#Joey Wheeler goes evil again

[enemyoflactose]

I finished Battle City

So for my redemption arc, I have finished both Duelist Kingdom and Battle City.

I think I may have gotten worse.

I'll start by talking about voice acting and which one I prefer:

Bakurae: I like both Ted Lewis and Rica Matsumoto's performances. They both did amazing and I am so bi for their voices.

Marik: His goofy ass skeletor voice is not it. It's funny as hell, but he just sounds better in the sub.

Odion: I like both

Ishizu: I like both

Everyone else: could go either way

Characters:

Yugi didn't really do a lot at the start, and everything I want to say about him happens in his duel with Joey. Honestly, I don't like how in the anime he doesn't play much of a role.

Yami Yugi: this man... This man.

Téa: I love her. Honestly. She gave like zero friendship speeches this season and didn't really do much except help Yami find Ishizu.

Joey: I LOVE JOEY WHEELER.

Tristan: he's there. I don't like how he treats Serenity.

Serenity: I actually really like her. She's not the most realistic sister character, but I still like her.

Duke: my guy, leave the girl alone.

Marik: I can't take him seriously. I just can't. He sounds like Skeletor, his plans are stupid, he can barely duel, he's a coward, he dresses ugly, mother fucker uses Revival Jam, this happened

How am I supposed to take him seriously?! Also, his backstory didn't do anything for me. Like, yeah what he went through was awful, but it just feels like an excuse. It felt like Ishizu and Odion were trying to justify Marik's behavior and say he did nothing wrong and should be forgiven. (Also, I saw a post about how Joey should have showed Marik sympathy. They blocked me when I said that was stupid)

Ishizu: she's such a great character. Her love for her siblings feels real, she's a snarky dork, her duel with Kaiba is fantastic, and she's pretty.

Odion: Am I supposed to feel bad for him? Not because he was horrifically abused I do feel bad about that, but with the way he was treating Marik... My guy was an enabler. Of course Marik is still evil under your care, you haven't done anything to help him be good. He just rolls over and lets Marik do what he wants because he doesn't want to betray his oath or something.

Mai: literally so cool. I'll actually get to talking about her in a bit.

Kaiba: iconic.

Mokuba: he takes his duel commissioner job so seriously it's adorable. He just pops up out of nowhere to catch people cheating and then Kaiba comes along to scare the cheater when they don't listen to Mokuba.

Regular Bakura: B-baby boy???

Yami Bakura: I'd literally bend over for him. He can have all of my possessions. Anyway I feel like he went through some character assassination this season. He just doesn't seem like a threat, but I guess that's how abusers get ya because he stabs Regular Bakura.

Arkana: I've said it once and I'll say it again, I am a sap. I felt so bad for this guy. First his magic show goes wrong, then his face gets mangled, then his wife leaves him, then he gets indoctrinated into Marik's cult, then he almost dies by saw blade, then he actually dies.

Lumis and Umbra: these two are gay and dating.

Strings: there is nothing there.

Mako and Weevil are pretty much the same.

Espa Roba: he's a cheater.

Duels:

Bandit Keith vs Yugi Moto (Duel 1)

The first duel of the season introduces us to Marik. We learn that he wants the puzzle and has a magic rod that can mind control people.

This duel shows off that Yugi is not yet as good a duelist as Yami because this loser gets fucking cooked.

Yami Bakura shows up and breaks Keith free. This makes Marik a little annoyed.

Marik makes Keith break the puzzle.

Bakura comes in and helps Yugi fix it, but he puts a little piece of his soul in the puzzle because of reasons that are never explained.

Bakura leaves and Keith burns the building down.

Joey and Tristan save Keith and Yugi.

Yami Yugi vs Jonny Steps (Duel 2)

I am not talking about the duel you suckers. I'm talking about what happened before the duel!

Yami and Téa go on a date. During this date they go on wacky high jinks and Yami gets Light Force Sword.

After dueling Jonny Steps, they go to the museum and meet Ishizu. She tells them that Yami is actually an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and he needs to save the world by joining Kaiba's tournament and winning it. Also he needs three Egyptian God Cards.

Joey vs That one guy (duel 3)

Joey gets Exodiad and feels so bad that he doesn't go and visit his sister in the hospital.

He also lost his Red Eyes Black Dragon.

Tristan finds him on the beach and shows Yugi and Téa who he found (fuck you 4kids)

Kaiba vs the machine (duel 4)

OBELISK, FIST OF FATE!!!!!

Yami vs the one guy(duel 5)

Yami beats Exodia and wins back Joey's Red Eyes.

Joey declined it.

Joey vs Espa Roba (duel 6)

In this duel Joey faces an alleged psychic who had already defeated Rex Raptor.

Rex tries to help Joey for a little bit, but stops like half way through the duel.

During this duel, Espa is talking about the universe and how he can't lose and shit like that and Joey's just clowning on him.

Espa Roba has his brothers up on a building helping him win duels.

Joey figures this out.

Joey wins the duel.

Some guy in the audience says "Espa couldn't predict he'd be a loser", and I think that's funny.

Joey got a Jinzo!! The only good card he'll get this whole tournament.

Yami vs Arkana (duel 7)

Yami faces a magician who's all like "Aren't you SO sad that your precious Dark Magician is in the deck of another duelist???!"

Some bullshit happens, Dark Magician is sentient and saves Yami, Dark Magician Girl is summoned by Dark Magic Curtain, there's shadow blades, guillotine-chan is here, apparently there's no service in the tent.

Yami wins.

Arkana dies or something it was really unclear.

Joey vs Weevil Underwood (duel 8)

Joey got his deck and Duel Disk stolen by some mustache and had a card put In it.

Joey and Weevil duel ata fountain.

During this duel Weevil calls out to the Parasite Paracide card in Joey's deck and turns all of Joey's monsters into insect cards.

Weevil brings out Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth. Joey destroys it.

Weevil brings out his Insect Queen and talks about how much he wants to fuck it. Joey destroys the Insect Queen and wins it.

Joey gained the worst card of the season.

Yami and Kaiba vs some guys (duel 10)

Kaiba uses Lord of D and two Flute of Summoning Dragon to summon three dragons and then he summons Obelisk and then he wins the duel and takes some locator cards.

Joey Wheeler vs Mako (duel 11) ft. Marik falling for the Bakura sham.

Joey and Mako duel.

Joey is putting on the world's greatest show, and is told to stop because it's "embarrassing and taking to long"

Joey tries to use Parasite Paracide, but flip monsters haven't been invented yet.

MEANWHILE

Marik almost runs over Bakura.

BACK TO THE DUEL

Mako is telling a son story about his dad and how Legendary Fisherman is his dad and he loves his dad so he has to win the duel for his dad because he loves him ever so much.

MEANWHILE

Yami Bakura is talking mad shit and Marik's all like "This idiot has NO idea that to open the door to darkness he needs the Egyptian God Cards."

What if my guy was talking 'bout Kingdom Hearts?

BACK TO THE DUEL

Mako used a ritual card 🤮

Now Joey has to find the fisherman and attack.

Joey finds the fisherman and attacks. Mako gets sad. Loser deserved it tho for using rituals.

Joey uses some gambling cards and oh no

MEANWHILE

Bakura puts his scam into action and says he's a strong duelist (He's aight.)

Marik doesn't even fact check this and makes a deal with him.

The rod for a god card.

BACK TO THE DUEL

Joey uses Panther Warrior to wipe out the ritual card 🤮, and wins the duel.

Joey has gained Legendary Fisherman! Not as bad as the last card, but Joey you have a shitty deck how do you keep winning???

Seto and Yami vs Lumis and Umbra (duel 12)

THERE'S ANOTHER FUCKING RITUAL CARD!!!! AND IT'S NOT EVEN A GOOD ONE!

It's awful, it sucks, it's worthless, they should have just used level cards

This duel is not worth my time.

Yami and Seto win.

We interrupt this essay to talk about important stuff that happened out of duels:

Bakura got stabbed

Mokuba, Téa, and Joey got kidnapped

Tristan ran for an hour with a teenage girl on his back

Duke hit some guy with dice

Mai met Serenity

Joey got mind controlled

Téa girl mind controlled

Joey vs Yugi/Yami (duel 13)

I cried during this duel

Joey got mind controlled by Marik and is evil and dueling Yugi for the puzzle and they're also strapped to this anchor that's gonna drag them to the bottom of the ocean in an hour and oh my God this duel

Téa's life is also being threatened but she's a badass who doesn't care.

Kaiba can't help because then Téa will die.

Joey was given all these rare cards and is using them against Yugi.

Yugi is so scared to attack because he doesn't wanna hurt Joey.

Yugi is so fucking sweet I love him so much.

Yami is just in the corner like "you good Yugi?" And "Oh no!!! Joey!!" I love them so much

Yugi ends up giving the puzzle to Joey so he can fight Marik better, he summons R d eyes black dragon to get through to him, this shit is just barely working I HATE THIS DUEL

Marik is being a whiny little bitch ass loser because his mind control is failing

Joey breaks free after attacking Yugi then he uses the effect of some mirror card to attack himsefl

Joey and Yugi both plummet to the ocean, Yugi is saved by Joey and Joey is saved by serenity.

I LOVE JOEY WHEELER

Meanwhile at the hospital

Yami Bakura vs Bonz (duel 14)

This episode is so fucking good. The animation, the duel, BONZ IS HERE

This duel starts off with Yami Bakura already being kinda annoyed. He just got jumped so it makes sense.

He summons a headless knight and it gets destroyed.

He destroys Bonz's cards.

Bonz fuses Medusa and crawling dragon to get... An elephant?

Then Bonz activates that one card that makes you lose life points for every card sent to the graveyard. Yami Bakura responded by fucking cheating and just tossing his hand to the graveyard.

Then he summons Earl of Demise and Bonz puts him in a cage.

Then Yami Bakura uses ectoplasmer and wipes out Bonz's life points and sends him to hell the Shadow Realm.

Mai vs Jean Clawed Magnum (duel 19)

I am not talking about this duel other than

Joey x Mai supremacy

We love polarshipping

Stuff that happens before the finals

The gang is shocked at the idea of Regular Bakura dueling (rude)

Tristan can't flirt

The gang raid Joey's pantry

A bingo machine

Yami Bakura pretends to be Regular Bakura and messes with Joey by saying shit like "Cheerio" and "fellows"

Marik does stuff

Odion gets threatened a few times

Ishizu shows up late

Mai drinks censored wine

Yami Bakura vs Yami (duel 15)

This shit is so hype

It starts off with Yami Bakura being dog shit and summoning weak cards (it's for a plan), and Yami and the gang just ragging on him and insulting him.

Then Bakura summons Dark Necrofear, but he doesn't attack because he's scared that Yami's face down card is a trap (reasonable)

Dark Necrofear gets destroyed by a buffed Dark Magician Girl, but this was all part of the an because now Yami Bakura can use not only his Destiny Board (worst win strat ever), but he can also use Dark Sanctuary.

At this point in the duel, Yami Bakura is cooking. He is dominating.

He got out his Dark door, Yami can't attack more than once. He got his spirit redirecting attacks at Yami. He's cooking something delicious.

Then Yami special summons Dark Necrofear and now Yami Bakura can't use his strategy.

Unless he summons Jougen the Spiritualist!

Now the sanctuary is back and he can keep up with his shitty win strat.

Then Yami summons Slifer and he contemplates death.

Marik makes Odion walk over and go "I release Bakura from the spirit" and Bakura starts dying and at this point my shipping senses start going nuts.

This duel has become a love triangle between Regular Bakura, Yami Bakura, And Yami Yugi.

But that's not important.

Bakura doesn't like this strategy because it's for cowards and he's worried Yami will attack his host. (Reasonable. The Yami he knows probably would've)

Yami meanwhile doesn't wanna attack Regular Bakura because that's his friend.

No one has told this boy to just surrender.

Yami Bakura takes control of Regular Bakura again and tells Yami to attack him

Then Yugi tells Yami that he did that because he needs Bakura, not because he liked him. (This is untrue if I believe hard enough)

Regular Bakura is knocked out and the ring is gone.

Joey vs Odion (duel 16)

Joey is talking shit.

Odion keeps setting and passing

And oh what's this?? FLASHBACK

Odion was abandoned on the door step of Marik's and Ishizu's parents. He was raised by them but never truly accepted.

He wanted the tomb keeper initiation to become accepted, but he was adopted. So that didn't happen.

DUEL

Joey's losing

FLASHBACKS

Odion was Marik's best friend and watched their mother die immediately after Marik was born.

He vowed to protect Marik.

DUEL

Odion has trap monsters and Joey is surprised by this.

A massive scorpion monster thing is summoned and Joey says

"Are you really Marik?"

Then Marik has a temper tantrum and tells Odion to summon Ra. Odion summons Ra and fucking dies.

Then Joey dies.

FLASHBACK

Odion watched as Marik got his tomb keeper initiation and afterwards he did his own initiation.

DUEL

Odion tries to get up, but he doesn't.

MEANWHILE IN JOEY DREAMLAND

Joey is having a dream about his friends helping him get ready for a tournament and he can't get up.

DUEL

Joey gets up and wins the duel.

Marik is having a migraine and then becomes Yami Marik.

Mai vs Marik (duel whatever I don't wanna check)

Marik got a fashion upgrade and looks better!!

During this duel Kaiba is edging himself waiting for Ra to be summoned.

Marik makes the duel a shadow duel and starts to erase Mai's mind.

Mai loses one memory and almost gives up immediately.

Marik continues his mind games while Joey and the gang try to help Mai out.

Mai is having non of this.

Mai steals Ra

Marik is cooking

Mai summons Ra, but Marik broke a rule because Ra is written in a foreign language without a translation.

Mai loses because she can't summon Ra and Marik attacked her, Joey, and Yami.

Final duel, Kaiba vs Ishizu

Ishizu should have won

Kaiba and Ishizu keep milling each other's deck.

Ishizu has a plan though. She saw it in her visions

Kaiba defys those visions tho and instead of summoning Obelisk, he summons the Blue Eyes White Dragon and wipes out Ishizu.

I forgot to talk about the Yami vs Strings duel

Marik is a pussy so he uses some murderer to duel

During this duel Marik is using cards like Revival Jam and Jam Breeding Machine.

He uses them to summon Slifer.

Yami is trapped in a cage.

Yami uses Revival Jam against Marik and uses it to cause Marik to lose by DECK OUT.

DECK OUT

That's embarrassing.

So yeah, I think this journey of redemption is becoming a journey of derailment instead. Wish me luck and health.

[professor-doc-emeritus]

I posted 16,171 times in 2022

239 posts created (1%)

15,932 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

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I tagged 1,163 of my posts in 2022

#for later - 54 posts

#superman - 6 posts

#he cant keep getting away with it - 3 posts

#based - 3 posts

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Longest Tag: 140 characters

#becoming intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of the product schedule to maximize the impact my absence will have on the project so i

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

i think the fundamental thing modern superman writers get wrong about him is that superman is funny. yeah, all his friends don't recognize him when he puts glasses on. that's hilarious. you're supposed to laugh at that. you're supposed to laugh at lois lane bullying clark only for her to get bullied by superman. You're supposed to laugh at how over the top all his villains are. You're supposed to laugh at him dating a mermaid and turning into an ant and fighting a guy whos a cowboy but evil. This is a man who was born in a small town called smallville and who lives and works in a city called metropolis. his first best and highest calling as a character is to entertain kids, and kids love to laugh. he is not meant to be taken even 1/1000th as seriously as his worst critics or most die hard fans insist on taking him.

20 notes - Posted June 27, 2022

#4

there's gotta be a non-zero number of military fart sniffers who googled shit like "marine reacts" hoping for veteran videos only to get an anime girl screaming about sex

27 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

#3

I don't care how fancy the AI is or how well it passes the turing test, finish the greentext will NEVERbeat our pure, wholeosme, homegrown frogposting bot!

38 notes - Posted June 17, 2022

#2

actually, I comprehend the horrors just fine.

39 notes - Posted July 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

my favorite "meant to make them look good but actually makes them look bad" trope from copaganda shows is "these people from another agency with vastly superior resources, training, and experience for dealing with this exact type of case, not to mention the actual legal jurisdiction, are trying to solve the case. We have to prevent this at all costs."

130 notes - Posted March 21, 2022

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[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 21: Joey Takes A Snack at that Cray Sauce

Hey guys! The 17 yo cat with kidney disease I was out of town watching lived to see another week (she was a very good girl). Which means now I can get back to the good stuff. This episode is brought to you by the colors red and orange, and I hope you like this color, and I hope you like this after effects they CGId onto this volcano.

Anyways, they first have to do this familiar ledge fall, because, it’s Yugioh, and if there’s a bunch of lava, Tristan wants

in

that.

And then Joey decides...hey you know what? I’m gonna jet. And...it’s not the first time he’s pulled a wild card and been unpredictable, I mean none of us can really forget that time he decided to get murdered by Mai instead of going in a straight line towards the end boss last season, but this time it was kind of funny how it was hastily composed.

And off he goes, folks.

