#it’s already confusing enough having two series with the ‘life’ title motif they can’t both be origins

[flarebossmalva]

the catghost post, pt. 1 [intro saga]

i said i was gonna talk about catghost, and then it turned into attempting to explain catghost by summarizing it, and then it turned into multiple posts because there’s a lot of material to cover and i want to do a thorough job. watch the intro saga first because this is a good series and you should check it out for yourself before listening to me ramble about it!

CWs for part 1: murder, images of dead bodies / skeletal remains, other disturbing imagery (including a couple jumpscares), one image depicting animal death (it’s near the very end of the post)

Alright, I’m posting with decent grammar so you know it’s serious. If you’re just here looking for a brief overview of the series, here’s my crack at it: CatGhost is a multimedia ARG comprised primarily of YouTube videos and accompanying minigames. It’s ongoing, and I plan to update this post as the series itself updates. On the surface, the videos resemble other YouTube cartoons, following the tried-and-true formula of two characters comically tormenting a third; however, something else is clearly going on below the surface, and it quickly becomes clear that these three are tied together by very dark circumstances. Much of what’s really going on is still unclear, but enough has been revealed that I can talk about it without constantly resorting to pure guesswork.

This is part one, covering the Intro Saga (first three videos and their associated games). Like I said, I wanted to be thorough and if I didn’t split it up into separate posts this would get way too long. It’s already too long.

CatGhost 1, “Birthday,” opens with flames filling the screen, then a ripple effect playing over the title card, which I mention because that’s gonna make a whole lot more sense in a minute. We then see our main cast, Elon (cat), Naarah (ghost), and Gideon (hedgehog). Gideon is asleep and the girls are making fun of him. From their dynamic, it seems Naarah’s pretty young and Elon is sort of a big sister figure to her, which means they’re probably close in age. Gideon is 48; today is allegedly his birthday, though he seems unaware until the girls tell him so. Gideon seems generally confused about whatever’s going on and just wants to go back to sleep, but the girls want to take him out to someplace called “Party Country,” and eventually they end up threatening to curse him if he doesn’t comply. The threat seems pretty real as the girls’ voices turn demonic and their eyes glow. Gideon gives in, though it’s unclear if he even realized he was in any danger. 

Next scene, Gideon is presented with his birthday cake, which is... pretty wonky-looking, to put it gently. Pecking order for the trio gets further established when Naarah intimidates Gideon into saying the cake she made looks fine and seconds later Elon comments that the cake isn’t very good. Naarah defends herself and says that it’s hard to bake a cake without hands, to which Elon sympathizes and says that her paws aren’t much good either. Naarah says “I miss having a body.” The girls were human once, and seem to remember it clearly. Gideon, on the other hand, interjects saying he has no idea what they’re talking about. Whatever circumstances have bound these three together, Gideon seems to be the only one with no awareness of what’s going on.

Party Country turns out to be an arcade cabinet. Gideon is encouraged to play, but he seems completely apathetic about the game (Gideon seems completely apathetic about most things) and dialogue implies he may not even know what a video game is. Naarah calls Gideon “Dad” at one point while she and Elon bully him into playing, a detail which could lead one to guess a major twist way in advance but which I actually never noticed until just now. Gideon gives in and starts playing, declaring that the game (which we can’t see yet) is actually pretty fun, but the girls continue to tell him to play as if they can’t see that he’s already complying. We then cut to the game, which I’ll talk about more below, but suffice it to say that unless your definition of “fun” is all about talking to fucked-up skeleton ladies in some haunted woods, this is not a fun game:

Afterwards, Gideon wakes and assumes he dreamed the whole thing until he sees the ugly birthday cake Naarah baked. He waves goodbye to the viewer, breaking the fourth wall; an odd thing for a character who shows so little awareness of his surroundings to do.

