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baddyzarc · 5 years ago

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3/7 Ruins: Legend of Souhachi Kiraku

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So the reason I wanted to group Gilag and Alito together is because Alito has plenty of substance in his ruins while Gilag is just,,, Hnng they would've balanced each other out but nope, heres Gilag's Ruins

So uhh Gilag is supposed to be a joke Barian Emperor. I get that. He’s the first to be fully revealed and he starts off as an imposing threat for, like, two episodes. Then he goes off???? draws manga and watches anime and lives in the school gym and he has no brain cells as clearly evidenced by the Friendship Game episode but also he kills.

Being such, Gilag has the shortest stick of the Emperors (almost on par with Merag but she has a prominent connection to the main Barian Emperor narrative). I’m not being figurative by-the-by. He has ONE episode to cover the legend of his ruins while the others get two episodes minimum, Nasch got like five total or something, so I can see that the writers,,, did not really care about Gilag. Which is unfortunate, but this is going to be my most out-there analysis because of the situation.

Unlike the other Emperors who have new settings for their ruins, Gilag’s ruins is the Duel Lodge.

This isn’t a new location nor does it reveal that much about his character (after all, the Lodge was meant to develop Yuma and Astral’s character during their first visit in season 1 and nothing new happened to this place during the Mythyrian Arc.)

But this means he should have the closest connection to Rokujuro and Yamikawa, but to my knowledge, the writers didn’t do anything with this aside from Gilag being the one who kills them during the Barian Onslaught Arc. Maybe there could be a connection to how Yamikawa felt betrayed by Rokujuro during the first season of Zexal. He attacked him, and then they made up soon after. This is similar to the story of Ponta and Gilag, but there isn’t much parallelism besides “two close persons becoming distant before making up”.

The most important outcome of the ruins is the reveal of the Mythyrian Guardian, Ponta the Tanuki, and Ponta is what this essay is going to be mainly about.

Like most of the Emperors, the Guardians often play a role in their legends. More often than not, the Guardians are the Mythyrian Numbers; they are tasked with protecting the Emperors (Mach, Abyss, and Jinlon are the clearest examples). Ponta is the strangest one because he is the only Guardian to exist as his own physical entity. This is seen in the show’s finale. He’s able to exist as himself without being attached to the Number card, and this may seem strange until you consider what happens in the Legend of Gilag (or Souhachi Kiraku if you want to get technical)

Gilag’s legend is a bit tough to grasp because there isn’t a single narrator.

In the text of the show, Rokujuro reveals that Gilag was a benevolent, smart, and powerful warrior during the Sengoku Era (which is characterized by military and social conflicts). He distributed his wealth from his conquests with the peasants rather than horde it with his vassals.

From Ponta, we find that Gilag found Ponta in the battlefield, saved him, and they formed a friendship. Ponta became his Kagemusha (a doppelganger/shadow warrior) and helped him win his battles. He was the one responsible for all of Gilag’s fame and fortunes. He says that Gilag was jealous of his strength, got rid of him,and then perished in the battlefield. Keep in mind that Ponta isn’t omniscient, and he clearly resents Gilag when he says this, so this source should be taken with a grain of salt (The episode is called “Yuma Confused!? The Unreliable Account of Gilag the Tanuki”).

From Gilag, it was discovered that the vassals were unhappy with him distributing the wealth, and they were going to rebel against him. To protect Ponta, Gilag forced him to leave so he could deal with the rebels. He ends up presumably dying in a burning building.

Finally, upon freeing him from the curse, it is revealed that Don Thousand influenced the vassals to rebel against Gilag, and in order to fill him with hatred over the betrayal, he placed the Over-Hundred Number “Number 106: Huge Rock Palm - Giant Hand” in his heart, allowing him to pass onto Barian World. It ended with Gilag perishing in a burning building with the rebels cornering him.

So what happened here?

With the Emperors, I strongly believe that the personalities they have as Barian Emperors are an extension of true personalities as humans (compare this to when Gilag and Alito got an extra dosage on Don Thousand, for example). With Vector, a major personality-changing curse was embedded into him at such a young age that his evilness is part of his true personality (or as said by Yuma, the “kind” Vector still exists as Rei Shingetsu), while most of the other Emperors inherit their curse shortly before their death. What we see now is most likely how they were originally, plus maybe a thousand years of them as Emperors.

So Gilag is, according to Yuma, “a despicable bastard, stingy, and an annoying jerk”. From his schemes in the show, we clearly see that he is not smart. All of his plans fail, he lacks foresight, and he gets distracted very easily. But he also cares deeply about his bond with Alito. This bond was strong enough to knock Don Thousand’s curse out of him. So this makes it tough to decipher the actual story because the Gilag of the present is nothing like the Gilag of the past.

Using this information, I can say that each narrator has elements of the truth. I believe that Gilag is strong and passionate about things he loves (idols, manga, and his country I presume), but he’s arrogant and has more brawn than brains. Gilag is only as strong as his plans are (under the orders of Nasch and Don Thousand, he usually gets the job done without an issue. When he has to make his own decisions, yikes). Meanwhile, I believe that Ponta is the one holding most of the wisdom, strategy, and brains.

Together with their strength and wisdom, they balanced each other and created the Legend of Souhachi Kiraku.

Also, bear in mind that Gilag has the only legend that has a non-Barian name attached to it (Legend of The Cursed Royal Palace, Legend of the Gladiator, Legend of the Dragons, and Legend of an Ancient Hero). The Legend of Souhachi Kiraku isn’t the product of Gilag or Ponta, but Gilag and Ponta.

From here, the rest of the words spoken by Gilag should be true. He said he “completely made it up”, but he also muttered “how did I know about the legend?” afterwards to tell the audience that what he said is indeed true. The reveal of his actual memories reaffirms this.

So the true story is that Gilag and Ponta worked in unison to defeat their enemies. They distributed their wealth among the peasants. The vassals were angry that they weren’t receiving the spoils from the battles, and with the influence of Don Thousand, the vassals plotted to betray Kiraku (as in Gilag and Ponta). In order to protect Ponta, Gilag banished him and sent him away. Gilag perishes in the rebels’ fires. Ponta later dies of old age.

With Don Thousand, he interjects into the story at two points. First by influencing the vassals to turn on Gilag, then again by placing hatred in his heart.

Why I think Don Thousand comes in twice is because the first instance wasn’t enough to alter Gilag’s fate as a Barian.

For Gilag, the satisfaction of saving Ponta meant he could still ascend into Astral World; as long as his best friend was safe, he was unfazed by vassals rebellion. Don Thousand went in one more time to induce hatred into him, sealing his Barian fate as he perished. This is most similar to the fate of Mizael (influenced the people to turn on Mizael and Jinlon, and then implanted hatred into his heart as he died) opposed to, say, Vector whose single personality swap set him straight for Barian World, or Nasch who didn’t need to be injected with hatred or altered like Mizael or Gilag; his entire life sucked so badly (due to Don interfering with Vector and Merag, yes, but he did not touch Nasch at all) that he chose to go to Barian World.

Enough about the other Emperors though, let’s talk about the Guardian of the Mythyrian Number, Ponta.

Like most of the Guardians, Ponta is both the Guardian and the Mythyrian Number “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu”. And although I try to keep the discussion in the realm of the original/OCG, it should also be noted that in the TCG, this card’s name is “Number 64: Ronin Raccoon Sandayu”. Veteran means experienced fighter, and Ronin means wanderer, or a warrior without a master. In both cases, it describes what Ponta represents in his relationship with Gilag.

To those unaware, Ponta is based on an extant animal known as the Japanese raccoon dog, or tanuki.

Ponta himself is not a regular tanuki as he is based on the yokai, Bake-danuki. Bake-danuki are known to be the cunning, trickster type whose main trait is transforming into other apparitions. Despite this, they are also associated with good fortune (which they carry in their massive fucking gonads), virtue, and strength. Most of these traits can be seen within the Mythyrian Number that represents Ponta, or more importantly, the tokens that it spawns.

These “Kagemusha Tanuki Tokens” hold most of the Bake-danuki traits which I am now taking from Wikipedia because they summarized better than I can:

These tokens also have the ability to turn into the strongest monster on the field (appropriately transforming with a leaf) too. Anyways, Tanuki legends are really fascinating and there is a lot of information on them, go here if you wanna learn more (this is a really cool site in general, especially if you wanna read about yokai and other neat things).

Despite being his Guardian, Ponta loathes Gilag, blaming Gilag for his own death as well as Ponta’s fate as a Kagemusha. He hates that Gilag got all the credit for the Legend of Souhachi Kiraku while Ponta was banished and locked away in a statue with Gilag’s face on it. All in all, Ponta wants to be his own being. He no longer wants to be a Kagemusha, a shadow, for a man he despises.

Instead, and hear me out, I think Ponta wants to be the actual Gilag.

This can be seen in how he treats the Mythyrian Number as well as his interaction with Gilag. Ponta’s first action upon meeting Gilag was, ironically, stealing his body. This is strange for a creature that doesn’t want to be remembered as someone else, and then he becomes that exact same person. However, it should be noted that Ponta’s name isn't revealed until the very end of the episode, so perhaps he isn’t interested in letting people know that he’s “Ponta” at all.

He was content going forward in life as Gilag.

And remember, Ponta died during the Sengoku Era (1400s-1600s), so he was trapped in the statue of Kiraku for at least 400 years. During this time, he was referred to as only Kiraku, never as Ponta. After so long, after 400 years of never hearing his real name or being recognized as himself, it isn’t a stretch that Ponta doesn’t see himself as “Ponta” anymore. He sees himself as a shadow of Gilag, and so he made it a plan to be the real Gilag if he ever gets the chance, or at least, be in his body. Hence, he took over Gilag’s body.

Even when he hijacked Yuma’s body, he preferred being in Gilag’s body so much that he swapped back after he finished cheating.

You can see this in how he uses his Mythyrian Number, too. Like most of the other Guardians, Ponta is the Guardian and the Mythyrian Number, “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu”. During the duel, Ponta utilizes “Veteran Tanuki Sandayu”, the true warrior, while the “Kagemusha Tanuki Tokens” are Ponta’s shadows. This is made more apparent when the tokens (which normally turn into any monster on the field with the highest attack points) turn into copies of “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu“, mimicking his relationship with Gilag.

Ponta wants to see himself as an actual warrior with Kagemusha of his own, rather than the other way around. He even becomes concerned when Yuma attacks his Kagemusha.

Personally, I see this sequence as Ponta having a sudden detachment from his dream of “being Kiraku”. Deep down, he still sees himself as a Kagemusha, and so when he sees the destruction of the Kagemusha Tokens, he also sees this as a destruction of himself.

When he finally loses, he mutters, “I’m not a shadow, I’m not a shadow,” almost as though he internalized this perception of himself while desiring nothing more than to reject it.

Ponta knows that he isn’t the true Gilag, but after half a millennium of being a Kagemusha to Gilag, I don’t think he knows who he is anymore.

This changes when Gilag gets his human memories back and approaches him. Upon telling Ponta that “you’re Ponta”, Ponta appears surprised to hear his actual name. By hearing someone speak his name after 400-something years, Ponta finally sees himself as his own person again.

And believe it or not, this idea falls into why he exists as his own raccoon dog after the show ended.

Ponta decides that he can be his own person. He doesn’t need to be tied down by Kiraku or anything else. This is why he willingly leaves Gilag’s body and detaches himself from the Mythyrian Number.

This is evidenced when Astral absorbs the Number first, and then Ponta emerges from the body; at this point, Ponta is no longer a Guardian but simply a Tanuki.

Also, if Ponta is still the Guardian/Mythyrian Number, then Gilag should’ve received the “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu” when he eh-hem,

swallows Ponta.

Ponta comes back later, of course. Along with the Mythyrian Number, Alito and Ponta, Gilag’s two best friends are used to free Gilag from Don Thousand’s curse.

They even make up afterwards.

And before anyone starts, I do not know why Ponta is still friends with Gilag after all of this.

Like really im not joking. im not saying that ponta is that type of raccoon, but if my friend ate me, id be kinda pissed ngl

like maybe these scenes?? Gilag sent Ponta away under the pretense of hoarding the fame for himself. After finding out Gilag died, Ponta was devastated. He cried for a moment, saying that Gilag would still be alive if Ponta wasn’t banished. But then he convinced himself that Gilag deserved it.

Ponta obviously cares for Gilag despite how big of “a despicable bastard, stingy, and an annoying jerk” he is. Ponta also says that he would’ve preferred dying with Gilag in battle rather than be sent away. Ponta clearly sees something in Gilag that makes him worth fighting for.

Maybe Gilag has a good heart under his questionable tendencies.

When Ponta loses the duel with Yuma, the immediate reaction of Gilag tells us that he is very concerned over the safety of Ponta, but then he retracts himself, like he remembers he’s supposed to be tough and emotionless.

And to be honest. Ponta could be like, like “hey, my buddy Kiraku, getting mind controlled by Don Thousand really sucks, might eat me because he’s a little grumpy-grump, it happens you know, no big deal”.

They get drunk together.

It’s the Sengoku Period. They probably do a lot of stuff off-screen like Gilag usually does with Alito. Maybe having an occasional fallout or all of that is normal. I truly don’t know.

What I do know is that Ponta is able to complete his arc at the end of the show. Without being tied down as a Kagemusha, a Guardian, or a Mythyrian Number, he is able to exist as a physical being in the modern world.

So Ponta has a complete character arc. Not complaining, but I do wish that the ruins has more to do with Gilag himself. The information on his past life is interesting enough, but the story is more about Ponta than Gilag. And what we found out about Gilag’s current life is... alright.

The connection between his Mythyrian Number and Over-Hundred Monster is minimal. Aside from being both Earth Monsters, I do not see any connection between the two nor why its a giant hand. “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu” kinda features Gilag and Ponta as a warrior and a Kagemusha, which I thought is neat.

The most disappointing thing is that the writers didn’t do anything with the concept of Gilag being possessed by Don Thousand. I mean, Alito went absolutely berserk. Like from baby child to unhinged bloodlust. Gilag is—he’s just Gilag, that’s just regular Gilag i swear. Like, maybe Gilag on steroids the second time, but Don Thousand looks at this guy eating live raccoons and said “ssssshyyeah, I don’t need to fix this one.”

#long post #my hc is that don was supoosed to grab ponta but he made a mistake and ended up with gilag #like that raccoon wouldve wrecked as an Emperor #zexal #gilag #girag #dyzarc writes #barian biology

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elencelebrindal · 4 years ago

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Favourite colour, music, film, anime? I'm curious

Uuhhh, sorry for the wait, this ask has been waiting in my inbox for a lot by now, but let me answer you. Some of these answers are really long, so I marked them with a title in case people are not interested in everything. Though, I don’t think many people would be interested at all, my life is not that eventful.

Favorite Color

My favorite color is black (even though black is not technically a color, damn you art school why did you have to teach me that), closely followed by blood red and silver.

Favorite Music

My favorite music... I don’t really understand if you’re asking me what genre I prefer, or who do I prefer listening to, so I’ll just go the safe route and answer everything at once. I love metal (especially power metal, epic metal and folk metal, with a significance preference for its viking sub-genre), and I am in love with Blind Guardian, the first ever band I listened to. I still remember the first song I’ve ever listened, which is “Noldor (Dead Winter Reigns)”. Being a Tolkien fan led me to discover them, and subsequently to fall in love with the genre. Among my favorites there’s also Nightwish, Epica, Alestorm, and I’m baffled by Sabaton and Korpiklaani. I do listen to a bunch more bands, but not as much and I don’t know as many songs.

But it’s not my one and only love. Aside from metal music, I also love classic music (I am deeply in love with a ton of Italian composers alongside the others), dark cabaret music (most notably Aurelio Voltaire, Dresden Dolls and Emilie Autumn, though her style doesn’t really fall into one single category), and I go crazy with anime music and openings. I appreciate the music of anime so much, even though a lot of people don’t think highly of it, and since childhood I’ve always listened to our “opening singers” (the most important I grew up listening to are Cristina d’Avena and Giorgio Vanni), so I simply cannot stop loving them. On a similar note, I cannot have enough of movie soundtracks. Composers like Howard Shore, Ennio Morricone, Hans Zimmer... the list could go on forever. I never get tired of their music. Again, videogame soundtracks are on the list of my beloved music as well, especially the music from Skyrim (Jeremy Soule) and Assassin’s Creed (Jesper Kyd).

Favorite film/movie

I don’t really have one favorite. I do have a list of movies that I could watch over and over again, though, and others I just have fun watching even though they’re not my favorites. The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy are absolutely on the top of my list. As I said, I’m a huge fan of Tolkien, and I’m also a huge fan of Peter Jackson. Add them together and BOOM! I am a tiny bit bitter about the Hobbit movies, but seriously? I still loved it. Right after them there’s ALL the movies by Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland and its sequel on top. I love Tim Burton, so much I cannot even explain it. And Alice in Wonderland has a very special place in my heart.

[story time, you can skip if you want]

Not just because I love the story and the craziness of everything, but because back in high school (my last year) we decided to do Alice in Wonderland with a twist for our theater lab, and I not only got to write the entire script, but also to play the Cheshire Cat alongside all of my friends. My best friend was Alice, my other best friend was the costume designer, a lot of other people I knew and loved were the other characters. It’s such a delightful memory for me that I never stopped enjoying Alice in Wonderland from that day onward. I got so involved with my part that I ended up making an entire steampunk-ish cosplay of the Cheshire Cat from scratch, a cosplay I brought two times to a convention and I’m currently renovating after taking it apart. This is how much I grew attached to that play and to that character. Some years ago, before this, we had a director guiding us for two years of theater lab. A delightful man that looked at me and decided I needed to be addressed as “Alice” because of how much I reminded him of her. It’s just good memories.

[end of the story time]

I also have the “classics”, like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the like. If it’s fantasy/sci-fi/something along those lines, I probably love it. Regardless of who made it, being it the writer or the director. One particular movie that holds a special place in my heart is “The Fall”, and I cannot really pinpoint a reason why I love it so much. I just do. There’s many titles I can tell you, even more serious ones like “The Imitation Game”, “The Danish Girl”, or “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Fight Club”. Even though I prefer fantasy themes, there’s significant exceptions. Old Italian movies are among my favorites too, but they’re just a drop in the ocean. To close this, I’m going to bring you my love for the entire “Night at the Museum” ordeal and the entire “Jumanji” series (as of now, but I will never love anything more than the original). I get really excited when I get to talk about this kind of interests, sorry T_T

Favorite Anime

Oh boy. This sounds like it might be an easy one, given the nature of this blog, but it’s actually not. In fact, I forgot Saint Seiya was my favorite anime. You see, I originally watched it when I was nothing but a child, with a memory that obviously wasn’t so good at the time. This eventually led me to forget about how much I loved Saint Seiya, even though its characters never left my mind, and I started gravitating more towards Yu-Gi-Oh!, especially 5D’s. For the longest time I was convinced my absolute favorite was Yu-Gi-Oh!, until I finally started re-watching Saint Seiya and got hit by the memory train.

But let’s not wander too far away from the question. What’s my favorite anime? Of all time is Saint Seiya, hands down. It has so much to offer, so much diversity, so much story and so many characters. Here in Italy, it has one of the most unique dubs of all time, with dialogues that are aulic (for the Italian fans who are curious --> l’origine del registro aulico dei Cavalieri dello Zodiaco è stato deciso da Enrico Carabelli e Stefano Cerioni ed è spiegato in questo video, ed è poi stato mantenuto da Ivo de Palma nella serie di Hades) and filled with quotes from authors like Dante Alighieri, Ugo Foscolo and more, an “oddity” that made me fall in love again and again.

Aside from this, I have another list, because I honestly cannot bring myself to choose only one. Above all are Yu-Gi-Oh! (in order from best to worst for me --> 5D’s, Duel Monsters, GX, ZeXal, Vrains, Arc-V), My Hero Academia, and Sailor Moon. Honorable mentions are Attack on Titan, Black Butler, Another, Pretty Cure ( spent basically my entire childhood/teenage years watching them, my favorites are the first two series), One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Beyblade, Tokyo Mew Mew... this could go on forever. I’m a sucker for “old” anime as well, so a lot of them are mostly from the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s. Some of them I was so little when I watched it, like for example Card Captor Sakura (I was like three years old and I dressed up as her for Carnival), that I don’t remember them but they still have a place in my heart. I wasn’t even fixated on one genre and that was it, I watched the hell out of anime and I still do (when I have time).

I do also watch yaoi (shame on me, I know), and since I’m here telling you about my favorites: I love Dramatical Murder, especially (and you might not believe me) for how creative the story and the worldbuilding are. I’m also shameless enough to have watched the entire game in all its incarnations, so there’s that. Not only that, I’m shameless enough to have watched more explicit ones, but I’m not telling you ;) I have a reputation here, after all.

This took a long time for me to answer, and I’m sorry. I legit looked at this in my inbox, tried to conjure up some will to write, failed and went back to bed or to my books. Rinse and repeat for an entire week. And to all of you who actually made it through this entire thing without getting annoyed/bored, damn you’re determined.

#ask me anything #movies #anime #music #colors #whatever i cannot tag #just my life #not interesting as always #but here

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kuriboo · 5 years ago

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so here we are, y’all. i’ve finally reached the end of the zexal anime, and, uh, it sure was a ride. a ride from start to finish. i’m gonna write out some final thoughts, if i end up forgetting something i might make another post of this, but, don’t count on it. but, before anything, i do intend to read the zexal manga at some point as well, and when i do, you might see me post some funny or interesting screenshots in this tag too? probably not a lot, i don’t know, i’ve never read the zexal manga either. just be aware that the zexal liveblog might not actually be over.

i know people like to talk in terms of zexal i and zexal ii, but hulu doesn’t split up zexal like that, it’s actually in three seasons? i think i generally know what people are referring to with zexal i and zexal ii(?), but i’m genuinely not sure and the terms feel super weird to me anyway, but just to be safe, i’ll refer to things as the first half and the second half. the first half ends with the duel against dr faker and yuma vs kite, part 2 picks up with...whatever the hell happened after the yuma vs kite duel, which certainly wasn’t a continuation of kite’s character arc, but we won’t worry about that.

with that, uh, let’s go high-five the sky

before starting zexal: i’d pretty much watched all the other yugioh series, and was keeping up with vrains as much as i could as it aired. i saw one episode once, before i started watching the whole thing, that aired on some channel we normally don’t get but got a like free preview weekend of it or something. the episode i saw was the episode where yuma meets the guy who makes the statues, i think. whatever it was, the impression i got from what i saw was: this yugioh protagonist is really bad at card games, whines a lot, and his voice kinda grates on me, and also this protagonist is younger than i was at the time, which tended to lead to more annoying behavior. this kid didn’t want to shut up, man. couldn’t sit through the whole thing

so, this was how i rated zexal against the other yugioh series, keeping in mind that this is a rating of series, and not yugioh protagonists, and noting that the members of the A tier are not in any sort of order and all members have equal ratings:

(sevens is unrated because it’s just barely started.)