As he left, Tristan was like “Ya dummy!” and Tea was like “nono, we gotta encourage him--run Joey! You can do it! See? Now he’s gone.” and it’s like...Tea is either trying to kill Joey with her support or honestly thinks that’s good support and I can’t fully tell which she is.

(read more under the cut)

It’s at this point that Grandpa has the gall to say “Did any of you happen to catch the lore? I fell asleep during that part.” Just like my Dad when we watch any movie as a family.

Meanwhile, maybe 100 ft away from them, Joey is in mortal peril but it’s Joey, so he’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.

In fact, this episode seems like it would have been a better arc if it stretched out more episodes because the Joey neglect happens so quickly and out of nowhere that it’s...less organic than your average children’s show. Honestly it’s kind of funny how fast the fall of Joey Wheeler happens this episode. And I think it could have been a fun interesting time if it was handled better but youknow...it’s crammed into one single episode and you’ll se what happens.

As Yugi ruminates a cool thing that would have been really interesting this season--like running into more rando’s from other periods of time than just Alexander--Tea looks across the lava highway and was like “found it.”

Back at the dragon situation, Joey starts opening his heart to this dragon and it’s like...did they originally intend for Seto Kaiba to be here? Because I guess Joey uses Red Eyes a lot, but I also skip a lot of the card games, so when I think “who likes the dragon card?” Joey is not the first one I think of.

That and like he got over his Atlantis dragon card like hella fast, right? Like totally already over that?

And also if you thought Joey would pull out his other dragon to try and communicate or get a hold of this dragon like...nah.

Back at the fort, these guys decided to ditch Joey to get to this sword at the top of a volcano to solve the riddle, and what follows is some weird ass canon.

As I’m pulling up my Google Doc with my deathcount on it, Tristan decides this is the time he won’t freakin die and turn into a robot monkey for 15 episodes.

And he makes a huge ass green dragon. You’d think this MASSIVE dragon would do more in this episode, but nah. Although he pulls out Massive Dragon, it’s like kind of worthless, so he mostly puts it back in his pocket.

And then Tea pulls this elf chick out and it’s freakin hilarious because look at her giant elf.

Like Tea is not a small person! Are Yugioh monsters all 12 ft tall???

Yugi is also all ham about fusing with his dude now. It knocked him out a couple episodes ago, but Yugi is so keen on destroying his body that he’s back in clown town. And like...took his Grandpa for a ride, I guess, although I’m pretty sure Summoned Skull has wings.

Course, Summoned Skulls insides are his outsides...and I dunno if you’d want Summoned Skull to give you a big hug and carry you around. Summoned Skull just seems like he’s sticky.

And, once they make it to the top of the volcano where the plot sword lives, we first have to visit this plot twist of the century.

YEAH.

OUT OF NOWHERE.

THIS EPISODE IS NOT LONG.

Aaaaaaand now Joey is going to try and kill everyone here. I did not skip anything, PS, Joey dipped off-screen.

PS, everyone’s reaction to “I will kill you!” was a whole lot of rolling their eyes at first being like “Joey, stawp.”

So, now that Joey’s randomly possessed by this dragon, we get a peek into what Joey’s brain zone looks like. It’s a whole lot of nothing in between his ears.

Consistent to S1 actually, when we had a bit of a Joey Brain Zone moment. It was a blank void there, too.

So apparently Joey decided, back when he was confessing his love to Red Eyes Black Dragon, that he would jump on it’s back to calm it down--and it just...fused with him. So...now he’s a dragon.

Sure, I guess. I mean...there’s really no limit on what a Duel monster can’t do, so I’ll allow it.

The team tries to just say “ah screw it” and pull up this sword themselves (you can kind of see it in this shot) and the sword just slurps into the dirt even more out of spite. Seeing that there’s a bit of a time limit, Grandpa pulls this one out of his back pocket.

Yo, Grandpa’s not even possessed. Hey, remember that time that Grandpa nearly died giving Arthur Hawkins the last of his water back in Egypt? Remember that?

Like uh, you can definitely tell this was made by a different team that may not have gotten that cue card. It may have been lost in the mail. Either way, kind of a hilarious heel turn on Grandpa’s personality here, although it does make logical sense to save most of the kids from sacrificing one kid. It’s just...that kid is Joey...so...that’s like his adopted Grandson, right?

So Yugi does something very on brand for Yugi and invades a brain.

And like...obviously Yami and Yugi would say no to this. They would never do this. Not after all the dozens and dozens of times they have sacrificed the world and everything for their best friends.

But...maybe just this one time we can kill Joey? As a treat?

So uh...Yami hella vaporizes Joey with his new powers. Luckily, Joey Wheeler has Shaggy Doo energy and just...he survives it for some reason. I don’t know why he isn’t dead, maybe because the dragon made him stronger? Eh, don’t do the math (on any part of this episode).

So Joey gets up and is like “I know the answer to the riddle!” As the sword kinda melts into the volcano and Gramps is like “Well we’re dead, actually, so no one cares!”

And Joey’s like “Look!” and he hops onto the back of the Red Eyes Black dragon and reveals this random thing:

Because it turns out, that the dragon was the real problem and not this volcano with a sword in it.

Which youknow...could have been cool if this episode wasn’t so many insane plot points so quickly. Kind of a lot of episode here. This episode could have been a whole season of a show.

Like how long was Joey Possessed by Marik in S2? Like 5 or 6 episodes? And you can see how much more successful it was at selling the story although it was a lot of the same themes and ideas. Pacing is important.

And then Joey passes out from the suit juice.

Which is when we get one more Alexander cameo, just kinda watching them leave and onto the next arc of their little journey.

They sure did put a lot of eyeliner on Alexander the great, and, being real...he may have actually been wearing a hell ton of dope eyeliner when he was alive, so this could be historically accurate, for all we know. Those old marble statues used to be painted, after all. Maybe they had dope Yugioh eyeliner down to his cheekbones? One can wish.

And like if you ever get the time--seeing what those marble statues looked like with paint on it is so freakin goofy and fun, I love it. I love that for 600 years we thought those marble statues were supposed to be naked and white but it’s like, nah man--this guy’s just wearing a skin tight breast plate and when you paint it, it’s so garish it’s like a freakin clown outfit.

But anyway, that’s all for now! Hope y’all have a good weekend, and as always, here’s a link to read these in chrono order, if you just got here!

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

[wrestlingisfake]

AEW Fake Rankings, 5/16/2021

Men's singles division - babyfaces

Darby Allin

Cody Rhodes

Orange Cassidy

PAC

Hangman Page

Christian Cage

Lance Archer

Sammy Guevara

Dustin Rhodes

Jake Hager

Men's singles division - heels

Kenny Omega (AEW men's world champion, Impact world champion, AAA mega champion)

MJF

Miro (AEW TNT champion)

Brian Cage (FTW champion)

Matt Hardy

Shawn Spears

Anthony Ogogo

QT Marshall

Powerhouse Hobbs

Nick Comorotto

Unranked: Alex Reynolds, Christopher Daniels, Colt Cabana, Danny Limelight, Dante Martin, Frankie Kazarian, Lee Johnson, MT Nakazawa, Wardlow

It feels premature to rank Darby Allin so highly. But given that Chris Jericho's hurt, Kenny Omega's a heel, and Jon Moxley's chasing the tag title, I can't argue any other babyface is ahead of him. Cody's clout and presentation goes a long way, but that only goes so far when he's been barely been on TV and feuding with QT's band of trainees. AEW deserves a lot of credit for giving Allin the ball and letting him run with it. Even though he just lost the TNT title to Miro, his chase to get it back ought to be even hotter than his run as champion.

A lot of the key fueds right now involve factions--Cody's Nightmare Family vs. QT's The Factory, Jericho's Inner Circle vs. MJF's The Pinnacle, and the Hardy Family Office vs. the Dark Order, Orange's buddies vs. Pac's Death Triangle--not to mention Team Taz and Kenny Omega's group running around. As a New Japan fan I dig it, but it does make it kind of tough to decide where one faction's minions rank relative to another's.

Men's tag team division - babyfaces

Jon Moxley (IWGP United Stats champion) & Eddie Kingston

Santana & Ortiz

Best Friends - Chuck Taylor & Trent Beretta

Lucha Bros. - Penta El 0M & Rey Fenix

Jurassic Express - Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt

Evil Uno & Stu Grayson

Varsity Blondes - Griff Garrison & Brian Pillman Jr.

The Gunn Club - Billy Gunn & Austin Gunn & Colten Gunn

Matt Sydal & Mike Sydal

Alan Angels & Preston Vance

Men's tag team division - heels

The Young Bucks - Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson (AEW tag team champions)

FTR - Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler

Scorpio Sky & Ethan Page

The Acclaimed - Max Caster & Anthony Bowens

Private Party & Marq Quen & Isiah Kassidy

The Butcher & The Blade

TH2 - Jack Evans & Angelico

Chaos Project - Luther & Serpentico

Cezar Bononi & Ryan Nemeth

Unranked: Sonny Kiss & Joey Janela

(Names not listed on the AEW website's roster are noted in italics.)

With Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian disbanding their team, the top title contenders on AEW's official rankings are Garrison and Pillman. However, the team that's actually getting a title shot at the May 30 pay-per-view is Moxley and Kingston, because they trashed the champs' dressing room. Just in case you were wondering why I bother doing this when AEW does it every week.

Women's singles division - babyfaces

Hikaru Shida (AEW women's world champion)

Thunder Rosa

Tay Conti

Kris Statlander

Ryo Mizunami

Big Swole

Red Velvet

Leyla Hirsch

KiLynn King

Women's singles division - heels

Britt Baker

Nyla Rose

Jade Cargill

Abadon

Penelope Ford

Diamante

The Bunny

A year ago I was griping that AEW wasn't doing enough with the women's division. They're still not giving them enough time on the main show, but it definitely feels like Shida, Baker, and Statlander are more important to the product now than they were back then. I wanted them to bring in more women and give them a chance, and that paid off big time with Thunder Rosa. Swole, Conti, Abadon, and Velvet feel underutilized, but I'm confident that will change. Cargill is going to be great once they decide she's ready for more than simple squash matches. Granted, There are others on this list that seem to be just...there. But it's amazing how much less frustrating that is when more than two women on the roster are getting pushed.

No matches in over 30 days: Awesome Kong, Emi Sukara, Karl Anderson, Leva Bates, Doc Gallows, Mel, Peter Avalon, Riho, Shanna, Shawn Dean, Serena Deeb (NWA women's world champion), Yuka Sakazaki

Same old story with Riho, Shanna, Sukara, and Sakazaki (travel restrictions), and with Kong and Mel (no idea). Deeb is booked for the May 19 show, which is probably a relief for the NWA, since they can finally book some title matches again.

When the AEW/Impact storyline started, I expected a lot more Impact wrestlers to appear on AEW programming than just Gallows and Anderson. As it turns out, even Gallows and Anderson haven't wrestled much on AEW lately. I'm really starting to wonder what the point is for all of this.

Part-time/semi-retired: Dasha Gonzalez, Paul Wight, Rebel not Reba, Sting, Tully Blanchard

I feel weird having Tully here but hell, he's probably had more ring time in 2021 than everybody else in this list put together.

Inactive

Anna Jay (right shoulder - dislocation)

Brandon Cutler (orbital bone - unspecified injury)

Brandi Rhodes (pregnancy)

Chris Jericho (right elbow - dislocation)

Kip Sabian (right arm - storyline injury?)

John Silver (right shoulder - dislocation)

Ricky Starks (neck - fractured vertebrae)

Darius Martin (knee - unspecified ACL injury)

Miro "injured" Sabian's arm recently, and Sabian announced on Twitter that he's getting surgery. So is he just playing into the storyline on social media, or is the storyline designed to cover for an actual injury? Either way I don't expect him back in the ring for a while.

In contrast, Jericho's arm injury is legit but he's still appearing on TV and trying to get a match like it's no big deal. MJF challenged Jericho to a Stadium Stampede match two weeks from now, but Jericho reportedly needs 4-6 weeks to recover. So either the reports are overestimating how hurt he is, or Jericho's going to have to creatively avoid doing anything physical...or they'll have to postpone the match right after setting the date. I'm not sure what they're thinking with this one. (Maybe Jericho could call his new buddy Mike Tyson?)

[toranoya]

ABOUT: YUKI, Jaden (YGO GX)

“Growing up means you have to be prepared to accept all consequences.”

Jaden Yuki, known as Judai Yuki in the Japanese version, is the protagonist of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, as well as the reincarnation of The Supreme King. At the end of the third season, he fused his soul with Yubel, his favorite card from childhood, with the use of "Super Polymerization" to purge her from the influence of The Light of Destruction. He is headstrong, optimistic, fun loving, and a talented Duelist who loves Dueling as much as he cares for his friends.

He attended Duel Academy and was put in the Slifer Red Dorm, the dorm with the least privileges, due to his poor grades in the entrance exam. As time goes on, he becomes the academy's best Duelist and saves the world and the academy from many threats such as the evil Kagemaru, The Light of Destruction possessed Sartorius, the deranged and manipulative Yubel, and finally the malicious spirit Nightshroud. After three years, he graduates from Duel Academy and pursues his own journey to improve himself.

PROFILE

Age: 15-17 (end of series)

Height: 165 cm (5.4 feet)

Weight: 55 kg (121 lbs)

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Brown

Orientation: Undecided, but…*hc*

Appearance

Jaden's usual outfit consists of the standard Slifer Red uniform, unbuttoned, and a black shirt underneath. In the fourth season, the normal Slifer Red white pants were replaced by dark jeans. A Deck box is strapped above his waistline, largely hidden beneath the lower rim of his jacket.

Voice/Mannerisms

In the Japanese version, Jaden rarely uses honorifics, and his speech pattern

could be considered rude as a result, similar to Joey Wheeler's.

In the dub, Jaden has several catchphrases associated with him. He begins almost every Duel with the phrase "Get your game on!" and ends almost every Duel he wins by saying "That's game!" He also occasionally uses the phrase "Here goes something" when drawing in a desperate situation. Jaden tends to speak in stereotypical '90s slang, calling people "bro" and advising opponents to "chill." He is also noted for saying "A Duel's not over 'till the last card is played!" which is likely Jaden's way of expressing his belief in the Heart of the Cards.

In both the English and Japanese versions, Jaden will wink and point two fingers at a defeated opponent. In the dub, whenever Jaden wins a Duel, he says "That's game.”

Personality

Jaden is friendly, optimistic, laid-back, enthusiastic, kind, confident, funny

, and very passionate about Dueling. Jaden loves Dueling and believes that all problems can ultimately be solved through it. He keeps going no matter how hard things get or how hopeless it seems, with a few exceptions (though it doesn't take much encouragement for him to start fighting again), although he does sometimes doubt himself. He always shows respect towards his opponents, with a few exceptions, even complimenting them during a Duel.

Jaden shows little interest in areas outside of Dueling, which extends to his classes. When he chooses to attend them, he generally falls asleep. Despite his low grades, he is still regarded as one of Duel Academy's best Duelists. However, this attitude eventually shows itself as one of his greatest flaws, and causes him to be targeted by Mr. Stein. He shows a lack of knowledge in areas outside of Dueling, even showing in one instance that is unaware of what the term "fiancee" means, and forgetting that the holographic water will not drown him in another.

Jaden also seems ignorant of the dislike that other individuals have for him, as despite the obvious tension between the two, he considers himself to be good friends with Chazz Princeton. His carefree attitude and lack of thought get him into trouble occasionally, such as when he handed the Satellite Keys to Sartorius and still expected the latter to Duel him before using them. He occasionally shows signs of intellect, such as determining that Titan's Shadow Game was a fake, and figuring out that both Brier and Beauregard were the Duel Giant on another occasion.

One of Jaden's common traits is that he tends to make jokes or puns, even in some situations where it is not appropriate. Most of the jokes he makes are Duel-related but on a few occasions, he does make jokes at someone's expense. For example, he called Crowler "Cyclops" when the latter got struck in the eye with a tennis ball. Another example is when Jaden Duels The Society of Light controlled Alexis and she tells him to "Throw in the game" to which the former replies "The only thing I throw in is the towel on laundry day."

Jaden has a close bond with his cards, to the point where he has no problem with an opponent insulting him, but is angered when they insult his cards.

Headcannon:

-Favorite foods: Fried shrimp, Golden Eggwich, Fermented soybeans, though he’ll eat pretty much anything as if he were starving.

-Prior to DA, his club sport was track, which is why he is alright with running everywhere.

-Often speaks informally, almost to the point of being rude in Japanese terms.

-Has shown little interest in the affections of women and so far he feels more comfortable around other guys.

-Doesn’t really understand love yet, so he’s confused by his heart beating faster and other body reactions when he has feelings for someone.

-In the events after the Bonds movie, Jaden reflected that he found Yugi’s violet eyes beautiful and also liked Yusei’s hair and cheek marks, finding them striking.

-Loves to travel and sight-see, such as his backpack trip in Europe in the Bonds movie.

-Jaden tries to see the best in everyone and will never give up on a friend.

-When not at school, Jaden lives with his parents who own a bakery. As such he’s pretty talented at making bread when he has to.

