#I love how Astral realizes that Yuma is also in danger

[astralhope]

Rank 9: Kaito's true skill!!

[3w-writer-with-wings]

Response to “Yusaku is BORING” video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOfKpSPlzI&t=

To start off, well plain and simple - it's hard to compare previous Yu-Gi-Oh! series with one that is currently ongoing. One thing that you kept repeating (besides the word "boring") was that we don't know much about Yusaku. Well newsflash - at the point of your video being posted there were roughly 56 episodes out which is not even the half of the series yet - Kaiba's full backstory wasn't revealed until episode 100 (therefore you wouldn't know his entire backstory at that point) so if you put it in perspective of other series you should compare them up to the point where VRAINS is right now - which you didn't so VRAINS got a lot of disadvantages when being compared to the rest of the series and therefore you didn't judge Yusaku as equally as the rest of the protagonists. But let's say I ignore this fact and I fully focus on your character analysis of Yusaku:

1) He is bland - It might be just me, but I don't really see him as bland - in fact, I see him as one of the most interesting characters so far. In the very first episode, he already states clearly who he is, using his three things speech - he thinks a lot so it's understandable that he, therefore, doesn't talk as much unless he talks with those who understand him. And even though Naoki wasn't one of those people, he still listened to him even when he could freely ignore him. The reason why he may appear bland is that he kind of has to look bland - he lives a double life, he has trouble socializing (which Kusanagi and Ai point out a lot) and he doesn't want to involve more people in this so if he appears boring and bland he doesn't need to interact with that many people and attract unwanted attention. So to keep in in one sentence - he is using the fact that he appears bland to his advantage. 

2) He has no friends - I'll be involving some things from season two here, but even in the first season it is kinda clear why Yusaku has no friends, not counting allies. Due to Lost Incident Yusaku developed PTSD and most likely his social anxiety as well. If you live with such disorders from an early age, it is very difficult to develop your social skills - if you rewatch the flashback scene, you'll see Yusaku in some sort of a daycare trying hard to smile, but he can't. He told Akira himself that yes, he had taken treatments, he did everything to leave the past behind and he tried to live a normal life - but he couldn't, PTSD and Lost Incident didn't let him so revenge was the last resort. And in a way, the revenge on Knights of Hanoi helped him out the most - he gained allies and friends. Yusei had friends who went through the same thing as him so he managed to develop his social skills while Yusaku couldn't which may suggest that Yusaku doesn't really understand the difference between an acquaintance and a friend. Yusaku only considered "three things person" a friend - Revolver - because he knew that he was in the same situation as him so he trusted him and swore to save him one day. Same went for Takeru - the moment he revealed that he is a victim as well, Yusaku agreed to trust him and when Kusanagi referred to Takeru as his friend, Yusaku didn't deny it and was even fine with Takeru calling him by his first name (in Japan this is a big deal, since first names are reserved only for close friends and family). Yusaku eventually warmed up even to Ai, so to answer your question - yes Yusaku changes in the means of that and is also smiling more and has more heart to heart conversations with others (just a few episodes ago he had a really good conversation with Takeru, Ai and Flame - talking about their future, how they got to this point and generally just how he feels about the whole situation - I really recommend checking it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j60tQvhbfvY ). One other reason why Yusaku might not have so many friends is that he is careful and hardly trusts anyone – especially due to how he was kidnapped. In one of the flashbacks, it is revealed that Yusaku used to be a very cheerful kid who loved playing card games and wasn’t hesitant to talk with a total stranger about the game. The only problem was that stranger was an eight-year-old Revolver who later lured him to his house so Dr. Kogami could have a subject for his experiments. It is completely understandable that Yusaku became scared and untrusting of strangers. This is also shown in another flashback (there are two episodes dedicated entirely to how Kusanagi and Yusaku met) that showed Yusaku approaching Kusanagi very carefully both in VRAINS and in real world. Yusaku even uses a very quiet and stuttering tone when he talks with Kusanagi outside VRAINS, suggesting it was really difficult for him to trust someone.