(there’s not really much of anything that could top gx, tbh, because gx got me through the hardest time, the hardest year, of my life, and i don’t know where i’d be without it. gx helped save 17 year old me from myself)

now, i’ve finished zexal. i’ve watched every single episode of zexal. it’s important to note that i watched the dub of duel monsters, the dubs of gx and 5ds along with the sub of their non-dubbed final seasons, the dub of zexal, the sub of arc v alongside a stretch of dubbed episodes towards the end, and the sub of vrains along with the dub of the first 20 episodes. i’m aware zexal’s sub was better than the dub, but i generally prefer dubs when possible and also i’m largely comparing it against every other yugioh dub. it’s not an unfair comparison.

so, here is how i now rate zexal against the other yugioh series, keeping in mind the members of the A tier aren’t in any sort of order:

you may have noticed this is the same as the previous rating. that’s correct. zexal was my least favorite yugioh series before i began watching it, and now that i’ve finished, it’s still my least favorite yugioh series. i know for a lot of people, zexal was their favorite yugioh series, but i simply can’t vibe with that. i’m sorry. i’m also aware the dub of zexal is a lot worse than the original. that doesn’t change the fact that i’m mostly rating dubs against each other here (haven’t seen enough of the arc v dub to account for that, but every other series i’m strongly thinking about the dubs). also, i’ll still give zexal credit for that. i’ll excuse some of its bad points as bad dub writing. some.

this chart, though, doesn’t paint a complete picture of how my opinion of zexal has changed. because it has. i like zexal a lot more now than i did before i started really watching it.

we’ll address good points first, so if anyone wants to bail for the bad points to avoid any sort of hurt feelings or anything like that, they can while still reading good stuff. again, i know a lot of yugioh fans’ favorite yugioh series is zexal, and my opinions are directly opposed to that, and again, i’m sorry.

there was some pretty cool new cards in this one, particularly in the numbers side of things. shark drake was cool. i liked all of the arclights’ numbers; honestly, how could i not love dyson sphere or number 69? i’ve forgotten a lot of it by now but there was some cool stuff especially in the first part.

the two best characters in this series, in terms of both writing and personality, were easily astral and shark. astral’s probably my number one, shark’s probably my number two.

astral was definitely great. his observations he kept making about humanity based on yuma was definitely one of the funnier things in the series, and the last duel of the series ending with astral’s last observation was poetic. he talked smack about yuma a lot, and a lot of the time it was pretty well deserved, and that was very cathartic and very good humor. his whole arc where he learns to trust yuma in part 1 and they truly become partners, then yuma meets vector who convinces yuma to keep pretty big secrets from astral, then astral realizes yuma’s been keeping these big secrets from him which is something astral never thought would happen by that point, and astral almost loses himself in that darkness of feeling betrayed and angry and sad, that was all really really good. yuma and astral not not immediately going back to loyal trusting partners and needing time before astral could truly trust yuma again also felt natural and real and i enjoyed it a lot. i like astral’s hairstyle, i like his dub censored ass, i like his whole ghost-like vibe. i don’t appreciate that astral is a nudist, even among the other residents of astral world who all wear actual clothes. i kind of wish astral would wear clothes but i would still want his ass to be censored because it’s hilarious. there is a lot i like about astral. i also just think he’s neat. my easy favorite. cannot go wrong with snarky glowy alien boy.

shark surprised me. i didn’t like him for a fair amount of part 1. he hurt yuma’s feelings a lot and i hated that. but when he started accepting yuma’s repeated attempts at friendship and turned around, i liked him a lot. he’s got purple hair, he plays a guitar (i think electric guitar? might’ve been electric bass), and his development was super interesting. i figured he had some kind of shitty home life that yuma would help him cope with using the power of friendship, but it was quite a bit more than that. he got disqualified from a tournament he desperately wanted to win because of a trick his opponent pulled, eventually evened out and became a pretty cool chill dude, and then it turned out he was like the head emperor of an alien planet that astral had set out to destroy?? he was the leader of a group of people and then blamed himself for their destruction?? he felt torn between his guilt/duty to his people and the new friendships he’d made with yuma and astral?? and he ended up deciding to go back to his alien emperor ways even though it pitted him against his friends which was hard but he had to make it up for the people he’d lost before?? but then he learned don thousand had been manipulating for a long long time and then faced against don thousand at yuma’s side een though he chose to turn his back on that friendship?? he didn’t let some fanfic choose his life for him??? he had shark drake??? there’s a lot of cool shit about shark and he’s got a lot of interesting shit going for him. i love a character that gets me to analyze what’s going on in their mind as they do certain things or make certain choices. i also love me a character who ends up getting/remembering magical powers. sorry shark astral’s in first but i still think shark’s neat too.

byron arclight!!! byron arclight! he’s not on the same level as astral and shark, but mAN i love byron arclight. he was constantly roasting everyone when he appeared and had some of the funniest dialogue in the entire series. anyone he looked at he’d be like “look aliens made me physically look like a child, my sons are taller and look older than me now, i couldn’t possibly give a shit about whatever your deal is.” he got super strong magic powers and used them to kidnap a small child. he became evil and told his sons to be evil with him because he was mad at dr faker, but they all kinda sucked at being evil and decided to be good guys instead by part 2. it’s honestly a shame the arclights didn’t appear in the series, especially part 2 (and especially byron, i’m p sure he appeared the least of the arclights) because i like them all actually. that episode where trey erased yuma’s like most important memories... dyson sphere... quattro telling off shark for dueling poorly while shark was sufferering the effects of POISON... what absolute legends. also byron had number 69.

yuma’s pretty cool, ended up being a more compelling character than i thought he would be. he’s a sweet kid, he’s annoyed initially by astral’s presence but he still helps astral with his quest to gather all the numbers anyway and he likes astral the more they hang out. that episode where yuma loses his memories because of trey really showed yuma’s pre-series development pretty well. yuma talks a lot and shouts the same few catchphrases a lot and it can get annoying, but there’s a lot more to yuma then that. at his core, he’s actually a pretty scared and lonely kid who doesn’t believe in himself, he looks at his current situation and goes “there’s no way i can win this duel there’s no point i might as well quit”. he’s not inherently upbeat and positive and self-confident like he usually appears. “feel the flow” is his source of strength, it’s what gets him going, gets him to believe in himself and inspires bravery in him. he’s actually one of the strongest people in the show for it, to be honest. his friends are so important to him, he cares about them so much and would do anything for them, even when his friends aren’t acting so friendly to him. even when his friends want conflicting things he tries his best to appease both sides. he becomes a voice of reason a lot in part 2, honestly. he kept voicing my thoughts and things i said throughout the season, which at times was really cathartic honestly. he kept challenging the status quo. why do we HAVE to do this, why can’t we find a compromise for THAT. he’s a good kid. i’m adopting him.

kite in part 1 is a cool Strong Opposition To The Number Hunt guy. he needs a glasses prescription but refuses to do anything about it and dies on the moon for it apparently, which i think is pretty funny of him. since he’s not astral he has to number hunt differently and the way he does it hurts people, but he’s only doing it because if he has all the numbers, then there might be a way to help his little brother who is suffering some big shit. his life literally revolves around his little brother who wants kite to just live his life for himself and be happy and have fun, to which kite replies “i don’t know how to do any of that”. relatable. eventually he realizes his dad is a dick. and beats him up until his dad says okay i’ll be good now. i won’t throw trash at astral world anymore i promise. kite’s hear to kick ass and take names and he runs out of names before he runs out of ass. but he gets new names by the time he runs out of ass so it’s okay. kite does some pretty fun stuff in part 1 and actually gives astral a run for his money which doesn’t happen often in part 1 so that’s pretty fun. also. his name is kite and his brother’s name is heart. dr faker is the worst at names but i’d expect that from someone who’s name is faker. it’s pretty funny, honestly

dumon is great. he’s a nice guy who is always trying to help out his friends. him first meeting shark and them pretty much despising each other and then realizing hmm maybe that other guy isn’t as obnoxious as i thought all before shark even realizes he’s nasch and nasch and dumon are like best friends? top-tier, def funny. after like that first meeting though dumon always came off as a nice guy. i like dumon. also, his dub voice actor voices dub yusaku and i was assigned yusaku by the government so i really appreciate that. he does a good job as yusaku. and honestly a good job at dumon, too. dumon is one of the best voices in the whole show. he’s great. i just think he’s neat

rio!!!! once rio wakes up, she’s great. you can tell like within an episode that she and shark are the kind of siblings that constantly snark at each other but would do literall anything for each other. shark tried to do anything he could to help her before she woke up, and rio stuck by his side no matter what in the barians vs astral conflict. the foreshadowing in that episode where she pretended she was knocked out like the rest of yuma’s friends but she really wasn’t!! within like a week of waking up she reveals shark can’t sleep in the dark and i think that he hates onions. she’s the picture of confidence, and it seems to come more naturally to her than yuma’s forced and learned confidence. she believes in herself for sure, she’s a great duelist and she knows it, she’s got that ice aesthetic that i love, she’s cute... i’m gonna go adopt shark and rio right now. she’s also fiercely protective of her friends. but she’s not afraid to tease them either! and she will do it! she’s unrepentantly herself and i love it.

vector is funny. vector had some great lines in part 2. “ray shadows” was always predictably not what he seemed at first glance but that’s not a bad thing. just because i knew “ray shadows” was bad didn’t make the reveal of him being vector any less satisfying, honestly. that whole sequence of what happened when vector revealed himself was one of my favorite parts of the second half. vector constantly leading yuma into “the ray way” (usually a poor way), then after reealing himself talking about doing things the ray way, absolutely poetic. that reveal causing a huge shift in yuma and astral’s relationship, beautiful. did you just say the b word??? he also had funny lines. most major villains in zexal (byron and vector) were pretty funny honestly. neither of them were the ultimate antagonist which is fine, but probably the best humor in the series to me came from the major villains. it made them less intimidating, maybe, but it made them a lot more enjoyable to watch.

number 96 looked like a dark version of astral, which is essentially what he was, but like, he literally looked like astral. but you know what? while astral’s ass was censored, number 96′s wasn’t censored in the slightest. to this day i don’t understand why but this is so funny to me. 4k media really said astral wasn’t valid but number 96 was.

there’s a lot of good stuff in zexal. and i enjoyed it! at the end of the day, that’s what i care about the most. doesn’t matter as much if something’s good or bad as much as if i’m enjoying it. and i enjoyed quite a bit of zexal.

i did say it was my least favorite yugioh anime currently, however. which means there must be parts of this anime i didn’t like. so let’s get into the aspects of zexal i didn’t like. feel free to bail now if you’re not interested in that. i’m not interested in hurting any feelings or tarnishing anyone’s love for zexal.

yikes

for what it’s worth, i like the first half a lot more than the second half. most of the problems i have with the first half are also present within the second half, but the second half has a lot of unique things i don’t like.

i know i said something doesn’t have to be good to be enjoyable. anyone can enjoy bad things. i enjoy plenty of bad things! look, i watch sword art online!! i’m no stranger to the concept. but a lot of things i didn’t like about zexal were just...too glaring for me to enjoy anway.

let’s start with cards.

i think xyz summoning should’ve been pronounced as x-y-z and not x-eez. i hated it from episode one and i am still holding to that.

i don’t like tori’s whole fairy cheerleader archetype. i don’t like the way they all look. these things were in arc v, too, and given to a slightly better character but i didn’t like these things in arc v and i don’t like these now. arc v gave me something to look forward to when i needed it most, i don’t say many bad things about it. but i hate these things in both series they were featured in. i think that says a lot. it’s the combo of the hair and the eyes. their hair is way too big. their eyes tend to look bad. it’s just not a great look.

the series started off with a very simple set of rules for number cards: number cards come from astral, and there are 100 of them (and only number cards can only destroy other number cards, which is less important here). the first half of zexal stuck to that prett well. the second half of zexal just laughed at the idea of rules and said i’mma break them. characters are suddenly given number cards that go over the number 100. all these characters are barians. and these cards didn’t come from astral. what the heck! you’re breaking rules left and right! and then don thousand comes out with his stupid imaginary number, and then two duels later yuma comes out with his own new number, future number zero. you’re breaking all the rules. you’re breaking all my trust in everything. you’ve stopped pretending there’s any sense of rules entirely and you’ve started making things up as you go. i don’t like that!! especially imaginary number and future number zero had basically no explanation as to where these things come from, how do these characters have these cards? it’s one thing when yuma comes out with a new gagaga card or something, that’s acceptable and makes plenty of sense, but the new number cards don’t. also, don thousand, yuma doesn’t know enough math to know what an imaginary number even is.

astral’s whole deck angers me. astral is one of the most important characters of the series, and you couldn’t bother to give him any non-xyz monsters. his whole deck is spells and traps. you gave tori, who only duels once and isn’t very good at it, her own whole archetype, but you couldn’t bother to think of a single monster to give astral. and even then, the only xyz monsters astral uses are utopia forms, (not including shark drake and galaxy-eyes, who were only brought out to serve as material for a utopia monster. this is the laziest deck in the whole series, and you gave it to a major protagonist. like, the second most important protagonist in the whole series. i get he only duels without yuma once, but dude. i hate this.

i also really don’t like that the only number yuma and astral use most of the time is utopia. i know utopia was the first one they had together and it’s popular and shit. but there are other numbers! other numbers yuma gains! that i would like to see him use! but instead the show just...keeps giving him new forms for utopia? for some reason? at least on one occasion one of yuma’s new forms has like the same exact ability as another number yuma has at the time. it’s infuriating. to me, at least. plenty of other characters only really use one number most of the time the duel, but most other characters only really have that one number and maybe another form of it or maybe two other forms. yuma doesn’t have that excuse. i’m not saying i never want him to use utopia ever. i just like variety. if you’re introducing the idea of collecting a lot of things, i wanna see those things used.

i hate don thousand’s dueling gimmicks most of all. he gets access to the numeron code and uses it to cheat in his duels, even though kite has it and zexal really gave the impression before this point that you needed to obtain the numeron code to use it, but don thousand’s just like, i fused earth and barian world and somehow i can use the numeron code now. ??????? no fucking sense. on top of that, his cards are super unbalanced. i could not stand watching this duel.

i don’t like the literally no excuse given of other characters besides yuma, the arclights maybe, and the barians maybe, the literally no excuse given for other characters suddenly being able to see astral. being able to see astral required either special powers or special circumstances but then at the end of part 1 going in to part 2 characters were just like “i can see astral now!!!” and that was the end of this and this was the stupidest laziest thing ever. dunno if this was a dub-only thing, maybe the sub explained it, but it really bothered me and still does.

i don’t think chaos was explained very well, at least in the dub, and i looked it up later on and know pretty much what it is now but when you introduce new concepts and ideas, please explain them to me or else i feel like there’s literally no rules to the universe and characters are just making things up as they go.

a lot of the time in the second half, astral is written really weirdly and, not as good. especially post-vector reveal. i’m not talking about any stubbornness on astral’s part because that’s who he is. part 2 starts going in and after a while of it already going, astral just comes in and explains things to yuma that astral definitely didn’t know before. i know astral starts out with almost no memories and regains them all throughout the series but i don’t think any of this like came right after astral regained some memory. the numeron code seems to come out of nowhere, and oh, by the way, this thing can rewrite the entire rules of the universe. it’s a race to see who gets the numeron code first! except, uh, kite ends up winning it i think but that ends up literally not mattering because don thousand and astral both finds ways to use it without even having it. so there wasn’t much of a point of a lot of the duels before the don thousand duel, huh. that’s a lot of time wasted. and apparently astral can use the numeron code after regaining all 100 numbers, but. i don’t remember when astral first introduced that fact and when he got all 100 numbers. but it only is relevant after the duel against nasch and astral only makes any attempt to use the numeron code then. i don’t even know how he got the numeron code after that duel anyway. kite had it and he died on the moon. don thousand could use it without actually having it but then he was defeated. was astral always able to use it without actually having it like don thousand? why didn’t he does this before, then? everything related to the numeron code is vague and explained poorly and every time the numeron code comes up someone makes up some new bullshit thing related to the numeron code and i hate it. i hate the stupid numeron code.

back on track with astral. there’s other stuff besides the numeron code he seemed to know about without any real explanation. i do not remember a lot of them. besides the numeron code. i think i repressed the rest of out of annoyance. i think the worst astral was written was right before his duel with yuma. i get that astral intended to use the duel to help yuma and not hurt him. but he could’ve accomplished this without being an entire jackass. yuma’s mourning the loss of friends that he’s also blaming himself for. and then astral decides to resolve that by telling yuma that astral’s gonna go kill a bunch more people and yuma can’t stop him? that’s uh, not helping anything astral. you had other options to get yuma to duel (while yuma was in a state of not wanting to duel ever again) rather than telling yuma more people are about to die. the point of the whole duel was to remind yuma how to have fun in duels. but uh. when you put a bunch of lives at risk like that after a bunch of people just died, that’s not a great way to introduce fun. yuma promised astral to duel against him before astral left earlier on in the series! you had other options! astral acts like he doesn’t have other options but he literally does! there’s stupid stuff like this astral does earlier in the second half but i have forgotten the details. i get astral’s an alien who’s pretty socially awkward and doesn’t get earth people super well, but b the end of the series he certainly should understand them a little better, or at least, he should understand yuma pretty well, after hanging out with yuma literally all the time. it’s stupid! astral’s better than all this! there’s no way this is the fault of dub writing! unless 4k media made entirely new animation for multiple episodes. like. of the entire episode.

there were multiple times in the second half i didn’t understand character motivations in certain events at all and had to really come up with my own weird headcanons to make sense of it. this is probably largely a result of dub writing.

i wish the arclights were more relevant in the second half. most of all they did was watch things happen. they’re cool and powerful give them something to do.

kite felt extremely pointless in the second half of zexal. he was given a clear character direction to go after the first half and basically abandoned it the second the second half started. he had this pointless rivalry with mizar that only ever felt relevant when they dueled each other on the moon to get the numeron code. kite realizes he needs glasses. he wins the duel. and then he fucking dies somehow. and everyone else gets access to the numeron code. it’s all really stupid and makes no sense. i wouldn’t care about him not being as narratively important as yuma, shark and astral. kite’s not from astral world, kite’s not from barian world, and he doesn’t have any partnership with anyone from either world. at most, he thinks astral’s neat now. but they keep dragging along this stupid rivalry between mizar and kite that literally amounted to “my galaxy-eyes dragon is better than your galaxy-eyes dragon”, these two idiots dueled about it multiple times, and it was just pointless. it ate up too much time. i could feel myself aging. the second half of zexal had enough filler episodes that made me want to tear my hair out without this stuff.

i hate mizar so much. he’s probably my second least favorite character in the series. all mizar EVER does is duel kite over who has a cooler galaxy-eyes dragon, which isn’t even a question because kite’s is cooler and he had it long before mizar ever showed up which at most makes mizar a copier idiot. the most relevant thing mizar does is duel kite on the moon for the numeron code, but i’ve been over that. you could take mizar out without changing much. he’s by far the least interesting barian emperor. mizar is more annoying than kite ever was, and is more annoying than the other barian emperors ever were. and yet mizar lives longer than pretty much every barian emperor except nasch. he got the honor of being written out of existence by don thousand himself. radical. cool. get him out of my sight. i can’t stand him.

there’s a point where there’s a number shown on baby vector. i really wanted to know what was up with that and how it was relevant. this was never explained at all. i’m gonna assume this was don thousand altering vector’s memories or something and move on and never address it again because this show just did and said so many things without explaining any of it whatsoever. this stuff needs established rules and explanations. otherwise it just feels like everythings made up on the fly, it’s all completely random shit with not much planning behind it, that the writers don’t care...it feels insulting. i had this same issue with the infinity stones in the marvel cinematic universe. this is not something i just don’t like because it happened in zexal. i like knowing things.

so if mizar’s my second least favorite, who’s my least favorite character overall? i’ll tell you who

tori fucking meadows.

tori. geez. has there ever been a worse character? yes, mineta from my hero academia exists. but what exactly is tori’s crime? what has she done to make me dislike her so much. well, nothing. ‘nothing?’ yes. she didn’t do anything. but at the same time, she didn’t do anything. my problem with her is she literally does nothing, she barely has any sort of relevance to anything, and she’s annoying. i’m very serious. there’s only two things she’s ever done: she got possessed by a barian emperor to duel against yuma once, and there was that time she challenged yuma to a fashion contest, which was a little entertaining. those are the only things she’s ever done. and yet, somehow, she finds her way into every single episode. it is rare for an episode to go by without her. well, if she’s in so many episodes, surely she must be doing something of importance? nah. her only purpose is to cheer yuma on when he’s discouraged and to get distressed when yuma looks like he’s in a bad spot. this is not a joke. this is not an exaggeration. there are entire episodes where her only dialogue is “(sad voice) Yuma...! Astral...!” i constantly forget she’s there and then the show reminds me she’s there and i get mad because she doesn’t do anything. it’s either be sad about duel going well for yuma, or tori going “yuma you can do it” and yuma going “YEAH YOU’RE RIGHT THANKS TORI”. yeah, she doesn’t even give good motivational speeches, she just says the laziest most generic thing possible, and yuma just cheers himself up anyway because that’s usually what he does anyway. there’s not point to her being there. oh, and she got to be the damsel of distress once to convince yuma to duel. that’s great. lovely. that’s definitely not shady/shifty as hell. all girls are only good for fueling boys’ pain and suffering, right.