-AU: Ancient Egypt: Jaden, known as Jyuudai, was a poor son of a baker and peasant at the same time Atem was Pharaoh.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 20: Pharaoh’s Cool New Trick

Digging my way through quite a pile of commission work (funny how these things only come all at once or not at all), nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, was looking forward to some free time to catch up on my many little side projects when I was asked to take off for a weekend to do some cat-sitting to which I would NEVER say no to a cat, so like...Rip this blog I guess, we only update like once a week nowadays, but what do you do?

That’s right, play Puzzles and Dragons! The only phone game worth paying any attention to! Where they just released Pegasus on their Yugioh Collab and he looks pretty great!

So I’m just gonna take a second for some art appreciation, because the Puzzles and Dragons art team is just A++++ honestly, and yes, I did pull 13 times to get a Pegasus in my monster box, and yes, he is a completely insane team leader that is absolutely broken when paired with Yugi (the numbers are so satisfying) but...look at him. He looks so good!

(also I finally got Joey Wheeler, and so now my gatcha cravings are settled. And, don’t worry, I play this game so much that I was there during Christmas when they offered like a bajillion stones for free so I didn’t actually use real money on this.)

Now PAD also released a Weevil and Rex, and I don’t know why, and neither does the art team because they still look pretty good but in comparison to all the mains, they sure do looks like just some shorty guys in some casuals.

though I gotta admit, I want to learn how the hell this art team does swooshy effects, because man, that would make my art so much better to just have flames violently exploding out of all my art. Why am I not doing that more often? I have the technology.

anyway, I didn’t bother trying to pull them. Maybe I’ll accidentally pull them when they eventually release a Duke Devlin. (also, RIP to the fact that Roland will probably never be in Puzzles and Dragons but like...I can only send them so many polite letters covered in stickers pretending I’m some 10 year old child and writing in my broken Hiragana “Roland in PAD?”. Thems the breaks. (They also might not remember who Roland is.))

Shoutouts to the card that Weevil is holding that is censoring this nipple on the booby spider, PS.

So because this is not actually a Puzzles and Dragons blog, and it’s been ten eons since I regularly updated so I could remember episode to episode...where the hell were we?

That’s right, we’re on an island now. This show’s wonderful obsession with evil islands (and spoiler, this is one of the few Yugioh Islands that doesn’t explode at the end. Mostly because Kaiba isn’t here to do it or this place would be cinder)

(read more island stuff under the cut)

Anyway, after announcing “hey guys! Screw islands!” Yugi immediately collapses and without any warning.

Apparently the armor is a big ol parasite, which is something that Yugi is so used to at this point that he refuses to admit that this is a problem. Just normal Muto stuff, refusing to tell anyone that he has a serious illness going on underneath that giant mass of hair.

(the sailor moon vibes coming off this weird orb energy)

Sort of feels like a call back to S1 when Yugi was clearly possessed and everyone else was like “He acting weird to you?” except it’s S5 and everyone has learned to never trust Yugi when he says he’s fine and they are responding like he is about to die. Which is correct.

Outside of the cave falls this scroll that is...glowing, I guess. So they open it up and get a bunch of hieroglyphs that give them the “riddle of light” and like youknow...it’s riddle stuff.

They’re doing this riddle for “wings.” And it’s like...everyone’s monster here has a set of wings or an ability to fly. Every single monster except for I dunno, flaming swordsman? Hell, Yugi himself had two sets of wings when he fused with Dark Magician (which was weird, and I still don’t like to think about what technically was going on there.) But we have to go and get ourselves even more wings.

Weirdly, Joey turns to Tea and does something that in any other show would be completely normal. He was like “you want to stay here with Yugi, don’t you?” and it was the first time Joey has ever actually addressed the fact that Tea and Yugi are close. Uncharted territory. I was amazed at the amount of casual shipping that is happening here. It’s almost like a normal ass relationship.

So the boys decide to go off, and be boys and tackle this themselves. And they shouldn’t have, because Tea is smart for this group, and also has the only healing spell.

Like if you’re playing D+D you wouldn’t typically leave your only healer behind. Just saying.

Also like...Grandpa Muto went with them? I guess he’d have to since he’s the translator but also...kind of weird to leave your grandson dying in a cave, but maybe that’s just the Muto lifestyle.

Do not be fooled by my caps, no one has addressed the Bakura in the puzzle for 3 seasons. I’m starting to think this show will never address the Bakura in the puzzle. Which honestly, that would be hilarious if they made a big deal out of that plot point and then couldn’t use it in the end.

And speaking of plot points that kind of come out of nowhere and don’t make full sense with the continuity of the show--Joey has regressed back to the 4th grade.

Hey show? What?

So like if you love Joey, this is not the arc for you, because this arc he is reduced to a Himbo and nothing else. Straight up didn’t know what an echo is, but is very strong and pretty, I guess.

This inevitably happens with any TV show becuase different people make different parts, and I’ve brought up before that sometimes it feels like some teams only have loose post-it notes of what any character should be like at any given point (ESPECIALLY with Seto Kaiba’s timeline) but like...

...Personally I’m mot so fond of this interpretation of Joey, kind of ignores Joey’s best traits, and makes Tristan look way too smart in comparison (and like I always pinned Tristan to be the Himbo of the group, but maybe it’s because they give Tristan so little else to do?)

And like don’t get me wrong, Joey’s a dumbass a lot of the time and needs to get corrected by his pals...but...to the point he doesn’t know what an echo is? He’s a dumbass in a High School student sort of way, youknow?

Anyway, they get down to this big ravine, and they have to destroy this stone while the light passes over it. Kind of feels like a Breath of the Wild shrine quest, actually. In fact, I think Breath of the Wild recycled the shadow/sunlight pathing quest like 4 or 5 times. (I love Breath of the Wild to death but boy did they run out of ideas at the end there.)

They have to fight a glass monster and it’s kind of like...do you know the game Balls 3D? probably not, but it looked like a bunch of random shapes stuck together like a 90′s animation. They basically went to war with shapes.

Pure Himbo energy, has several pokemon, but punches for his pokemon instead of using them. A power move if I ever saw one.

Youknow that would make pokemon a lot more interesting if you could like throw out your pikachu, and then choose to just physically run up to your opponents Eevee and sock it in the jaw. Raise of hands--I know you all would love a version of pokemon like that. Let Ash Ketchum punch a Ratata.

Bro has informed me that Ash does do something like this in the anime. But I’m not talking about the anime, I’m talking about the video game. Give me the option to physically combat my rival. This is what I want, Pokemon.

They discover a way to break the monolith, and the show thinks we’re like actually 7 years old (because the show is Y7, although I forget because it deals with so many dark themes) so the show is going to hold on to this puzzle for a while...just to fill time. And it’s fine because we gotta switch over to Pharaoh anyway.

Yami has this dream again. He attempts to fuse with Dark magician to overcome the dream, but alas, he is still not strong enough.

Yugi wakes up in this murky cave while Tea is out washing out like...some rag? (he’s also still got a rag, so I guess multiple rags were required for how sweaty Yugi is.)

Yugi says “I feel like I’m a new man!” a lot in this episode, and every time he calls himself a man like he’s some sort of adult it’s very funny to me.

And then this plot lore dropped.

I mean I guess inevitably it had to happen...

But man, end of an era. It was freakin hilarious while it lasted: that Pharaoh refused to read ancient Egyptian because it’s like 2002 and he is a High Schooler living in Japan and he actually doesn’t WANT to resolve the mystery of the puzzle. Maybe the people who made this arc don’t know about how in S2 and S3, the fact Pharaoh couldn’t read Marik’s back tatt was like...a really big issue. He couldn’t read the God card, he couldn’t even read that massive tablet that read “HEY PHARAOH THIS IS LITERALLY YOU”. KAIBA had to tell him how to read the God card for him. Freakin Seto “Magic is a lie” Kaiba had to tell him how to use the God Card because Pharaoh couldn’t read it.

But like...Pharaoh finally gave in at some point after the world was devoured by the Leviathan, and before Kaiba finished building Kaibaland (which was already built in S1 but wtv)

The timelines on this show have always been a mishmash...but this one is just like...

...show are you trying to convince me that at any point in this show after season Zero, Pharaoh had any idea what he was doing? Did he sap that brain energy straight out of Joey Wheeler so he could do this?

Wow.

(secretly hoping he forgets how to read Egyptian after this arc is over and the show goes back to the other development team)

Pharaohs reasoning is that, if this is the riddle of the light.....

....then where is the riddle of darkness????????????

and when Tea was like “Pharaoh that is not even remotely logic. Omg it’s so bright outside, lets go back to gross cave.” and Pharaoh was like “Tea! You got it!” and she was like “What the hell are you talking about?”

Not gonna lie, I saw the Orichalcos green, and I got concerned.

Anyway, Yugi gets very frustrated and was like “ugh, lets go save em. They’re gonna die (again.)” and marches down there as if he didn’t pass out an hour ago.

And he fuses with Dark Magician again while everyone else (including his grandpa) was like “Yugi are you freakin kidding me? The suit freakin kills you omg! Tea you had one freakin job!”

And then we get the plot twist that...I mean it makes sense but it was choreographed in a confusing way.

And out of no where this guy shows up again:

So this mysterious man shows up and says “If you don’t succeed you have to live here forever” which...nice...that would probably save the world a lot of problems if Yami got locked away and took his OP puzzle with him. And then this man also says “if you do succeed you become VERY POWERFUL” and Yami was like. “...”

This whole episode had a theme to it, where Tristan and Joey were trying to prove that they could do things on their own and without Yugi’s help. And honestly...felt a little bit misplaced. Yami’s the same guy who murdered Yugi last season with the Orichalcos so like...

...I mean he is probably more reliable than Tristan who once died and turned into a robot monkey for 10ish episodes.

and then they flew into a glowing door.

Folks, this was wild to look at.

This is wild.

And at this point I closed Photoshop and thought I was done. But then I looked at my timeline on the video and was like...wait...there’s more?

and I’m really glad I kept watching because it went back to Alex, who...is apparently just still at those steps in this haunted ass Pyramid.

Now we’re watching Yugioh.

I forgot for a second when they turned Joey into a Himbo and made Pharaoh literate, but we’re back. I mean...

...look at the liner art on this adult man.

So...I posit the question...has Alex spent the last 2-3 episodes doing nothing but applying eyeliner to his face in the dark? Because he absolutely has. And honestly, the vibe of being in a spooky haunted pyramid with barely any light, just applying eyeliner down the edge of your face...that’s a Yugioh vibe, if I ever saw one.

This arc is wild. Anyway, next episode we do even more fetch quests and riddles? Just going to guess now that we probably will.

(and for those new here, this is a link so you can read them from the top. Which, since we’re in S5, means you got like...hours of Yugioh content to read through. Enjoy the rewards of my weird hobby.)

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

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 35 S4: Raphael Joins the Pile of Dead Bodies

Ah 2020, thankfully we have one trashfire somewhat behind us, but I’m still avoiding social media for so many obvious reasons because of all the other trashfires that just never seem to stop burning, so lets talk about Yugioh with all of this newfound time.

Ah, card games. Card games that go on for 6-7 episodes. Lets see how they pad it out:

In a lot of ways, Roland really is just padding for the show, and that’s OK. He’s doing his best, by doing literally nothing but stand outside and check the time.

Inside the dusty soul chamber, Tristan has decided to do us the favor of recapping what happened last episode, which included the return of our four dead friends, so that they could die...again.

Seto’s reaction to seeing these dead people suddenly alive again was very “guys...I went nuts like years ago, I’m just going with it at this point.” and he’s still 100% positive that this is all a hologram and that no one will ever die.

Whatever it takes for Seto to get out of bed in the morning, I guess.

(read more under the cut)

One of the big mechanics the game is that you need to stay level headed, or the Orichalcos just kind of slurps you up. This explains a little why Dartz is so freakin chill basically all of the time, just the Bob Ross of evil over there. It also is sort of funny because Pharaoh and Seto are the least chill people to have ever lived so he’s just kind of waiting it out to see whom between Seto and Kaiba gets the most angry first and completely botches it.

Yugi has to do literally nothing and for the first time in his life this is the right choice.

I’m so glad he gets to use his big brain move of “If I don’t play, no one dies!” from S1. Glad it came back to serve him for once instead of just make everyone else really annoyed.

Yugi just...not moving means it’s now Seto’s turn to put down some cards, and he kinda looks over at Pegasus and goes...well you know what’s gonna happen next.

I have no idea why he didn’t attack Pegasus. Like this episode is kind of weird because we got these flashbacks of Pegasus being like “you’re my only hope, Yugi!” and it’s like wtf, Pegasus trapped you on a murder island and tried to kill you multiple times. He abducted Mokuba and turned both the Kaiba brothers into cards.

yo did Seto and Pegasus get back together in between seasons or something? Was there a whole character development where these two have fun brunches in San Fransisco now? Because I would watch that anime. I would watch the anime where Seto and Pegasus are co-hosting Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and just destroying every unsuspecting local restaurant they brunch in.

But are we just assuming that the eyeball did all that evil stuff from S1 and that otherwise Pegasus is a good person? Because like...he was a mess before he got possessed. He’s kind of a Yugi, he’s kind of a Bakura, he’s kind of a Marik...in that there’s a mess in that bean, and getting possesed just only amplified what was already there.

So, with his smug as hell grin, Seto surprises Dartz by only barely getting affected by this inescapable moral dilemma and Seto just very quickly deciding to do a murder. And then we get a little blimp throwback to S2 (S3? I don’t even remember at this point, since we’ve been stuck in S4 for an entire year. Thanks 2020.)

If blocking the shot when Marik did it in S3 or S2 or whenever that was, didn’t get Mai to like Joey, then it shouldn’t work if you do it a second time.

But hey, I guess it’s better than letting her perma-die. Although this show desperately needs to figure out how to use Mai if they’re gonna keep her around, youknow?

Like all ships are fine and valid here, ship whatever you want to your hearts content: I don’t ship at all, as you know, but I hope one day they give Mai a personality that is consistently likeable. I do want to like her because she’s like...good at what she does when she plays cards and can be that can be a fun “hey I’m a girl but I’m not a freakin ‘gamer girl’ you male chauvinist assholes” type of character. But, the show just...the show doesn’t know what they want outside of a little romantic tension that they legally can’t follow through because of a 5-6 year age gap with a teenager.

This show actively tries to destroy this ship, and then turns around and is like “oh shoot this ship is all we have.” This show tries to lift up Mai as a feminist icon one season, and then tears her down for being “too” feminist the next season when she decides to--youknow--kill Joey Wheeler because he made her feel weak or something when he saved her life. 

Like the show does a lot to explore weakness and strength, and how what we see as weakness is actually strength, and how what we tend to attribute as strengths is actually weakness, and how our modern career/school/success expectations set us up for failure, but I think they explored that way better with Seto than they ever did with Mai.

Could’ve been cool Mai, you could’ve been cool.

Anyhoo, that was my spicy commentary on a 10+ year old anime, good to get it off my chest.

Seto and Yami have the typical problem they have whenever they play cards together, where one goes completely rogue. Except this time, the one going rogue isn’t Seto, it’s Yami. He’s just like...I’ll make life for Seto very difficult and I will lose this game and I don’t even mind because I’m already dead, deal with it.

So honestly this is an episode where it’s just Seto demanding we kill a bastard, and Yami being like “but not THAT bastard” and Seto just shrugging and saying “I have to kill A bastard, Yugi! Just CHOOSE one!”

That actual line in the show (I forget what it was exactly) does infer that Seto thinks Joey holds him back, and that implication speaks miles about Seto’s insecurities.

HOW THOUGH..........what are you jealous of, Seto?

You’re better at cards than he is, he’s never beat you at anything. It’s not about who’s best friends with Yugi because...Yugi’s possessed so Yami is always going to take first place...

......so what could it possibly BE?

Seto doesn’t attend school anymore, is it about that? Is it because Joey is likeable? Is it because Joey pretends he has a much older girlfriend? I mean hypothetically, Blue Eyes White Dragon is WAY older than Mai so...that can’t be it.

.....what IS it???

Does the “friendship” he have with Joey make Seto too soft? Is that what’s holding him back? Because Seto doesn’t actually think he’s friends with these people and says that Yugi and co are “Mokuba’s friends” so like....

.....what are you talking about, Seto???

Is it because you’re addicted to cards again? Because that’s...sort of Joey’s fault because he was the one who told you he needed a ride to Jacksonville, and then let slip that the “King of Games” title was up for grabs, is that it?

Are you just tired of Joey asking you for a ride?

Not like it matters, because Joey survives, and Seto gets to feel like a complete asshole about it.

As Raphael (who is this purple blur here) motorcycles into the dome of souls, Rolands last words were

“You can’t go in there!”

which was the weirdest thing to say to a guy you just saw fall down a 50 story building a few hours ago. Raphael not being dead should be the thing Roland fixates on, but instead he’s seen so many people die and come back to life, that he’s only concerned that Raphael will get in trouble for trespassing.

Again, Roland is the only Kaiba that hasn’t died yet, and it’s because he’s the only Kaiba that hasn’t broken the law.