3) He doesn’t care about anyone, he has no goal and has no noble cause to duel – Actually, in the duel between Yusaku and Spectre, it is revealed that’s his greatest weakness – when Spectre uses Akira as a hostage in his duel. Akira luckily quickly realizes that and practically removes himself out of the duel in order to help him. True the whole revenge thing on Knights of Hanoi started purely so he could move on, but that’s not the only reason. During the duel with Akira Yusaku stated clearly that he had wanted answers – he wanted to know what the point of his suffering was, he wanted to understand what happened to him and he wanted to punish the people who did that to him. Yusaku was right to react the way he did when he shouted: “YOU KNOW NOTHING!” – after all Akira made it sound really easy when he said he can take care of his problems for him, but what he didn’t know at the time was just how corrupted SOL actually was and that it isn’t safe to trust anyone – what Yusaku knew well. Yusaku doesn’t want to involve anyone in this dangerous mission which is in a way a noble cause already – he wanted to take care of this by himself without getting others in the danger. In one episode Takeru saves Yusaku from a trap and Yusaku is extremely reluctant to take him to another mission because of that. His current team consists of people who were involved with Lost Incident and what they are doing right now is trying to stop the consequences of the Lost Incident – no one sent them to do it, they did it by their own free will even though they know it’s dangerous and that they are getting more enemies by it. Also when Yusaku stated his three reasons of why he needs the information about Lost Incident – one of them is so he could save the person who gave him courage and that person is Revolver. Even though Revolver was the one who kidnapped him and caused him even more suffering in a form of Knights of Hanoi, Yusaku forgave him. He never blamed him for the Lost Incident and what’s more, he saw him as the seventh victim and never stopped reaching out for him. Yusaku believes there’s good in Revolver and so far he hasn’t stopped believing in him, even when no one else did and seemingly Revolver is slowly changing because of Yusaku.

4) He is overpowered – He hasn’t lost a duel so that makes him a Mary Sue – not quite well. Again this originates from his backstory. Lost Incident forced him to learn how to win at all costs and in case it wasn’t clear enough – Yusaku lost numerous times during those six months and was punished by starvation and electroshocks. He also suffers from night terrors that kept showing him “YOU LOSE”. Akira stated that losing a duel for him is like losing his life – so every time he is in a duel it’s like he is in a life or death situation. When Revolver dangerously lowers his Life Points in both duels, Yusaku finds himself on the ground both times just like a warrior that is very close to dying and that’s not the only time he is shown in a vulnerable state. During the duel with Faust he is sent flying through numerous walls, he loses an arm during the speed duel with Revolver, he is shown to be exhausted every time he comes from VRAINS (he even falls asleep right away one time) and he temporarily loses it when he watches Ghost Girl being erased. He is a tragic and vulnerable hero that was forced to grow up way too fast. Winning is something he learned the hard way so it is a lot more like surviving for him. He may appear like a superhero, but really he is just a human. In the last few episodes there were also a lot of hints that Yusaku may lose soon and even if he doesn’t – the duels are getting rougher which also makes him use other summoning methods – Ritual, Fusion, Synchro and most recently XYZ.

5) He is not relatable and we don’t know everything about him – Not every main character is meant to be relatable and while Yusaku is relatable to some, that’s not his purpose in the story. VRAINS has taken a different turn from other series, using a major storyline and a unique protagonist that carries it forward. Lost Incident IS his story and what deeply motivates him to duel is finding answers to his fast. The reason why we don’t know everything about him from the start is so we can even as watchers experience his desire to know more and because of that, we continue watching him unveil more of his backstory. A lot of anime series use this technique – most notably Attack On Titan – we are not presented with all the answers from the start so we have something to look forward to and VRAINS is using that a lot – we continue to get more details and more information, especially in the second season, there are a lot of surprising plot twists connected to Yusaku and more are being hinted for the future episodes. Yusaku also happens to be one of those characters that have been hurt and is slowly recovering – each protagonist in the series had a point like this (Atem lost Yugi, Judai gave in Supreme King’s power, Yusei nearly died, Yuma lost Astral and Yuya gave in Zarc’s power) – Yusaku just happens to have this point from the start so every time he smiles, every time he is honest with his emotions and every time he slightly opens up to someone – that’s when we can all relate to him. Each of us has probably gone through some difficult situation in life and we all know those things take long to heal – Yusaku is healing slowly, but every time we see a little sign of recovery we are glad he is on the way to let go of his past.