but lemme ask this. let’s replace tori with a very pretty lamp for the entire series. how much of the show would change? and honestly? it’d mostly be just like, bits and pieces of three episodes. she’s literally just taking up space. she doesn’t need to duel to be relevant and do meaningful things. maybe she could do more to help yuma convince astral that blowing up barian world is a bad idea, maybe she’s able to come up with the right words where yuma isn’t. maybe she catches on that something’s wrong with shark before shark switches sides, she doesn’t have to convince him not to and i’d rather she didn’t but she can be an uninvolved person to listen and tell shark it’s not an easy choice for sure but she supports him whatever he does and she’s sure whatever he chooses will be the right choice for him. maybe she could get astral some fashionable clothes. i don’t know! she could actually do something! i’m not asking much here i just want her to be something besides a generic love interest (gross) or a generic supporter with generic advice (annoying).

a lot of yuma’s friend group have similar similar issues, but at least they have parts to play. bronk’s probably the best written of the bunch in part 1 before he dissolves into randomly in love with rio taking over his entire life (gross). cathy honestly is better than average too. rio is exempt from this paragraph because she doesn’t spend too much time in the friend group before bailing to her past life which is valid. yuma starts out with only bronk and tori for friends but he gains a lot of friends during the number hunt. most of these friends were possessed by numbers and yuma befriended them afterwards because ultimately his goal is to have fun and make friends by dueling. but they all stick around and don’t not hang out with him and don’t do much after yuma helps them. yuma has way too many friends that he drags around with him everywhere, and then some combination of the arclights, shark, kite, vector, and rio is often there as well. It’s way too many people and no wonder most of them never do anything because often all the things that could be done are taken. Most of these kids need to stop following Yuma everywhere. For the most part, they’re all annoying, too. I really only care for Bronk and Cathy.

i get it. the protagonist always has friends that are ride or die and help them out no matter what. i get it. but there was never this many constantly around, often times they’d switch around each other if anything, and they always all were either relevant to the plot or played good important roles in helping the protagonist, and they always had development. i think the most development any of yuma’s friend group (ignoring brinks negative development) had was cathy’s hatred of dogs getting a bit less intense. flip’s literally a shitty dude who cheats and yuma told him “hey maybe be less shitty next time” a couple of times and flip said “sure” each time but then never put any effort into being better and just kept being shitty towards other people. caswell just...reiterates what’s happening half the time ans starts literally every sentence with “in the end”. all they’re good for is filler and zexal has really bad filler. they’re not good for anything. they should’ve showed up less at least after the heartland tournament arc if not sooner. i get that the whole thing is to show that yuma wants to make friends through duels but this is unnecesasary and eats up time that could be better spent on other characters who actually do things and who actually are relevant and develop and stuff. the protagonist’s friend group was never this annoying before zexal and it never was after zexal either. when they all got sent to barian world and stopped showing up for like ten episodes i almost finally new peace if those ten episodes weren’t like some of the worst content zexal had to offer.

there’s a lot of pointless boring uneventful unnecessary hetero shit all over the show, too. obviously, the whole deal with yuma and tori, while yuma really has no interest in romance at all and tori can’t take a fucking hint and then somehow the last episode decides to make them start dating for some reason. bronk falls for rio (understandable) and then in a filler episode asks for shark’s permission to date her (gross), shark misunderstands what bronk’s asking and is like “if you wanna deal with me or rio you gotta beat yuma in a duel first”, bronk gets it in his head that means yuma likes rio and duels yuma over rio (gross) and this is all supposed to be a funny whole series of events but it’s not funny and it’s kinda gross actually. orbital and lillybot!! yikes!! i don’t like orbital anyway. lillybot is amazing and great. the show decides to assign lillybot female (tori just says lillybot’s a girl and we’re supposed to take tori’s word for it i guess) so obviously the assigned male robot and the assigned female robot have to date, right! they MUST like each other because he was a boy robot, she was a girl robot, can i make it any more obvious. it’s annoying and stupid. they have kids!!! they have kids for some reason!!! why do they have kids!!!!! zexal never interact with me about romance again.

the girls in this show really get the shit end of the stick, huh. i feel really bad for them. obviously we have tori. who was there the whole time but really didn’t do anything except be generically sad or generically positive. cathy’s a little better than that. she has a bit more personality going for her. she likes cats, she makes cat puns, she duels a dog, she did get possessed by a number... she’s got a few things going for her, but she doesn’t do much either. she doesn’t do anything worth noting in the tournament in heartland, she barely does anything of note related to the barian emperors or don thousand. so that’s not much better. rio probably got the best treatment of any of the girls in zexal. she is a major player in the second half of zexal, being one of the barian emperors. she’s got a very strong personality and did plenty of important things. she helped her and her brother deal with the barian emperors before realizing she was one herself, she reclaimed her title of barian emperor and tried to kick vector’s ass. rio and shark brought a lot of life to each other. she revealed her brother’s need to sleep with a nightlight and she was allowed to be good at dueling! but also, she spend the entire first half of the show in a coma. she wasn’t allowed to have any part in the show before astral and the barian emperors did their thing. so in a way, rio also got the worst treatment, too. discounting rio, though, i think the girl who got the worst of it was actually kari.

i know, i know. kari’s an investigator, a journalist! she’s always after a scoop, she’s always looking after yuma, and she deals with old friends/enemies. she’s not just some generic friend like tori, she’s not in a coma like rio! kari’s great! and i love her! but this isn’t just about girls not getting to do things that matter or girls not getting to have personalities. this goes in a bit different direction than that. she wanted to go out and explore with her dad, just like yuma did, but her parents always brushed her aside and made her do more “girly” things because “girls can’t do what yuma and your dad are doing”! she didn’t get a wole lot of agency in her own life. her parents all but told her that yuma was more important than her, that he had this big destiny related to dueling and that all she was good for was watching out for yuma and making sure he was okay because she’s his older sister. and then both her parents disappeared! and she was just left with that! she grew to hate dueling, to push yuma away from it because their parents basically told her yuma would be in danger because of dueling. which is a totally understandable reaction to your parents telling you that out of seemingly nowhere! except the show doesn’t treat it that way. the show puts her in the wrong for not liking dueling! because everyone has to like dueling kari!! how dare you not like card games. how dare you have any interest in anything else. i’m surprised she’s not more bitter towards her parents for this whole fiasco. she just gets slammed into a caretaker role because girls can only be love interests or caretakers! (tori, cathy, and rio were all set up as love interests at least one time or another, while yuma would rather eat another hot dog than deal with that) but honestly, she does her best to do what her parents told her: take care of yuma during his big dangerous dueling destiny. she watches out for him, she tries to steer him clear of the thing that’s supposed to be dangerous for him. and as a journalist she has to be constantly up to date on current events and happenings, so if something happens that might endanger yuma with his big dangerous dueling destiny, kari’ll probably be on of the first people to know about it in all of heartland. that’s not to say that’s not the only reason she took up the profession. she definitely seems passionate about what she does, she takes it seriously, i’m sure she does actually like being a journalist, but it does help with yuma, too. her parents basically forced her life to go exactly one way. and that’s not shown in a bad light against her parents! if anything, the show basically acts like it’s kari’s fault for not being happy about it every second. all this while yuma gets to be whoever he wants to be and do what he wants to do their whole childhood, he gets a lot more freedom than kari for sure. yuma got the childhood kari wanted and she’s not allowed to grieve what she could’ve had. because it’s not just “kari’s parents forced her into a very specific role for her life and gave her no choice in any of it”. that can actually be a really cool thing to explore. i love chazz princeton! kari has plenty in common with chazz! but i don’t like this setup like this. chazz got to be right about being bitter about what his brothers did to him, about breaking away from them and living life the way he wanted to. but making kari’s parents the right ones in this whole situation is just kinda gross and disgusting. if you’re gonna frame it like that don’t bother. cannot stand the “your parents are always right” sort of shit.

speaking of? goddamn i hate kazuma. i hate yuma and kari’s dad. i would say he’s the worst dad in all of yugioh, but he didn’t start an interdimensional war, so we’ll say he’s the second worst dad in all of yugioh. ...if i tie dr kogami with leo, but either way, leo, dr kogami, and kazuma are the top 3.

how can kazuma be in the top 3?? with leo and dr kogami?? leo and dr kogami are evil villains!! kazuma’s not a bad guy! he helped give yuma more self-confidence! he wanted peace between astral world and barian world!

first of all, if you skipped the paragraph related to kari, go back and read it. it’s required reading for the “why kazuma sucks” portion of our program tonight. okay good, you read it. here’s more reasons why kazuma’s a pretty sucky dad.

this here is a bullshit man.

kazuma had good intentions, i think. he wanted to be a good dad but intentions don’t really mean a damn thing when you look at the results.

pre-zexal, kazuma tsukumo knew about yuma’s destiny and told kari about it. how did he know this? how did he figure this out? that’s a good question. i have no idea why he knows about yuma’s destiny, or how he knows about it. the wiki just says he “showed great intelligence and foresight”, whatever that means. my best guess is that honestly? once kazuma saw what was happening in astral world, he created yuma’s destiny himself. he gave the key to yuma, and then he fucked with astral’s shit so that astral would meet yuma. yeah, kazuma looked at everything going on and was like “i’ll put it on my 12 year old son to save three worlds at the same time! what could go wrong”, and told kari about it beforehand and was like “lol kari can’t do it she’s a girl so i’ll just decide her entire life for her a different way”

uh, clearly yuma was not emotionally capable of dealing with the shit kazuma pulled him into. yuma was ready to never duel again because dueling killed his friends. and then kazuma talks to astral about the whole thing and is weirdly smug about the whole thing related to yuma’s lost friends and lost love for dueling. so like...was that part of your plan or not? do you give a shit about your son’s feelings regarding your whole plan for his life or not?

after yuma falls into a portal in the hell dimension he ends up being a prisoner on astral world. which was definitely not explained well in the dub. but he and his wife just hang out freely and openly in remote parts of astral world so he sure as shit doesn’t look like a prisoner. and while he’s there he certainly looks like there’s no place he’d rather be. wait, his wife? how did she get in astral world? that’s a good fucking question and i sure would love to know. i guess she’s not allowed to exist outside her relationship with kazuma.

after kazuma is stuck in astral world, everyone thinks he’s dead for a while, but then when everyone finds out he was alive, he’s treated as this all-knowing projection/recorded hologram who is always right about everything. he always has all the answers and if we don’t know what to do about something then kazuma definitely knows! and after he appears to die he can sometimes appear to people somehow, how he can do that is never explained well at least in the dub, and there are arbitrary conditions to it also never explained in the dub. he can appear in the emperor’s key. he only really seems to do this once to have a weird conversation with astral, and then he also...was able to help vetrix make a barrier during yuma and nasch’s duel, somehow? i mean, i get tron’s whole thing, but kazuma, not so much? if he can appear to astral and vetrix why does he never try to connect with yuma? i’m guessing he probably can’t appear to yuma directly but he never tries to leave a message with astral either. he has these arbitrary weird abilities never explained well (in the dub, at least) and it feels like he’s playing calvinball to make himself seem like a hero or something.

honestly, everthing about yuma’s dad being seemingl dead but still alive, creating his son’s destiny and being this vague benevolent being who is always right and is never allowed to be seen in a bad light related to the consequences to his kids for his meddling, it all seems familiar....

that’s right! it all comes back to sonic!! once again i am literally unable to talk about anything without bringing up sonic, i always bring everything back to sonic!!!

i explained this all a lot better a year ago so i will let myself speak i guess

obviously kazuma isn’t as bad of a person as locke the echidna, not nearly as bad, but there’s parallels, anyway.

so if you agree that yuma is the old comics knuckles of yugioh, if you look at the bad dads section of this article (in case you think i wrote it for some reason, which i didn’t, thankskenpenders did) you can understand why locke is a horrible dad, and looking at the similarties pointed out between locke and kazuma (again, locke is a much worse father than kazuma) you can understand more why i hate kazuma.

so, yeah. i can go on and on about all the things i don’t like zexal. the writing is sometimes sexist and lazy, there’s way too many characters hanging out with the protagonist and most of them have nothing to offer. sometimes things just don’t get explained, or are barely explained. it’s a big ol’ game of calvinball sometimes. and i am aware and accept that some of this is the fault of the dub writers. but there’s also a lot of good things i like about zexal! astral, shark, and yuma were all written really well! there were some really cool monsters in this show! there were some moments of good jokes! the show had good messages and a lot of characters had complex motivations you can sympathize with even if you don’t agree with what they’re doing. this show was very good at being yugioh. and it’s a pretty good show in my book. i enjoyed watching it! it just doesn’t happen to be my favorite yugioh. or like. anything but my least faorite yugioh. but that’s okay. really, the most important thing with watching a show isn’t how well it’s written, how good the visuals are, or anything like that, the most important thing is whether you enjoyed it. and i enjoyed it!

i enjoyed watching yugioh zexal.

if you followed me through my journey watching the anime, thank you. i appreciate it.

this isn’t the end of my journey through zexal. i intend to read the manga too, so when i do get to that, if i end up wanting to post any screenshots or anthing i’ll be using the same tag. that’s sure to be an interesting journey as well.

but anyway. if you read this entire post, thank you. this is over 8,000 words long, damn.

#zexal liveblog #long post 235

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medea10 · 5 years ago

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My Review of Pokemon Sun & Moon

Hi all. Sorry for the delay on this one. I usually go all-out on my Pokemon reviews that I wanted to let out everything I wanted to. Plus I had real-life work and other stuff. With that said, here’s my final review of 2019 as well as the final review of the decade. See you in 2020!

As Ash mentioned at the end of XY, Ash said he was going back home to Pallet Town and “start at zero”. This means when he decides to go on his journey, he leaves all of his other pokemon at Oak’s lab and goes on a new journey with Pikachu. But unlike the start of other journeys, this one started with Ash’s mom, Delia and her pokemon Mimie winning a contest which resulted in a trip to the Alola region. And since they were heading that way, Professor Oak asks them to bring a pokemon egg to his cousin in Alola. So let’s begin with Ash’s adventure in the Alola region.

The Alola region is split into four different islands. Each of these islands contains trial captains, island challenges, pokemon of different forms, and pokemon guardians! But unlike the game, Ash ends up in the Alola region to go to school. That’s right, after being the envy of every child for the last 20 years, Ash must go to school. In this school, Ash will learn all he needs to when it comes to living in the Alola region. Along with new friends, a helpful professor, a Rotom Pokedex, an enthusiastic Oak that does impressions, and a special bracelet capable of unleashing powerful Z-moves, Ash’s journey is getting very interesting.

MEET THE CHARACTERS: This seriously has got to be the biggest ensemble for Ash’s posse. Each character has their own unique charm and their own speciality when it comes to their pokemon type preference (and their hairstyle will say so too). At the beginning, I was just okay on some of these characters, but I have definitely enjoyed watching them evolve. Here are all of Ash’s new classmates, professor, Pokedex and a brand-new Oak.

Mallow is a very cheerful girl with the love of grass-types and cooking specialty dishes for friends and pokemon. While some of her dishes can be a little surprising, even shocking, she has a knack for using only the freshest ingredients, mostly coming from wild pokemon.

Lana has a passion for the water and yes, even water-type pokemon. She’s quite soft spoken and spends a lot of her days fishing. She may even look into becoming a fisher like her father. But she does have an edge that makes her and her Popplio tough to beat. Not to mention, quite the sense of humor! She also takes care of her two younger sisters Sarah and Harper.

Kiawe is very handy in a battle with his fire-type pals. Unlike the other students in the class, he’s been given a Z-ring first as he has attempted the Island Challenge. Because of this, he’s rather high-strong about those who own a Z-ring. His days start early in the morning with delivering MooMoo Milk, then he goes to class, then comes home to take care of the farm pokemon, and let’s not forget all that training with Charizard and Turtenator!

Sophocles is what you’d call a computer nerd (yeah, we have another one). He’s able to handle any electrical error that comes his way with the help of either Togedamaru or Charjabug. The only thing he’s unable to challenge is sleeping in the dark!

Lillie is the mysterious girl with no pokemon (at first) and seems to get scared by them real easily. However, she knows quite a bit about pokemon without having physical contact with them. Luckily, Lillie lets her guard down later in the series when she gets the opportunity to take care of an egg. And when it hatched, she kept it. Other pokemon, it still takes her a while to open up to them, but when she does open up, it’s adorable!

Professor Six-Pack is too hot (hot damn)! Call the police and the fireman!

FINE, I’LL DO THE RIGHT THING!

Professor Kukui is the teacher to these fine pupils and has even allowed Ash to stay with him while Ash attends school. He seems a little laid back at first glance, but he does take special care into each and every lesson he gives his students.

Rotomdex is the talking Pokedex for Ash. Unlike all the other Pokedexes up to this point, this one can actually carry on a conversation with Ash. Not just that, but come up with strategies, watch detective shows on TV, and even write screenplays. It’s amazing how so much can come from a fushion between a Rotom and a regular pokedex!

Principal Oak…Okay, no, I can’t do that! Over 10 years ago, I wrote a fan fic called Romance 101. And I spent a good five years writing the words “Principal Oak” because that’s what I called Samuel Oak. This Principal Oak is just giving me vivid flashbacks.

…fine Principal SAMSON Oak is of course the principal to the Pokemon School. This Oak is a much tanner, buffer, and at times sillier man when you compare him to the original Professor Oak. He really loves doing pokemon impressions. And much like Professor Oak’s poems, Samson Oak’s jokes goes over a lot of people’s heads.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: With the exception of Kiawe, Rotomdex, and Samson Oak’s voice actors, this is literally a brand new experience for most of these new characters. And I gotta say, I hope these voice actors get more attention. I know Reina Ueda (Mallow) has been getting a lot more roles in the last three years and I love that. The Pokemon anime has had quite a history of either getting very prominent voice actors or voice actors who aren’t known for much else. But I do hope for more exposure for Lana, Sophocles, and Professor Kukui’s seiyuus. Extra points for having Nobuhiko Okamoto play Gladion!

I’ll mention more later in the review but due to the death of a very, very, VERY prominent voice actor, there was a major change. With the passing of Unshou Ishizuka, there were three important characters that had to be changed; Professor Oak, Samson Oak, and the Narrator. I started noticing the lack of these three (yes, even the narrator) in episodes prior to Ishizuka’s death. If we go several episodes without one of the Oak’s, it’s not a big deal. But the fact that the narrator wasn’t heard before the start of the show or at the end for several episodes at a time, it felt very weird. But after hearing about how Unshou Ishizuka died of Esophageal cancer, I can’t help but think he was doing treatments during the Aether Foundation arc. His replacement, Kenyu Horiuchi is not bad. But after listening to Ishizuka since…well at least two decades, it’s very noticeable.

The dub once again is putting hope in brand new voice actors and even a few veterans from the XY series. And so far, this is very promising since they casted Alsyon Leigh Rosenfield. However, one prominent voice actor who has been around for a LONG time has retired. Kayzie Rodgers, the replacement voice of Max and Wobbuffet (and long-time voice to Mr. Mime and Professor Ivy) has retired at the beginning of SM (2016). I can honestly say, I will miss hearing her voice. Out of all the dub changes, you were one of a few I accepted. That and I will always remember you as Professor Ivy and Mimie! With that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Lana is played by Hitomi Kikuchi

*Mallow is played by Reina Ueda (known for Kisa on Fruits Basket 2019, Shiori on Sakura Quest, Jiro on Tokyo Ghoul, and Katra Paige on Inazuma Eleven GO: Galaxy)

*Kiawe is played by Kaito Ishikawa (known for Genos on One Punch Man, Naofumi in Shield Hero, Sakakibara on Assassination Classroom, Kaito on Tsurune, Mitsuo on Golden Time, and Urie on Tokyo Ghoul :re)

*Sophocles is played by Fumiko Takekuma

*Lillie is played by Kei Shindou (known for Carissa on Index III and Shijimi on Rosario to Vampire)

*Professor Kukui is played by Keiichi Nakagawa (known for Salamander on Beelzebub)

*Rotomdex is played by Daisuke Namikawa (known for Rock on Black Lagoon, Jellal on Fairy Tail, Italy on Hetalia, Kazehaya on Kimi ni Todoke, Fai on Tsubasa Chronicle, Yuu on Persona 4, and Arima on Tokyo Ghoul)

*Narrator & Samson/Samuel Oak (ep1-93) is played by Unshou Ishizuka (known for Mr. Satan on DBZ Kai, Jet on Cowboy Bebop, Hohenheim on FMA: Brotherhood, Dr. Gel on Space Dandy, and Grandpa Joestar on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Pt 3) [R.I.P.]

* Narrator & Samson/Samuel Oak (ep93-present) is played by Kenyuu Horiuchi (known for Pain on Naruto, Mako’s father on Kill la Kill, Sasaki on Bakuman, Hachiken’s father on Silver Spoon, and Takafumi on Sekaiichi Hatsukoi)

ENGLISH CAST: *Lana is played by Rosie Reyes

*Mallow is played by Rebecca Soler (known for Hart on YGO Zexal)

*Kiawe is played by Marc Swint

*Sophocles is played by Alyson Leigh Rosenfield (known for Rio on YGO Zexal, Aina on Promare, and Ally on YGO Arc-V)

*Lillie is played by Laurie Hymes (known for Prana on YGO: Dark Side of Dimensions)

*Professor Kukui is played by Abe Goldfarb

*Rotomdex is played by Roger Callagy

*Samson Oak is played by Marc Thompson (known for Chaz on YGO GX, Astral on YGO Zexal, and Kevin/Mr. O’Neill/Mr. Demartino on Daria)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Pokemon…why do you keep doing this to me? Do you want me to lose what little faith I hold onto?

With that said, this season has given me a “best girl”. Yes, the term “best girl” is given to the…well, you know, the best girl of the series. And ever since the creators decided to shake things up by giving Ash a new female companion every couple of years, fans have fought to the death on who is best girl of Pokemon. For me, my best girls of Pokemon were Prima, Zoey, Blue/Leaf Green, and Bonnie. But there are just a few problems there. None of them are Ash’s piece of arm candy! And there’s some unwritten law that it has to be the possible love interest like Misty, Dawn, or Blushy McIdiot. And my best girls have either been in only one episode of the anime, was just a rival to someone who isn’t Ash, a girl who was never in the anime, and too young. BUT…Sun and Moon did it! It friggin’ did it! It gave me a best girl! And that girl is…

LANAAAAAAAA!