Dude. What if the reason Roland is standing outside is because he’s been politely looking for the doorbell to be let in?

...the players asking for death...like clockwork...and me asking for the end of this freakin game...we played...1 turn this episode...

This episode was 1 turn!

And you may ask...well what else could possibly happen to stretch this out and well...

Raphael dives in on a motorcycle to save the day. Which is an aesthetic, by the way, this huge man covered in like a dozen belts, doing a wheelie jump into a chasm of 1 million souls. that’s an aesthetic.

So he shows up, gets off his bike and I was like “Oh good, someone to maybe save Yugi saving Joey saving Mai?” And instead, I was...not given that.

Mostly Raphael is here because he ALSO wants to kill Dartz, and is like “can I join? I know you’ve only played like 1 round, just deal me a new hand, it’ll be fine.” and it’s like...we already played the Orichalcos Raphael, this is not a game of Uno, you cannot just jump in.

Dartz is sort of obsessed with how everyone around him has potential for evil except for him, the chillest human to ever be born, and I gotta say...when he’s in this room...Dartz has a point.

+++++++++++++RANT ABOUT BEING PERFECT FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++

It is sort of nice to have the concept of an older generation (in this case 10,000 years older) fighting with a younger generation. To have the older, more typically wiser generation say “Listen, I kinda screwed the planet and the war economy and the prison system...and I’m gonna keep doing that...and you can’t stop me because you’re a bunch of hypocritical dumbasses.” and then the younger generation say. “We don’t care if we’re a mess, dude. We aren’t the problem here.”

I may be putting some recent topical STUFF into this mold here, but it is a nice little analogy that they made even someone who is such a human disaster as Yami and Seto “morally good” enough to fight Dartz. You don’t have to be a perfect Harvard Grad to fight the system, you don’t have to be an entirely problematic-free savior, you can be even as problematic as Seto Kaiba--just get rid of the dumb assholes trying to destroy the world. That’s all.

Like this concept is strangely prescient because in 2020 we’re in a weird time period where if you aren’t perfect, you’re not allowed to have opinions. You’re not allowed to make content. You’re not allowed to make change. This is mostly an online problem in places like twitter, but it’s a real problem--because in the end what you’re left with is no one that wants to step up to the plate because they know that they, too, are flawed.

And like not even just as a political thing, even as a creator, as an artist, I see this problem more and more with kids. Kids who are like “I am afraid to draw because what if I do it wrong and I get dragged on twitter years later?” or “I want to make a story, but I’m afraid to get cancelled because my fantasy story has problematic stuff in it? Am a bad person for wanting to write it?” And it’s like...what are we doing to young creators right now? Did we all fail humanities? How have we failed art and literature SO badly that we’ve come to this point that people are too afraid to even learn how to do it right?

Anyway that was a tangent, but like...you see the similarities, right? That if you really were as perfect as Dartz either politically or creatively, you’d be a freakin monster and would probably just tear down everyone else around you on twitter rather than lift other people up. It’s a stretch but eh, it’s been a while since I went on a good Yugioh tangent and like

---it’s not like I can say this on twitter---

+++++++++++++++END OF THAT RANT+++++++++++++++++++

So it’s at this point that Dartz turns to Raphael is like “I mean...we weren’t really doing anything else, and Yugi and Yami are playing so slowly...I guess I have time to bust your nuts” and decides to bust his nuts.

Oh hey, I was right.

And yeah, that’s still effed up. Dartz killed his Raphael’s family, left him on an island, and then adopted him later after forcing him to dig up their graves. Like...Raphael, that’s effed up.

He also did the same thing to everyone else (and for Valon he just kinda glazed over that really fast because we had to edit his backstory out of the English version)

PS at this part Mokuba started sweating bullets and Tea leaned over and was like “Is this true, Mokuba?”

And Mokuba was like “...yes.”

Because, I don’t think Mokuba can keep any secret from Tea. Like for reals, Tea may be the most dangerous thing to all of KaibaCorp if she wasn’t so distracted by Yami’s endless string of problems. Mokuba is constantly telling them all of Seto’s deepest darkest secrets and there is like nothing Seto can do about it.

The animation of Gozaburo turning into a beautiful Dartz was just a simple fade to white, but man--imagine if they had dome some crazy effed up animation where Gozaburo just whips back his head and he has ass length blue hair and long, luscious lashes?

Imagine.

Anyway, this was enough for Raphael, who was already our most gullible and unstable person on this show, to just flip that switch and go lime green like all those other minibosses before him.

Really glad we built up Raphael for him to just die at the door hahaha.

That was so freakin random.

OK then. Thanks for nothing, Raphael.

I guess we go to the next episode to see if we finally play another turn? We can hope for good things. But if we don’t play a full turn I will NOT be surprised.

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

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 32 S4: Most Disturbing Kid’s Show Award Goes to This Episode

I often talk about how wonderfully effed up Yugioh is. What a freakin delight, how effed up this kid’s show is, somehow still remaining a Y7 kid’s show, despite everything it tries to do to get pulled off the air.

Y’all this was a filler season and it didn’t even have Bakura in it so...why did it go so edge? Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for how many levels of “OK THERE, KID’S SHOW” it was.

But what the hell was that, Yugioh?

Anyway we start off completely normal in this foggy ass graveyard--Halloweens in this season so I’m down for this. Halloween is also...cancelled...this year, so at least I can celebrate it somewhat in a Yugioh episode. Then again, can you imagine how many people would be dressed up as sexy Covid?

So I don’t really talk about the card game mechanics on here, and (full disclosure to any new people) I don’t know how to play this game. But, considering that this card doesn’t usually send you to distant graveyard memories IRL, lets get into it.

We’ve clarified before that Card Graveyard is a place--like an actual place--but that it isn’t the same place that the cards vibe in within the Puzzle necklace. It’s a separate place, but ALSO not the same place as the Shadow Realm, either. Card Graveyard is just...some other third place we never talk about.

TBQH I think the people who make this show have kinda forgotten how many random pocket dimensions we’ve made that are basically the equivalent of hell (including California, PS), and are just like “no one will write a blog about it and list them all in one place, we’ll be fine.”

We’ve only seen Tristan bum out here once in like S1 and he spent most of his time running away from the Grim Reaper. But, if you remember correctly, the Grim Reaper is currently hanging out and living his best life haunting some park in Japan, so now instead of the Grim Reaper it has...this?

So is this a memory stored within the card graveyard, or did Dartz literally take Raphael to the card graveyard and tell him this was a real ass graveyard?

We’ll never know! It gets very vague from here on out!

(read more under the cut)

First off, I’d like to welcome our new guest star--the Rain--there’s a lot of rain in this episode, and we animate it by just making all of our characters glow. This comes through fine in animation, but in caps I just want you to know that no one has gone super Saiyan, they’re just...wet.

PS get a gander at Raphael’s baby boy mutton chop mustache. They somehow got longer with time? And also, when soaked his hair is just as spiky. Everyone on this show has unparalleled hair gel. The real heart of the cards.

Anyway, Dartz shows Raphael a bunch of gravestones and is like “Get it???”

and me, the audience, was like “no???”

The headstones, by the by, aren’t...normal, either, they have Orichalcos symbols on them instead of words. So like...it sort of infers that his family was taken by Orichalcos, too. I mentioned before that it sorta feels like Dartz caused the whole shipwreck to munch up a bunch of yummy souls, and maybe he did in the Japanese version--cuz like...

...why else do all these headstones have Orichalcos symbols on this graveyard that you can only access through a card god like Dartz or Yami?

Just throwing that deep lore out there, and the fact that Raphael can’t really see it or understand is either because that didn’t happen or...Dartz totally killed his family, right? And that makes this relationship between the two of them extremely effed up?

This is a great show for kids with separation anxiety.

Which is...somewhat convincing of a motive for Raphael. He gives Raphael a way to move on from his trauma in the past, and it’s not a GREAT way to move on--but it’s falls in line with things Dartz has done with his other card generals by offering false redemption.

Like Mai needed to move on from her insane jealousy, so Orichalcos was her way to prove she was better than Joey Wheeler (which, honestly, no one needed proof of). Alister needed to move on from his dead brother, so Orichalcos was his way to get revenge. Valon also had a backstory but a bunch of it got deleted in the English version apparently so...

And Rex and Weevil needed...cards? I guess? I think they just needed a ride, mostly. And Orichalcos can give you a ride. It’s not like we had Uber in 2003 and clearly they were not fit for Caltrain.

And like Gurimo.............existed...?

Anyways, they’re looking for justice that they can see. Justice for their pain. To make that pain worth something for more than just suffering. A system where this type of thing can’t happen anymore. But the thing about justice is that...eh...it’s probably not done through cards that kill people.

OH OK, KID’S SHOW.

Mmmmm take in that burying up your grave imagery. Again, this show is rated Y7 for 7 year olds, and I think that’s amazing.

Anyway, this is symbolism that is so heavy handed that it really needs no explanation, so he’s just gonna dig dig dig for...days I guess? Relive his trauma over and over again? Dig up that past like you’re a popular artist on twitter and you gotta make all of your followers relive that time you got called out because you offended a hell ton of people?

(Which is so many people on art twitter right now, ps, you don’t even know which one I’m talking about because It’s SO MANY of them. Art twitter during Quarantine is like watching the fall of Rome but it’s freakin Art Twitter. Everyone’s the freakin worst and just poopin all over themselves as they roll all the way down the steps.)

But I want to know. Who’s grave this is? It has a slightly different meaning if it were his family’s or his own. I guess I’ll have to save it for the fanfiction.

And so to add another level of spook, Raphael’s card mom shows up and kinda just stands there with a sad face?

Raphael’s reaction to seeing his card just alive and hanging out was “I’ll get to you in a sec, I gotta do some unforgivable evil, first.“

WHERE DID THEY GO?

These two shots are like nearly back to back. They’re just GONE. No explanation.

And yes I’m gonna talk about the outfit because it makes no freakin sense, even for a Yugioh card. Granted, this was a show made in Japan, for kids, with a budget that had a limit. A lot of people get involved with these productions, many aren’t artists or historians versed in American History, just basic ass business people. That be TV.

But her outfit looks waaay too modern. Like she’s gonna go to a musical festival, drop acid and climb on top of a statue and take a bunch of instagram selfies and regret all of them 4 years later. If these are Atlantean cards, this is not an Atlantis outfit to match with Dartz, who has been dressed vaguely medieval. So whyyyyy would this girl be dressed more like a vague old western costume bought at a discount so she could vogue in front of installation art at Burning Man in 2008?

Anyway, I won’t even get into the bird that is slowly devouring her face as a stand in for a headdress or wtv. Just a lot of stuff happening here and I just wanna say, Yugioh did it so you won’t need to. Just delete that desire. Yugioh already did it so you are now free from wanting to draw...anything like this problematic situation on your own OCs.

And then Yugioh predicts exactly how I’d feel about this outfit.

And she then lights ON FIRE and falls dead into the grave he just buried for her.

And in case you were like “kinda on the nose there, Yugioh, that got DARK” she climbs out of his own grave with a spooky ass face and no more coconuts to share with her bros and he’s like...

Rapheal’s reaction was like...Ya OK I can get used to this, and Yami is just pointing at the scene desperately trying to follow Raphael’s brain waves.

And like, this is YAMI.

Yami just walked through Yugi Hell earlier today. He’s seen some stuff. He’s already undug his own grave this morning in a more poetic card sort of way. But Raphael’s memories of literally digging up his family’s graves with his bare hands because Dartz told him to was...stuff he didn’t want to see today. (especially since it’s super suggested Dartz was the one who...murdered them in the first place, like I know it’s a reach but...it just feels like we were supposed to reach that conclusion)

But whether or not Dartz put the bodies here or gave Raphael a bunch of phoney graves, Raphael is still essentially siding with the guy who ruined the only thing he has left of his family--this paper card mom--and turned it into an undead evil Mom. And it just had...no freakin impact on Raphael at all.

Like what?

He just murdered your card mom. This is fine?

Card shenanigans continue and Raphael eventually realizes what he should have realized like 10 years ago when he was digging up graves and killing card Mom’s. That maybe it’s a bad idea. So Raphael decides to sacrifice his remaining monsters to “free” them from the graveyard and basically commits suicide. There’s no other way to say it, really. He kills himself.

But wait, right when you figure this episode will end like every other Orichalcos fight before it...They decide not to.

Like an angel from heaven, our drunk ass looking music concert reject descends from the clouds, along with all of Raphael's dead family members!

Yeah.

I REALLY didn’t expect them to show up. This was so much content it’s like...an entire season of any other TV show. I say that a lot with Yugioh but these episodes really like to just jam-pack it in there.

And here I thought I’d actually have to take them off the Death Count one day. Here I thought 4 kids would do something to like...prevent this many dead kids, but I was wrong.

Everyone’s HELLA DEAD.

it’s both vindicating to actually say that, despite 4kids, these kids absolutely died, but also disturbing because even Raphael is like “ah, the hallucinations today are really swell, right?”

NO, GHOST CHILD.

DON’T TELL ME THAT.

And I’ve been over before how “heart of the cards” is a catch-all phrase that can mean literally anything in this show, and it’s not the first time that cards have kept someone’s spirit around. No word on his family members if they are thrilled to be trapped in a Pharaoh situation, or whether they only occasionally drop from the heavens, or whether they have actually been the spirit that was within each of these cards the whole time. I don’t know.

And so the card family “cures” one of the most evil people on this show.

He’s fine now. This guy murdered the hell out of Yugi, our main character, but don’t think nor worry about it. This isn’t the show to worry about such things.

This show has Marik.

Bro and I were talking Star Wars the other day, and mostly about the Kylo Ren arc and how a lot of people happened to dislike that particular ending. Mostly about how there is a difference between your character being redeemed and being forgiven. I think this children’s show wants to redeem Raphael, but honestly, much like Kylo Ren--he’s just forgiven. And that’s fine. You don’t need to have your characters redeemed. We can stop at forgiveness.

And also, Yami forgives him immediately because he knows he can’t throw a single damn stone, his house is made out of 2 mm of extremely problematic glass.

Man, RIP Weevil, right?

Weevil who just pretended to rip up a card that could have been Yugi and got tossed off the freakin Caltrain? Raphael got off so freakin lucky and I am boggled he’s still alive. He freakin killed Yugi!

The injustice to Weevil right now, omg. Not like I enjoy Weevil. I super don’t enjoy that character. But DAMN. Yami murdered Weevil for even mentioning Yugi. Just feels like there’s a bit of a hypocritical line here in how the justice is dished out and...that tracks for a Pharaoh so I’ll just let it go.

And also, looking at that sunshine and I’m pretty sure they’ve been up over 48 straight hours. No one’s slept since Yugi died, right? I mean Yami is fine. We know from Bakura that puzzle people don’t need to sleep, or eat, or have blood in their body. But like Seto really needs to get Mokuba to bed.

(Although I am 85% positive that Mokuba is still part Noah Kaiba so it is...also unlikely that kid sleeps anymore, just leaving Mokuba’s future therapist so much to unpack.)

The GALL of this show right now.

Of all the generals--they saved RAPHAEL? Arguably the worst one?

I would take even Alister. I would take even Weevil.

Raphael?

I mean if he ends up as the next Duke Devlin, just driving us around for the final season of this show I guess I’ll accept this but, damn.

Raphael?

Are you sure, Yugioh???????????????????????????????????

Can’t we just let that guy die? He’s basically dead already, Yugioh. This guy does NOT want to be alive anymore. Literally everyone he cares about is super dead and now he doesn’t even have Card mom because she sacrificed herself to save his soul. This GUY.

I can’t believe Mai is dead but we still have Raphael.

The same disappointment when I watch British Bake off, man, they just...sometimes they save people and I’m like...no man...that one can’t bake. Just because they pulled something off last second does not mean they get to the semifinals. Raphael can’t bake.

Anyway, the episode attempts to end on a cliffhanger but like.

Just want to reiterate how common and boring Earthquakes usually are to a Californian. This was the most normal thing in this episode.

Man.

Freakin Raphael.

Anyway, if you just got here and is like “I don’t know who the hell Raphael even is,” Yeah, I know, I didn’t think twice about the dude until like just now, but if it’s because you’ve never seen my recaps before, I’ll direct you to the link to read these in Chrono order:

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

Anyway, stay safe and have a very happy and safe Halloween alone eating your own carmel dipped apple slices.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 28: Valon Joins the Dead People Gang

So lately it’s been really freakin hot.

Like crazy freakin hot. I haven’t done anything productive because youknow--I live in a Covid hotspot and I’ve been quarantined for what feels like is 6 years, and then to continue the 10 plagues across America, now it’s just really freakin hot.

I was trying to go the hell to sleep when I heard this WIND outside my window at 2 AM. Just...WIND. It was like 5000 degrees outside, and then it started thundering, and then the lightning started hitting and I was like...wtf 2020, please calm down!

So I decided to check Twitter at 3 AM really fast just to make sure this wasn’t a freakin dream. Aaaaaaand Northern California had a Fire tornado warning.