The game associated with this episode is the same game shown in the episode itself. It’s pretty simple; you play as Gideon and can move left or right through a gloomy-looking pixelated forest. There are two NPCs and a small number of objects to be interacted with, all of which can appear randomly. For now, we’ll focus on the two NPCs. Both are skeletons, and both wear simple dresses of the type peasant girls might wear; one is tinted red, the other tinted blue, with the blue skeleton being notably smaller. When interacted with, the red skeleton will say “It burns! I can’t feel my skin,” or “Trapped like a fly in a jar,” or “I have taken on my new form.” The blue skeleton will say “It’s cold here, I can’t breathe,” or “I have to save him, he waited for me,” or “She lured me into this place.” Is the fire/water motif from the episode’s opening starting to seem relevant? Oh, and there’s more. One game object is a sort of upright stone with a hole cut into it near the top; I’ll be calling this object “Key” as that’s how it identifies itself. Key can be interacted with by typing questions, to which it will give an appropriate answer based on words/phrases it recognizes (like Tool in Petscop, incidentally). If we ask Key certain questions about our main cast, we can learn a lot about the story.

Ask “Who is Elon,” and Key tells you, “Temptress.” Asking the same question about Naarah returns “Proselyte,” while Gideon is “Judge.” If you ask what happened to any of the main cast, you’re told “Vanished.” However, asking for death dates yields results; Elon and Naarah both died in 1650, while Gideon died in 1672. Ask where each of the main three are, and you learn Elon is “In a jar,” Naarah is “Immersed,” and Gideon is “In a dark place.” Given all that, I think we can put the basic setting together:

Elon, Naarah, and Gideon were all human once. They lived during the seventeenth century in what is now the northeastern United States. Naarah must have been a preteen or young teen at the time of her death; Elon was likely a young adult in her late teens when she died, and the pair met their respective fates at or around the same time. Gideon lived into his late forties before dying, which speaks to a life of relative comfort for the time and place, befitting a judge. The animosity between the girls and Gideon seems pretty clear: Gideon sentenced both of them to death for witchcraft. Elon, represented in-game by the red skeleton, was burned at the stake, and her ashes were subsequently stored in a jar. Naarah was drowned by being tied to a chair and immersed in a large body of water (this was a common execution method for suspected witches, and the presence of a chair hanging from a rope in the game supports this); her remains are still underwater. Gideon was most likely given a traditional burial after he passed away of, most likely, natural causes. The wrinkle is that Gideon seems to have been right — Elon and Naarah are witches. Elon (the Temptress) taught Naarah (the Proselyte) the craft. Now all three appear to be stuck in the world of the show, which I guess is some sort of weird limbo, and only Elon and Naarah know what’s going on or who they used to be, probably because they are witches. 

We can also take some more guesses at what might be going on based off the interactions the main cast have with each other. For instance, Elon’s the leader of the group and generally takes charge, but it’s clear that at least some of that confidence is an act and she doesn’t really seem to be pulling the strings here. The two have plenty of reasons to hate Gideon and could easily use their magic to put him through hell, but instead they don’t go beyond pushing him around and making fun of him — Naarah even bakes him a cake, which she complains about the difficulty of doing. This could imply the three have been trapped in the afterlife with each other ever since dying and the girls have finally gotten tired of exacting less petty revenge. It could also mean that deep down they’re fond of Gideon and don’t really want him to come to harm, which is a strange relationship to have with the man who ordered your torture and execution. Later videos will shed further light on the dynamics between the three, but for now we’ll leave it at that.

One more thing before I move on — asking Key any question containing the word “murder” will trigger a jumpscare. Initially, this was of what appears to be Naarah’s corpse, but it’s since been changed (we’ll talk about that change later). Here’s the original jumpscare showing Naarah:

CatGhost 2, “Knock,” is more straightforward and thus will take me less time to summarize, thank god. Elon and Naarah are telling knock knock jokes. Gideon completely fails to understand the joke, and possibly completely fails to understand the concept of jokes, and the girls get so pissed they put some sort of curse on him and he winds up locked in a dungeon-like room. The door bears a large ornamental mail slot that looks like some sort of gargoyle’s face, with the slot as its mouth. Gideon is instructed to write a knock knock joke that’s actually funny and slide it through the door if he wants to be released. His first attempt is rejected (it doesn’t even have a punchline) and so Gideon tries to think of another. Cut to the words “2 years later” and Gideon’s still trying to write a funny knock knock joke — this series isn’t above the typical cartoon tropes and I love it. He finally comes up with one (Knock knock / Who’s there / Anita / Anita who / Anita get through this door!) and triumphantly slides it into the mail slot, which then grows larger until it takes up nearly the entire door, the “mouth” gaping wide. Gideon stares at it and is seemingly hypnotized. Disturbing images tinted blue and red flash across the screen, before the camera pulls back and Gideon is shown still in a trancelike state as the girls look at him, confused. Naarah says he’s been staring at that door a while, and she and Elon seem mildly concerned, but decide poking him with a stick would be more fun than helping him. Credits roll.