I never tire of that Archer joke! But yes, Lana is best girl.

I knew I was going to like her when she first debuted, but I had no idea how awesome she was going to truly be. Is it her prankish nature? Maybe! Is it this creepy yandere vibe I get off from her every now and then? Possibly! Is it the way I’ve seen her grow as a trainer throughout this series. You fucking bet! Lana at one point seemed like the one character who wasn’t getting much growth when it came to catching and evolving pokemon. Then again, everyone (including Ash) gave me that impression compared to other arcs. But then she caught the shaggy Eevee! Serious wild card! No one expected Lana to catch Eevee. And then there’s Popplio. She and Popplio trained like crazy later in the series and it shows when it evolved into Brionne and eventually into Primarina. ESPECIALLY WHEN PRIMARINA EVOLVED! Did you see Lana and Brionne going toe-to-toe with that Kyogre? That was epically awesome!

Plus, she was like the only female in God-knows how long to reach the top 8 in the Pokemon League.

DISLIKED CHARACTER: My tolerance has taken a slight dip because there are three people I feel should be up here!

First, I would like to put up Cross from the 20th movie, I Choose You. I know that he isn’t in the actual SM series, but I’m putting him up here because I just downright hate him. He is on Damien levels of shit. That’s how much I hate the son of a bitch. He could cure cancer, kick Donald Trump in the crotch, and bring peace in the Middle East and I would still hate him. Cross was like a very bad combination of Damien and Paul. Abandons a pokemon the same way as Damien and shows this power assholeness that Paul has. But add to that, a bit of a cruel edge to him and sprinkle a bit of whiny little bitch on that. He has to hold a grudge against Ash in this movie because he was blessed with Ho-oh’s feather, but when he saw Ho-oh, he got nothing. Oh boo-freakin-hoo! Cry me a river!

Next…Faba! You fucking testicle! Heads up, I like calling Faba a testicle! When I first saw him, I thought that Lusamine was gonna be the one to hate because of the game setup. But this anime just proves how much Lusamine loves both of her children. The same can’t be said about Faba! At first, I thought Faba would be like Colress in a way…creepy how they almost look and act the same. But then his true side started to show. Oh, this guy wants them Ultra Beasts. And will not let anyone get in his way. Not little children, not birds suffering from Insomnia, not Team Rocket, not even his boss’s child! This greedy sonuvabitch is literally the reason why Lillie was afraid of pokemon and re-triggered it AGAIN thanks to UB Nihilgo. Yeah, fuck you Testicle!

Now after that incident, Testicle was demoted and serves under Wicke and Clefable (which is literally the best thing I could ever ask for). And in most scenarios where he’s shown, Faba was silly with his fanboy obsession with the Masked Royal or his stupid experiment shrinks the kids. So other than him being a dumbass nothing too damning! That was until the Pokemon League where he decided to play dirty by having his Hypno bring out Ash’s Meltan instead of going up against Pikachu. I’m glad he got beat within less than 2 minutes because this testicle needs to shrivel up now.

Who else?

Viren! I can’t help but think he’s this anime’s answer to Donald Trump. But I hate both of them so that’s a start! I could let things slide with him just being there for one episode where he’s trying to buy out Kiawe’s family’s farm and be done with it. BUT NO! This sonuvabitch has gotta wear out his welcome by showing up another three or four times doing that same shit! And even his very first episode where he uses illegal tactics to get Rango and Sima’s farm was warrant enough to hate this fucker. I just thought he would just be a one-and-done character much like the Mayor of Trovitopolis (OI episode). Aggrivating to say, this dickhead came back numerous times to do more shady-ass shit. And I hope to Arceus I never see him again!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Kiawe and Lana’s mothers are total milfs.

DON’T ACT LIKE I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE! Kiawe’s mama, hell yeah total milf! Lana’s mother, I ended up having a lesbian dream about her and she became a milf.

Hey, usually I’m straighter than a honeymoon dick. But sometimes I peak over and can easily say that Sima and Lana’s mother are Mothers I Like to Fantasize about. Again, in the words of Forky, “I’m Trash”!

SHIPPING: Okay…let’s have some fun with this one. This is less vomit inducing than XY. Just keep that bitch in Hoenn for as long as it takes. I don’t want to see her for a long time.

Ash x Lillie: I honestly think this is rather cute. Ash is one of the very few who’s been able to help Lillie with her poke-phobia. Though this ship isn’t heavily pushed on us like a certain OTHER ship that just won’t DIE. I swear Amour is like the herpes. I really can’t say there’s much romance here. Although her goodbye to Ash was just honest-to-God cute! Now if there was one Ash ship that caused some sort of blushing, it would have to go to…

Ash x Lana: Whenever she could, Lana would drag Ash along with her. Whether it’s looking for a missing pokemon or on the hunt for a legendary pokemon in the water, she would take Ash by the arm and take him by force. However, none of this was romantically motivated. The only thing worth mentioning was her tsundere way of blushing and brushing off romance when her sisters pester if Ash is her boyfriend.

Mallow x Lillie: This was my OTP to be perfectly honest. While Ash was the actual first person to nudge Lillie to help her with pokemon, Mallow was like the best friend of Lillie’s. She would always show concern for her. I know this is more big sister syndrome, but I’ll still ship it. I never thought anything would happen until the episode where the class puts on a play and I see Mallow and Lillie dressed like Utena and Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena. To which I said, “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS AWESOME-BALLS”! Pokemon, are you trying to tell us something with this? You trying to tell us something with this clear and direct reference to one of anime’s famous Yuri couples?

Kukui x Burnet: THIS SHIP HAS SAILED! I’m actually surprised how fast this ship was. I know they’re married in all four games, but in the anime it seemed like they didn’t know each other that well prior to Burnet’s first appearance. And anime wise, they only spent 11 episodes with each other. And on the 11th episode not only did Kukui propose to Burnet with a ring, but they freakin’ got married! I guess there are such things as love at first sight. Kukui wanted it and put a ring on it. There’s a real man, yo! Now, he does lose some points here as he does lead that double life as the Masked Royal where he keeps it a secret from everyone, including his fangirl of a wife. But once she knew, she let him off the hook. And you know how much this ship is cemented? Watch the last 30 seconds of the final episode! It’ll blow your socks off!

On a side note, the way Kukui proposed to Burnet…BEST FUCKING PROPOSAL!

Nurse Joy x Officer Jenny: Amazing, it has taken over 20 years for anyone to think this is even humanly possible. But in Alola, there’s a Nurse Joy and an Officer Jenny that are constantly together. Maybe it’s because I hang out on Tumblr a little too much that it gets implied a lot, but I can’t help but have a guilty pleasure for this.

Pokeshipping: AAAAAAH! Yeah, Medea has to bring this old war back. Okay, okay, I won’t be long here. Just to let you know that I’m a fan of this ship, especially back in the day. As for Sun & Moon, at least we don’t see that classic tsundere syndrome Misty is known for. But she still cutefully teases Ash about several things from the past including the broken bike and their past gym battle. To add to this, Misty (and to lesser extent Brock) were the only ones from Ash’s past companions to see him this region...much to my dismay!

Brock x Olivia: Holy crap! Did Brock seriously get lucky? Is this it? Is this the woman to finally fulfill this pervy breeder/doctor? To me, it just feels like just another day in the life of Brock’s love life. However he has done his research of Olivia that makes me think he’s dead serious about her…I just think it’s a creative way to say he’s in the early stages of stalking. But nothing else came from it after Brock (literally) proposed marriage to her and joined in doing a Z-move with her. Then again, Brock does get a lucky break with at least one lady in each region. Sadly, that’ll probably be the end of that much like Professor Ivy, Pike Queen Lucy, Holly, and Autumn.

Ash x Gladion: Guilty pleasure…is it wrong that I want these two to dress up like Yuri and Yurio from Yuri on Ice. No, didn’t think so! Not sorry for that image!

ANIMATION: I’m sorry, I can’t stay quiet about this like most of the other fans of the show. What the hell were they thinking? This is not supposed to be One Piece. This is not supposed to that Rock Lee spin-off. This is Pokemon. Poke-fucking-mon! Ash went backwards on the evolutionary chart. And people have nerve to go off on the BW series for giving him wider pupils and a mediocre outfit. You people owe the animators for BW a fucking apology for one! Ash’s design now looks like he’s cosplaying to be Monkey D. Luffy’s retarded cousin. Even my own mother, who watches one episode once every couple of months commented to say Ash looks stupid. Thank you!

SADDEST MOMENT: It’s been a good while since I’ve had a Pokemon episode touch me to a point of almost crying. Close, but the Misty/Togetic goodbye still has it beat (which was then beaten by an episode of Violet Evergarden…Dammit 2019!). And even then, the touching moments in Pokemon would be because someone of the main cast released their pokemon like Ash releasing Charizard, Jessie releasing Dustox, and OH MY GOD, NO! ENOUGH WITH THE SAD TOGETIC SCENE! But that was just it, at least no one died!

…Until now! That’s right, deaths were usually only a movie thing as we saw in the fifth movie with Latios. But in the last three years, Pokemon got a little dark in both the anime and the movie trilogies. The 20th movie we saw a Luxray freeze to death, the 21st movie we saw a Snubbull burn to death, and because the 22nd movie is a rehash of the very first movie, we’re going to relive Ash dying.

The SM anime did a few things we haven’t seen in the Pokemon anime before. In the early episodes of SM, we were introduced to Litten and watched a very sad episode dealing with death. Before Litten joined Ash, it lived on the streets with a very old Stoutland. Now think of every sad animal movie you’ve ever seen and you’ll have your answer of what happens to Stoutland by the end of the episode. They don’t show Stoutland’s death on screen, but we know. This episode was very clever at tackling the death topic on a kid’s anime. And up to this point I thought this episode was going to take the cake in the sad department. Boy was I wrong!

The 108th episode of SM gave us one hell of a tear-jerker and it almost got me. It almost got me! We learn in this episode that Mallow had a mother. And this is a first because no one in any of the main cast talked about a dead parent before this episode! We learn about Mallow’s mother being sick a lot and it caused a rift between the two. Especially when Mallow snaps at her mother because all she does is apologize for not being there. Unfortunately that exchange was the last time she ever spoke to her. Where does the sad part get heavy? Here!

While everyone was on Poni Island, we hear about how Tapu Fini is able to communicate with the dead. And among some of the dead we saw Hapu’s grandfather, Kiawe’s grandfather, and Stoutland. But in the mist, Mallow came across her mother. And that one moment where she finally can see her mother after so many years! She breaks down and cries. She apologizes for the horrible things she said as a kid to her. But those sorrys turn into thank yous. She thanks her mother for what she’s done, thanked her for being her mother! God damn it, this is now #2 in saddest Pokemon moments. The second I saw this I thought it was going to make me ugly cry and trounce all over the Misty/Togetic moment. To my surprise, it didn’t. But came super close!

In short, Mallow seeing her mother again…this moment! Feels! Fucking feels!

COMEBACK: I have pretty much given up on people from the previous series to pay Ash a visit in the newest region. After XY where we didn’t get a single sighting of Iris and Cilan getting shafted to an episode that they didn’t even bother giving an English dub, I just gave up. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get characters who “came back”.

In SM, there were two times where we got a blast from the past. In two episodes we had Ash, Kukui, and the class make a trip to Kanto where (that’s right) we get to see Professor Oak, Delia, Misty, and Brock again. Not only that but we get two more episodes where Misty and Brock come to Alola!

As much as I love Misty…and toler…ate Brock, many other characters are overdue for a get-together with Ash. If you want me to be blunt, May, Iris, and Tracey are the only ones who should get attention and everyone else needs to FUCK OFF. That’s right, we don’t need to see Brock hit on more whores of the day. No more fishing competitions for Dento-fruit (much as I love him). Blushy McIdiot, Dingus, and Bonnie can go fuck off! And that goes double for Dawn!

Shit Medea, that was cruel.

Yeah it was cruel and I’ll continue to do so. It’s been 11 years since May was last seen/heard. Iris got royally butt-fucked by everything in the anime. And as for Tracey, I don’t owe you pissants a fucking explanation. Tracey deserves better! Speaking of…

AN UNFORTUNATE THEORY: With the comebacks of Misty and Brock, Tracey has just been NOT THERE! They go to Oak’s lab and he isn’t there. Not even mentioned. Not a word about him. When Ash calls Professor Oak randomly, Oak is there and even Muk, but no Tracey. When Ash asks Misty and Brock about back home, they don’t mention Tracey…which is to be expected since they have to talk about their siblings, but still.

Pokemon doing anything island adventure wise kinda comes with a mixed bag. The Orange Islands came with immediate hate because loyal Brock fans are ass-hurt about Tracey’s existence. The Sevii Islands were a bust during the FR/LG games. And the less mentioned about Decalore Island in the BW anime, the better. But when they decided to do Alola, fans caught on quite quickly with some comparisons to the Orange Island anime portion.

Unlike all the other gyms in other regions, Alola had four grand trials/leaders. Orange Islands had the Orange Crew, which was essentially four gym leaders. Both the trials and the crew had Ash do different tasks before an actual battle. Next, pokemon with different colors/forms! In the early episodes of the Orange Islands, we saw pokemon just a smide different from their normal looks. We saw Vileplume with a different flower pattern, other pokemon with a different shade of color to them, and interesting designs on Butterfree. In Alola, they expaneded on that by giving “Alolan forms” to pokemon like Meowth, Diglett, Exeggutor, Marowak, and even Raichu! I do love Alolan Raichu! However, the pokemon that had small changes in the Orange Islands were not brought to the Alolan table. So maybe Orange Islands and Alola are in far different parts of the world.

Where my theory goes from here is that I think Pokemon really wants to pretend the Orange Islands never happened. That means the gym battles, the special pokemon, and yes, even Tracey. That’s the only way to explain why no one has mentioned him even when we’re standing in Professor Oak’s fucking lab! I hate to be blunt and say something so horrible, but every time I watch SM, it really does feel like that. Yes, I admit it, the Orange Islands were just filler until Ash and crew could go to Johto. First of all, it exists. No matter how much you try to white-wash us with Alolan features, the Orange Islands was a thing. And it was a great thing! Ash was in his first six-on-six match (and won), Ash’s first double battle happened here, and stellar episodes like Pikachu Re-volts and Tracey Gets Bugged should not be cast aside. Those were all great! Pokemon, you cannot run from your past! You can improve upon it, yes. But never forget! These were a thing! These were great things!

Thankfully, my death theory was put to rest in the first episode of Pokemon 2019 when the Orange Island trophy was shown. That’s great, now where’s Tracey?

Another theory! They couldn’t get Tomokazu Seki. That could also be it!

RUNNING GAG: We got two running gags throughout the SM series! First, there’s the return of that singing ball of pink, Jigglypuff! This little singer has not been seen or heard from since AG. That’s well over a decade, people. Well…when Ash and crew visited Kanto, they ran into Jigglypuff and by sheer coincidence, wound up riding the airplane back to Alola. So now we see it every now and then in Alola, singing in a Karaoke bar.

And the other…Bewear! It hasn’t been officially caught by Team Rocket. They don’t use it in a battle. But Bewear has literally made it impossible for Team Rocket to BLAST OFF ever again. Their life-long running gag died the minute they fell into Bewear’s meaty arms.

Also it doesn’t help that I constantly scream “KUMA SHOCK” every time it comes to collect Team Rocket. Anyone who gets that reference deserves a high five!

BANNED IN THE USA: Welcome back, banishment! I knew you couldn’t stay away for long as we do live in a SJW/PC time. So what episode never got to see the light of day in the U.S.?

This one…yeah, I can totally agree with. So in the U.S. there is indeed ONE episode we were not given. In this episode, Ash decides to help a group of Passimian. And throughout the majority of the episode, Ash is dressed up like a Passimian from the pajamas to the…OH MY! I actually let it slide when I saw the Japanese viewing (because I’m half-awake at 2am), but I can definitely see why this one would ruffle a few feathers. Let’s just say Ash’s costume was a little too borderline blackface and that’s why it’ll never air in the states.

Anything else!? Not in terms of full episodes. Certain scenes, absolutely! Little baby things were edited due to being not kid-friendly. What’s in those drinks Kukui and Burnet are drinking out of at their own wedding? Champagne? Blasphemy! That’s Orange Juice now! What’s in Delia’s drink in the first episode? Oh we can’t have her pull a Miriam Pataki here! Turn that shit into Pinap Juice! Okay, besides the censorship of drinks, was there anything else? Why, yes, yes there was!

We all know how creepy Team Rocket’s Mimikyu can be. That’s why it’s placed in my top 10 list of characters that scare the shit outta me! Well one scene had Mimikyu’s shadow scare Meowth so horribly, the next scene had Meowth DEAD! Face down in the water! Don’t worry kids, Meowth comes back to life. The U.S. said “OH HELL NO WE CAN’T SHOW THIS! FUCK IS WRONG WITH JAPAN!” And so the face down scene was completely chopped from the dub. Add to that, there were several instances where Meowth almost dies and parts of those scenes are cut from American broadcast.

REFERENCES: If there was one thing this new animation has given us, it has open the doors to using references from other animes and even a few western media projects. And we haven’t really seen much of this since the original series and AG. And even back then, it was mostly just Rose of Versailles references with Team Rocket. I know I give the animation flack for it being a pile of shit compared to better animation shown in XY and DP. But I think the animators do have a little more fun when doing Sun and Moon. And I think it’s loosened them to using other animation styles seen in different and popular animes.

And boy did SM use a butt-load of anime references! Here’s a list of what I was able to remember!

*Facial expressions matching those scene in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in several episodes *A Mr. Osomatsu reference tossed somewhere *Ping Pong the Animation being used when Illma entered in the Ping Pong competition *Kiawe doing the famous Gendo Ikari pose from Neon Genesis Evangelion in the same episode mentioned above. *Ash and Kiawe making the scary, demonic face Popuko makes when she’s mad on Pop Team Epic, when the two missed out on catching a UB Pokemon. *Transformation scenes with Ash and crew that match those of Power Rangers or every magical girl show. *The girl with many Pikachus has one Pikachu with hair like Boruto (Naruto Uzamaki’s son) *Ash and Pikachu looking like they’re doing the Kamehameha attack during their league match (DBZ, duh) *Rotomdex mentioning it wants to do a sci-fi feature and the image strikes a chord with Star Wars fans everywhere. *Lillie dressed like Utena. Mallow dressed like the rose princess, Anthy. HOLY SHIT, MY OTP IS DOING A REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA REFERENCE! Take my revolution!

And the mother of all references goes to Jessie! Or should I say, her seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara! Pokemon animated many of her iconic roles in one epic scene. Just to name a few of Hayashibara’s roles shown there was Ranma Saotome (Ranma ½) Rei Ayanami (Evangelion), White Kitty (Hello Kitty), Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop), and everyone’s favorite Lina Inverse (Slayers). At least in the English dub, Lisa Ortiz popped in for the Lina Inverse moment! Epic on epic on epicly God levels of YES!

MUSIC: Okay in recent years, the English openings have gotten tolerable and the same can be said about the opening themes used this time around. So I won’t bitch about that. So how about I bitch about the BGM?!

Background music, I know a lot of complaints are expressed by loyal Japanese version fans that the English version has completely changed the BGM throughout most of the episodes and even the motion pictures! Yeah, in the I Choose You movie only ONE original BGM was used. The BGM topic never really got to me. But if I remember correctly when 4Kids lost rights to Pokemon and went to the new company, they said that they were going to keep a lot of things true and the BGM was one of them. Yeah, that went to the waist-side real fast! I do believe that they listened to that complaint because in the following movie, the entire score was kept (with the exception of the ED theme by Porno Graffitti).

The Japanese openings…I used to like Alola by Rica Matsumoto. Yeah…used to. Okay, that’s too mean. I don’t hate it on the lengths of V(Volt) from the previous series. It’s just that they used this song in certain scenes that took me out of liking it fully. Now anytime I hear Alola, all I can think about is Ash, Litten, Pikachu, and Rockruff wiggling their asses. Some of the other openings were just okay, I wasn’t too thrilled about them. But there was another thing I feel I should bring up.

Just like the English dub to XY, they wanted to capture a nostalgic feel to the general audience watching, Sun and Moon gave us some of that here. Because of the release of the 20th movie, Rica Matsumoto ended up singing her signature Mezase Pokemon Master again. And as a result, it was the show’s opening for quite some time. Not only that but the last ending theme to Sun and Moon was a cover of Rica’s other hit song Type Wild (now sung by Shoko Nakagawa).

MOVIES: The movies have taken a different turn from what we’ve seen previously. Let’s face it folks, the 10 movies that came out prior to these last three were average AT BEST. And with many other series doing reboots to their old classics, I guess Pokemon decided to do it on a large scale when it came to the story of Ash and Pikachu. With all new animation and a new story, we follow Ash and Pikachu in a much different take on their journey. A much faster-paced story where Ash doesn’t have much of the filler stuff and doesn’t travel with Misty, Brock, or the rest! To which I say, good! I know it means the Sun & Moon gang will never be in a movie, but it also means that animation won’t be there either.

I Choose You was the first movie and from the get-go, fans were upset over seeing a reboot of Ash’s beginning journey with Pikachu and not seeing Misty or Brock. Instead we get a kind of condensed version of certain moments of Ash’s original journey, mixed with new material and get introduced to new characters (who come from Sinnoh of all places). The pokemon featured was Ho-oh, who after all this time was going to be featured in a film and Marshadow because it’s not a pokemon movie without featuring a brand-new pokemon from this era.

The Power of Us, Ash ends up on an island where he meets several new characters who each have their own story to tell including a high school girl, a shy scientist, a pathological liar, an old woman who hates pokemon, and the daughter of the mayor. And we are introduced to another new pokemon, Zeroroa. All five characters (plus Ash) are put through their own trials and tribulations in order to save their town during a festival.

Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION: It’s the first movie…in CGI/3D/Robot-Chicken-ized, whatever! There’s no need for a synopsis since everybody and their mother knows this story. It’s literally the same story as Mewtwo Strikes Back. Ash and company get invited to an island, Mewtwo causes storms and clones to mess with the people, Mew appears, Pokemon fight, Ash dies, Ash doesn’t die, Mewtwo says profound speech that even Jon Stewart praises, everyone’s minds are erased, and that’s all! They even got the original cast to come back and reused Unshou Ishizuka’s old footage as the narrator for this movie!

