#happy april fools 👍 this was the best idea for it i could come up with.

[wild-battlebond]

Can this even be considered a joke?! April Fools Day: A full analysis of the fictional virtual pet featured in Yu-Gi-Oh! Ep7: The Underhanded Digital Pet Rebellion

disclaimer: i have not watched any yugioh besides this episode. please excuse any glaring yugioh inaccuracies.

Today’s April Fools Day! For the first time in blog history, I have figured out a way to celebrate it: by offering up a complete analysis of the digital pets featured in exactly one random episode of Yu-Gi-Oh.

Is there actually anything foolish or prank-like about this? No! But it was fun! 🎉 🎉 🎉

The episodes starts by reflecting the infamous, well-known issues with schools and Tamagotchi, with a normal school class being interrupted by care alerts.

The Digital Pet has a rectangular brick design is clearly based on the Digimon v-pet, and the button count is identical to both Digimon and Tamagotchi. The cleaning animation resembles Digimon’s. At the same time, there’s a zig-zag design on the sides of the screens that resembles the eggshell zig-zag present on some Tamagotchi designs. However, unlike the Digimon and like Tamagotchi, it's held vertically (although it seems to switch between being held vertically and being held horizontally throughout the episode).

The character designs of the Digital Pets themselves most closely resemble Tamagotchi, but ultimately I feel like they just look like your average 90s monster.

The dating function is clearly based on the Osutchi and Mesutchi, but the battle function that will be seen later is clearly based on the Digimon. To note is that both came out in the same year, but the Osu/Mesutchi was released first.

After class, the brown-haired girl tells the guy he should have "switch[ed] it off" — assuming she means turning it off, this is a feature v-pets of the time did not have, as turning it off (removing the batteries) would erase save data. However, this, as well as the blonde boy's complaint that it won't grow if he does that, does match up with the way nap functions and "pausing" (bringing up the clock set screen and leaving it there) works.

As an aside, this Honda guy is my favorite. it takes him 60 seconds to go through an arc that would take a Digimon character 25-50 episodes to figure out, all because a pretty girl showed up. congratulations, Honda.

Continuing to be the funniest guy ever, Honda even takes the day off from school to spend his every waking moment raising the digital pet for that girl he likes.

The gold Digital Pet, ultra-rare, ultra-scarce, and ultra-expensive, is supposed to be able to raise the ultimate pet. Assuming this is not false advertising, this is not based in reality, as typically all v-pets of a single model have the same chances of raising the same things with the same strengths. it's also 50,000 yen which, is really exorbitant.

Everybody named theirs, which is cute. this, combined with many of them resembling their owners, implies the pets may be completely randomly generated. They also take after their owners personality-wise, a wonderful miracle only possible through the power of fiction.

Speaking of, the "dates" mentioned earlier actually involves different kinds of interaction. The pets might get along, or they might start beating each other up – a combination of both how the Osu/Mesutchi and Digimon work. No matter how the interaction goes, even if it seems negative, it causes a chance in the trajectory of the pet's growth (which comes into play later, as Yugi’s pet evolves due to the influence of Jounouchi’s)

and, as Kujirada shows when he battles the girl and Jounouchi’s pets, if these interactions become a battle, it can lead to deletion for one of the combatants. It’s also possibly implied that eating them increases his pet's strength? Producing a similar result as a positive linked interaction, but destructively...

He also tries to battle Yugi but gets interrupted. if my understanding is correct, this would have caused that bigger Yugi (pharaoh?) to have appeared prematurely? which would probably be an interesting thing to note if i was familiar with the rest of the show

and then Honda shows up yaaay. the last time i watched this the name of his/miho's pet kept getting mistranslated as super ichigo instead of sweeper ichigo but i guess that's fixed now. and because it's epic sweeper ichigo wipes the floor with the other guy. Or, more specifically, because Sweeper Ichigo was raised with such love and dedication, it’s able to easily outclass anything raised with cheap tactics or hate (a trope that most mon-taming fans will be familiar with)

and then a little while later Miho gets kidnapped & the secret antagonist was shy kid Haiyama. who has been treating the other guy as a "pet", physically punishing him. actually the screencaps can speak for themselves

and he's been doing this to a lot of people. even though I already watched this episode a few months ago, watching this scene again still had me like, “whoa! geez! that’s pretty messed up!”

(where are these 90s kids always gettting whips from anyways…)

and then the bigger Yugi shows up & forces a battle with Haiyama by connecting their Digital Pets together, in the same way Kujirada did to beat up Yugi’s friends’ Digital Pets. I would say that the way they show the pets physically fighting in the warehouse is a (really cool) metaphor, except I think I've heard that bigger Yugi’s thing is that he makes the games he plays real? so idk. it's cool either way. As previously stated, the data connection causes Yugi’s pet to evolve, gaining a rougher personality and an appearance that’s closer to that of the bigger Yugi’s, rather than resembling the smaller one like before. This evolution also happens while it has its back against the wall, another iconic mon-taming trope.

and then after being eaten by his own Digital Pet, the antagonist kid learns a lesson about love. or something. the end. happy april fools.