He might not be as appealing as all the protagonists so far, but this does not in any way made him boring. He is a very complex character that doesn’t want to stand out, but due to his past he is forced to. It is difficult to relate to him, but that’s not the point – his story is and so far VRAINS has proven to be one of the most realistic and plot-driven yugioh series. The themes are rather dark but nicely explored and it is quite terrifying to realize it could happen in real life – like AIs with free will, Virtual Reality games going wrong and being forced to grow up fast.

So yeah, VRAINS actually started delivering exactly what you wanted right around the point where you stopped and is still going strong. Maybe finish the series first and then rant about it next time you do such video.

[iyliss]

ooh, how about astral and spectre for the headcanon ask meme ^^

Thanks for asking! I love finding hcs and strangely Specter was easier than Astral ^^

Astral

Headcanon A:  realistic

Even without a body, Astral has some big sensory issues.He is highly sensible to sounds, and sometimes go back to the keyjust because there’s too much at the same time. He isn’t to colorsand lights at all. He likes things that are a bit messy to look at,or it’s too boring. Also why he loves basic rice so much: he’sincredibly sensible to taste.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

I don’t know if you can call that a hc, it’s more like somereally stupid theory but…  there’s that one ep where Yuma explainswhat a mother is, and Astral remembers his own. Turns out he wascreated by Eliphas, but since astral people don’t have any concept ofgender and Astral never got to understand it, he assumed Eliphas washis mom. I don’t know i find it very funny.

(if you want something a bit more hc : after this episodewhere he also discovered what fiction was, Astral started to wonderif they weren’t themselves in a fictionnal series.)

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict onfriends

He didn’t actually fell any fun in duelling until the very end ofthe series. When duels weren’t just incredibly easy, they were soimportant to win he just couldn’t find fun in it. He never told Yuma,he was too scared that he would hate him for not enjoying the thing heloves the most.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about itbecause I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Astral absolutely love school. He listens to everything theteachers say, and even sometimes forces Yuma to go ask them moreprecise questions. At first Yuma didn’t like it, but he realized soonenough he could also get some help from Astral during tests. Sadly,Kotori figured it out quite quickly as well.

Specter

Headcanon A:  realistic

He has a little book with dried leaves of all the trees he found. Hegave each of them a name, and wrote the story of how they met. Hestill does that, but doesn’t really talk about it to anyone anymore.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Specter is really really ace, and really oblivious to anythingsexual. Anyone seeing his big tree card with tentacle would thinkit’s quite kinky and all but no, he just likes hugs from his momtree. He can say some incredibly strange things at times just because hedoesn’t understand it might be heard as something else.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict onfriends

Specter is his actual name. No one at the orphanage ever botheredto find one for him, and well he couldn’t know what his parents hadthought for him. And he never felt the need to have one until he metRyoken, and ever since always just used Specter.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about itbecause I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

He’s a reversed vegan. He never eats anything that comes fromplants. Since it’s a bit dangerous for health, he actually does itsome at time, but as few as possible. He absoutely love meat, and (more or less) ironically talks about eating humans.

Bonus point : Aoi is vegan.

[pxiao]

Could ya give your thoughts on Zexal as a whole and tell is it really bad. can you?

As a whole post? Seems a bit vicious even for me. But as a whole I’ll say it, z-xal fans look away because as this is my pure opinions as a Z-xal hater. My opinions could be wrong and they can annoy you but remember this is my opinion and just as you have a right to be annoyed, I have a right to my opinion. Don’t whine if you find something you don’t like on a Z-xal hate piece.  