3 words I never thought I’d see in conjunction. Fire tornado Warning.

and it hella dropped in Tahoe, y’all, it was freakin nuts. Meanwhile, Death Valley--the place where Yugi hella biffed it and died, if you don’t remember--hit 130 F (54.4 C, for the metric lovers in the back) so...it’s been a time for every part of California, and now we have some good ol fashioned rolling blackouts accompanied by 27 wildfires (yes, 27 fires) who have turned the sky into a yellow pea soup.

So because of the rolling blackouts (one of our power transformers exploded because of either the lightning or overuse, I dunno) at any point...my power might go out. Because of this, I didn’t feel like booting up Photoshop and so instead I’ll just...work on this.

...something about the Fire Tornado, the yellow shadow realm outside my window, and crazy lightning over San Fransisco reminded me that it’s been a HOT MINUTE since I’ve posted so lets get back to Yugioh. Somehow they knew that the doorway to hell was my back yard and you know what? They’re right. Completely believable and I wish someone would close the damn door.

Tristan read my mind that it’s been such a hot minute since I’ve checked in, that he mansplained a very quick summary of what the hell is currently happening to Tea Gardner.

A brave man, Tristan Taylor. A brave man to risk getting into a fight with Tea, who is the only Goliath on this show that exists without also being a paper card.

Which is when Pharaoh had some news.

I guess without Duke around, Pharaoh had to be the new Killjoy

(read more under the cut)

I exaggerate a little for the caps, but it’s kind of interesting that when Joey is usually on his own, it’s Yugi who’s certain that Joey is about to die and Pharaoh is the one that has to calm little Yugi down. But, when Yugi’s not there, I guess Pharaoh is just already in a Mood.

Mai is really weird this episode! I wish this season had gone into more detail about the extent of the Orichalcos’s mind control. Because Mai could very well be under it’s spell...or not...maybe it has no spell and they’re just falling for it like a placebo?

It’s not like the Orichalcos was ever put on anyone who was “good.” like if it were possessing someone nice like...

....

....(let me think about this, I’ll think of someone on this show who is a true lawful good.)

....

.................Dark Magician Girl, then I’d actually know if this Orichalcos actually IS different from how these characters actually are. But Mai was introduced in this series as a villain, and she’s always been around to bust balls, so it’s like...what part is Mai and what part is not?

Apparently a part that only shows up when Valon dies.

PS Valon turns a very quick 180 right before he died. I honestly thought I had skipped an episode or something because bro mentioned something about...Valon burning down a church or something...but I think that was a spicy headcanon where he mixed up this show with another anime.

I think. If I skipped an episode, y’all would tell me, right? I didn’t skip an episode?

I did skip the card games, however, so something about getting punched like 1000 times in the dick by Joey Wheeler taught Valon how to be human again, and the death that followed the 1000 dick punches inspired Mai to remember that Valon exists and that she Loves Him.

(just flat on his face)

I just...

I am going to give Yugioh this one. They have had so little in terms of relationships--I will give this to them. Good Job Yugioh, you did it. You had a relationship on your show. Sure, it was one where she...never seemed to like the guy at all, but hey--they actually did embrace...a corpse. Good on you, Yugioh.

Again, I have a really difficult time not cracking up about this very tragic moment a little bit because (and I have said this before about relationships on Yugioh), but I have never seen a TV show treat a straight relationship this way. I have never seen Straight Baiting before in my life and it is...WILD.

Also because Valon and Mai have both murdered I want to say hundreds of people at this point, it’s hard to feel too bad about them, although they are drawn as a very cute couple in how their outfits match. They got the finger less gloves, the belts hanging off their collar, the sleeveless outfit that is both too much clothes and too little clothes at the same time.

And like...I really like the idea behind Valon/Mai. I still think that was a good idea to build off of, I just wish that there was more of a sign from Mai that she had any idea that Valon existed prior to this. Because Valon had Orichalcos too, but he was fully able to love her--so what was happening on her end that prevented this? Was it just the amount that she hated Joey was so much more than her love for Valon? Was Valon actually more jealous of her hate of Wheeler and misinterpreted it as love?

Anyway it’s a billion degrees and I don’t have air conditioning so...I think we’ll have more time to think about this next episode. Maybe it’ll occur to me two weeks after this heat wave ends exactly what I am trying to grasp at when it comes to these two, but for now all I can say is...well it was nice.

Ah RIP Valon/tine (or at least I assume that’s the ship name). You lasted almost a whole season. You almost became a thing. I guess well find out if there’s redemption after he eventually gets resurrected.

And on this show we redeem resurrected people kind of a lot, so that seems reasonable. Sure it was a couple hundred people that he murdered but like...we redeemed Marik.

And then she goes back to wigging out like immediately. The flipping and the flopping of Mai Valentine in this episode is a lot.

And immediately after he says something along the lines of this, he follows with...doing this:

Joey! Valon just died so you wouldn’t have to duel Mai Valentine! He’s dead, Joey! Maybe try talking???

The thing about this show is that cards can both heal you and also destroy you, and the line between the two is just...rolling a dice and hoping you come out healed. Yugi played cards against Yami so that Yami could free himself from his guilt and move on--Valon was healed of Orichalcos control because Joey beat him at cards--Seto was “cured” of his more evil side because Yami mind wiped him in a card game--card magic is weird.

At the same time, Cards can take your soul in just So Many Ways--kind of one of the downsides. But, in a very round about way, maybe cards are kind of like therapy in this world. Maybe they don’t have therapy, and all these kids playing card games with eachother is metaphorical to how they all need eachother in order to push eachother to actually go through the steps of-

Ah, who am I kidding? They just really needed to have Mai lose at cards so they could write her off the show.

I do appreciate that the show never tells you that someone’s actions in the past mean they must rot for eternity. This show will never cancel anyone and say “burn that bridge, let’s go” but I feel like murder is...the line where you can just walk away?

But youknow if that were true of Joey wheeler he’d have no friends left.

During this time, The Yugioh crew was inexplicably lost while, for once in his entire life, Seto was going the correct direction.

Unfortunately, the lure to throw cards at thing was too much for him to go the right direction for very long. It is kind of funny to note that he is the smartest boy in Domino--so he knows you can drive through a hologram--but he just didn’t want to know if they were real or not, so he...didn’t.

Like I think that says a lot about Seto, and I’m sure the show-runners didn’t think about this at all, but he could have tested his theory right now. He could have just seen if these were real in order to know if he was crazy or not...but he’d rather be insane, than be involved with magic.

Anyways, Mai drops that Orichalcos.

Reminder that San Francisco is only 7-12 miles from one end to the other depending on what part of the peninsula you’re on.

But then again, they’re reading a map in Roman characters and these kids are school dropouts who only speak Japanese and maybe Spanish. Maybe they’re actually doing really, really well considering the language barrier?

Anyway that’s all for now I’m gonna go pass out and hopefully when I wake up it’ll be next week when it is no longer hot. If you just got here, this is a link to read these caps from the beginning!

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

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 12: Pharaoh, a Well Known Magician of Darkness, Swears he Has Never Done That.

I just had the most disappointing cheesecake cup of my entire life, so lets talk about Yugioh. From weird dessert to weird desert. ha.

I mean OK. Sure. I mean they gotta do something while they look for Yugi in a desert that isn’t really known for it’s off-roading, but it also isn’t known for it’s card game scene so...

But then the show decided to fill even more empty time with Rebecca sharing this piece of info when I least expected it. Now. In S4.

Y’all I was SO surprised.

I know that the show is doing this for the people just tuning into Yugioh for the first time but...Man, I’m having flashbacks to that time Yugi didn’t tell anyone that Bakura freakin died for over 40 episodes until Marik had to do it for him.

Yugi never told the girl he gave the friendship card to, that his best friend is ACTUALLY a 4000 yo ghost that haunts his every move. (5000 yo? I forget how old he is)

Tea just patiently reveals all of Yugi’s deepest darkest terrifying occult secrets to Rebecca with a smile on her face the entire time.

That’s girl talk. Can affirm--this is what girl talk looks like.

(read more Girl Talk under the cut)

Her explanation on the show actually did not point out that there is a separate entity with a completely different personality, so I think that people watching the show for the first time would still be hella confused. Instead it was more “this is Yugi’s strong and handsome side which I clearly like WAY MORE, and this is the other one”

Like she kinda left out the part where one is a ghost.

So this scene basically takes away any tension that a 4-way love square would have brought to the table.

And that’s fine. I really didn’t need a love square that involves both a 12 year old and a ghost. For me, as a person who is immune to shipping, it just seemed wildly too complicated for the same writing team who have been trying to bury Kaiba and his relationship with that that paper card since they brought it up in S2.

But apparently no one in this square cares they all kinda like the same person and that this particular person is two people. And as they go on about what they like about Yugi, it’s clear that both girls have made kind of a perfect dream Yugi who...just doesn’t exist at all. Maybe if either of them actually went on more than one date with the boy, they would separate the dream from the reality and realize fully that, in actuality, Yugi and Pharaoh both are a human version of that “hang in there!” poster with the struggling kitten on it.

TBH I think the women in this show forgot they like Yugi, it was a very friendzoning style of conversation.

Meanwhile, Rafael’s giant arms only continue to grow even more muscular with every scene as he tell us the vague deep lore behind this necklace. It’s sort of like watching a webcomic written by a teenager. The muscles keep growing, and growing, but the characters have to keep getting distracted by lore, and then midway the lore drop, the writer goes on a hiatus because of finals and just never comes back so it feels like you’re stuck in lore limbo forever.

I do like that Pharaoh’s like “your necklace is evil, take that off” when he has also been wearing the Oricalchos necklace the entire time.

Maybe because it was just waaay too tempting for Yugi to look at that jewelry and NOT wear that jewelry? Yugi has kind of a magpie problem with accessories, as we all know, and I can’t believe this magpie problem has put him into mortal peril so many times.

And then the show finally does us the favor of explaining why some people go cray when they wear haunted jewelry, and others do not.

Which does not bode well for Ryou. Not like we ever hang out with Ryou enough to find out his personal balance between being a meek little Brishish(ish?) kid that likes to eat cookies and his demon form that likes to stab things. Like seriously, would have liked to know more about Ryou ever at all, but since Season 1 ended, he’s only Ryou for like...2 minutes at a time before he’s back to being wonderful, scene shredding, serial murderer asshole Bakura.

Also, unrelated note, WHAT THE HELL, ART TEAM.

Is that turtleneck just spray painted on??? Why does this guy ever bother with cards? He can just do some punches and probably accomplish the same damn thing and a lot quicker. This man is larger than...any other human that has been on this show.

And so it’s at this point that Rafael’s decided like “ahaha my master plan, I will make Pharaoh doubt himself” and it’s like...

...you actually don't need to give Pharaoh a push, he and Yugi doubt themselves so often they’d list it as one of their hobbies on their edgy Livejournals (because they would keep two)

This fight with Rafael was kinda frustrating, because while most villains make points where it’s like “oh, you were tortured underground your whole life because of something I did in my past life, yeah that checks out.” all of Rafael’s points had so little to do with Pharaoh and were...so easy to debunk...

Like I made the joke about Flat Earther’s the last recap but you know what? I can see Rafael being a Flat Earther. Straight up. You can tell him the sky is blue and he’ll start going off about how all of humanity needs to die because the sky is actually made of Meyer lemons.

Darts even decided to say this line.

Which I thought was mostly funny because Pharaoh still has no idea that thing around his neck can shoot lasers, but also funny because the only reason Yugi has friends is because he initially cursed them to like him in Season Zero. And that wasn’t even Pharaoh, that was YUGI. Rafael is just SO very late to this party.

So, he decides to give Pharaoh an Oricalchos card, and like...

And I don’t believed I capped this part of the last episode, but before they even started this game, Rafael was like “yeah I let Arthur go.”

So...there’s no reason for Yugi to be here anymore other than the bridge is out. There are NO stakes in this game. Other than...Pharaoh’s pride?

I guess it’s one of the problems of sharing a soul with a King who we’re 90% sure did some pretty effed up stuff at some point because he’s a King. That’s just what they DO, I’ve played Fire Emblem, I know how Kings work.

Like we could just sit down and make a list of things that Pharaoh and Yugi did that ended up really screwing him over. (And hearing that nitroglycerin air hockey happens somewhere in the manga does make me want to take a peek at it eventually but I have too much on my to do list)

Like for instance, there was that time he took a fireball for Mai thinking she was a decent person and she ended up killing over 20 people with a gas station and is now a Mad Max Style serial murderer racing down the 101, and actively trying to kill him and more specifically Joey Wheeler.

Or that time he took the ultimate bullet and died but left his tomb to the most asshole tombkeeper family cult known to man who like to carve tattoos onto children with old ass hot butcher knives for thousands of years.

Or that time he thought Namu wasn’t Marik when Marik had insane tattooed eyeliner and a millennium item sticking like 8 inches out of his back pocket the entire time. Could’ve saved him like...2 seasons of content if he just yoinked that item right then and there.

Or that time he actually tried to murder Seto Kaiba. Like actually tried to push his own classmate off of a steep ledge and would have done it if Tea hadn’t intervened.

Or that time he did...a lot of the things that Yugi did in Season Zero and the Manga.

I just feel like...this is our boy. He’s meant to be this gray area protagonist who is trying to do the right thing but at the same time does enjoy his dark tendency towards revenge. Yami is sort of like having the best of both worlds where you can be both villain and hero. He doesn’t need to be a polarizing force like Superman or something.

And...it feels a little bit like the narrative is trying to say he has finally stepped over the line of gray area and it’s like...he’s been here kind of a while, bud. But honestly, if it makes Pharaoh go a little Zero I’m here for it. Why not? It’s been a while, I want to see him go nuts again.

And I mean Yugi hasn’t had a meltdown in kind of a while, we were overdue. I assume that’s all of next episode is just Yugi freaking the hell out.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to take you to the first episode where you can then read the entire epic in chrono order.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep10 pt 1: Yugioh Predicted the California Drought

Ah, my break is officially over, and it’s a new year, and so far, this year kind of sucks so lets get distracted and watch some TV. IF ONLY we could solve the world’s issues with a bunch of lost children from Japan carrying magical paper cards, amiright?

Anyway, Seto reflects on these cards that he came alllll the way to California to learn about, only to learn about them, and then decide “Yeah I didn’t really want to know that, Yugi.”

I just want to remind everyone that last episode I said “and now Kaiba has joined the party” and it lasted like less than one conversation with Yugi before Seto was like “oh hell no” and just walked out in that purple ball gown, trailing behind him like a complete diva.

Yugi needs to curse his friends to like him more often, is what I’m saying.

(read more under the cut)

So, staring at the fallout of their rekindled friendship with Kaiba that lasted less than a minute, Joey makes an observation.

And then Yugi just wonders “the hell is this plot supposed to go if a Kaiba isn’t here to abduct my family/tell me what to do/get abducted themselves?”

So they decide to reach out to the only other person on this show with a degree than Seto Kaiba.

(And TBH, Seto probably just decided to buy a new degree in graphic design from Devry so he wouldn’t have to finish public school and spend another millisecond in the same room as Joey Wheeler.)

And I have to give Yugi credit for finally deciding to visit the only adult he knows in America. Way to finally find an adult, Yugi. Took 4 season’s but you’ve finally done it. Gonna go visit Arthur Hawkins and dance awkwardly around this Rebecca situation that I guess Tea is fine with now. She used to be jealous, but I think Tea genuinely enjoys spending time with Rebecca now. The jealousy kind of disappeared once the plot picked up.

And Kaiba just takes off in the most wasteful plane ever invented, off to destroy precious fossil fuels on some other side of the planet.

Kind of weird that Tea would rather fly in that asshole dragon plane than Duke Devlin’s sweet retro car, but youknow...I’ve mentioned before that Tea is secretly just a Kaiba-lite without the cards. Of course she’d prefer an asshole dragon jet.

And Yugi would be able to fit in the suit-case compartment of the dragon jet. Just put the suitcase on Mokuba’s lap, and then stuff Yugi into that little slot, he’d be fine.

And honestly Kaiba made the correct choice, because what these guys had to go through is absolutely ridiculous. First off, Duke is like “Oh, this is really close to here” (remember they are in the Financial District of SF) and he just turns directly off of 101 and blows through some bird sanctuary somewhere.

Like y’all, everywhere that doesn’t have a house or a cow field on it in the Bay Area is a protected bird sanctuary, weird fact about the Bay Area, and Duke killed so many birds this episode. The South Bay is SO DEVELOPED.

Course, that is again assuming that the art staff knew that they were drawing the Bay Area, which they SUPER DID NOT.

Now this rock structure, I’m sure, is there to mimic the next shot with the giant ass building--it helps make pleasing screen transitions. But...at what cost?

AT WHAT COST?

Just....

Like I am starting to think the landscapers only knew how to draw one type of mountain and that was it. Square mesas only. They were just unprepared for hills. And like...we only have wild grass that is green like this for like...2 months of the year. That’s it. That’s what my Winter looks like, it’s when the grass is alive.

How did this happen?

