the majority. (I don’t know about Yusei’s main deck yet, but I’ve been seeing a lot of Junk Warriors and Stardust dragons). Again, it means that Yuya’s ideal wasn’t to show “strong via strength”, but “if it can make people smile”.  The other reason why I liked it was also because it seemed like a troll deck... when people won’t take the circus animals seriously and the odd-eyes pendulum dragon appears next minute. 

3. Female characters (mostly Yuzu and Serena) The best of the female characters in Yugioh were never able to beat the main character in any duel. Now enters Yuzu, who does so in episode 2. Furthermore, they had given her duels and moments where she develops her dueling. I don’t know about Akiza but this is not seen in the others. Serena’s duelling seems more consistent but you see how her views on Academia change as she is with the Lancers, and how she forms a bond with the other Lancers.  I’d like to take this time to address about Rin and Ruri being “neglected”. I do not know if it really was necessary to have all counterparts having more even screentime, but I was happy enough if there was just one or two properly developed females. Or maybe some just like Ruri or Rin more. 

4. Synchro arc This was where things were most interesting to me. Yes, it was another tournament, but the situation isn’t as safe for our characters anymore. I enjoyed all of the duels, and don’t consider them a waste of time. When the Lancers were up, I could compare their dueling to season 1. I think Serena and Shun’s had the most difference. I wouldn’t have gotten as attached to all the Lancers if it wasn’t for the Synchro arc. On top of that, Yuzu had continued to demonstrate the fruits of her hard work in dueling.  The Lancers had also struggled with the values of the society in this foreign world. Particularly Yuya, and he had to climb up his way so that he can be heard. I found this rather realistic. I do suspect that other than because he had no name Jack Atlas was more critical of him not being honest to himself. 

@homura-bakura had also made an interesting take on Yuya’s egao, and how that develops throughout the series. You can read it here, and I believe that the Synchro arc had significant influences. 

5. Pendulum summoning Like before, a new series meant making summoning monsters quicker. In a similar manner: - When synchro summon came out, you can special summon a monster without waiting for the polymerization card - When XYZ summon came out, you don’t need to wait for that tuner card to come out.  In this case, you can summon several monsters at a time, no tributing needed either. Oh, and your monsters don’t go to the grave if defeated in battle.  I imagine at the beginning there was perhaps rage about this, but there was encouragement and hype also for the other types of summons. By incorporating the dimension wars and summons, they were able to show a wide variety of duels of different styles. In Arc-V, there were specific duels that could easily show that pendulum summoners could still be utterly destroyed.  

6. The music Kotaro Nakagawa was the one who composed the music, the same one who arranged the music for Code Geass. Obviously I wasn’t let down. 

7. The themes Very early on, we’re shown about there’s something lurking in the background. And we come to know about the tension between the dimensions. I found this clash of ideals between different dimensions/societies rather interesting. It’s not just with the differing views about carding people in the series, but also how to resolve conflict as well. There are a lot of people (mostly from the XYZ dimension that believe in defeating enemies and carding them back is the method, while Yuya and his friends simply want to stop them). The stakes are really high, which realy adds more onto the challenge of how is Yuya going to achieve by “bringing smiles to everyone”? The other theme of course is “the other self”, which is common in all Yugioh series. I found it interesting at first how all four MC counterparts already had physical forms, but they were linked by the same conciousness when they are in a desperate duel, or brought together. 

There’s other things that made me really like it, but those were the main ones. Now in terms of the things that I can’t help but notice was terrible... this is in no particular order. 

1. Action cards and Tag Duels For me this isn’t absolutely bad, it was just something I wasn’t too fond of. I have heard that many Japanese fans were also not happy about how the tag duels were handled? I’m not saying that they were a bad idea, but rather it felt there was more plot armour incorporated at times. This could just be me though... 

2. Animation quality Admittedly I watched the Synchro arc and everything else after finishing Zexal. So... it was disappointing seeing the animation wasn’t as consistent. I mentioned before, I suspect that it seemed likely because of the DSOD being in development at the same time. This honestly saddens me. 

3. Yuya’s personality Yep, I like Yuya’s personality, and I do like some of his flaws incorporated in, but there are some that seem a really strange to me. Namely, when Yuya feels like a bit of a hypocrite to me. From Synchro arc, he begins to tell others the importance of smiles (perhaps he started in the previous tournament but I don’t quite recall as much). While he has good intentions, he hasn’t been doing much of a good job with maintaining his own smile as compared to season 1. Particularly when he goes into berserk mode by Roger tampering with his helmet. I guess you could argue that it was showing that Yuya’s previous method of laughing things off isn’t working, but I find it questionable that they would make him seem like a hypocrite. (Also I guess I just didn’t like this flaw in general, but that’s my own opinion, it just doesn’t sit well with me since I don’t feel like it ever got properly addressed). 