The thing about this last movie is that, The Pokemon Company dropped the ball on this. SEVERELY dropped the ball on this! They had the perfect setup, the perfect opportunity to get this in the theaters just in time for the 20th anniversary of the first movie’s release in the U.S. and they do jackshit with it! Not even on Disney XD. For shame!

I will say that these three are a SEVERE improvement on the Pokemon movies. Can anyone with full honesty say that any pokemon movie that came out after the Lucario movie that any of the others were even good? Be honest, almost every movie since AG was just essentially a long side-story with an annoying mythical/legendary that can talk. It got annoying! Plus it just felt like Ash and whoever he was with would just be dragged in the middle of some bullshit and have to save the day. It was fine in the first couple of movies, but the pattern got worn out.

Plus with this alternate timeline to the Pokemon story, it gave the Sun and Moon anime more to work with legendaries and mythical pokemon. Hell, all the main cast was able to catch (and later release) an Ultra Beast pokemon. Not only that, but Mallow got to take care of the mythical pokemon Shaymin for over 40 episodes. Don’t you wish we got that with May and Manaphy? Plus, Ash got to take care of Cosmog and Poipole for an extended amount of time. Okay, my favorite movie of the three.

I Choose You is my favorite out of the bunch. I loved the retelling of Ash and Pikachu starting out on their very first journey. I love the new path they took with this story. I love the new characters introduced, Verity and Sorrel. I love the pokemon that were shown as it gave us a bit of everything from every region up to this point. Yes it was a cluster-fuck in some portions as I had to see past characters shown way different. Cynthia’s Verity’s mother! I can’t unsee this shit! And I will never unsee the messed-up dream Ash had where he was in actual real-world with no pokemon and in a real school where I’m given vivid flashbacks of my fanfic. Regardless, I enjoyed this movie so much. And I got to see many things here that I would always imagine would happen in a final episode of Pokemon (where Ash dies, Pikachu speaks, and an epic fight with Ho-oh). It is now my 2nd favorite Pokemon movie.

+1000000000 points for showing Tracey in the ED credits! Medea screeched in the theaters. I apologize for nothing! Best five seconds I’ve had in years.

TEAM ROCKET UPDATE: As this region does not have Pokemon Contests or that tact on Princess crap from Kalos, we’ll find our favorite trio (+Wobbuffett) going after the twerps and wandering around the area. And while I do enjoy Jessie dipping her foot in the contest arena, this pace can be boring and a blessing at the same time. Unlike previous seasons, we will go episodes at a time where we don’t see Team Rocket. But the episodes where they do show up aren’t the most thrilling. Usually they’ll just be in the background serving treats to background characters.

However, one major improvement with Team Rocket this season is with their pokemon. In the past, Team Rocket has had some unique pokemon that they’ve captured (or stolen…still not letting the Yamnega thing go). In Kanto, James had Victreebel that would eat him. In Hoenn, James had Cacnea that would pinch him every time it came out. In Sinnoh, James had Carnevine that would eat him…Okay, a lot of it is James torture-porn! Regardless, they were entertaining to watch. And I felt a complete slump with their pokemon during BW and XY. This season, pretty much ALL of Team Rocket’s pokemon are entertaining.

Marenie loves James so much that she would blow off being with her own kind to be with James. Even hearing the sounds of wedding bells every time James asks a favor of her! It’s actually adorable to watch Marenie. Jessie’s Mimikyu…I’m almost convinced Mimikyu is the reincarnation of a serial killer. And the biggest pokemon to cause Team Rocket so much grief is one they didn’t even catch, but it sticks around to take care of them like they were children, Bewear! And trust me, they’ve tried catching Bewear. And Bewear smushed the pokeball into poke-dust! Bewear would just come right the fuck out of nowhere, defying logic, gravity, and absurdity to bring Team Rocket back to its cave! This, making it the longest period of time where Team Rocket went without blasting off!

Every time they had the twerps cornered, in comes Bewear to take them back! Whenever they were about to do their traditional blast off, Bewear would come in and take them back to the cave! Even when they’re in fucking Kanto, it managed to swoop in and take them back to the cave. Team Rocket even DEFEATED Ash in a battle and had the perfect opportunity to take the twerp’s Pikachu. But no, Bewear came in and swooped them up! These pokemon were fun to watch this entire series! This was definitely an improvement from the last few seasons. Seriously, I can’t even remember what pokemon Jessie and James had during BW!

BIG TEAM BATTLE: Just like in Unova, Team Rocket ended up getting more attention than the antagonists of Alola. Except here, it’s a little more accepting. It’s just that in Alola, was there really a big team to cause major havoc with world-shaking consequences? Technically, the Aether Foundation wasn’t the big bad team and Team Skull was just a bunch of angsty punks. Regardless, there were two arcs with something epic happening.

The first of course was opening the wormhole and discovering the Ultra Beasts. And in almost the same fashion as the game, Lillie and the rest have to go and rescue her mother from the Ultra Beasts (because Lusamine got taken over by one). Only difference is that game Lusamine wanted to use this power. Anime Lusamine pushed her children out of the way so they wouldn’t get taken away. We did get some great moments with Ash doing a new Z-move with Pikachu, Nebby evolving, and Lillie’s relationship with her mother become stronger.

The second big battle was with Necrozma. Now this one heavily involved Team Rocket as Giovanni disbatched several other members including his assistant Matori and some eye-patch gorilla to try and get this pokemon. However after this incident, we never see Giovanni try to get his hands on this pokemon again or talk about it again. Even when he makes a big foreshadowy deal when he dialed Nanu about it! But in this arc, a mysterious power throughout Alola was making all of the adults listless and lazy. And it was up to Ash and the other kids to get to the bottom of this strange phenomenom.

ENDING – POKEMON LEAGUE: Yeah, this league was going to be different. In the Alolan League, just about anyone can join this certain Pokemon League, as long as you have a Z-crystal, it’s all good. Well, Alola has never had a Pokemon League, which is sort of like what was in the game. So Professor Kukui decided to put this dream into an action and now Alola will hold its first ever Pokemon League! So expect to see the entire cast compete! I’m not kidding!

From the get-go I was worried since Ash’s team here in Alola is pitifully underdeveloped compared to past arcs. And if he were to fight, he’d probably lose to Gladion or Guzma! But since the first task was to knock 151 competitors down to 16, we all know Ash was going to survive this trial. Now in past league competitions and even Pokemon Contests, thinning a big number down would take some time like an episode or two. Here, IT’S A FUCKING FREE-FOR-ALL BATTLE! Trainers coming at you from all angles and you can only use one pokemon! It’s like a mini-game from Mario Party it was that crazy!

The 16 trainers that made the cut are all trainers we know! They all had at least 1 debut episode prior to this moment. So no surprise bastards like Tobias to muck things up! The sixteen competitors are Ash, Mallow, Lillie, Lana, Kiawe, Sophocles, Jessie, James, Faba, Aceorla, Mina, Ilima, Guzma, Hau, Gladion, and Samson Oak! Unbelievable! The entire main cast, Team Rocket, trial people in the games, the head of Team Skull, the island heartthrob, Ash’s two main rivals, and a freakin’ Oak! We could not make this up!

From the Top 8, we wind up with Ash, Guzma, Hau, Gladion, James, Sophocles, Kiawe, and Lana advancing. These next battles had some pretty decent moments including James trying to hold his own against Gladion, Lana and Primarina trying to survive a poisonous dick move from Guzma, and action-packed moments with Kiawe and Sophocles.

…

I don’t want to talk about it. NO, I DON’T! NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT ASH’S BATTLE WITH HAU! First of all, their rivalry only expands to like two episodes. One episode prior to the league and the rest during the league! You’re just butt-fucking us on this sweet little cinnamon roll. I know the anime really wants to stand out on its own by not giving us awesome rivals that we get in the games like Cheren or Brendan, but God-forbid if you give them some awesome moments before you have them get beaten by Ash and sent back to wherever the fuck they came from! And this battle is just an insult of every level!

I know Ash has been known to pull off some stupid moments in his day when it comes to pokemon battles. He’d put a clear type-disadvantage against a powerhouse pokemon. He’d put all his faith in one pokemon and if it failed, absolutely fuck all. And most common of all, have one of his non-evolved pokemon go up against a fully evolved pokemon. We get the latter when Ash’s insomniac-stricken bird, Rowlet, go up against Hau’s fully-evolved Decidueye. But before the battle, we get some last minute training in done by Toucannon and its bird-kin. You’ve got to be the stupidest mother fu…Forget it, you’re just wasting your breath! Well, it’s because Rowlet is DETERMINED so that gives the green flag to fight in Ash Ketchum’s book.

You stupid fucking idi…

During the fight, Ash and Hau did use their Z-moves early on and both did little to no damage to either one. But it’s freakin’ clear that Hau’s Decidueye is clearly more trained. That’s why the two birds duked it out to a point of both of them being close to knocked out. But in the end, Nanu calls the battle for Decidueye because it got up first. AND ASH LOST!

…Or did he?

No, upon further inspection, ROWLET WAS FUCKING ASLEEP! God, no! No! Good fucking God, what were you writers thinking? You’re trolling us again, aren’t you? Ever since the Sinnoh League, you thought it was a good idea to troll the fucking audience. Like Tobias having another legendary or Davey winning with a fucking Eevee or Ash losing to Alain. You people are fucking with us!

Long story short, Ash and Rowlet get a second chance. They win the battle. Hau cries. Moving on!

NO, WE’RE NOT MOVING ON FROM THIS SHIT! WHO THE FUCK DECIDED THIS TO HAPPEN?! A lot of us fans are still sore over that retarded call back in the Kanto League where Squirtle falling asleep was a K.O. I can’t accept this, not after all the league battles Ash has had before this. Especially the last league against Tierno, Sawyer, and Alain! They are probably watching you and facepalming. Bonnie is laughing at you! Lysandre is calling you a dickhead from beyond the grave! Serena tore up a picture of Ash and went lesbian! Okay, that didn’t really happen. But this episode got me so fucking twisted I find myself eating thunder and shitting out lightening.

And now with Lana’s defeat by Guzma, we’re now in the final four. So…huh…um, new category! I know this is where I’m supposed to talk about the ending with the league, but I feel like I should talk about this.

GENDER AND LEAGUE PLACEMENT: Is it just me or are most competitors and even winners of these things majority male? It’s unknown who won the Kanto League. Johto went to some douchebag no one remembers. Hoenn was won by Tyson. Sinnoh went to Trollbias. Unova went to Davey. And Kalos went to NOT ASH…Alain! And even in the top 4 and 8 sometimes, it’s all men. I really don’t want to put the pussy hat on and claim unfairness to a show I’ve been watching for over 20 years, but…putting Lana up against someone we all know is going to go to the semi-finals…come on man! I probably should have questioned some gender stuff especially with that princess crap in Kalos where it was most, if not all female. But Pokemon Leagues are usually coed! It’s just that prior to Lana, the only other girls I remember competiting in past leagues were Katie from AG and Astrid from XY. Maybe I’m making too much out of it.

BACK TO THE LEAGUE: Thankfully the semi-finals fights were great (compared to that bullshit Hau/Ash match I wish would die). Gladion and Kiawe bro-downed with their match! Guzma learned the hard way of being defeated in the semi-finals by a twerp. Guzma, you may be older than Ash, but Ashy-boy has been defeated so many times in this position it’s not even funny. So the finals were a three-on-three match between Ash and Gladion.

Ash got some good traction with his newly evolved pokemon Melmetal. Gladion was able to put his father’s pokemon, Zoroark into good use. And there was even a double knockout near the end. But somehow, we knew it would go back to a finale of Lycanroc vs. Lycanroc. And this was a nail-bitter. Who the heck knows who was going to end up victorious?

…Actually, a certain publication leaked the result three days before the episode aired…

I fucking hate the internet sometimes.

So Ash won…

*CRAZY-ASS APPLAUSE TIME*

You’d think Jesus “Tap Dancing” Christ rose from the dead with how crazy this was. The internet lost it because after the Kalos League’s close-call and Sinnoh’s B.S. match against the legendaries, they saw this as Ash’s staple in becoming a Pokemon Master. Whatever…

WHAT NEXT?!: Actually, much like what happened after Alain won the Pokemon League, the ceremony was quickly interrupted by the appearance of the gluttenous Ultra Beast, Guzzlord. And it took the power of everyone’s Z-Crystal to get rid of this beast. However, at the end of this powerful battle, Ash and everyone else learned a shocking secret of Professor Kukui.

Kukui is really Alola’s most famous battler, Masked Royal!

Well now that the Delcatty’s out of the bag, might as well have Kukui actually go up against Ash in a six-on-six match. NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! This was one hell of a match, spanning over three episodes (it was that bad-ass). Kukui’s got one hell of a line-up featuring pokemon from nearly every region. Now because of a certain battle, seeing Rowlet take out one of Kukui’s finest kinda pisses me off. But the biggest fights came from Incenaroar and Torracat. Because they fought, not one, not two, but THREE times! And their bout ended with Ash’s Torracat evolving and a double knockout! OH MY GOD, HOW COULD THIS GET ANY BETTER?!

In comes Tapu-Koko! He said, “Fuck your sixth pokemon, Kukui. I wanna battle this boy I’ve been stalking since 2016!” Yeah, we get one major fight between one of the Tapus and Ash’s Naganadel and Pikachu (and whatever pokemon that isn’t dead) and believe it or not, Ash won! He defeated all of Kukui’s pokemon AND Tapu-Koko. He’s seriously out-doing everything he’s ever done from XYZ! Even going above and beyond with Pikachu by doing a solid reference to Dragon Ball Z…You all know what they referenced.

So Ash, you just won the Pokemon League, you defeated your mentor, you took out one of the island deities, what are you gonna do next?

I’M GOING TO DISNEYLA…PALLET TOWN!

Yeah, I would choose that too Ash. Only for different and hornier reasons! Actually, Ash gave a lot of thought to what was next. Not only him, but everybody in his class! The biggest one of course was Lillie as she has been reading up on her father’s old journals and trying to figure out that gift he left her as a baby before he disappeared. I still can’t believe he got her quite a rare pokemon like Magerna. But Magerna has been a husk until Lillie took care of it and now it’s freakin’ mobil. Back to Ash, it wasn’t really until he fought Kiawe in a post-match fight that he buckled down on what he wants to do next. And I think Olivia mentioning traveling kinda sparked Ash for his next journey.

And wouldn’t you know it, Team Rocket at the same time gets word from Giovanni to pack their shit up and return to Kanto. Mimikyu in its satanic fashion tries to take out Pikachu one last time. But it failed, almost drowned in the water, and was then SAVED by the very Pokemon it’s tried to kill the last 145 episodes. Okay, vendetta over, later bitches. Team Rocket ended up leaving Maernie and Mimikyu in the dead of night. And Bewear promised to watch after them in their absence and gave us something we haven’t seen since this show began…a proper blast off! Team Rocket blasted off once more. I’m feeling quite nostalgic because it’s been a while.

Hey, I just realized. What happened to Jigglypu-

WHO CARES!

Okay then, I’ll probably see it in another 10 years.

Lillie decided to go off with her mother and brother to travel. Lusamine handed over her responsibilities to Rotomdex. And on the day of Lillie’s departure, she ends up almost in the same fashion as Serena’s goodbye (but thankfully we’re on a boat and she can’t do any last-minute smooches). Lillie remembered all that Ash has done for her and how much she’s grown, so she gives him a very earnest “Thank You”. Now for Ash’s goodbye to his host family! Now I’ve pretty much heard and seen the internet cherish this cute bond between Kukui, Burnet, and Ash. And yeah, it’s pretty genuine! Whenever we get an opening scene of them in Kukui’s home, they’re usually doing something family-ish. And they’re definitely going to miss that! Poor Burnet was even crying!

On Ash’s flight back to Pallet Town, he looks out the window and sees his friends giving him one final farewell as they fly through the skies with their partner pokemon.

In the aftermath we see, Sophocles leaving to go with his cousin, Mallow’s older brother returning home, Shaymin transforming into its flying form (yes, flying away leaving Mallow), Kiawe is doing some training with Olivia, Lana traveling with her father to fish for a mythical pokemon, Hau taking on Nanu in a grand trial, Team Skull just hanging there, Bewear looking after Maernie and Mimikyu, Lusamine traveling with the kids, and something that shocked the shit out of me! Even though I called it in the back of my mind!

We close out the episode with Kukui and Burnet sitting together and...

WHAT THE WHAT?!

NANI?

NANI THE FUCK?

IS THAT A BABY BUMP?! It is. It freakin’ is! God I hope Ash didn’t walk in on them having sex. Don’t be silly Medea, they probably conceived this child when Ash was either training or having a sleepover. Truthfully, I say they did the nasty when Ash, Kiawe, and Sophocles spent the night in the woods training.

OOH, BETTER IMAGE! They did roleplaying during sex and Kukui wore the Masked Royal mask! Just let me have this moment guys. I really enjoy frolicking in my gutter mind!

Oh and closing message, “and your dreams!”

I seriously hope the English dub keeps the end credits to this. They have a lousy reputation of skimping on things like that. They even skipped the photo scene at the end of BW. Please for crap’s sake, keep the ending scenes!

Yes, in the back of my mind I thought Sun and Moon would be radical and give us a pregnant Burnet. I knew this would happen sometime after that wedding episode a year and a half ago. But then a few weeks before the Sun and Moon finale, I wound up dreaming about Kiawe’s mother pregnant and she was wearing the exact same dress Burnet is wearing in the final scene. Sometimes my dreams can be fucking spooky and spot-on at the same time.

WOW-EE-WOWEE-WOW-WOW! Okay, um. Some thoughts! This anime gave me such a huge slump during a lot of it. I cannot lie. There was a long period of time where I was just disinterested in Sun and Moon. And seeing how other people were (especially those who were staunch XYZ fans) yeah I can see that. One big, annoying factor was once again, the animation. Yeah, you whiny bitches complaining BW Ash was the worst? You owe that one an apology! Because this Ash looks nothing like the past 5 Ash’s! And they tried this comedic style that won on some parts and failed in other departments. Though, spot-on whenever we get a Jojo’s reference! There were episodes that were just absolute MEH. And this is coming from the same person who sat through all the fillers in Johto, MORE THAN ONCE! And I had some severe reservations about seeing a main cast this huge trying to get some character growth. I had absolutely no expectations for anyone and thought they were gonna serve as dead weight (except for Kiawe and Lana).

Once again, I’m glad to see my expectations are blown away. There has been massive character development and they managed to hit all the main characters and even some of the minor ones. Lillie especially has blossomed throughout the series. As a girl who was afraid of Pokemon, I am impressed at how far she’s come. She was able to overcome her fear of pokemon eventually, hatch a pokemon from an egg, excel the power of Z-moves, bring back to life a rare/mythical pokemon, and even make it to the top 16 of the Alolan League. While Lana is still my best girl of this season, Lillie is definitely a wonder to behold. Sophocles, I had the littlest of hope or care for him. I still am not a fan of him really, but when you see this boy overcome certain anxieties, hurdles, and one sad moment involving the meteorite pokemon, you see he’s a pretty solid character.

And then there’s Mallow…Dammit! So I just realized as I’m wrapping up Sun and Moon.

One of the biggest things I saw was “Family”. And seeing as Alola is a take on Hawaii and one of the biggest things people pride theirselves upon is family, this totally makes sense. In Sun and Moon, we saw a lot of different kinds of families. Small ones like Sophocles. Bigger ones like Kiawe and Lana. Families that have had their own share of heartache like Mallow and Lillie. Ones that end up starting like Kukui and Burnet! Hala and Hau’s little relationship. And even families that are reunited like Bewear and Stuffel! These particular moments and episodes were ones that touched me in a way only Miyazaki can reach. Particularly Mallow’s story! I already mentioned this in the saddest moment category, but Mallow with her deceased mother is one of the best character growth episodes in Pokemon history. Up until that point, we’ve seen Mallow pretty perky, a good cook, and a supportive friend, especially to Ash, Lana, and Lillie. But then we get hit with this one story that no one expected. And now, let’s discuss Ash in this part! We got to see Ash settle in with a second family life with Kukui and Burnet. I mean let’s face it, all the other places Ash traveled he would roam from town to town. Here in Alola, it’s like Kukui was the father he never had and Burnet was like a second mother. And I suppose they felt like Ash was a son to them. So quite fitting they wound up having a baby after his departure.

And it wasn’t just the humans that have grown, but their pokemon too! Many of Ash and his friends’s pokemon were able to grow and shatter all expectations. Two of Ash’s pokemon especially deserve that praise and that’s Lycanroc and Incenaroar. Back when Lycanroc was a Rockruff, he always strived to get stronger. And in later episodes, it looked up to other Lycanroc like Olivia’s and Gladion’s. Then it evolved and it’s been quite the journey to try and train this doggo to it’s full potential. And because this is one of Ash’s pokemon, this has gotta be a one-of-a-kind pokemon (dusk form). Well Lycanroc has overcome some tough obstacles (yes, including bearing through getting dirty) and went on to be one of Ash’s top pokemon.

Litten, THANKFULLY didn’t have a dickhead trainer abusing him like many of Ash’s other fire-type pokemon. But Litten’s story was far from perfect as it was a stray cat pokemon living on the streets with an old Stoutland. And Ash took in Litten after Stoutland passed away. Litten was a pretty decent member of Ash’s team, but definitely got the fire in his eyes when he saw Masked Royal and Incenaroar. That encouraged Litten throughout the series to get stronger. Even leading to one of the best fights during Kukui and Ash’s match! Good doggo, good kitty!

Oh yeah, probably should talk about the battles! Unlike the other gyms up to this point, Ash went through Grand Trials (just like you would in the game). Except Ash really didn’t do that many of those mini trials since Kiawe, Lana, Mallow, and Sophocles were his classmates and not giving out tests! But Ash still wound up battling the big kahunas like Hala, Olivia, Nanu, and Hapu. And in the old Ash fashion, there were battles he won like a champ, ones where he’d have to try again, and ones where he got supremely lucky. Yeah, that Ash vs. Hapu match was such bullshit. But I’d still take that match over Ash vs. Hau in the Alolan League!