The show is textbook at best and at worse just annoying with some horrible lessons. When the it first aired, I was willing to give it a try despite initially being put off by the character designs, if not just because I thought the fandom was being annoying. I got up to the cat girl episode till I just felt it was boring as all get out and stopped watching. It wasn’t a conspicuous decision either, I just didn’t feel like watching the next episode and I honestly forgot the show existed till Zexal 2 started and well by that point I didn’t give a damn. But I started to hear things about the show and well I honestly found it annoying and I watched it and I was right. Yoshida doesn’t seem skilled at creating characters, world building or even plotting. 

Plot wise, a lot of the logic is ignored for trauma and angst. And I know that in Yu-Gi-Oh!, logic isn’t exactly common anyway but you still need some logic in people’s actions or there really isn’t any point in watching a show. If you watch the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged series, LittleKuriboh is doing a good job of pointing out the flaws of the Orichalcos season written by Yoshida. Like Atem’s duel against Rafael was started by Atem deciding to answer his challenge for rescue Professor Arthur … who was released for no reason before Atem even dueled Rafael and for no real reason either. Zexal is the same, a lot of episodes don’t do anything to advance the story, characters or even the world. It’s just duel of the week episodes which rarely have any effect on the world at all. Zexal’s story is generally duels of the week, some plot, more duels of the week and then final battle. There isn’t any rising action, it’s just exposition and then overdrawn climax. His attempts at “foreshadowing” are laughable. They don’t hint, they spell it out to the point we know what’s going to happen 99% percent of the the time. And lets face it, people like to watch shows that have some surprise as otherwise the show becomes a checklist and that was what Zexal felt like at times. It was less of a show and more of Yoshida’s checklist of the tropes that Yu-Gi-Oh! has done. A major plothole I found in the Barian onslaught was Shark’s attitude throughout the arc. Why did he go straight into war mode if he “knew Yuma’s feelings”. Yuma who spent the arc freaking out at the death and war that was going on, if Shark actually knew Yuma, he should know that a war is the last thing Yuma would ever want. But he spends the arc angsts over how he has to betray his friends. Why couldn’t he TALK to Yuma, while Astral is iffy, he should know how much of an influence that Yuma has on the alien and thus maybe a deal can be made. And if it couldn’t be, he could have at least tried before he lead a war that lead to his “friends” dying like a REAL ruler. 

World building, ha. He doesn’t build worlds, he builds a blank slate that the characters “live” at. Heartland has no personality at all, despite being the city of the future there was nothing unique about it. Astral world and Barian worlds are just factions at war with that represent the concepts of order and chaos and that’s from the show TELLING US. We only see the Astral world dying and nothing about it’s people, the Barian world is just not shown at all except for some red rocks. If I had to compared Astral world and Barian world to say Arc-V’s worlds, it’s depressing. Arc-V has a bit of Chaos vs Order in the form of Academia and the Resistance and the difference in writing quality is depressing. Academia would is order and we get a taste of how messed up their ideological is from Sora, Serena and Edo. We see how the public openly supports their ideas, the children believe the lies that they’re making a better war and when they’re in danger they freak out as they thought of it as a game. Hell we see how they take their ideology to the extreme in the BB arc when Sanders and the students beg for Sanders to be carded as it follows their ideals. The resistance is chaos, as Shun states they had trouble creating a defense in time and it shows. The flashbacks show duelists not in any uniform, just attacking without any formation or plan, their bases are just tents huddled together and the Resistance didn’t even have a main base, it was different branches and by the time we see it, it’s all but dead. Maiami is defined by how free the setting is, there are a LARGE variety of dueling schools from You Show, Gongenzaka Dojo, LDS, the many different schools Yuya saw and Ryozanpaku. Each having a variety of philosophies and how the public acted show they had a healthy mix of positive, loving Entertainment duels, and negative traits, their bullying of Yuya in the past. 

