#but the solar eclipse is a whole bitter ballgame that I'm still upset over in episode 22

[shidoukanae]

It’s probably pretty obvious at this point but my interest in VRAINS has wavered. I’m not as enthusiastic about it as I used to be and that sucks, honestly. The latest episodes, namely Akira vs. Yusaku and episodes 21 and 22, have failed to capture my attention. Recently, however, I rewatched episode 7 - Blue Angel’s duel against Playmaker - and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time grinning like an idiot even if I knew the results of the battle. 

With the current episodes, however, I can’t react like that. I don’t hold any excitement to the upcoming episodes - it doesn’t feel like we’re getting anywhere with the plot. And, sure, we’ve learned a bit about Yusaku’s past but it’s honestly not much past what we already knew or had speculated about beforehand. The only thing that leapt out to me personally was the weird eye-like being that appeared and, even then, the knowledge that it won’t get addressed for quite some time weighs down on me. The whole Akira vs. Yusaku fight had potential to push the show somewhere new - to start talking about the six lost kids or to start thinking about real life Revolver or even Kusanagi’s brother some more. Instead, we’re still going over the whole “I must find answers” spiel that’s been started since episode 1 and…I honestly don’t feel like we’ve progressed any further.

There are still five children left to identify. There are still five AIs trapped in a world. There are still mysteries the show has left to touch upon if only briefly instead of bringing them up for one second and then dropping them like an anchor into a sea. It feels like, since episode 1, we have this giant wall of a gazillion horizontal layers looming over us. And, as it stands now, out of those gazillion layers maybe only a handful or so have been taken off. That leaves a whole gazillion minus five layers to delve through. We’re at episode 22. There should be more layers destroyed at this point - not a handful. 

Not only that, but I’m losing my attachment to our protagonist. I can’t place it into words, exactly, but someone on my dash once pointed out something about him that caught my eye: the show worships Yusaku. He’s made out to be an eternal hero, the savior of Link VRAINS and the only threat that matters in the world to Hanoi or otherwise. And, while there’s a basis to this - Yusaku holds a creation of eternal value - the show seems to focus less on the fact that every one and their cousin wants Ai and more on that Yusaku is a “hero” who needs to be taught a lesson by the bad guys because he’s that good guy that everyone needs to love. 

What makes the show’s hero worship of Yusaku/Playmaker the most annoying thing to me is that everyone seems to agree that the guy is respectable and “awe-inspiring”. Revolver respects him, Blue Angel respects him, Go Onizuka respects him, Aoi Zaizen respects him, Akira Zaizen respects him, Ema Bessho respects him, Shoichi Kusanagi - do you see where I’m going here? The only characters who don’t seem to respect Yusaku (Specter, Dr. Kogami, virtually everyone who’s never seen him or met him yet) are inspired by him. He touches the lives of every single damn person he meets. Every. Single. One. And, lemme tell you, that’s almost characteristic of the Gary Stu trait - to have everyone think of the protagonist in a favorable light just because he’s cool/good at dueling/a savior/mysterious and so on and so forth. 

There has to be someone who could care less about Playmaker - whose life doesn’t consist of either chasing after him (Blue Angel, Revolver, etc.) or fawning over him (Naoki, Ema to some extent), someone who sits in the shadows and lets Playmaker play distraction while a greater plot unfolds behind the scenes. At the very least - can’t we have someone who genuinely hates Playmaker and refuses to change their views of him even after one little duel (and, no, Revolver doesn’t count. This latest episode has proven that Revolver thinks highly enough of Playmaker to at least want to duel him one more time - if not out of fun than out of a craving for dominance over someone who “bested” him and thus who he respects). 

Part of what I love about all the adults so far (sans, obviously, Shoichi) is that their lives don’t necessarily revolve around Yusaku. Go’s manager seeks to tend to Go and encourage him to do what Go believes is best. Akira thinks always of his sister and when he’s not chasing after a lost AI (and *grumbles* Playmaker himself) he’s working hard for his sister’s sake to make her happy. Dr. Kogami is working to destroy one of his own creations to right a wrong. Ema Bessho, though heavily involved with Playmaker in her duel against him, very much walks her own path. She’s more involved with Akira than she is anyone else and, when she’s not working with Akira she’s off trying to make a profit. 

Both Ema and Dr. Kogami seem to have the least “worship” to Playmaker as a whole and act almost independent of what Playmaker wants (although, with Ema, I’m hoping she won’t become the type to bend to Playmaker’s will just because of her current “crush” on him). They’re also the two remaining characters I’m interested in (with my initial infatuation with Aoi falling the longer we see her either by Playmaker’s side or off-screen entirely without a chance to shine) specifically because they have a focus that doesn’t center solely on him - Ema wants a profit (for reasons unknown or because she really likes money even though she doesn’t really live too luxuriously) and Dr. Kogami wants to destroy his creations even if he was to destroy Link VRAINS (and maybe even himself) to do so. 

…So, in summary, I dunno. I’m hoping if I wait this current arc out that I’ll get rewarded but, having slogged through the last Hanoi arc (which did little to pique my interest, honestly, aside from Ghost Girl’s bits), I’m not sure about that. Ema’s honestly one of the few reasons why I keep watching - if only to see bits and pieces of her here and there. Aoi’s also another reason but considering how rarely we see Aoi (and, I’m not including her online persona bc her online persona has kind of become a bit saturated in the plot rn) she’s not really a doable reason to keep watching. I’m also hoping that maybe we get somewhere - that maybe we try another route, something that doesn’t involve fighting Hanoi or claiming a need to “seek for the truth of the past”. Both of those rhetorics are getting real old now and, I feel like, if the show doesn’t step on a new path soon enough, it’ll get pretty stale to me quickly…

Put another way - I’m guess you can say I am infatuated with the beginning of VRAINS but I am also losing interest in the modern era of VRAINS.