I will NEVER get over that match. Yeah aside from that travesty, a lot of the Pokemon League matches were pretty stellar, even the ones not involving Ash. I really enjoyed Sophocles vs. Kiawe and the Lana vs. Mallow match.

LET’S LOOK BACK AT MY HIGH HOPES: At the end of Pokemon XY, I made a nice list of things I would like to see. Did any of my high hopes come to fruition? Let’s see…

First of all, NO, I DID NOT SEE MY ANIME HUSBAND! For fuck’s sake Pokemon! If Snorlax exists at the Oak lab, Tracey Sketchit should too. They both came from the same arc. But NO! He’s not at the lab and doesn’t even get a mention. That is messed up! I don’t know if this is because they couldn’t get Tomokazu Seki to stop playing Gilgamesh for a second to come back or they’re trying to distance themselves from the Orange Islands as much as possible, or if they just FORGOT his existence, but I’m not digging this. No, Medea hates this with a holy fucking passion.

Old characters returning under this new style! Yeah, it happened. I think I was only a fan of how the women looked, so Misty and Delia looked okay to me. I just wasn’t a fan of Professor Oak and Brock. Although, kudos to the anime for having Brock take his shirt off and show off his six-pack. DAMN BOY! The animation ended up staying the same throughout the series, but I managed to tolerate/muscle through it.

I know I forgot to write this part, but I really wanted Kukui to remain single for the series. Yeah, that fell at the waist-side! Kukui was single…but then he got married. Okay, I can accept it. That was the cutest proposal, I have to admit that. And I was howling when I saw pregnant Burnet at the end. So alls well that ends well!

Let’s see, Lusamine wasn’t voiced by Miki Itou like I wanted. Then again, this Lusamine wasn’t a psycho bitch. Although kudos for getting Nobuhiko Okamato voicing Gladion. I am forever happy with that outcome.

Did I get more Clefables? FUCK YEAH, I DID! Holy shit, I forgot Lusamine had a Clefable in the games and didn’t even think the anime was going to keep that, but HOLY SHIT THEY DID AND I’M SO HAPPY! Not only that but we were able to see Clefable every so often. It’s so adorable. I just wanna hug her!

Lillie’s egg of course wasn’t Cosmog, it was Alolan Vulpix. Cosmog can’t be hatched. It just magically appears. Hey, cute choice though!

Did Ash catch a psychic pokemon? Uhhhhhhh…no! Still no psychic type.

Did I see Wicke and Olivia, fuck yeah I did! Wicke is adorable especially when she bosses Faba around. My only thing with Olivia is that, I wish the anime didn’t make her into a clumsy oaf the whole time. My God, she tripped more times than Bianca did during Best Wishes. That’s sad! Now her being the object of Brock’s eye, that I wasn’t expecting. I’m wondering if Brock will keep in contact with Olivia or if he’s moved onto another booty-call of the day.

Overall, it was a bumpy start for me to get into Sun and Moon. But it wasn’t until we got to important things like the Aether Foundation, Mallow’s mother, and Guzma’s debut that got me back fully invested. I know it’s damn near impossible to convince staunch XYZ fans to watch this, but give it a shot for the stories. The animation is just so undoable after what XY has given us, but still.

Currently, most (if not all) episodes of Sun and Moon dubbed will be available on Hulu, Netflix, Pokemon TV, and Disney XD. Yeah, no one has gotten around to giving us legal subtitled episodes sad to say. Here’s hoping Disney XD will continue holding onto the Pokemon license as they happen to be the ONLY one that literally has all episodes available. On the channel, they still kinda restrict themselves to only playing the current season, but sometimes we get lucky with the movies.

MORE HIGH HOPES: Okay, new high hopes for the new Pokemon series, Pokemon…um, 2019? Seriously guys, what’s up with this cryptic-ass series?

*Signs that Tracey Sketchit exists. Just show him at Oak’s lab or somewhere in this series. That’s all I ask. I will even swallow my pride and allow him to be at the Waterflower Slut Brigade in Cerulean. Just please, for the love of Arceus, show him to me. That flash in the 20th movie does not settle me. Give him to me, now! Don’t care how, I WANT IT NOW! I am the Veruca Salt of seeing Tracey again.

*Aside from Tracey, and seriously show him to me already…If at possible, update on May and Iris. Everyone else can go fuck off! These two deserve an update if Ash is doing this around the world adventure with his new boy-toy Gou. I know it may be difficult to get their voice actors back as I’m sure Aoi Yuuki’s schedule is insane and Kaori has an illness preventing her from voicing. Still! Something from those two…AND ONLY THOSE TWO FEMALES! I’m sick of Misty popping in without giving us what we want. Dawn and Serena need to go to the Pokemon version of Antartica until 2030. And unless Mallow, Lana, and Lillie make a shocking discovery, I don’t want to see them for a few years.

*CLEFABLES! Okay, yeah, that goes without saying!

*YAMPER or as I call him, Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf must be seen at least once every two episodes.The opening theme doesn’t count. I want to see Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf.

*Eventually spend some time in Galar and fight gym battles there. I know the Pokemon anime wants to take a sharp left turn into WTF territory, but sometimes don’t mess with the status quo and have Ash take on some gyms. Mmkay?!

*If Team Rocket and Giovanni really have to show up again, could we PLEASE finally get Ariana, Archer, Petrel, and Proton to be in the anime? Or as my friend calls them, the Stupid Sexy Rocket Execs!

*And while we’re at it, could we get an arc in this series where Ash goes to the Battle Tower in Sinnoh?

*Give James a Galarian Weezing.

*Rica Matsumoto must eventually sing an OP theme for this series. Goes without saying!

*Give Ash a Psychic type.

*I know nobody ages in this show, but please don’t keep Burnet pregnant forever. Also, if Ash decides to visit Kukui and Burnet again, I wanna see their baby.

Final category (I promise)!

IN MEMORIUM: I would like to close my review to Pokemon: Sun & Moon to talk about a certain voice that has been at the center of the Pokemon anime from day one. That was Unshou Ishizuka. If you watched the Japanese version of Pokemon, chances are you have heard this man’s voice in any episode you watch. Whether as Professor Oak or the narrator! Not only those two, but voiced Alder in the Black/White series, Samson Oak in the Sun/Moon series, several versions of the Pokedex, Magikarp Salesman, and many notable pokemon including Misty’s Gyarados, Cilan’s Stunfisk, Dawn’s Mamoswine, Ash’s Muk, Brock’s Onix/Steelix, and even Tracey’s Scyther. In August 2018, he passed away from Esophagus Cancer. So losing someone of this caliber is a huge hit to Pokemon.

I didn’t start watching the Japanese version religiously until 2006 (right around the time the dub murdered eardrums). But I was able to hear him as Onix and Gyarados early on because they had the same voice throughout the entire series run in English. But I had a lot of fun listening to him as Professor Oak when I switched to the Japanese version. Not to mention his other roles outside the Pokemon series including Mr. Satan in the later Dragon Ball series and Grandpa Joestar on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. I seriously miss him. May he rest in peace.

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vrainsrewatch · 5 years ago

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episode 19 thoughts

this is... the most screenshot heavy post i’ve made so far, lmao, so please bear with me. as i’ve said, this is one of my favorite duels, and there’s a lot that gets covered here. like, seriously, i haven’t written this post out yet but i can guarantee this will be my longest so far lmao.

the beginning of the episode starts off fairly standard, and mostly dueling:

i really do love the pacing of this duel. i was glued to the edge of my seat while watching these episodes. i remember it so clearly, too, because i’d been binge watching from episode 16 that day, and got to like, 24 by the time i stopped, lmao.

ai does a lot of cute/funny stuff this episode, to help break up some of the more dark tones of the rest of it, like this:

it really makes me miss hi in this form :( i really like his soltis form, don’t get me wrong, but i miss him on yusaku’s wrist lol. i would say when things were less angsty, but, well. lmao.

we very quickly get akira’s rad boss monster summoned out:

and seriously, i just love the animation for it. it’s so sick. the door, the fire, how it looms behind him at first.... aaaaaa. so cool.

and of course the classic:

the worst part about this line is it’s said so often (esp in arc v LOL) that i actually. have slipped up and said it in normal, day to day conversation before. my boyfriend looked at me for like a minute and gave me the deepest sigh i’ve ever heard the first time i did that pff.

also:

i couldn’t not screencap this, given what my blog is for LOL

every time something reminds me of that painful final duel, i have to screencap it and make you guys sad with me. if i have to be sad seeing all this stuff, knowing where their relationship goes and how the series ends, so do you.

also, though, i forgot how often this was brought up before the bohman duel lmao. it makes that theory look a lot more credible, so it’s cool that it had all these little hints towards it, even if it ultimately wasn’t true.

seriously, my heart. i don’t think i need to talk much about this scene to make y’all sad, but really. they went from this to i loved you. ugh, god, i’m so sad thinking about it lmao.

there is so much to talk about between akira and playmaker and even blue angel in this episode, so i guess we’ll start here.

it is hard to decide that you want to take control of your trauma and do something about it. it is not easy. to see yusaku fight for that right so thoroughly is incredible, and really, really validating.

more sadness! seriously, this is too much. this deck was created specifically for him by ai. i don’t like this anymore lmao

but even besides that, often times the protag’s decks mean a lot to them, obviously, but i love that it wasn’t built strictly by yusaku. his cards were literally made by ai, and i think that’s such a cool twist.

but then, akira’s speech:

i talked last time about akira wanting to handle things himself, and i briefly touched on him thinking he knows best...

but i really admire how calm yusaku stays at that tbh. he gets angry, reasonably so imo, but he takes this so well. i know i was a much more volatile kid then he is, so respect lol

i’ve spoken at length already about akira, but i also want to talk again about how oblivious he is. he is so blinded by his own thoughts and feelings on the situation that he doesn’t stop to think about how yusaku might be feeling -- and worse, honestly, how his sister might be feeling.

it was why he was so visibly shocked when emma mentioned a few episodes ago that aoi wasn’t just a little kid anymore. it’s so clear that he still, at the moment, sees her as the six year old girl he swore to protect, and not the sixteen year old person she’s become. he doesn’t think about how she might be feeling towards his actions, or why she does what she does.

this is highlighted as early as episode 6 iirc, when he asks her why aren’t you happy? as much as i, personally, dislike his character, i can’t deny it’s very realistic and well written.

speaking of aoi:

i love how she’s written in this episode, too. but her entrance here is great, and i love how she stands up to him about this. it’s minor, but it’s still a good step. when she’s blue angel -- or blue girl, or blue maiden -- she feels comfortable doing that. at least a little, and it obviously grows throughout the series. i hope that transfers over to the real world for her, too.

and then, we finally get the full story:

i remember flinching when he started talking about it, remembering the shots of yusaku getting electrocuted from his duel with revolver.

i really love this. i said it last episode, but vrains handles yusaku’s trauma so realistically and it’s amazing.

i remember originally staring open mouthed at my tv screen while this part played. we got a bit of it from the other episode, but the full context truly shocked me. where’s that post that says “who thought this was an acceptable backstory to give to a card game protag” bc honestly??? YEAH

it’s still hard to watch. it’s still hard to see play out, even if it’s only fiction. even though i’ve seen these clips so many times, and written about them in detail a few times too. doesn’t matter lol. watching it in context actually still made my stomach drop.

which leads me to talk about reactions to this, actually:

the two that vrains focuses heavily on are blue angel’s and kusanagi’s, and they contrast really well here imo.

blue angel’s is a normal reaction. it’s horrified, both at the thought of it happening and at the fact that someone would actually do that to another person -- a six year old child, no less.

kusanagi’s is strained. he is angry hearing about this, thinking about jin. we’ve been told, and have seen in the last few episodes, how much the lost incident impacted kusanagi and his brother, but i really love that the show tells us that here, too, and shows the difference between hearing about a tragedy and being involved in some manner.

i did not expect it at all when first watching vrains, and honestly, it still impresses me how gracefully they handled it coming off of arc v (cough, shun i love you but really cough cough). no hate on arc v at all, it’s my third favorite ygo very close behind gx, but the difference between the two on how they handle these things is staggering.

this whole section makes me thing that ryoken talked to yusaku fairly often, after the first time. which is something i don’t see brought up often? but that’s so important imo. it meant that yusaku had someone encouraging him not just once or twice, but on the regular, but also it meant that ryoken was constantly risking himself to comfort that child.

we don’t see too much of ryoken when he’s a kid, but we do see him scared and crying over the lost incident. the fact that he was able to talk calmly to this child so many times is really amazing. it also makes more sense as to why ryoken feels so guilty over calling the police -- he probably felt that maybe if he had just kept up his encouragement, the kids would’ve all gotten out okay and his father wouldn’t be in a coma.

this was so powerful. it’s obvious, and i think anyone with half a brain would understand that the LI isn’t something that a kid would recover from easily, but i love this anyways.

he wasn’t saved. and even if he was in body, it’s still something he and all the other victims will live with for the rest of their lives.

this also is something i don’t feel like people bring up enough, but does this mean that yusaku went around asking the kids at the hospital when he was rescued? it’s not hard to believe they were all put together, at least for a short amount of time, but it’s still something i feel like people overlook.

i also love this, because it’s nice foreshadowing to how revolver feels. he’s not captured, not like yusaku and the lost kids were, but he is a prisoner. and just like ryoken saved yusaku, way back then, he is determined to repay the favor.

not just because of that, either. because that voice meant so much to him. because that voiced saved him. because that voice understood him, and was there for him in his hardest moments. god i love them.

i love this shot. it’s so dramatic, how the match the drum beats with flashes of everyone’s reactions.

but it drives home his point, and while i know most of akira’s development came through emma and aoi, i’m sure this helped, too.

i’ve sung vrains praises this entire post, but i’ll do it again -- this is incredible. this is so realistic. it’s so well portrayed. and it’s really honest to god incredible that we got a protag in ygo who was shown going to therapy.

ygo has always dealt with some pretty dark subject matter, and it’s never really been shy about showing it on screen. i’m not saying that at all. arc v obviously dealt with some pretty heavy stuff, and while i haven’t seen zexal (keep shaming me please) i know it does, too. 5ds obviously has the dark signer arc, and the later arcs concerning bruno and also yusei’s father, and gx has... well, it’s entire third and fourth season.

but we see everyone healing via card games. we see those shows talk about these things, but kind of at the same time, skirt around the subject matter; or if they do go deep into it, they pull out (ie 5ds) or the characters don’t get resolved properly (ie arc v).

idk where i was going with this but i just really love that this happened, this was shown on screen, and they stuck to yusaku’s character. they didn’t just... up and make his trauma and his world view disappear at the end. he has a bittersweet ending, but it suited him and his development. a lot of people were mad about it, and i get it -- i wanted him to be happy, too.

but that’s not always the case, and it’s really important to me that vrains doesn’t pretend it is.

anyways, though, i’m almost done with this episode i promise lmao. before the episode ends, we get this:

and i think it’s honestly kind of cruel that akira says this, after everything, and still maintains his point of handling it himself. he has heard, first hand now, how horrible the incident has scarred yusaku for life. and yet, he still is stubborn in refusing to relate or at the very least empathize.

what i mean by that, since we obviously see him attempt to last episode, is he refuses to look at it from someone’s else’s perspective or in a way that might make him uncomfortable. the way my boyfriend describes these kinds of people is that they “haven’t had their bubble popped”.

everyone has a bubble when they’re born, and that bubble shields you from realizing that the world is a cruel and hard place. even if you go through hardships, sometimes your bubble stays put, and you think that is the worst of what can happen.

i’m explaining this very poorly, because i’m running on not much sleep and i’ve been typing about this episode for like, far, far too long, but essentially, he refuses to step out of his comfort zone and recognize, in playmaker’s case, that he doesn’t have a right to interfere and that playmaker’s desire to handle it himself is justified and helpful for his healing. and in aoi’s case, that just because he does a lot of good for her doesn’t automatically mean ignoring her for work and keeping her locked in their house is an okay trade off. and also that she’s not a child anymore -- she’s nearly an adult and she deserves to be treated as one.

those thoughts seem to unsettle him. you can kind of see it in how detached he is after hearing all that come from playmaker. blue angel is visibly shaken up by what he’s said. akira doesn’t even flinch, because he’s not really listening right now.

i’m glad he learns to, or at least learns how to start, later on.

anyways, i think that’s enough for this post lmao. this took forever to type up, so let’s hope i actually have time to cover up to 21 here today LOL. if you read all that, thank you for your time on my kind of dumb vrains thoughts :’)

#vrains #episode 19

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quillreflections · 5 years ago

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Title: Strawberry Avalanche

Chapter: 10

Series: Yugioh Zexal

Pairing: Trey Arclight/reader

Disclaimer: I started this when I was younger so the early chapters are kinda shitty lmao

If you were a beautiful sound in the echoes all around, then I’d be your harmony.

[SURPRISE THOMAS CHAPTER LMAO]

Quattro let out a relieved sigh as the rental car pulled up to his family home. Sure, it wasn't that late in the day- barely past lunch, actually- but he'd been up well before the sun for some professional dueling business, and he was exhausted. It had been meeting after meeting all morning; being introduced to possible replacement managers, since his had just retired, and then a series of interviews for various magazines and TV spots. Why had he thought it a good idea to schedule that all at once?

It was only after the car drove off that Thomas realized he'd forgotten to thank the driver. Shrugging, he shoves his hands in his coat pockets and trots up the front steps. He reaches for the doorknob, totally ready to jump into bed after checking on Trey- but the front door swings open on its own, and you step out.

When you meet his eyes and smile at him, his exhaustion completely dissipates. His heart starts pounding against his ribcage so hard that he's amazed you don't hear it.

Of course, he can't let you know you have that effect on him.

"Damn, you're hanging around here an awful lot lately. Do you really like us that much?" He teases.

You giggle back at him. "Well since I've been putting up with you all these years, what do you think?" You brush some loose hair behind your ears. "But y'know, you guys are busy, and I know Michael still feels bad. . ."

"Hey, at least he's getting better, y'know?" The youngest Arclight was still on the mend, but he was feeling much better than he had the other day, when he'd collapsed. You nod in agreement. Quattro studies you a moment. "Hey, have you eaten yet?"

"No, I was just headed home to make something. Why, you want me to bring something by?"

"Nah. Let me take you out somewhere."

It makes his heart flutter, the fact that you don't even hesitate to say yes.

☆☆☆☆☆

Camped out at one of Quattro's favorite cafés, you look up from your lunch to catch him staring at you intently.

". . . do I have something on my face?" You stick your tongue out to catch any food stuck on your lips. He chuckles at that before shaking his head.

"I was just thinking. . ." his voice fades, but you don't prompt him to continue. Quattro says what he wants. ". . . why did you stick around?"

"What do you mean?"

He leans forward, resting his chin in his hands. "We were gone for a long time, [Name], and we've done things none of us are proud of. We've all changed because of it. That's just how things are." His eyes roam your figure and he smirks. "You've grown a lot too." But his smile drops just as quickly as it appeared. He's awaiting an answer.

You put your fork down and reach for your drink instead, stirring the straw as you think of how to respond. "Well. I don't know if you remember or not, but when we met as kids- I didn't have any other friends. I was lonely until I met you." He nods, and you continue. "So I think it's only natural that I worry about the first- and best- friends I ever had, especially when they just up and disappear one day. Do you. . . do you have any idea what I felt when I saw you on TV for the first time?"

You could remember it so clearly. It had been only a glimpse, out of the corner of your eye, on one of the many large screens decorating the various city squares of Heartland. You'd looked up and the face of an Arclight was staring back at you.

"I was so happy, Quattro." You laughed a bit as his false name rolled off your tongue. "I admit, I was confused when people called you that. You'd always just been Thomas to me. But anyways," you finally quit fooling with your drink, turning to look out the café window. But you're not watching the people passing by on the sidewalk; no, you're focused on Quattro's reflection. Observing him without having to actually meet his eyes.

His reflection looks pained, but he doesn't interrupt.

"You guys aren't as different now as you seem to think you are, y'know?"

Thomas snorts. "That's not possible, [Name]. With the things we've done-"

"And I don't know what you've done, Thomas! Maybe you think that's the only reason I waited for you to come back. Is that it?" You glare at his reflection. "I know you, Thomas, and I have for years. You're exactly the same as when we were kids- you're afraid that telling me the truth will get rid of me, right?" He hesitates before nodding ever so slightly, and you continue. "Thomas, if I waited for you and your brothers to come back to me over all these years, do you really think I'd leave you over something else?"

"I really do." His voice is quiet, and his sharp eyes meet yours, staring back at him. "[Name], I-" he sighs heavily, suddenly much more exhausted than he'd been before lunch. "Listen. There's things I still can't tell you yet, out of respect for my brothers. But [Name]. . . so many people have abandoned us. You- you're the only person who's cared for us through everything, even though we went so long without seeing each other. And I really am afraid you'll leave us, you'll leave me, once you know these things- but God, I want to tell you, I want you to know everything-" his voice cracks, and when he looks up from the table, there's sheer panic in his eyes. A flood of sympathy crashes over you, and you reach for his hand. His grip on you is crushing.

"Thomas, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you-"

"No, it's fine, we're just-" a smile twitches at his lips, "we're just having an important discussion, as the friends and adults that we are." His grip on you loosens, and he starts tracing his thumb over your hand. "I do appreciate your honesty, though. Most people are too afraid of me for any verbal suckerpunches."

You smile at him to hopefully lighten the mood. "You're a lot more mature now, y'know. You do still have a mild attitude problem, but. . . it's nice when you're open with me."

He just smiles, shakes his head, and changes the subject.

☆☆☆☆☆

Lunch melted into dessert, and then one of you made mention of how nice the nearby park is, what with all its blooming flowers this time of year; before either of you knew it, a couple of extra hours had passed. Always good at feigning the gentleman, Thomas offered to walk you home, and you accepted.

You turn around to face him once you reach your doorstep. "Quattro, thanks- it's always nice spending time at home with you guys, but today was so relaxing compared to how things have been lately."

He smiles at you as he leans against your doorway. "Well I'm glad you enjoyed it, [Name]. It feels like we never get to spend any time alone together." And maybe there's a reason for that, he adds to himself. Before you step into your home, he adds, "One more thing, [Name]? Kinda like a favor?"

"Of course, Quattro!"

He straightens up to his full height, suddenly serious. "I don't want you to call me that anymore. I. . . want you to just use my real name again, from now on."