His characters are the worst, they aren’t really characters, just personality traits put together in the hopes of being a working personality. Most of the time, they’re just 2D cutouts. Don Thousand is a perfect example. In a story, the most important characters are the protagonist and the main enemy of the series as they shape what the show is. The worst thing you can do when making a main villain is making them easily replaceable. In the manga for Z-xal which was pretty similar to the anime Don was replaced while the story was going on because the artist didn’t like him and Yoshida EASILY replaced Don Thousand. That just proves that Don Thousand didn’t have a personality if he could be replaced by another villain so easily. In comparison, you can’t replace Zarc or Leo, they have shaped Arc-V plot and setting that if you take them out, the plot will change. He generally makes his protagonists overally perfect like what he did to Yusei in season 2 of 5D’s. Yuma is a horrible attempt to fix this, he had flaws for sure, but instead of Yuma growing, Yoshida made the show bend over backwards to make a flaw a virtue instead. The infuriating part is the show actually did a good job of showing his flaw but then everyone even the people that called out him earlier are telling to not change. You don’t make good characters that way, you destroy your show. Yoshida doesn’t do enough to build up the relationships that are supposed to form the backbone of the show and it feels hollow. A direct example is Yuya and Yuzu relationship vs Yuma and Kotori’s relationship. The couples are both childhood friends but the difference between their bonds is clear as day. Kotori is a side thought to Yuma at best and we never get an explanation of why Kotori and supposedly Yuma like each other. Their relationship development is Kotori screaming for Yuma and her getting jealous over him. Yuya and Yuzu? The first few episodes show how they understand each other the most and when something is up with one of them, they’re the first to realize it. Despite being separated for most of the show, Yuya and Yuzu continuously show support and love for each other while Yuma and Kotori barely interact despite being next to each other for the majority of the show. Arc-V shows plenty of times when Yuya puts her safety above everything and that includes his own ideals. Yuzu also puts Yuya’s safety over her own and her speeches are the only thing to reach him as the Zarc vs Ray/Reira duel showed. Fan reaction proves this, Yuya and Yuzu is one of the most popular ships in their fandom while Yuma and Kotori is hardly liked at all. And how he writes girls … Look Yu-Gi-Oh! isn’t going to win awards on how to write women unless you include Season 1 of Arc-V. But Yoshida is the worst at them, nearly every women he writes is obsessed over romance and plays little to no part in the story. Rio appeared as an independent girl that didn’t want to seen as part of Shark. And she became just that, she never made her own decisions ever and everything that came out of her mouth was about Shark and that’s it. She became his angst magnet. And based on how Aoi was written, I doubt he’s changed in Vr–ns.

Next I don’t think Yoshida understands the idea of a card game show. While card game shows are generally shonen series, they don’t have the same rules as a general shonen series. An enemy having a broken power in a regular shonen is accepted because the point of shonen is to make things unfair for the protagonist so the audience can feel something when they overcome it. That doesn’t work with card games, there has to be a SENSE of balance as card games are meant to be a game first and foremost. Otherwise the enemy comes across as overpowered to the point of ridiculousness. Don Thousand was overpowered to the point I was rolling my eye when he was literally breaking the rules of the game. From easily causing 50,000 points of damage, to summoning monsters with 10,000 and later 100,000 attack points. Don didn’t feel powerful, he felt like the writers were trying too hard to make him dangerous and instead came off as annoying.  

But the worst part of this is how Yoshida never changes. Everything that he works on has a basic plot and character types and he never varies. His writing has the same ideas in the seasons he writes. And I’ve seen how some people defend him on this because of his writing style. I strongly disagree, authors can have similar themes and ideas but they should never make a series the exact same. Kasumi Ono was the director for 5d’s and Arc-V while there are similarities in themes and character points, it’s impossible to say they’re alike at all. Or the writer for Type-Moon, compared Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Extra. They take the same concept and play with it so the story is different.  Authors don’t have to make everything original but the problem is Yoshida rarely changes the details at all.