Anyway, Mai is alive, and really upset about it. Will she at all reflect on her behavior, and realize that if the main mini-bosses are telling you to knock it the hell off, then maybe there is something wrong with you? Like these are two people who I assume harvested a ton of souls off screen like actual serial killers and they’re like “Girl. You’re like being hella mean right now and need to tone it down.”

I mean, if Mai gets better, than that basically gives Joey absolutely nothing to do in this season so, gotta keep Mai completely bonkers. There she goes. On a motorcycle.

And if you thought Yugioh was done throwing recreational and vintage vehicles in your face, well don’t worry, they even got the OG vintage vehicle, check this one out:

A freakin horse.

And I have to tell you...horses are hard to draw and animate and Yugioh doesn’t do a great job and it is wonderful. I love seeing this horse kind of awkwardly stumble around. It’s very good stuff. Like clearly these artists do not love horses as much as they love one of these:

Of course, get allllll the vehicles in this episode, Yugioh, bring back Marik on his yacht, I dare you.

And then...this very bizarre set of things happen in succession. I’ll just show you.

NICE.

WOW.

That entire house just exploded.

Not just a part of it--but the entire freakin house.

They were there for like less than 30 seconds, and just demolished that entire house like it was Independence Day the movie.

And like that whole house situation was pretty bonkers anyway, not sure why they need a planetarium when they research undersea structures, but youknow what? Arthur Hawkins would. 

And don’t you dare do the math and think about how much a house with a planetarium and a horse stable in it would cost in Silicon Valley. It’s way too depressing, trust me.

And yes, that probably exists. Lots of horse people in Los Altos, and it makes me wonder if maybe they based Rebecca’s home on Stanford University? Maybe? I feel like these animators think Stanford is in San Fransisco. That one seems likely to me.

Also, kudos to the horse that it got blasted 50 ft away by an explosion and not only is the horse completely OK, but so is all of her groceries. That is one power horse, right here. I mean the groceries are still covered in so much horse ass smell, but youknow, Rebecca’s 12 so it’s not the horse’s or Rebecca’s fault that she has no idea how groceries work. We should just be glad that she bought vegetables when she went to the store and not just 8 cartons of pop tarts.

So, hours pass, no police show up, and Yugi and co walk into this bleak situation.

Fortunately, the massive explosion did not explode the truck-led RV outside.

A truck that...could’ve been used to go and get the damn groceries, may I add. If Arthur Hawkins used the TRUCK and done his own job without sending his granddaughter into a modern town on a horse, then he would have been at the grocery store and his house would never have exploded. This one is on Arthur, honestly. Then again, he seems like he kinda has the parenting skills of Yugi’s family, who just kinda...delivered him to San Fransisco un-aided and was like “have fun storming the castle”

This ship is kind of hilarious in action, not gonna lie. Yugi’s here with a grandpa who came back from the dead and is like “They don’t really need your grandpa, so he’s probably fine” and it’s like wtf. That’s terrible advice, Yugi.

Anyway, they apparently needed the Oricalchos necklace that Yugi handed off to Arthur back in like the first episode. So Yugi didn’t exactly mean for this to happen, but yet again, because Yugi and Pharaoh can’t be bothered to keep track of their own magical items themselves, someone else goes off with them and gets super screwed. Again. At least Arthur isn’t totally evil (although he still might and go rogue like Marik, and we all know that would be a very funny hairstyle if it happened)

So Rebecca happens to have this necklace just on your person (WTF, ARTHUR THAT’S YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER) and she gives it back to Yugi, where it should have stayed in the first place since he’s haunted by powerful ghost powers and is the only one here that can handle all these haunted Mordor rings. (just remembered he left Bakura’s ring in Japan. I’m sure that’s not going to be a problem later.)

So, that’s all for Part One. As you can see, I’m a little behind schedule, but youknow, I got lazy over the break, and then I drew Joey Wheeler a bunch when I planned to be typing, and it was overall a really great use of my time. No regrets.

And if you just got here this is a link to read the Yugioh recaps from the start. One of these days I’ll put the link into seasons but that does mean I have to retag stuff.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 14 pt 2: Failed Attempt to Get a Ride to Jacksonville

Yo so fun fact, things have been WEIRD over here and I’ve been very distracted by...all the weird stuff going on. I basically had to put a block app on my computer so I would not use any of my social media because it’s like...things are NUTS right now and it’s hard to work from home if it’s like that. Anyway, I was so distracted, that when I paced these caps out initially I thought this was like...half an episode. It’s short though. Oops.

Whatever, it happens. Better a post than no post right? This week I’ve been doing so many other things that uh I didn’t get around to watching much Yugioh. So a little post is fortuitous.

Anyway, last we left off, Yami has decided to regroup and figure out “well...what do I do once they kill off Yugi? Retire, right? Like I have no idea what other thing I do than help/harass this child?”

And then Tea actually suggests something along the line of this

Which is hilarious, because I’m so incredibly fed up with my government at the moment (yo voting season is around the corner--just reminding anyone reading this to double check that you’re registered). But luckily, Rebecca was there to say “yo we do not have any proof” which is a complete lie, because a huge ass eye was in the sky over Japan, but also Rebecca was wise to get them to stop trying to get through American Bureaucracy.

Like I’m not saying the US would allow Sky Eye to continue if they were made aware of it, it’s just that it takes a really long time? Like you can “Mr Smith Goes To Washington” the Evil Sky Eye but you have to write a letter and then remember how to address a letter, and then you have to send it, and then call people, and make a lot of forms. It’s boring TV.

(read more under the cut)

So Professor Hawkins, sensing that boring TV was incoming decided to walk out of the bedroom and just plot dump on us.

So although we know what the inscriptions say, because Hawkins JUST TOLD US, I guess he was like “you have nothing better to do, go spend a ton of money and get yourself to Florida.”

And so I guess that’s Goodbye California Geography for now. It was good while you lasted. Glad it happened. Glad I got to see the Golden Gate in Yugioh randomly and hang out in Pegasus’ hometown.

(Genuinely curious if Joey and the rest of them will ever stop calling the Ghost in Yugi’s body “Yugi.” I mean...he kinda killed Yugi, you’d think they’d try not to remind him of that every 5 seconds.)

So lets see how Seto is doing. He’s back in his office chair, hasn’t changed since yesterday (although he might just have a closet entirely of black turtlenecks, he just seems like the type) and we’re back to wondering what the hell this guy even does at this company.

I guess Seto hasn’t changed his number since he was in Spanish class with them like a year ago. And for some reason they decided to set up a webcam which is even another level because...I didn’t know you could do that in 2003. Like we had chat services for web chatting and 500 px wide videos--but I believe phones used their own network for video calls. I could be wrong though.

Anyway, this looks hella low tech, but another instance where Yugioh was trying to be near future tech but modern kids wouldn’t...think it is special at all.

PS this is the weirdest way to tell someone that their best friend is dead.

Like remember how they didn’t even tell Kaiba that Bakura died when Bakura was in his own tournament? Well they just LEAPT to tell him that Yugi freakin biffed it, and it is so confusing to everyone watching this call. They don’t even bother to explain that it’s Pharaoh standing there instead of Yugi. They’re just like “Yugi’s hella dead” and Mokuba’s nonchalantly like “......wait.”

And then Seto just loses his entire mind. there were so many frames of animation for this transformation.

And youknow, what’s even weirder than telling someone that their best friend is dead, is this reaction.

And that is the story about how Joey Wheeler did not get a ride from Seto Kaiba, and how the simple act of Joey Wheeler asking Seto Kaiba for a ride, undid an entire year of therapy and pushed Seto Kaiba completely back into card crazy.

That is canon.

Back at home base, no one remembers how transportation works. I guess this was an age before Uber.

They have a CAR attached to the RV...right?

Like there’s 2 CARS here????

But sure, lets take a train to go to the airport that should be closer now that we’re out of the city. Not sure which train this is. None of our trains look like this.

Anyway, next time on Yugioh I’m pretty sure we’re going to be commuting again.

Is that what it feels like to not be American and visiting America? Just a hell ton of commuting? Because I’m kind of used to spending hours in my car every day, but maybe to people from Japan it’s like “Oh man, America--it’s like this huge ass city, and then it’s just HELL DESERTS FOREVER” which in some states, is in fact accurate.

I don’t know if I’ll be getting a post out this week--maybe? I’m not sure, I got some stuff to catch up on and because I’m spending so much less time on my computer, it might be a week in between updates. Maybe I’ll put up a graveyard--we’ve collected quite a few. Not sure. But maybe there’ll be a post? No one knowwwwws.

And here’s a handy link to read these in order.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 9: Denial on so Many Fronts

I’ve managed to have a pretty open timeslot this holiday, where I decided I was going to do lots of catch up work. (I have instead filled up my Background Music Playlist with lots of youtube piano covers of Castlevania.)

So of course I find myself back at this blog to fill the leftover time, it being so many weeks (months, actually) since I was able to do a double update weekend (spoiler, I did not finish a second update  :) ).

This episode, Yugioh decided to legitimately enter romance territory and y’all it is something. And I don’t mean it in a “Ain’t that something!” sort of way, I mean it in the “That is...something.” Kind of way. And for the first time in forever, I actually have to talk about romance today. For once that is actually something this episode is about. For about 5 entire minutes. It’s staggering.

So lets get into it because the stance the show decides to take against the only valid romantic relationship it’s had outside of Pegasus sure is something.

Duke has managed to get inside Pegasus’ facility/Place Duke works at every single day. Incredible that he finally made it inside of his actual workplace. Whether he just found an open door or Metal Geared up a trash chute is undeclared, since that was all off screen between episodes, but maybe he has to do this like...all the time? Like heaven forbid Duke ever leave his phone at the office because this place seems iron clad and apparently there is absolutely no one he can call to let him in.

Like for reals isn’t Duke upper level management or something? Like a team director for an entire model of card game? Wtv, I guess he got demoted at some point and now he’s at the same level as a Google temp.

Duke used to air on international TV, just throwing that out there. He used to be a very big deal. Course, for all we know, maybe he also got locked out of his game store all the freakin time?

Anyway, he finds some random room he’s decided is the security room and uh...

Starts just mashing buttons.

I assume that he was just mashing the entire time it took for this duel to last, PS, because we all know that password, but does Duke? Is Duke, in fact, the only character left on this show that doesn’t know Pegasus’ password because he wasn’t there in most of S1?

(read more under the cut)

As Joey is playing Mai, he’s noticed that she is freaking out, but only intermittently. She’s going in between personalities like Yugi and Pharaoh.

In the show it makes it seem like she’s “Snapping out of it” as far as the Orichalcos’ effects go. But like...becoming a stumbling crying mess in between card draws is sort of like...not making Joey look like a good guy.

In fact, this episode goes out of their way to try and paint him a hero but they didn’t accomplish that. They start to. It starts to look like that. As Mai is breaking down, she loses her weird Oricalchos ability to no longer feel fear, and Joey takes the opportunity to try and get her to away from the dark side.

Thing is, the duel has already started so it’s kind of moot now since neither she nor Joey really know how to end the duel without killing the other. So it’s like he’s trying to reach out to her the only way he can since this duel wasn’t his choice anyway, but it is in a way that is killing both of them. Symbolism, I guess. 

You know, it seemed like the show just needed a way to put a timer over Joey’s head and this was the only excuse they could give because the right thing to have done is just not play anything.

And that whole thing last episode where Pharaoh was like “there is ONE way out of this situation” I assumed would be about a tie. I kind of just assumed a tie would take place like between Kaiba and Alister...instead...it got weird.

First off, Valon--out of all people, Valon the drug card pusher of the wacky accent--decided to be more heroic than any of our heroes who are currently just gawking at a force field.

It’s been like 4 seasons since Yugi jumped and hung off the edge of a clocktower, only holding on by the point of his pyramid puzzle, and I keep seeing situations where we could see Yugi impress us yet again and instead he keeps his feet planted firmly on the ground while random ass Valon just shoots into the air like a rubber band.

Why didn’t I just assume that when Pharaoh said “I know how to beat this.” he meant to punch it directly in the face?

I’m pretty sure it’s an allusion to the fact that Oricalchos takes away your sense of fear that these three are constantly being huge idiots and jumping off ledges and out of airplanes but like...

...they are wearing a lot of padding, to be fair.

(I joke about Joey getting possessed as if he hasn’t been already)

And so Valon, this evil as hell villain who’s probably killed countless numbers of people up until now just starts freaking out about Mai. Like, a lot for this show. Like we even get a really awkward death squeeze. And like she ain’t even dead.

Almost like Severus Snape in that awkward Harry Potter Movie flashback, but Valon actually dated her once (I could go off about the Harry Potter movies but I’ll spare you.) It’s just every time Mai passes out there will be some man crying over her that she doesn’t even seem remotely aware of when she’s awake.

Like remember how Mai got engaged and she forgot? At the time I thought that was super weird but I’m starting to realize she probably just took a nap or something and then boom.

So although none of this is Raphael’s business, he’s so annoyed at Valon for possibly pissing off Darts that he decides to deflect his anger onto Pharaoh--who wasn’t even participating in this duel.

I mean Raphael wanted to kill Pharaoh anyway but it still feels like kind of a reach.

Speaking of reach...I miss our really good storyboarder. Check out that foreshortened hand. Man Yugioh, the whiplash from good to eh. It’s so much whiplash.

So, in a burst of green light, the three bikers vanish.

And I guess now they can just use Mai’s bike whenever, because it’s not like she’s gonna use it. But I doubt very much Tristan will remember that.

And so, this is about where this episode’s romance goes a little weird because Joey just...

Am I supposed to want Joey to break up Valon and Mai? Like I know one time Joey attempted to take a fireball for her (but didn’t, that was Pharaoh, who isn’t currently crying about Mai despite taking a fireball for her), and then another time Joey dueled Marik for her (and lost.) But like...then Joey lost touch with her for over a year and legitimately didn’t seem bothered until just now when she showed up.

Valon not only seems at least 2 years older than Joey, he’s also stuck around with her for longer than a week, which is much longer than the amount of time that Joey Wheeler has spent with her (while she was conscious). And listen I don’t ship, you know me, but I feel like the show isn’t doing a good job to convince me that Valon is anything but loyal to Mai. Just throwing that out there.

It just comes off that Joey is jealous and unable to cope with Mai being around another guy, when it’s like...Joey...Mai was gone for over a year. You can’t claim dibs anymore. It’s possessive this episode to a degree I don’t think the writers wanted to go. It feels like an accident that they wrote him like this.

I guess, story wise, Joey needs a reason to duel and be on this show--but why must it always gravitate around a girl who’s actually just fine without him?

Like Mai right now is a mess but she wants to be this mess. Personally I think he should respect her decision and give her space but I guess this show really wants to go the angle of “If your friend goes off the deep end, dive after them” to which I would like to say “or don’t.”

Like I think this is all on a case by case basis, but...Mai’s MURDERED people (and a gas station). Although one of them was Pegasus, who doesn’t count, this is still a situation where you should maybe avoid your friend and just call the cops already. If there has been a murder, especially if there’s been over 20 murders, it’s OK to finally call the cops. Mai is a SERIAL MURDERER, which should never mean “she can come back.”

I mean it’s not like any of these kids decided to start hanging out with Marik, right? And I mean they kinda all decided unanimously that maybe they should hold back chilling with Bakura? This should be old hat for them now. They’ve had to deal with the murderous betraying friend so many times. Why must Mai be so special?

But I guess that is Joey’s whole shpeal, isn’t it? That’s Joey’s magical superpower? He wouldn’t be friends with Yugi if he was bothered by his friend occasionally going Pure Asshole. And Joey did have a darker background himself (which is something the show keeps telling me but I have never actually seen because we haven’t seen it in Season Zero. Which honestly means I should do a Season Zero next because how long am I going to wait to watch that Joey backstory?)

So I guess I should stop being so practical about it, this is a fantasy story, and the fantasy of Joey Wheeler is that he can actually try to keep the people in his life from going topside and it actually works. The most magical person in all of Yugioh if that’s true because you ever try and change a drug addict? There’s a reason why they have therapists for that.

Speaking of topside,

Kaiba just shows up in the middle of a Joey meltdown and youknow what? He’s barely even that surprised that these guys are in San Fransisco crying on the floor of his ex-competitor’s lobby. He’s just so used to this.

And so, we’re all going to ignore Joey and just try not to notice Rex and Weevil and instead talk about cards.

Ps in the show Mokuba says his brother “swept the floor” of Alister when like...Seto nearly died multiple times. Mokuba’s so ready to lie his face off to save his brother’s face when like...no one asked. He just volunteered this information.

That and Mokuba might not actually know how this game is played (NO ONE REALLY KNOWS) and legitimately thinks his brother did really good in that card game. We still don’t know entirely what the title “Battle Commissioner” even meant and knowing this company it was probably a secret job made to hide lots and lots of illicit insider trading. Because we all know Mokuba wasn’t playing cards.

So, Yugi remembers that he has this key card that is a card with a key printed on it, and figures...it probably opens a door or something. That maybe they should do that thing they came to California to do, and since all (counts on fingers) 9 of them (10 if you count Pharaoh) are here, they may as well all do it together.