You stare at him for a moment before realizing what he said; once it registers, you blush a bit. Since their return, it's become clear that their real names are important to the Arclights; very few other people even know them, so for him to ask you this, it must hold significance. Right?

Still blushing a bit, you smile again. "Whatever you say, Thomas."

Hearing his name in your angelic voice is almost too much for Thomas, and he's quick to start muttering his goodbyes after that- but before he turns to leave, he brings his hand up to your chin, lifting your face for a moment. More flustered than he's used to being- god, when's the last time a girl got to him like this?!- Thomas hastily presses his lips to your cheek before turning and fleeing home.

He can't wait to tell Michael that he kissed you first.

#strawberry avalanche #trey arclight #quattro arclight #yugioh #Zexal

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darkzorua100 · 6 years ago

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Top 10 Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains 2019 Wish List!

Well folks, it is that time of the year again! Continuing the trend of 2016, 2017, and 2018, I present to you guys my Top 10 Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains Wish List for 2019. With the final battle between Team Playmaker and the Knights of Hanoi beginning this week, I feel like this is the perfect time to get this list out. Just like the last few, this is just my wish list of the 10 things I want to see happen this year in Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains. If you like this idea, feel free to make your own list of what you would like to see happen this year for Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains. Last year, on the 2018 list, 8/10 of the things I wanted to see happen actually did happen so hopefully the same will be said for this list as we go into our more then likely final full year of this series. So without further ado, the list!

10. Pendulum Summoning

Kicking off this list is our final Summoning Method: Pendulum. For those that didn’t see my 2018 list wish, my number 1 want for Vrains was for the other summoning methods to be introduced into the show. That wish was granted when season 2 started as we now have Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz now in addition to Link Summon. It shouldn’t be long before we have our full rainbow of the summoning methods which is why this is at the bottom of the list. I do like the address the concern about Pendulums being added to Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains while I’m talking about this. Some people don’t think Pendulums will be added just do to the fact that they don’t work at all with Speed Duels. Others think that adding in Pendulums will be to much with how they have been handing the inclusion of the other methods. Here’s how I see it. First off, why wouldn’t they introduce Pendulums when everything else has been added to the roster. That just doesn’t make sense. Futhermore, out of everything that took a hit from Master Rule 4, Pendulums got nerfed the most. If anything, out of all the summoning methods, Pendulums were the ones that needed to be showcased in the anime to show how they work now with Master Rule 4. Just because they don’t work at all in Speed Duels doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be showcase at all. We have Master Duels for a reason afterall. I am curious to know who is going to be the first person in the show to perform a Pendulum Summon. Following the theme of the last four main core sets, Rising Rampage cover card will probably be a Pendulum Monster. Since all the cover cards have been monsters used by only Playmaker and Revolver, my bet is on one of those two and I’m honestly learning more towards Revolver being the first to Pendulum Summon. I don’t believe we have seen all of his new tricks yet when it comes to countering the Ignises. Plus his archetype is just made to Pendulum Summon more so then Playmaker’s.

9. Other Forms of Dueling

So I doubt this one will actually happen, which is why it is so low on the list, but since we got the return of the old summoning methods during season 2, why can’t we get the return of some of the old forms of dueling from the previous series during season 3? When Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains, at the time only known to use as Yu-Gi-Oh Sixth, was first revealed, I remember talk about Riding Duels and Action Duels making a return in some form. That might have been a mistranslation, or hinting at the Speed Duels, but either way, I would love to see the return of them to the series. Like how freaking cool would it be to see Riding Duels in VR? I know people already talk about Ryoken being Yusei/Stardust Dragon so why not make that even more on point by giving Revolver a D-Wheel? Then there are Actions Duels and while the Actions Cards themselves got really annoying towards the end because of how plot device convenient they were, the idea behind them was still amazing to me. Duelists actually getting to run around the field instead of just standing in place the whole time just made the duels so much more enjoyable and in my opinion one of the best aspects about ARC-V. Again think of something like that in Link Vrains. Even something like Coaster Duels from Zexal would be something cool and like the others a nice throwback to a previous series and to see something old in a new virtual light. Again I highly doubt will we see any of these but if for some reason we do, I will be losing my god damn mind.

8. Yusaku/Playmaker Losing a Duel

So another one I had on my 2018 List. This one was number 2 on it. A year had past and Playmaker is still undefeated. Now it resides at number 8 because I highly doubt he is ever going to lose at this point. I hate unbeatable characters. It doesn’t make the duels any fun when the outcome is so predicable and that’s what Playmakers duels have become at this point. I want him to have a lose just because he needs one (and so does Soulburner while I’m on this topic) but seriously just so much added character development could come from it because of his PTSD. We have never seen Yusaku at his most vulnerable yet and it really is about time that Yusaku learns what it really means to be a main protagonist of a Yu-Gi-Oh series. I say this now but whenever, if ever, he does lose, oh boy the instant regret is going to hit hard.

7. Yusaku’s Parents

Following number 8 is another thing having to do with Yusaku and that’s his parents. What the heck is going on with this? It shocks me so much that we seriously know nothing about them especially looking back on the previous series. Yusei, Yuma, and Yuya’s fathers all played important roles in their respective series. While Yugi’s parents were never around, his grandfather was a supporting character and was Yugi’s main driving force during Duelist Kingdom. The only one coming close to Yusaku in the parent development is Judai but at least we knew why his parents were never around, add to the fact that GX was set in a branding school which makes sense why they wouldn’t be apart of the story. When it comes to Yusaku’s parents, we just know nothing about them which is super fascinating to me knowing his backstory should have his parents helping him through this kind of trauma but we see nothing of them. Heck he’s living by himself in a crappy apartment! Compared that to everyone else in the show. I mean sure everyone’s either a born orphan or lost their parents because a accident but at least we know why they aren't around. There has to be something more going on when it comes to Yusaku’s parents if they haven’t been mentioned once. I’m still betting on the fact that Yusaku’s father is the King Chess Piece because fathers in Yu-Gi-Oh, as of the last three series, always have some kind of major role to fulfill.

6. The Connection

Basically, this is a grouping of more details when it comes to the Hanoi Project, the Lost Children, and their Ignises. I feel like we are only scratching at the surface when it comes to this single event that started it all. I want to know what actually is going on between the Lost Children and their Ignises and this connection they have as seen with Yusaku and Ai both having Link Sense and Spectre being able to feel Earth’s death. I want to see more of Ryoken’s POV of when he was speaking to Yusaku and when he reported the incident to the police and to see how Dr. Kogami was actually kidnapped by SOL and put into a coma by them. I want to see how the Ignises were actually created, how they were shaped from their respective kid. There is just so much I feel like we are being left in the dark about when it comes to the Lost Incident and I hope will be will getting some of these answers soon as we go into the final battle against Lightning or sometime during season 3.

5. The Return of Dr. Kiyoshi Kogami

Continuing the theme of the last one, we have this asshole. I refuse to believe this man, who essentially is the cause of everything that has happened so far in Vrains, will permanently stay dead until the end of the show. Honestly, I think it would be so interesting if he did come back to life in some form from him being some kind of digital ghost in Link Vrains to Lightning creating a clone of his creator during the final battle, which I’m betting money will actually happen. After Soulburner outburst during his duel against Revolver, I want to see the Lost Children come face to face with the man who destroyed their lives. I want to see how Yusaku and Takeru would react to him so badly. Mostly I just want him to return to give us some more information on the Hanoi Project and because him returning would be such amazing character development for Ryoken. I’m crossing my fingers so hard for a Revolver vs Dr. Kogami match because Ryoken will essentially be having to confront all of his demons aka his father and if that doesn’t scream Ryoken break down, I don’t know what will.

4. Miyu and Jin getting Involved

For number 4, I want our Water and Light Lost Children to get involved in the story as their own characters, like they should be because they are freaking Lost Children, instead of driving forces for other characters (aka Aoi and Kusanagi). I want Miyu out of her coma, I want her to get her Ignis back, and I want her to kick ass. Same pretty much goes for Jin. I want him to free himself from Lightning, hopefully they will work through their differences, Jin can slowly move on from his trauma, and I want him to kick ass. Nothing else really to say about this. I just don’t want them to be the Rin and Ruri of Vrains, made to be these all important characters to the story, only to have them do nothing of their own free will. You can blame Nemesis for getting me so invested in the Lost Children and wanting them to be important.

3. The SOL Technologies Chess Pieces

Season 3 of Vrains should be starting around late April to early May and I’m willing to bet that SOL is going to be our main and final bad guys of the show. They have been getting more involved with the introduction of Queen during season two but we still don’t know what’s going on with the other five. We still don’t know who Knight, Rook, and Bishop are and we still have yet to even meet King and Pawn. When it comes to their role, since we still have yet to have a tournament arc for Vrains, I’m willing to bet that SOL will throw a tournament, using Earth’s data as a prize, in order to get Team Playmaker and the Knights of Hanoi to complete. From there, I’m hoping will be will be driving more into what SOL ultimate plan is for with the Ignises and to find out the identities of the other members.

2. Playmaker/Revolver Tag Duel

Number 3 last year is now number 2 and god damn it Vrains, when are we getting this tag duel?! This isn’t even just me being Datastormshipping trash, this team up would just be freaking epic. Please for the love of god, make the final battle against Lightning be a team up of Revolver and Playmaker. With the reveal of Firewall Xceed Dragon, the synergy between these two would be on point if Playmaker uses its effect to bring back one of Revolver’s Topologic monsters. I would scream so badly if that happens. I would also scream if Revolver ends up getting knocked out and Playmakers just snaps. I won’t deny the Datastormshipping biased there but for real, this is just a team up we need to see happen because the protagonist and rival team ups are a stable of the Yu-Gi-Oh series and they always lead to some amazing duels.

1. Windy’s Origin

When it came to what I wanted to see in Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains the most, it was a no brainer. I want his kid revealed already! Windy’s Kid is in such an interesting position because there is just so much they could do with him with how they established him. Throwing aside the fact that he could very well be dead, which I highly doubt, you have this character who has been through the hell of the Hanoi Project, had to deal with his own trauma because of it, only to be thrown into another hell because of his Ignis. He has to be seriously burned because of this or even paralyzed. And that’s just on the physical side of things. Again the emotional side is what I’m so curious about. He probably hates the Knights of Hanoi for what he did to him, he probably hates the Ignises because of what Windy did to him, I want to know whose side he’s going to be on which is why I’m so convinced he has to be working with SOL Technologies and might even be one of the Chess Pieces. And since we know that Windy is a full blown psychopath, I crossing my fingers so hard that his kid is also one because damn it we need more psychos in Vrains and I think it would be so interesting to see just the pure opposite end of the spectrum of the effects of the Hanoi Project on its victims. You have Yusaku who took his trauma and became a hero and then you have Windy’s kid who could have took his trauma and became the villain. Again just so much they could do with him and I can’t wait to see how he will be revealed to us.

And honestly, I just want him revealed because I need him to be for Nemesis.

#vrains #Wish List #Top Ten #vrains spoilers?

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blueeyeswhitegarden · 6 years ago

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Arc V and My Hero Academia for the anime ask meme!

Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V:

don’t watch period| drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes| give it a go, could be your thing| 5 star recommendation

fav characters: There are so many characters in this series that I love. Yuya is still my favorite character in the franchise, Yuzu’s determination is terrific, Yugo is always fun, Reira’s development was a wonderful surprise, Reiji is a wonderfully refreshing rival, Serena is cool and tough, Gongenzaka is just an awesome best friend type of character, Zarc is still my favorite final villain and Dennis’s development is both interesting and emotional. I could just go on about all of these characters even longer since they’re all so likable and interesting.

least fav characters: I think it would be Yuri. It’s mainly because he was just the hammy over the top secondary villain for most of the series. That does make him entertaining, but it didn’t make him too interesting. His backstory helped, but it felt a bit too little, too late. It also probably doesn’t help that they him defeat a ton of characters within a relatively short amount of time in order to hype him up further for his duel with Yuya.

I didn’t care much for Sawatari either, although I think I’ve warmed up a bit on him. I just didn’t like how self-centered he was. He came off as a cocky jerk and it showed in his dueling. He wanted to entertain the crowd, but he wanted the attention all for himself. It also didn’t help that people got on my case for preferring Yuya’s Entertainment Dueling over Sawatari. Not to mention they kept saying that his development made him automatically better than other characters. People getting on my case for liking or disliking a character in this series is practically a theme onto itself. I’m somewhat surprised that didn’t happen with Yuto, especially when my feelings for him changed as the series progressed. I still like Yuto, but he went from one of my favorites to just okay partly due to how overhyped I think he was. People were acting as if he was the main character instead of Yuya, calling Yuya the Standard Yuto and even claiming that the outcome of the series would somehow be better if Yuto absorbed Yuya instead and just flat out became the main character. I still generally like Yuto, but that kind of attitude does impact how I see him too.

fav relationship: I love Yuya and Yuzu’s relationship so much. Whether you see their relationship as romantic or platonic, I think that it’s clear that they do love each other. The group friendship between Yuya, Yuzu, Gongenzaka is so great. Yuya, Yuzu and Sora’s friendship is so wonderful too. Yugo and Rin are my second favorite pairing in the series. I love Yuya and Jack’s friendship so much and how they grow to respect each other. Yuya and Ed’s friendship is pretty great too.

fav moment: There are so many great moments in the series, but I’d still have to go with Yuya vs. Jack round two. That was just such a fantastic duel. Whenever I think about that match, Yuya getting the crowd to duel alongside him, Jack happily accepting defeat with a smile and raising Yuya’s arm as the victor at the end, I can’t help but feel happier inside and out.

headcanons/theories: I still like the idea of the original Zarc being within Yuya. There wouldn’t be enough of him to where Yuya could talk to him, but he’d still get more of his memories over time. The Zarc in Reira is kind of another fragment of his demon self with traces of his original self. If Zarc was split apart into four pieces the first time, he could be split into five pieces the second time around.

unpopular opinion: I think that Yuzu doesn’t get nearly enough credit for effectively saving the world. I can understand people being upset that she didn’t get a duel in the third season. That was a disappointment for me too, but I feel like people also overlook that she still had an important role in the storyline and had significant impact on other characters even without dueling. It’s also one of the reasons why I hate it when people say that she became a plot device character. In my experience, plot device characters usually only have one important relationship with another character. While the show focused more on Yuya and Yuzu’s friendship once they were separated, she still affected other characters like Sora, Serena and Yugo. Her relationships with them, along with Shuzo, were pretty important too. I understand that people want more proactive female duelists in this franchise. We don’t have a lot of them, but I don’t think that’s the only way a character can contribute to the storyline.

how’d you find it: I’ve been watching the franchise for years and I watched it right after watching Zexal. I never made it passed the first season of the dub since I didn’t care for most of the voices or changes and I’d rather not get the two versions mixed up in my mind too.

random thoughts: I love this series so much. Even with the fanbase being problematic to say the least, it doesn’t affect my love for Arc V. I love so many characters, so many duels and so many moments. It celebrates the franchise while providing its own story at the same time. Arc V makes me appreciate that I’ve been a fan of the franchise all these years. It is a terrific series, easily my favorite series in the franchise and quite possibly my favorite toyetic series. I love Arc V so much.

My Hero Academia:

don’t watch period| drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes| give it a go, could be your thing| 5 star recommendation

fav characters: Midoriya is so likable and you pretty much instantly want to root for him. Urarka is so sweet and I love her bubbly personality. Iida is pretty fun and his role in the Hero Killer arc made him more interesting. Todoroki is pretty cool and I like how his development was handled. All Might is just such a great likable mentor figure. Aizawa turned out to be a lot cooler than I expected, mainly due to his fight during the USJ attack in the first season.

least fav characters: Mineta is the obligatory answer, but that sexist pervert is indeed the worse. He might be the most one note character in the cast and Hagakure’s gag is being invisible. While I don’t think he’d be one of my least favorite characters anymore, my initial reaction to Bakugo was not good. I knew that he’d be the bully rival character, but I wasn’t expecting him to tell Midoriya to commit suicide in the first episode. His attitude in the first season in general, especially in his first fight against Midoriya, also hit a nerve. I’ve dealt with bullies who treat you like emotional punching bags and hit harder when they think that you’re better at them in something, which is basically what happened during that first combat training match. He does fortunately become more interesting as the series progressed and he was always surprisingly smart, but that initial negative reaction was still pretty intense.

fav relationship: I love Midoriya and All Might’s student/mentor relationship. It’s probably one of my favorite things about the series since they become like a father and son so quickly. I’m happy that I finally get all of the Dad Might jokes I would hear about before watching the series now. Their connection feels so genuine and sweet. The group friendship between Midoriya, Uraraka and Iida is wonderful. Their group dynamic is so great and sweet. Midoriya and Totoroki’s friendship is pretty great. While it feels a bit one-sided, I grew to like Bakugo and Kirashima’s friendship. Kirashmia’s concern over Bakugo when he was kidnapped and Bakugo paying him back afterwards made it a lot sweeter than I expected.

fav moment: I still love All Might telling Midoriya that he could become a hero. No matter how many times I see that moment, Midoriya crying is still so emotionally effective. The final blow during Midoriya and Todoroki’s fight in the Sports Festival was just amazing. The fight against the Hero Killer was pretty awesome. All Might hugging Midoriya after the fight against All For One was so emotional and touching. I wanted to see them hug since the Sports Festival arc and it finally happened, but at such a price.

headcanons/theories: I’m not sure if I have any at the moment. I still need to finish season three, so I might some once I finish that up.

unpopular opinion: I don’t really like the Midoriya and Bakugo pairing. I can kind of see why people would like it, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I usually don’t like pairings where at least one of the characters don’t like the other one. Plus, after seeing Midoriya help Bakugo pass their final exam against All Might, I think that Midoriya is way too good for him.

how’d you find it: I heard about the manga and anime for awhile, but I didn’t watch it until it was on Toonami. I loved it pretty much from the first episode, watched it weekly through the first season and then I binged watched season two and most of season three within four days. I was enjoying the series too much to just watch it weekly when I could watch more right away. Plus, I didn’t want to accidentally spoil anything while looking up what to reblog, especially when a lot of people had already seen the first couple of seasons at least.

random thoughts: My Hero Academia is really good. It is definitely a shonen series and I don’t know if it breaks a lot of new ground compared to just executing familiar concepts really well, but either way, it is a lot of fun. The characters are likable, the fights are solid, the powers are cool, the setting is unique and the emotional moments are well earned. It is a great show and I’m glad that I finally started to watch it.

Thank you for asking. ^_^

#Asks #Arc V #Arc V Spoilers #My Hero Academia

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inversekaon · 5 years ago

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[fic] Like Ships in the Night (2)

Fandom: Yugioh Zexal Paring: V/Gauche, background Mizael/Kaito Rating: T Wordcount: 5500+ dreamwidth link AO3 link

Soulmates AU. Fate would always ensure that soulmates found each other. Even if it had to try again…and again…and again…and again…

~*~*~*~*~

Like Ships in the Night Part 2 // Hailing

The writing on his arm seemed to tingle when he woke up again, standing on the dam where he had disappeared. So did everything else, in a way, so Chris didn't pay it much mind. He often forgot those words were even there, anyway.

"Let's go find Yuma," he suggested once he felt like his body was as solid as it was going to get. He held a hand out to Michael, who took it with a short, determined nod, and together they began walking back to the car.

The docks had been where the energy uniting the two worlds had originated, so it seemed prudent to check there first. They weren't the only ones who had thought so, either; on the way, they picked up Thomas and a few of the other duelists who had helped Yuma, and once they reached the docks, the rest were waiting for them, along with Yuma himself.

With one notable exception. Chris's heart sank as he looked around and found that Kaito was not among the other duelists. For a brief moment, he convinced himself that it was because it was more difficult to return from the surface of the moon than to be magically restored where they had fallen, until Yuma walked over to him, unusually downcast and fidgety.

"V," he said hesitantly, "I'm sorry. Kaito was...Kaito, he..."

Chris reached out to squeeze Yuma's shoulder. His fingers dug in harder than he meant them to, but Yuma didn't even flinch.

"I understand," Chris said softly. "Thank you, Yuma. For...trying to tell me."

Yuma smiled weakly and turned away to talk with someone else. Standing behind him had been Haruto, who stared up at him with unsure, shiny eyes once Yuma was no longer in the way.

Chris looked down at him just as hesitantly. He would never forget the part he had played in betraying and hurting the child in front of him for the rest of his life, nor was he unaware of how hesitant Kaito was to allow Chris anywhere near Haruto again, even if the two of them had mostly made up. But Kaito was no longer here, and Chris was probably the next best thing Haruto had right now.

It took a moment, but eventually Chris slowly lowered himself to his knees and held his arms out. Haruto didn't quite dash at him, but it had probably looked that way from the outside as he threw himself at Chris's chest. Chris wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tightly, and he politely said nothing about the wet spot slowly coming into being on his shoulder.

Haruto was fast asleep, cradled in his arms and his lap, long before anyone else tried to approach him. When a shadow fell over him and then sat next to him, he wasn't all that surprised to see that it was Gauche sitting there, his chin in his hand and expression surly. He didn't have the impression that Gauche liked him much, but the man had spent enough time in Heartland Tower that he probably was fond of Haruto.

"So, you're supposed to be a good guy now, huh?" Gauche said after a moment of glancing between him and Haruto.

Chris shrugged his free shoulder. "I'm not really any sort of guy."

Gauche made a very skeptical sounding grunt in the back of his throat and went on frowning at him. Chris very calmly stared right back, hoping that was a good enough answer and also offhandedly wondering why it being good enough was suddenly so important to him. They were hardly more than strangers, after all. Despite working in the same building for a year, Chris only vaguely remembered running into Gauche once, for approximately as long as it took him to walk past him. It shouldn't matter at all to him what Gauche thought.

He supposed that if Gauche really wanted to take issue with him looking after Haruto for a few minutes and tried to argue about it, it would disturb Haruto, and he didn't want that. That was probably enough reason.

"Well, I guess if he doesn't hate you after what you did to him, it's fine," Gauche finally said, glancing toward Haruto. Chris unconsciously hugged Haruto a little tighter. He quickly relaxed his grip again as soon as Haruto made a noise.