4. Side characters (Part I) - Kaito Tenjo, Edo Phoenix & Jack Atlas I haven’t watched much of Jack Atlas, so I won’t talk about him too much. My issue is not that “Arc-V versions made them OOC”, since if I was to write a fanfiction it’d probably be even worse... In Arc V, they are like alternative selves in a parrallel universe but with the same name. Unfortunately, Kaito and Edo were introduced when there were obvious pacing problems. Edo’s abrupt change to accept that “duels can make you happy” was something of a problem ongoing since early Yugioh, but I felt the need to mention it anyway. (Yes I see this issue at times even in Zexal...). However, I can completely understand the issue with Kaito Tenjo. In the context of ignoring what Zexal Kaito, Arc-V Kaito seemed to be acting OOC. How did he suddenly decide to help Yuya and the others when they were surrounded by the Obelisk force? What made him become more accepting of people from the fusion dimension? The questions were still not answered... I know that these three (and Crow, and Asuka, etc) are to be considered side characters and we shouldn’t be too invested in them, but this is creating a plot hole....

5. Side characters (Part II) - Asuka & Sora Sora was a character we see since the first few episodes of Arc-V. I admit that I might have gotten a tad too excited to see his cute but also scary persona. When he had left the Standard dimension there was an unfinished duel against Yuya left hanging. The next time we see him again in Synchro arc, he seems too agreeable with helping Yuya? I legit thought that he was perhaps faking everything, but by the time we reached the 100 episode it didn’t seem like the case. In which this leaves another question, what made Sora do that? Now with Asuka, I don’t mind her having less screen time as with all of the previous gen characters. However, I just question what was her purpose in the duel against Yuri. Maybe they ran out of time, but I was a bit confused when I saw Yuri holding a card. It was then I realised that the duel didn’t even take place at all on-screen. 

6. The last arc: Episodes 141-148 - Responses from the characters By this time, I had low expectations already, since I had a feeling it would be hard to salvage everything after the dip from episode 100ish. However, I felt that there were a lot of questions that could have been addressed. How did the Lancers feel about Yuya being Zarc? What about Reira? (Do they still think of Reira as being too young?) What made Reiji’s mother suddenly care about Reira a lot more? Shun was obviously devastated about Ruri and Yuto not coming back at first. How the heck did he come to the conclusion “Oh, I should accept the duel with Yuya because it’s alll I have left”?  The story really falls apart here.. Overall, I felt that there were a lot of people becoming happy a tad too quickly, and there was no one questioning Yuya’s identity. I know that duels are more important (and it seems that the japanese audience sees them as just as important as plot), but surely some could have already been incorporated in?

7. The counterparts This isn’t a complaint about how they’re all inside Yuzu and Yuya now. It’s not the happiest ending, since they were the most loved side characters in Arc-V but it is oddly realistic. The problem is that it really doesn’t leave much of an impact. (The closest I can relate to is when Atem left for good in DM, but they had spent episodes building towards that) I’ve mentioned that things were really glossed over already, and once again Yuya seemed to have accepted too quickly when Yuri suddenly was talking to him. On second thought, since when did Yuri become so encouraging?

Final thoughts: 

Did I enjoy Arc-V? Yes. I loved the characters and the music. I was very focused on each duel. However, at the back of my head, my alternative self would always go “HAH....” at the end of several episodes. 

There were many things I don’t think were executed well. Whilst I wasn’t raging or angry, there were a lot of unanswered questions in the end. (I don’t expect them to be answered, since it seems like it’s left to our own interpretation and imagination now). EDIT: Yes, I know it is a kids’ show on card games, but it seems that towards the end it wasn’t getting good reception even in Japan (based on Nico nico video rankings. Whether it was due to trolls I don’t know, but glossing over duels didn’t help). 

Seeing the fanfiction section yesterday, I see that people are going be creating stuff to fill in these gaps we are left with at the end of the series. (Either due to rage, or wanting more out of it). Whatever the case is, I think all readers/viewers should be additionally appreciative of others making something to give you maybe a version that should have you more satisfied with. 

That was a long ramble... thanks for reading, and it was enjoyable being in the Arc-V fandom.