Meanwhile, every animator in that studio cried a single tear over the amount of bad hair they will have to shove into every frame between 9 of these people. Crowd scenes wow.

And what’s great about this next shot is that you have no idea which way Joey’s head is pointed. I dare you. take it in.

And so they all go up to the top floor with Duke Devlin while these two are just...still here.

Rex and Weevil are still here. Despite everything.

(forgive me if this is a joke I forgot I read off of tumblr once. I’ve been reviewing this show so long I just...I don’t remember what jokes I’ve already made)

(Also, I can’t believe they stuck in Rex and Weevil but didn’t put in Mokuba into this shot.)

So they open the cryptic door with the cryptic Keycard and enter...Pegasus’ room of toon suits.

I imagine he just pulls these out whenever there’s an event in the city, just like “Hell yes hell yes it’s Bay to Breakers time to be a parrot with boobs for some reason.”

(fun fact, despite the weather, SF is home to 3 clothes-optional beaches. You can see two of them from the Bridge.)

And so Pegasus decides to tell everybody what we already know. Rex and Weevil have overheard this, but they’re busy like...looking for trading cards in all these mascot suits. Whatever makes it easier for this team of animators. Like you never really think about it, but kid’s shows have just a hell ton of crowd scenes. Worse than a Marvel comic right here.

PS, if you are designing a comic or a drawn story of any degree--just never allow a party to be more than 4 people at a time, Kill off anyone you have to in order to make this happen, you’ll thank me later. Never EVER a draw a crowd scene. Once you do, then other people will think that you can draw crowd scenes, and you never, ever want anyone to know that.

It was nice of Pegasus to let Arthur Hawkin’s take the fame for Atlantis, I guess. But like...Pegasus just...he really doesn’t seem to care about the fate of humanity unless it inconveniences his card game.

Bro brought up “how much do you think Pharaoh even knows about America other than it’s a place across the sea that Rebecca lives? Like do you think that he has a good grasp on there being 7 continents?” and I’m guessing...not much. Course this is like a weird America with mesas and deserts in Napa so...I don’t know if the animators have a good grasp even.

Anyway, where do you think the key is?

And What do you think the key is?

So in the show Kaiba sees this card and goes “It’s a worthless card” (because I dunno maybe he forgot for the zillionth time that this was how he got turned into a playing card) and then Pharaoh replies “Maybe to you it is.” and like...

...You know the thought crossed Pharaoh’s mind.

To just put a little Seto in there.

Youknow, it took me 4 seasons but I can deffo see why and how Pegasus did it. If I were in Pegasus’ shoes, how long would it take me before the Kaiba kids are paper? Like 10-20 minutes tops? Especially with how completely insane Kaiba acts this episode?

And speaking of endless denial, Joey still hasn’t quite caught up to the plot.

He’s getting there, but he’s mentally still crying on the floor of the lobby.

Just Joey going all ham about a girl he hasn’t thought about in over a year. And then from the other side of the room, Kaiba is still coming to terms with Ep 2.

Like you have to hand it to Duke Devlin that not once in this entire series has he had a denial meltdown. Even Yugi had a denial meltdown (at several points) but Duke? Duke’s just winging it. Dukes just has no idea what’s happening or what he’s doing and is just winging it every second he’s been alive. He’d fit right into San Fransisco.

Like remember Duke hangs out in the bad parts of the Tenderloin for some reason, he deals with PG&E just deleting your power willy nilly and still making you pay for it, Comcast, Bay Area traffic, and, of course, the entire North Bay lighting on fire once a year, so he’s totally fine when it comes to cards.

And so Yugi, just unable to think of any solution to Kaiba being a wall just holds this up

And so with that, Kaiba has joined the party. I guess.

Well, back to eating this large stack of holiday cookies. Hope y’all have a good one--happy holidays! 

It’s been a very weird year, but we’ve had some good news here in the States recently, I’m sure you all heard about it, that Inktober is legally unprofitable so now that means there will be nigh an Inktober ever again, and I am so stoked. I am so excited that the decade of hellish Inktobers is finally over.

That and the other stuff that happened but we won’t get into that ;)

Hopefully I’ll do another post before 2020 but I’m sort of in denial that 2020 is happening so I’m doing my best not to look at the calendar.

And if you just got here, this is where you can read my recaps in Chrono order from S1 Ep1

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep8: Magic Mai

So fun fact, I was out of town around this Thanksgiving and I grabbed a laptop from my Dad’s stack of machinery he’s sort of collected over the years and lo and behold--he put Linux on it.

Like I dunno if you all can relate to this problem, but everything he touches turns into Linux and he’s trying to live this Windows free/Mac free lifestyle, and I get it, I’m friends with so many vegetarians, but like I hate this laptop. I'm using Gimp to make these screenshots...So I can re-do them later in Photoshop because...it just doesn’t feel right to put Papyrus on this computer. It already has Linux. This poor machine has suffered enough. Long story short, this’ll be a small update because right clicking on linux is ass.

Also, because I was on a laptop and realized how small my blog is for the first time--I don’t have control over the size of pictures in text posts, tumblr does, and in this particular theme it’s not allowing me to change the size, and so do me a favor. Click ctrl and + at the same time a couple times (I’m assuming most of you are on firefox). There. the pictures are the right size now. If you hated that, you can click ctrl and - but like lets be real, my font is occasionally...tiny.

Anyway, we start discussing this episode on the confusing legs of the last one, where Mai is evil now, and it’s really not entirely clear if she’s possessed or if she’s just always been this way, or if she just FEELS like it.

And that’s all this episode is about, start to finish--is this Mai’s choice or was this not Mai’s choice? The answer is the same as it would be for a normal person: it’s complicated. Maybe it’s everybody’s choice. Maybe it was because no one did anything that Mai went completely haywire? Maybe it was because Mai hid how she was feeling so no one had any idea she needed help? Or, overall, maybe Mai is kind of a toxic person and wanted to be this way? Especially while she’s on children’s cartoon card drugs?

(read more under the cut)

So to start off, a weird thing happened at the beginning of this episode. After about 4 seasons, someone finally mentioned this:

How many seasons has Yugi been talking to himself? Like, out loud. In front of everyone and Kaiba? This whole time, right? Like Valon just dashed my headcanon where I figured Yugi was smart enough to think his thoughts instead of speak his thoughts. He’s just not that smart, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Mai has managed to attract this other (teenager?) guy and like...to go worse than Joey so quickly is kind of shocking. Mai just seems embarrassed by the amount of very young boys in love with her. And she’s not even a cougar about it, she doesn’t really seem to want this to happen but it keeps on happening.

And although he is essentially the card form of a drug pusher, Valon has this soft spot for a girl I guess to give him some sort of redeemable flaw. However, she only wears tube tops and minis and spends like hundreds of dollars on her hair, so it doesn’t really make him seem any less shallow, tbh.

PS I’m surprised, that unlike all the other characters on Yugioh, I can’t just type in Valon’s name into Google and get his age and weight. No idea what his age is, and if you know, feel free to tell me but he just seems...exactly the same age as Joey. He seems very 17. Maybe it’s the obsession with motorcycles and children’s playing cards? Maybe it’s his big ol childlike eyes? He just seems young and niave like how a teenager who just fell in love with a very angry older woman would.

Joey tries to remind everyone, multiple times, that this game is the worst idea ever since it requires one of them to super die, but Mai is on card drugs so I don't know why they bothered. Also, why is Joey still surprised by this after 4 seasons of this?

Yo it’s S4 and Mai witnesses magic non-stop but still has basically no idea how it works. She really did say “I have no soul” and it was like...I’m 90% certain she literally thinks she has no soul right now. Which I guess, statistically speaking, is rare to actually have a still intact soul after hanging out with the main villain, with the way this show typically goes.

Meanwhile, last episode it really sounded like Duke Devlin was driving to Pegasus’ company building. It really sounded like he would have gone directly there, since Weevil and Rex told him that Yugi was going to Pegasus.

Remember that Duke Devlin works for Pegasus and probably has his own parking spot.

So where did he go instead?

You know how there’s only one gas station in the entirety of America?

I can’t believe it blew up.

Y’all what is the red splotch in the middle of the pile ps? That is legitimately a pile of blood, right? I didn’t shop that in. There’s just a red puddle in this kid’s show.

Y’all what is that? Like was there a scene with a red handkerchief that I missed? Is that a red handkerchief?

But to move past the mysterious pool of blood that confirms those bikers are so hella dead, I have no idea why Duke was here, I have no idea how he got the tip off that Yugi visited this place, but then he turned around and went back to SF so like...I guess he’ll arrive 3 days from now because again, they are in Arizona. They keep telling me this is right outside SF but like--Mesas. There’s Mesas.

And then this happened.

That one guy on the writing staff who just stans Seto Kaiba so hard got into the drawing room, I see.

PS someone had to pose for this shot for them to draw this shot from this angle.

Meanwhile, lets see why Mai turned evil. Ah, because it is Yugioh, the biggest reason is that she has no friends (probably because she’s got the most acidic personality known to man) and isn’t card popular enough and got super bitter and jealous.

Speaking as an artist who is online, I can understand the frustration here. Sometimes (99% of the time) you work really hard and no one cares and you get like 2 notes. And honestly, why should they? Like, why do you do it in the first place?

Mai echoes a lot of the issues of Seto last season, where she wants so badly to be the absolute best to prove herself to the ghosts of her past who really don’t care any more.

But, since Mai was in a coma when Seto got through all of that, I guess she never got the memo and still seems stuck on just wanting to be the best with no other reason than “to be the best” which again, sounds so much like art school problems. This is everyone who has ever had an interest in animation. We all go through that phase.

Generally we don’t take peoples souls as a reaction to that type of discouragement, but then Mai made sure to mention in almost a foot note that she did spend like an entire season and a half trapped in Marik's shadow realm. And that kind of effed her up in a really big way.

Thanks, Marik.

Really feels like Marik should be dealing with this problem--really feels like maybe Marik is the only person that we can actually point to and say “Oh yeah, that guy is to blame for Mai right now” And he is the only person that Mai does not actively go out and try to kill.

And I’ll have you know I just deleted like a 15 K word rant about the difference between character assassination and your character just--evolving into a jackass, and how it’s OK to have your character change into a jackass, especially after trauma. I felt this need to really have to defend this ancient writing technique that people have been using since about as long as stories have been around.

Then I remembered “Oh yeah, I’m just making this point because a few number of very loud idiots on the internet want to have very lukewarm hot-takes about popular characters solely because they enjoy baiting people on twitter into getting into week-long arguments that don’t go anywhere.” and I just...let it go. I let it just...go into the ether. Ah. The peace that comes when you already know you’re right.

But anyway, back to Yugioh, which thankfully doesn’t take a stance on this nuanced subject, and only presents this very serious problem without actually offering a solution (because there isn’t a one fit’s all solution to falling off the deep end and getting into drugs and murder), Mai decides to just go and blame this decision she made on anyone else. Because, why take responsibility for your actions, when you can pin it on people who were on the other side of the freakin planet when it happened?

Like, I just want to remind y’all that she was in ATLANTIS.

I wonder how good the cell reception is in ATLANTIS.

I just...Mai is like in her mid twenties maybe thirty’s. She’s so arbitrarily old that she plays Yugi’s Mom in the video game spinoff where they’re reincarnations of medieval times. That’s how old she is.

Imagine if you made some epically BAD decisions because you were jealous of some teenager’s success and didn’t want to be weak anymore, and then you confronted those teens, and said “This is all your fault.”

Imagine looking someone as dysfunctional as Joey Wheeler and telling him “You made me like this” because lollllllll

And I present this as a joke but like basically this happens all freakin time. We’ve all had a friend like Mai. Past tense of course, because it’s really hard to keep a friend like Mai for very long. (One of my friend’s who went Mai destroyed my apartment one summer and then literally blamed it on me for going to California for 2 months and leaving her unattended.) But like...don’t let Mai’s do it to you. They can get better, but only if it’s their choice, really. You can’t force them to save themselves.

But, as Mai was finally ready to give up cards and probably improve her quality of life by a huge degree, unfortunately, she got sucked right back into the trap.

Bro note: being a serial murderer cultist is basically working at McDonald's in this universe so maybe this wasn’t even that weird?

But that aside, this is alllllmost like a dark version of “Mai got into an abusive relationship to fill the void in her heart” except she’s not even really dating this guy? Like she hates this guy? He’s just kinda there?

Y’all I really can’t tell if Valon is in an abusive relationship with Mai who is using him for power or if she’s in an abusive relationship with him because he only wants her pretty face and wants to kill Joey because Joey liked her once--and maybe it’s both? Maybe both of these people are just...really bad for each other?

Overall Joey is kind of tossed into this not-a-love-triangle and I’m like

“Hey show? show? Am I supposed to....were any these people ever dating? Is there supposed to be an implied history? Am I supposed to get attached to this?” because I mean...the only character who was able to get some actual physical romance on this show was Pegasus when he macked the ghost of his dead wife because, again, Pegasus is the freakin king of this entire show. Of course HE can do it.

But have this show clarify what the hell is happening between Valon and Mai? I’m gonna take a bet that we will never get to see it beyond Valon being like “Ain’t she a beaut!” Like Steve Irwin talking to an alligator, and Mai just pretending he doesn’t exist. Yugioh romances are so completely one way every single time. If something more than that happens, I’ll be

shook.

Anyway, as all the children on the show keep repeating over and over again, they haven’t had any contact with Mai since she left the freakin country and they went back to High School.

And so someone threatens to kill himself, as is Yugioh tradition, and someone else barks at him to NOT kill himself, as is also tradition, and they decide to play real cards next episode.

This whole entire episode, PS, Joey went out of his way to just...not play cards. that was this whole episode. Way to draw out a card game over three episodes, I guess.

Anyway if you want to read these from the start you can do so by clicking the link here

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 44-45: Bakura‘s Back for More of This Nonsense

Man, I can’t believe we’re closing in on the 4th season of this show (still in shock I’m still able to make these.) Seems like just yesterday I felt like I had no idea what was happening, and now I’m like “they put in freakin Sans into Smash but not Bakura???” I’ve become one of those people now.

It’s been interesting how, because I have slowed down to watch these, I think I’ve been able to have a much more positive experience with the show. People have been talking about how binging has kind of changed TV from a place where fandoms could chat to a place where...you just watch it all in a weekend and hope no one spoils it and then wait for the next big thing to consume a week later.

But, when you’re watching a 15 year old anime you don’t have to worry about any of that. So it’s like a kind of nostalgic experience of a pre-streaming era despite the fact I’m totally streaming this.

But back to the show, now that the deep and reflective moments for Marik are over, my favorite storyboarder went home and left the rest of this to the night team who are clearly in a real rush to get this all finished. Again, the Yugioh whiplash is going from that high of “damn this is so goo-” then to the reality that the rest of the art direction in this show is “-acceptable. I meant to say acceptable. It’s perfectly acceptable”

Yugi Muto is still strung up by weird shadow magic restraints that must also be around his legs for some reason. I mean...it wouldn’t be so kinky if it wasn't also around his feet. More bits and pieces of Our Boy have been removed over the course of this endless card game, and he’s doing pretty good considering.

Joey has decided he’s had Enough Of These Damn Ghosts.

And so Marik decided that he’s been shamed by Joey Wheeler enough that he will just go away like Joey asks. This may be the only person who was actually bothered enough by Joey Wheeler to walk away in all of Yugioh.

(read more under the cut)

They....

Legit no one told her what had just happened.

They........

Just want to note that while Yugi’s leg burst out a stream of weird purple gas and Yugi screamed in pain, when his crotch disappeared, he did nothing but patiently look over at Pharaoh, who awkwardly winced. I guess the animation team knew better than to animate gas exploding out of that one particular spot, but it is still a rather funny contrast.

Marik has achieved his final form of so many veins, and it is a still frame every time it’s on screen. You cannot animate this. You cannot.

On the other end of the field, Odion has somehow made it down these extremely steep stairs, only to look up and see so many more stairs.

And back on the field is so many cards. So many cards, including the Card Poem. This awful Card Poem I tried so hard to forget.

Bro brings up that maybe this poem sounds way cooler in Japanese but like...I doubt it, right? Like this was a poem that the writers threw together in 5 minutes and were like “we’re never going to actually say the shame poem, right?”

But anyway more cards things happen but why talk about cards when this eventually happens.

I feel like Pharaoh was attempting to use Shadow Magic on Marik like just a few episodes ago so he could have done something now but...maybe he forgot? I dunno. Pharaoh didn’t feel like participating in this particular fight, maybe because his alter ego is holding on to life solely by having extra long emo bangs to count as lifepoints.

and so, Odion gives Marik a pep talk--and I kid you not, this is all Marik needed the entire time.

Yeah.

That was it.

Like maybe Odion had to be awake since Odion has a spell or whatever on Marik but still it’s like...all you had to do was say “This guy is not even a person, Marik--you are the person, just nix him and we’re good”

And so the two alter ego’s fight with eachother in the same body and that must have been a treat for everyone watching.