Gauche didn't seem to have anything else to say, but he didn't seem very inclined to leave either. The two of them just sat there for a while, silently watching Yuma and his friends chatter away. Chris might have finally thought about leaving, except that the group around Yuma included Michael, and it was too nice to see his brother so enthusiastically accepted into the group for Chris to want to ruin it. Even if his other brother was standing around the edges, looking thoroughly annoyed they were still there.

It was surprisingly comfortable sitting there next to Gauche with Haruto asleep on his shoulder. At least, it was for Chris. Gauche seemed unable to sit still after the first couple minutes, his fidgeting steadily growing more obvious, until it seemed he would surely get up and leave any second. Then he turned toward Chris again, and Chris wondered why, if he actually did have something else to say, he hadn't just said it to begin with.

"You owe me a duel," Gauche said, finally.

"Haven't we already dueled?"

"No, I mean a real duel," Gauche said, poking him in the shoulder. "I'd like to see you get away with all those cheap tricks of yours in a real duel."

Chris glanced at the finger jabbing at his shoulder, and then looked back at Yuma and his friends. He wasn't sure he could keep his eagerness off his face if he let himself look at Gauche. In truth, he wanted to set Haruto down and offer to duel right then and there. He couldn't remember the last time someone other than his brothers or Kaito had asked him to duel—had actually wanted to duel him and sought him out rather than the other way around. And Gauche wasn't brilliant, but he was enough of a challenge to make it appealing.

Chris snuck a glance at Gauche out of the corner of his eye. The man was leaning over with the most serious look on his (actually rather handsome) face, like he might drag Chris off to duel whether Chris said yes or not.

"Give me your phone," Chris said finally, holding out his hand.

Gauche looked utterly confused, but he dipped a hand into his fluffy coat and set his cell phone in Chris's hand. Chris deftly hit the appropriate buttons and held it back out to him in almost no time at all.

"Call me," he said as Gauche took his phone back. "I'll duel you any time you want."

Gauche stared at his phone, dumbfounded, for several long moments before he grinned up at Chris. "Really? Any time?"

Chris started to nod, but quickly added before Gauche got too carried away, "Just give me a little time to adjust my deck first."

He probably should have done that the first time he'd lost hold of Numbers 9. It was his ace, after all, and while his deck could work without it, that was far from ideal. It had turned out to be lucky that he hadn't gotten around to adjusting his deck, but from now on, he was fairly certain it would never be in his hands again. Not to mention, much of his deck was still tailored toward countering Kaito or the Barians specifically, even if it would work well enough against others.

He was looking forward to coming up with something new. He already had a few possibilities sitting half-built in a drawer.

"Oh yeah?" Gauche said with a grin. "Our last duel actually made you nervous?"

Chris snorted lightly and turned away. "Hardly. It simply wouldn't be fair to you to overpower you so thoroughly again."

Gauche jerked next to him, but whatever he had been about to retort was lost to his own imagination as footsteps approached, and then stopped, behind them.

"Christopher..."

Chris tensed up, his back suddenly straight as a board. Gauche was already scrambling to his feet—no doubt out of habit than any real respect for the man.

"...Dr. Faker."

For a moment, Chris had to close his eyes and take a long, slow breath. His father had forgiven Faker, so Chris had also given up on his quest for revenge—as well as any misplaced anger toward the man's sons—but Chris was not his father and he had not quite been able to forgive the man himself yet. He might have tried for Kaito's sake...but Kaito wasn't here. He supposed he could try for Haruto's sake as well, though.

When he opened his eyes, Gauche was holding a hand down to him. Chris took it with some relief and let Gauche help him back to his feet without jostling Haruto too much. His hand was pleasantly warm and dry, and the grip his other hand had higher up Chris's arm was firm yet surprisingly gentle. Chris nearly stumbled into him once he was one his feet, but Gauche just guided him back upright and held him there, until most of the tingling had gone from his legs and he could move away on his own.

"Haruto, your father is here," Chris murmured as he gently shook Haruto's shoulder. Haruto woke up enough to help move himself as Chris passed him over to Faker, and then as soon as he was cradled in his father's arms instead, he fell right back asleep against Faker's shoulder.

Chris regarded the man silently for a moment. Thankfully, Faker seemed to be waiting to see what he had to say before he actually opened his own mouth again.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Chris said flatly. The same words Faker had said to him those years ago. Chris, at least, had the decency to not lie straight to the man's face.

Then he turned and walked away, brushing past Gauche without another glance back. It seemed it was time to finally collect his brothers and leave.

~*~*~*~*~

That evening, they gathered to watch Yuma's last duel with Astral. It seemed like it was only Yuma's close friends and himself and Droite, until Gauche happened to glance up and saw a trio of figures standing on a nearby rooftop.

"Those guys," Gauche grumbled, rolling his eyes, "they're always so dramatic. What can they even see all the way up there?"

Still, he could helped grinning a bit as well and he thrust his hand into the air to wave at them. After several excruciatingly long, undoubtedly embarrassing for Droite seconds, the tallest figure on the roof also raised his hand halfheartedly.

But they didn't come down to watch with the rest of them, and by the time the duel was over and Gauche could glance back up again, the three figures were gone.

~*~*~*~*~

"Oh? Chris, your mark is lighter?"

Chris paused in dumping vegetables into a pot to turn his arm over in surprise. Tron eagerly leaned across the counter for a closer look.

It was rare that Chris had his sleeves rolled up enough to clearly see the characters on his arm, rarer still that it was while someone else was around. For that someone to be Tron was—perhaps—a stroke of luck, as he undoubtedly remembered what those characters used to look like better than Chris did and was just eager enough to reintegrate himself into his sons' lives to be very nosy about it.

Admittedly, Chris had not given those characters much thought in years, and Tron was also the reason for that. In the face of his burning, all-consuming need for revenge against Dr. Faker, everything else had seemed laughably inconsequential, especially some soulmate he might or might not ever meet. He wore long sleeves so often that he rarely saw them anyway.

When he was younger, he'd actually given them quite a lot of thought. He'd painstakingly translated the characters until he thought he had a reasonable understanding of what they said. He'd practiced again and again what they should sound like, so he would be sure to know them when he heard them. Even now, years after he'd bothered to glance at them, it was probably the one bit of Japanese he could write by hand without having to look any of it up.

And he'd certainly spent some time contemplating their meaning and what they hinted at how he might meet his soulmate. There you are! Someone who had been looking for him. We got a nice mood going on here! Someone who might even be very excited to find him. I challenge you! Someone who was a duelist.

Someone who had been looking for him specifically to duel him, maybe.

(He'd hoped so. Very much)

And it was someone who spoke Japanese. But none of that told him much at all, really. And then he had stopped caring.

Glancing down at those words now, Chris thought they did sound familiar, and not because he'd repeated them to himself so often when he was small. He could almost hear they way they had been spoken in his mind, could almost place where it had been and why, but every time he reached for the answer, it darted out of his grasp. It would undoubtedly come to him some time when he wasn't thinking about it at all, but for now, it seemed useless to keep trying.

"I think you're right," Chris said eventually. "They are lighter."

Tron smiled and sat back in his chair, his chin cupped in his hands. Chris could hear faint thuds under the counter where he must have been kicking his feet.

"So, do you know who it is? You shouldn't keep such big secrets from your father, Chris."

Chris frowned down at his arm for a few moments more. "...No, I don't."

Tron hummed, utterly unconcerned. "Well, you'll meet them again. It took me and your mother years to figure it out."

~*~*~*~*~

"All right, Kaito, I think we're done. You can get dressed now."

Chris turned away to look over the last of the data collected about Kaito's condition, while Kaito sat up on the examination table and grabbed for his shirt. Ever since Kaito had miraculously reappeared along with the Barians after Yuma had won his duel against Astral a few weeks ago, Chris had insisted on regular check-ups to make sure Kaito was recovering well. Between Photon Mode slowly killing him, the way Heartland had tortured him, and the stress of dueling Mizael and then suffocating to death on the moon, Chris was somewhat concerned that even the Numeron Code couldn't bring Kaito back at full health.

He had also insisted that he be the one performing said check-ups, because he knew that Kaito didn't care enough about his health to bother on his own.

Luckily, it seemed that the Numeron Code had been able to restore him to full health after all, and Photon Mode didn't seem to be putting as much strain on his body as it had been either. Chris still didn't like the readings he got after Kaito had been using it, but Kaito also had much less reason to use it now, so he could almost recover completely before using it again.

The readings today were much better than they had been a couple days ago. But there was actually something else he had noticed while Kaito had his shirt off, and now that he was done looking over all the data, he could finally turn his attention to more trivial matters.

Chris turned back to Kaito just in time to catch his wrist before he could hide his arm inside his coat again. He spent a moment inspecting Kaito's arm, and then smiled up at him when he was sure he wasn't mistaken.

"Your mark is lighter."

"So what," Kaito said. He jerked his hand free and jammed his arm through the sleeve of his coat.

Now, Kaito had never been overly enamored with the idea of finding his soulmate—at least, once he'd realized Chris wasn't it—but he'd never been quite this hostile about it. Chris tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Do you know who it is?"

Kaito didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. The way he crossed his arms and frowned at one of the screens—that was conveniently not on Chris's side of the room—was answer enough. And so was the faint blush on his cheeks.

"Is it Mizael?"

Kaito tensed up so fast he nearly jumped and whipped his head around. "How did you know that?"

"Please, isn't it obvious?" Chris said with a smirk. Not that he'd been one hundred percent sure, but between their twin dragons and their personalities, he would have been extremely surprised to learn it was anyone else.

Kaito scowled at him even more, though disappointingly, that faint bit of pink left his cheeks.

"And what about you?" Kaito demanded after a moment with an irritated jerk of his head.

Oh. Chris was quite happy to tease Kaito about this, but he did not particularly want to talk about himself. He turned away to do...something on one of the screens that would give the appearance of suddenly remembering something he needed to do.

"I've met mine as well."

"Oh?" Chris could practically hear the grin Kaito would be doing his best to suppress. "Sounds like we're both pretty lucky. Are you going to make me guess, too?"

"You can try, but I don't know who it is either."

"You don't?" Kaito said, surprised. "It's been a while since I've seen it...was it that generic?"

In an instant, Kaito had crossed the room to grab Chris's wrist. Chris sighed and let him tug his arm close and push up his sleeve to reveal the characters there. There was no denying it now, the way he maybe could have when Tron had noticed; those characters were absolutely more faded than they had been. They were more faded than Kaito's too, for that matter.

Kaito spent a long moment inspecting the words on Chris's arm. When he finally looked up again, it was with an odd look on his face.

"Chris, this sounds like—"

"I know who it sounds like," Chris said shortly. He jerked his arm away and pushed his sleeve back down.

He had been racking his brain since Tron had brought it up, trying to remember when he might have heard it, trying to put a face or a name to the voice he heard when he read over those lines again and again. He thought he might have finally figured it out, too, except that he had a hard time believing it could be that guy. He was attractive, anyone would think so, but...they had spoken to each other exactly twice, and he didn't have the impression of being very liked either time. Other than dueling, did they even have anything in common? Was there even any other reason for them to cross paths again?

Chris's pocket began to buzz. He fished out his phone before Kaito could say anything else, glad for the excuse to stop talking about this. As he read over the message and who it was from, his eyes widened a bit. Speak of the devil and he shall appear...

Your deck ready yet? I'll be waiting.

Chris spent a moment studying the attached map to make sure he knew where he was going. Then he dashed off a reply and stuffed his phone back in his pocket to begin shutting things down so he could leave as soon as possible. Finally. He'd been beginning to think the man had forgotten about wanting to duel him.

"Who was that?" Kaito asked. Chris started a little. He'd almost forgotten Kaito was there.

He also wasn't sure he wanted to respond, given the previous subject, but eventually he said, "Gauche."

"....You gave him your phone number...?"

"He wanted to duel me," Chris said. He paused to look over the room and make sure everything was taken care of.

"Chris..."

Chris glanced over. Kaito had another odd look on his face. But instead of saying anything on that subject they both wanted to avoid, Kaito shook his head and said with a slight smirk, "You're going to destroy him."

Chris smirked right back. "Yes, I know."

~*~*~*~*~

Gauche scowled up at the sky from the flat of his back. That V....he'd been hoping that if it was a real duel, V would drop his cheap tricks and duel properly, but that was all he seemed to know how to do. That wasn't satisfying at all!

But the most frustrating bit was that it worked. This was far from the first time Gauche had ended up on his back this week. It didn't seem to matter how much he adjusted his own strategies either; V was utterly unmoved by most of it, and for those hits that actually landed, he found a way to counter them by the next duel.

(Gauche was reluctant to admit it, but he could see how Kaito had gotten so good with this immovable wall as his teacher.)

But that didn't mean he was going to give up. Far from it. Gauche pushed himself to his feet and demanded they start again. He was not going to let someone with such an annoying style of dueling get the better of him forever.

~*~*~*~*~

Gauche frowned up at the sky from the flat of his back. That V...it seemed he could use other strategies after all, and he was just as annoyingly competent at them as the Burn and Negation effects he preferred. And thankfully, he'd started swapping out right as Gauche was starting to get bored of how he had been fighting.

It was still frustrating, regularly finding himself on the ground like this. And it just made him want to see V on the ground instead even more.

Just...maybe in a minute. Gauche shifted on the ground and let out a small groan at the bruises threatening to form on his back. It wasn't very comfortable, lying here, but it was tempting to keep lying here anyway. He finally pushed himself up on his elbows instead. He should probably make it clear he was going to get up, eventually, but they'd been dueling for a while now and he could actually use a break.

He glanced up when he heard a faint sound come from V's direction. V had taken a few steps in his direction but stopped, and he was now staring down at him with wide eyes and an otherwise very blank look on his face. Gauche arched a brow as he stared back up at him, which only seemed to make V's face tighten up even more. What was his problem? Was he worried? Was he mad? Did Gauche offend him somehow by not getting right back up?

After a moment, V's brows knitted together and he looked away, frowning at the ground next to Gauche instead. Then he turned on his heel with a whirl of his curtain of silver hair and walked back to where he had been standing. There, he spun around again and sank gracefully to the ground, pulled out his deck, and started calmly shuffling through it in his lap. He didn't glance back up at Gauche again. Gauche had the distinct impression he was refusing to.

He was probably mad. But if he was going along with Gauche's desire for a break, then that was fine. Gauche sat up the rest of the way and pulled out his own deck. Taking the opportunity to make a few adjustments wasn't a bad idea either.

~*~*~*~*~

Gauche grinned up at the sky from the flat of his back and let out a bark of laughter. Finally. It had taken V switching to a strategy that involved a lot of swarming and straightforward attacks—the way Gauche had been hoping he would fight from the beginning—but Gauche had finally managed...a tie.

Just a tie. But so what if it was just a tie? Normally, he might have been irritated by that kind of result, but against V, it felt like progress. And anyway, it had been fun. Not that dueling V hadn't become its own kind of fun, but there was just something different about exchanging blows directly. There was something different about V, who was normally so composed behind his Trap cards and monster effects, passionately fighting him head on like that.

In some ways, he felt like maybe he'd finally seen V's real fighting spirit, after only seeing glimpses of it for so long. He knew that wasn't quite the case—he'd never felt like V wasn't fully engaged with their duels, or he would have walked away long before now—but it still felt that way. And it was something he already, very badly, wanted to see again.

"You got me."

Gauche turned his head to find V standing over him, his hand outstretched and a smile on his lips. The light of the sun setting behind him illuminated the edges of his hair, so he almost seemed to glow, but it was nothing compared to the way that smile softened his face.

Gauche stared up at him for a long time, momentarily struck dumb by how breathtakingly handsome this man was when he smiled like that.

Until that smile faded and V was looking at him with concern instead. "Gauche?"

Gauche sat up and took his hand, chuckling awkwardly as V helped him stand up. "I haven't gotten you yet," he said, very keen to avoid any questions about his momentary lapse of reason. "But you'd better be ready for when I do."

V smiled again, sending his heart fluttering up his throat. "I'll treat you anyway."

~*~*~*~*~

"Dr. Faker is planning to hold another tournament," V said, handing him an ice cream. As V sat next to him, Gauche couldn't help but eye the ice cream he was holding—or rather, the amount of stuff he'd asked for on it.

"Already? Wait, who're they even going have host it? With Heartland gone and the deputy mayor's a bore..."

V's mouth tightened in disdain as he dug at his ice cream with a tiny spoon. He seemed to have been able to put aside his uncharitable feelings for Dr. Faker during the past few months, but that didn't seem to be the case for Heartland. Not that Gauche could blame him much for that.

"We've been talking to someone named Smiley...I was worried he might be cut from the same cloth as Heartland, but he seems alright. You'll see what I mean when you meet him." He stuck a chunk of ice cream, chocolate, and cookie in his mouth and fell quiet until it was gone. "Dr. Faker is planning on making the WDC an annual tournament, but he's going to have another one before that to get everyone excited for it. Invite only."

"Oh yeah? Since you're telling me, I guess I'm invited?" Gauche said with a grin. He reached over with his own spoon and snagged a bit of V's ice cream. V's eyes followed it all the way to his mouth.

"That's right. Those of us who made it to the last eight in the last WDC, the Barians, a few of Yuma's other friends...we'll be using the Duel Coasters so we needed enough people." V absently tucked his hair behind his ear. "It's going to be publicized as a precursor to the WDC, but it's really more of a gift to all of us and Yuma..."

That seemed...surprisingly generous of Dr. Faker. Particularly when he had only thrown the first WDC as an attempt to collect the Numbers, and he'd never seemed all that enamored with dueling itself. Gauche had a suspicion this wasn't actually his idea, or a lot of it wasn't. But more importantly—

"We're using the Duel Coasters again?"

V casually reached over with his spoon and snagged a bit of his ice cream. "My idea."

Frankly, Gauche couldn't care less whose idea it was. He jumped up with a wild grin, nearly crushing his ice cream in his fist in his excitement. "That's the best idea! I can't wait to be part of that again!"

~*~*~*~*~

As the tournament approached, holoscreens began appearing around the city to advertise for it with what little footage there was from the last tournament.

And Gauche finally had the satisfaction of sending V flying to the ground.

For the first few moments, he almost couldn't believe what he'd just seen. His monster's attack connecting, V's monster getting blown away and V along with it, V's lifepoints finally ticking all the way down to zero...

Then the reality of V's prone form on the ground finally sank in and he threw his fists in the air and let out a whoop of delight. And then ran forward to give V a hand in getting up and maybe gloat a little to his face rather than several feet away.

V was already sitting up by the time Gauche reached him, his pretty hair strewn haphazardly about his shoulders. The look on his face quashed most of Gauche's thoughts of gloating. He actually looked pretty peeved under all that hair, although he also wasn't looking at Gauche, so it was hard to say whether that was directed at him.

Then V glanced up at him and most of that dark look disappeared. He sighed and reached up to take Gauche's hand, his eyes glittering with a challenge.

"Good job. That won't be happening again."

Gauche grinned and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the holoscreen above them blared to life—with his own face, too, so he kind of wanted to see what part of the WDC they'd picked for this one. Something from the underground part of the Duel Coaster track, it looked like.

"There you are! We got a nice mood going on here! V, I challenge you!"

"...Hmph, you plan to fight me?"

V's hand was still clasped in his own, so he felt it when the man went suddenly went very still. Gauche was too busy frowning up at the screen to look at him. Why did that sound so familiar? Like something he had been trying to remember for months had just been dropped in his lap?

"So it is you..."

Gauche's gaze darted back down to his face. V was staring at him with a surprisingly vulnerable look, like he'd never really seen him before. Gauche stared back at him, bewildered, until his face and his words and his words finally all clicked into place.

"It's you?!" he blurted. He yanked V's arm forward and shoved up his sleeve. Sure enough, it was his own words that were inscribed there, and they had faded as much as the short phrase on his own arm. A phrase which he had very clearly heard just seconds ago from that screen.

His fingers brushed over the words, checking them over again just to make sure. V's muscles tensed under his fingers and his hand twitched in Gauche's grip.

"So it would seem," he murmured, his voice tight.

Gauche glanced back up at him. He still looked a bit unsure and lost, which was pretty much how Gauche felt about this too. This wasn't at all how he thought meeting his soulmate would go. Even after he'd discovered they'd already met, he'd been imagining something...else when they found each other again. He hadn't imagined it would feel like the world had suddenly turned upside down. And he definitely hadn't imagined it being V.

Then something else clicked, and Gauche frowned suspiciously at him. "Did you already know?"

V pressed his lips together and glanced down at where Gauche's hand was still resting on his arm. "I suspected."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Gauche demanded.

V didn't answer that right away, giving Gauche plenty of time to come up with his own reasons. V didn't like him. V already liked someone else. V didn't want to be with someone who couldn't beat him. V didn't want to be with someone who could beat him. V thought he liked someone else and didn't want to get in the way. V was actually secretly dying from some unknown malady—

"Because," V said finally, meeting his eyes again, "even if this is meant to be, I didn't want to fall for you because I felt like I had to. And I didn't want you to feel obligated to like me either. That's not the kind of relationship I want to have. With anyone."

That wasn't in his list of reasons.

Gauche's heart felt like it was in his throat again.

"That's the relationship I thought I wanted. When I was a kid," Gauche admitted sheepishly. It sure as hell wasn't what he wanted now, though. As of approximately five seconds ago.

"Well, so did I," V said with a faint smile. "When I was a kid."

Gauche nodded jerkily. There was something else he wanted to ask, but...well, it was kind of embarrassing just asking it. So it was another few seconds of opening and closing his mouth before he could manage it, and his cheeks felt warm when he finally did.

"Do you like me?"

V looked away and chewed on the inside of his lower lip. "More than I thought I would," he admitted after a moment.

Gauche's hand tightened around the one he was holding. That probably should have been insulting in some way, but honestly, wasn't that pretty much how he felt too? More than I thought I would...And anyway, insulting or not, unsure of his own feelings or not, it was hard not to feel more than a little affected by hearing this proud, beautiful man admit that he liked him. It was tempting to just kiss him right now and let that lead where it may.

"I need some time to think about it," Gauche said instead, feeling somewhat like he was having to force the words out.

V smiled and squeezed his hand back. "Good."

◁◁ Part 1: Passing By

Part 3: In Consort ▷▷

#Contrastshipping #Zexal #christopher arclight #Gauche #zexalfic #fanfiction

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