Man, it’s a good thing Mokuba already has so many PTSD situations under his several belts up to this point, because otherwise I’d be somewhat concerned about this very young kid who is privy to all this type of magical abominations every time his brother just wants to play cards.

and then...Yugi plays a bunch of cards and...um......

......don’t ask me what happened........

After the big group hug, Marik and Marik switch places.

This was because bad Marik was fused with a monster card--which turned bad-Marik into...the definition of a Monster.

So, if you kill the monster card then you can...

...switch places with your alternate half...

...yes...

Basically it’s a more complicated version of what Pharaoh did to Ryou and Bakura in S1, except in S1, Bakura played Ryou as a card and Pharaoh just slammed his hands on the table and was like “Screw it, Bakura! I’m so tired of this! We’re all so individually tired of this! I’m just going to use my Shadow Magic and switch you with Ryou and then we’re all going the HELL BACK TO BED!”

This time it just had to be so much more complicated although we have seen Pharaoh willy nilly switch souls before just two seasons ago.

So, just like Bakura did to his evil side in S1, Marik banishes his evil side to the shadow realm in a card game.

Which worked super good last time, amiright?

I guess we’re all just going to assume that this works now? Even though this absolutely did not work in season 1? Like Bakura went right back to a life of murder immediately?

Then again, Bakura’s an actual dude, and Marik’s alter Ego was a figment of his anger or something?????? Maybe that’s the difference? Maybe that’s why we can be rest assured that this works now?

Maybe they’re just tired of the Marik plot line and are like “listen, he’s kind of hard to draw and we don’t want to do it anymore. He’s dead now.”

For realsies though, from what I’ve been told, Marik never goes cray again and gracefully exits the show. But, if they ever want to continue Yugioh back in this direction, you can just have him snap at any time you feel like, we all know this type of exorcism is wholly reversible.

Anyway, the clouds are lifted and we are reminded that it is still hardly even lunch time.

It is at this point that Marik turns to his Brother and his Sister, who all three have no world skills outside of scamming museums and filtering sewer water, and waxes long about all the great times they’re about to have in the future.

Like what future though? You have to go to 20 years of actual real deal school, Marik, you can only read one Egyptian text. Hell knows how many people you possessed in order to get that motorcycle permit. You for sure aren’t ever allowed to play cards ever again. Like what are you going to do, Marik?

...dude what if he just goes back on the boat and just sails away for the rest of his life with his cultists who are equally unqualified to live in the real modern world. OMG what if that’s the real Marik’s Boat Time all along?

Ah. 

I almost forgot about you, Bakura.

Just in time for the British Bake Off to start updating episodes on Netflix, just in time, Bakura.

And following this is actual real thing that happened which, if you told me about, I would have just assumed was a joke or an edit to make it appear like this is happening. But no, it’s strip time.

the hell?

Yo can you believe that like a week ago I was like quoting “One Week” for kicks in these recaps and then this week Marik is, indeed, “in the history of taking off his shirt” ?

Anyway, Marik reminds us that his only purpose in life is to uh...be a book. A book that no one can read because Pharaoh didn’t have the foresight 5000 years ago that no one would be speaking Egyptian anymore and also that his reincarnation would be a 14-16 yo Japanese boy who’s entire brain power is used for selecting cards and selecting matching belts.

I just...Pharaoh’s mind must have been in a real place 5000 years ago and that was before he ever became a ghost.

Also, it is kind of amazing how many times it has come up how illiterate Pharaoh is over the past season and he still hasn’t decided to do anything about it. Like, he’s just kind of hoping that someone else (probably Kaiba) will feed the answer to him like a baby because that’s just how this show has been up to now.

In this case he has a one-ness moment with the tablet and gets the sense of “It’s fine, we’ll figure this out later” which um...

I’m really happy that in this scene, Pharaoh is still tripping balls but everyone else is so used to him doing stuff like this, they just completely ignore it.

So glad I had 2 seasons to build up this back tatt in order to figure out that Marik’s back didn’t help Pharaoh at all. The tablet yes, the back tattoo--no, completely unnecessary. Congrats, Pharaoh’s mole people servants, you screwed up and did this weird ass ceremony on 12 yo’s for 5000 years trapped underground for NO REASON.

Anyways, preteens rejoice, Marik without a shirt is randomly 10 lbs more buffed now, which I’m pretty sure was never a thing when he was wearing that itty bitty pink hoodie. Like maybe the animators are just used to really buffed anime and this is them toning it the hell down, but uh...no actual 16 year olds will ever look like this, sorry to break it to you, preteens.

Man, the horny line running through this show lol.

Letsee, Yugi now has the puzzle, Ishizu’s necklace, the Ring, the Rod, the...

...where’s the freakin eyeball?

Did...where is it? Where is the nastiest of the golden objects?

Did Bakura never bring the eye with him to this trip? Like...is it just hanging out in his desk at home near his secret stash he super hopes that his Mom doesn’t find?

Guys, where’s the eyeball?

Anyway, now that Mokuba has decided Seto can feel joy and smile again, he gives Seto the A-OK to blow the hell out of this moneypit island that has already been violently blown up just a few years previously.

Like this begs the question, why even build this tower if you wanted to blow it up? But then again, that is the equivalent to a small child that builds block towers just to knocks them over, right? Like that part of Seto just never grew up?

So........

My bro, while looking this over, gave me the best spicy bro headcanon I’ve ever heard, and it’s absolutely too ridiculous for this blog that is mostly about what actually happens in the course of this show, but I’mma gonna share it with you anyway. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a common headcanon, but if my bro got it from some random fic he read off Ao3, I don’t know any better. So bro kinda squints at Roland, Seto Kaiba’s most incompetent bodyguard (if “bodyguard” is even an accurate description for the weird fake not-a-job that this guy has to do) and is like “do you feel like Roland has Noah’s hair color?”

and I was like “Bro, if you are suggesting that Roland is the illegitimate son of Gozobura because his hair is the same shade as the darker parts of Noah’s hair, that is one wild headcanon and I love it”

So--using Bro’s logic, lets say Gozaboro had a really stupid illegitimate son he had to hide from his wife. So he just...gives him a fake job. Considers “maybe I can use this son on A.I. Noah?” but Roland ends up being too much of a dumbass to intimidate Noah, so instead, he keeps Roland around on low-tier jobs so he gets keep an eye on him, torture him, etc.

And as the company falls out around him, Roland gets slowly promoted, as Seto and Mokuba fire basically everyone who worked with Pegasus and the Big 5. And Roland, who is just so bad at everything, forgot to attend the Pegasus coup (and would have no idea what is ever happening), so when the Kaibas returned from Pegasus’ island they still have Roland...sitting there at that long table covered in 4 identical idiot salads and orange juice he laid out for them in his patchy green moustache and his huge Gozaburo shoulders, they’re like “well.....I guess we have to take care of him now.”

And that’s the story my brother has in his head now every time Roland is on screen. It’s not canon at all that Roland is the secret 4th Kaiba brother but damn. What if he’s just the 4th Kaiba brother but has no idea, and Mokuba and Seto do, and that’s why they drag him all over the world with them? Hilarious.

I mean...Seto and Mokuba fire everyone. But they don’t fire Roland, their biggest dumbass. What a headcanon. (and if this joke ends up being real I’ll be very happy)

ALSO, new thing, the necklaces around their necks with the cute picture of eachother that they had up till now to remind eachother of their forever brotherly love--also keys used to blow up things very violently.

I should have expected this.

Anyway, lets check up on Mai---oohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Y’all this was WEIRD.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

So after that extremely insensitive joke that made us doubt if bringing back Mai was a good thing, lets have a reminder that we brought back someone else even worse, who, like a parasite, was devouring everything that they love.

(Bakura’s font color has been changed to blue stripes because before he was just too similar to Joey’s yellow and my white. Eventually I will find the right system for coloring everyone’s font legibly, although I know that the patterns are sometimes harder to read for people that aren’t colorblind.)

Ah, local nasty boy is back. I’d love if they had shown more of the food he ate, but they wisely decided to crop that huge spread out of frame. Bakura eating all of the donuts is canon though. Somehow every donut aboard this blimp fit inside of that small boy’s endless stomach.

PS Kaiba Corp makes their own milk. At some point, Seto Kaiba was just leaning back into his work chair, Mokuba on the couch watching TV, Roland completely unable to reload the Keurig, and Seto was like “But what if...I made CHEESE.” (BECAUSE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THESE KIDS LOVE CHEESE) and Mokuba was like “OMG you could sell the company back to them at 2 times the price for each share” and he was like “I KNOW.”

and so he marched down to the nearest cheese fields to buy some cows, only to find out that the agriculture market is so strained you can’t sell the shares at a times-two profit now and he‘s like “Ah dammit! I have to do real business! This freakin blows!”

Makes you think.

Anyway, then Ryou throws some shade at us about “PS, I was in Hell! I love you, too!”

Anyway, so it’s about time we ended this season, so how about it? How about we take off, watch it all blow up as a symbolic representation of all the hopes and dreams Kaiba had at the beginning of this tourney, and end this crazy ass season?

Oh wait, that relies on Roland being able to do even one thing competently.

So, that’s where we leave off.

Really truly, honestly, we need to get everyone on this show matching cuff radios because the number of times they’ve needed to call Kaiba is insurmountable. Could have solved so many problems. Really surprised that Roland can’t like...call the Kaibas right now, but now that I think about it, we clarified several episodes ago that Mokuba forcibly kicked Roland off of the radio because he was unable to work it properly.

Good job Roland, the best Kaiba son.

Anyway if you just got here this is a link to read just the Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 36-37: Local Mom-Friend’s Weird Trick, Doctors Hate Him

Hey y’all it’s a surprise midweek post because I’m in Canada this weekend woo. Surprised I even got this post done, TBH, I finally get some time where I’m not commuting around to and from San Francisco or corralling small children and I can just sit at my computer and focus and have some peace and quiet and I got--a mysterious sickness from all those kids! *yay* So, since I can’t really focus on anything, I’ll type in here and see if any of my words make any sense at all and hopefully I won’t go on some weird ass tangent like I tend to do like every other post.

So Yugi is still dueling Kaiba, much like he has for the past like...it feels like 4 years. I know I’ve only seen 3 seasons but this is...this is a really long duel. Maybe because there was a month-long break for me in the middle, (during which I watched the entirety of Evangelion, 2 Seasons of Gotham, Stranger Things S3, and the disappointing season of One Punch Man so like...I’ve had some time away from Yugioh) or maybe...maybe it’s because they’re actually playing card mechanics that go more in depth...

But yeah, despite everything, they’re still dueling.

And honestly, I’m looking at that episode number above me and it’s like...so there’s this Kaiba and Yugi Duel and then...only one more duel, right? Is it going to be a ten episode duel? Like unless Rebecca comes back for a weird cameo like...how...?

Whatever, we’ll get there when we get there.

Anyways, everyone who’s been avoiding this duel like the plague is down with the plague victims in the hospital. That’s where Tristan gets a bright idea and it’s one of his dumber ones, believe it or not.

Man, I forgot that comatose Joey Wheeler is still wearing that duel disk Pharaoh slapped on him during all this too, haha.

Also, why does he have to have all these pectoral suction cups while they just kinda...gave up on Mai? I mean I know they can’t show boobies on a Y7 show but like...it really feels like the doctor just kinda shrugged at Mai and was like “I only have one set of boob suction cups, I really didn’t think I’d need more than that, if at all.”

(read more under the cut)

And so Tristan decides that if Joey is at the window which is like...600 ft below Yugi Muto’s duel, a duel you can’t...really see from the ground...then Joey Wheeler will arise.

I mean, it’s gonna work, it’s just also kind of laughable that Joey wasn’t able to hear any of this nonsense from the bed that is two feet away from the window.

But wtv, it’s very dramatic and Tristan gets to cry some more and feel useful I guess.

The haunted underwear mannequin plot-thread was dumped between that episode and this one, and I’m kinda bummed out that more things haven’t turned into haunted underwear mannequins.

Instead of horrific underwear mannequins, Joey’s dream has gone back to the standard fare of Joey picking on middle schoolers and wearing a much better outfit than he has for most of this show.

I will super miss Joey in a fitted suit. Like, soak it allll in horny preteens, because pretty soon, Joey Wheeler will be back in that scruffy oversized T-shirt just like...well, just like how a teenager would be. I mean there’s some REASONS Mai can’t date Joey, but the fact he has a fitted suit he refuses to ever wear is one of the top reasons right under, youknow, the fact he’d need a fake ID to ever go out with her.

It’s kind of amazing actually, how my whole life I kinda just figured this was a show of insane character designs, only to find out when I actually watch the show that there is like a ... REALLY horny line just going all the way through it.

Honestly, me trying to figure out how and when this kid’s show got so damn horny has been a very big mystery I’ve been trying to solve in the background this entire time. Like, I was told “yeah the Yugioh boys get very attractive.” and I was like “ehhhhhhhh I don’t even know what you’re talking about” but, little by little over the past 3 seasons, these animators are starting to draw these boys just waaaaaaay older than these kids actually are. I’m starting to see what people are saying. It’s still not my thing, personally, but uh yeah I can see how this spawned all that fanart now.

Anyways, speaking of, the other day a friend of mine’s sister was talking about how she, as a millennial, has been wired to love very tall skinny boys in skinny pants and very long coats with popped collars and I immediately was like “Lol are you admitting to Seto Kaiba?”

And she meant Cumberbatch Sherlock, LOLOLOLOL.

And so, back on the duel field we got Seto Kaiba, who’s a lot like Sherlock except a Sherlock who is suffering from both short term and long term memory loss. And, who does cards instead of heroin.

They probably both play violin.

Kaiba, despite having arc after arc where his little brother is his main motivation, has decided to just ditch Mokuba and it’s like...either he’s psyching Yugi out or Seto Kaiba forgot he had a brother for a little bit. He might...he might have forgotten. Mokuba is standing behind him, after all.

And so, because Joey is facing Yugi at just the right moment and at just the right time, somehow he can do his little force ability again and just do this:

Thanks, hallucination!Joey.

And out he goes, drawn like a romance anime character lol.

Anyways, he’s back to being a slob so...welcome back, wrinkle shirt, it’s been a while.

And then Joey looks around and actually said this:

“Did someone get hurt?” He asks, after being burned, electrocuted AND drowned just yesterday.

I was kinda very much hoping Tristan would deck him out.

Glad that, as predicted, the moment Mai doesn’t need to be Joey’s main motivation anymore, the moment he puts the cards away, she may as well not even exist. This show and the way they write straight romances.

Please admire the matching lace up boots on the Kaiba Corp’s Emergency Squad. This would be the most obscure Cosplay on earth but maybe the most wearable Yugioh cosplay outside of Bandit Keith because you wouldn’t need a 400 dollar wig.

And then for some reason Tea just loses her mind and has a complete breakdown. She’s been kind of a mess since Yugi walked out like 2 episodes ago, which seems kind of...I dunno, both out of character but very much in character at the same time. I mean we’re assuming they “have” a relationship it’s just never actually say that they do, so her acting like her man is dead is kinda like...it still feels like it comes out of freakin nowhere.

Anyways, Tea who is strong enough to lift this entire plane and who is, in fact, possessed by at least 2 powerful ghosts (remember Shadi did spends some time there and he did NOT like it), is now a seeping crying mess that refuses to lose any more of her hospital-prone boys.

I mean they were going to go anyway, but they let Tea pretend she had any control over that and kind of glazed over this.

Back in this game that no one else is really watching anymore, Seto Kaiba is still monologuing about his entire life story that he’s never gotten any therapy for, except for that time his evil step brother accidentally gave him therapy.

Quite upset we never see the color of Mokuba’s little tuxedo.

Course...didn’t...Noah wear a little tuxedo in that same exact shape? I mean it’s a silly headcanon but youknow...it could be a yellow tuxedo they just happened to find in the back of the closet.

And it’s at this point that Mokuba just lost his lid. I’m so used to Mokuba unconditionally supporting his crazy brother that this would have been the biggest anime betrayal of the whole series, if Mokuba had said any of this outloud (which he wisely did not).

It was like...damn Mokuba. He actually said something along the lines of “I liked you better when you were poor” and it was like. Holy cow, Mokuba. Damn.

Anyway, a bunch of card stuff happens, and Pharaoh has decided that Seto has too much anger in his heart, and that’s why he will lose. Then, Pharaoh played the card proof for how angry Seto is, and if I actually payed any attention to cards, it would have been very meaningful.

But anyways, kudos to Pharaoh on not mind-wiping Seto Kaiba this time or launching him directly off this very tall tower like he attempted to do last time. They actually played a game start to finish with eachother and nothing exploded except for every television in Domino. Progress.

and then Mokuba started crying and initially I thought...wouldn’t he have WANTED his brother to lose but then I kind of remembered oh yeah now Mokuba has to deal with this oncoming aftermath.

RIP Mokuba, I guess.

Anyway, I’m out of town for the rest of the weekend, escaping to the far North to get away from the weather. I should be back next weekend, but if I’m not, I was probably eaten by a bear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to my Yugioh recaps in Chrono order from the beginning.