For this episode, much of the worldbuilding is in the form of freeze-frame bonuses and background details, meaning you have to pay close attention to catch everything. When Gideon is teleported to the cell, images flash onscreen showing an inverted cross and the word “EXCRUCIATE,” all tinted red (the color generally associated with Elon), as well as what appear to be human bones and a girl’s face, tinted blue (the color associated with Naarah). In the cell with Gideon is a skeleton, though he seems not to take notice. One wall reads “Wild Partes of the World,” which is a complex reference I won’t attempt to explain in full (the phrase has been quoted and quoted again across multiple books) but in context within the rest of the story refers to early seventeenth-century Virginia, which must be where our main trio lived as humans. Text is shown written in the Theban alphabet, a substitution cipher based on the Latin alphabet and generally associated with witches and occultists. When Gideon is hypnotized by the door, he sees a judge’s podium, a jar (presumably the one containing Elon’s ashes), and a hanging chair (as was used to execute Naarah). Images of graves are shown, inverted and flipped upside down, along with a similarly distorted picture of a row of houses. During the end credits, the background appears to be lava with yellow flashes moving across it; putting all these yellow flashes together results in this image:

Audio during the intro, when reversed, is of a voice saying “I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s at. I think they’ve been looking for it for a long time, but… sometimes it seems like we’re just never going to find it.”

The accompanying minigame features the door from Gideon’s cell, complete with its ornamental mail slot (browsing the wiki, because of course there’s a wiki and of course that’s how I’m getting images for this post as well as checking for stuff I missed, it seems fans call this the “Horrible Beast door”). The door can be interacted with by knocking on it using tap code; if the right words are input, the game will display a corresponding image.

“Megalith” produces an image of Key, the stone you can question in the previous minigame:

“Libation” shows Gideon’s unfortunate-looking birthday cake:

“Trinity” shows the shadows of three people, what appears to be a man and two girls, most likely our main trio:

“Excruciate” shows what is presumably the stake used during Elon’s execution:

“Proselyte” shows what must be Naarah’s skeleton, along with the chair she was bound to, laying at the bottom of a body of water:

CatGhost 3, “Window,” opens by showing that same body of water, although there is no sign of the chair or of Naarah’s remains. We then cut to an outhouse in the show’s typical animated style. Elon is inside, preening, when a noise outside startles her. She checks and discovers a small hand mirror, with Theban writing on it reading “For Elon,” though the text is mirrored and upside down. Elon seems confused and flips the mirror open, whereupon she sees a black-and-white image of a mysterious woman, her face completely in shadow save for her glowing white eyes. When the woman raises her head and makes eye contact with Elon, the cat gets so spooked she drops the mirror and flees. Elon runs back inside, entering via the Horrible Beast door, and is greeted by Naarah, who’s acting suspiciously and asks if Elon saw anything interesting outside. When she’s asked point blank if she’s the one who left the mirror there, Naarah denies it and blames Gideon, and even though it seems obvious that she’s lying, Elon doesn’t question her further. She confronts Gideon, who is chopping wood and seems enthusiastic for once, and tells him — I’m only paraphrasing slightly here — not to use witchcraft to fuck with a witch, or else [colorful threat omitted for brevity’s sake]. At the end of this rant, she briefly shapeshifts into some sort of demonic chimera, with a snakelike body, horns, and quite a lot of teeth. Gideon, who as usual has no idea what she’s on about, is suitably terrified.

Elon, back to her regular form, goes back inside and picks up what appears to be a crayon drawing of a blue girl hugging a taller red girl, accompanied by Theban that reads “From: Naarah, To: bestest best friend.” We can presume Naarah is the blue girl and Elon is the red girl, of course, but of interest is the small form next to the house in the background. It looks like it could be a dog, and, given later events, it almost certainly is a dog.

The drawing had been resting on a large object covered with a cloth, and Elon, curious, pulls the cloth free. Underneath are three mirrors, angled so they all face towards her, and the strange woman from earlier (some fans call her “the Watcher,” which I’ll go with for now) is reflected in each one. Elon is frozen in place as the three Watchers advance towards her, and she begins to cry. The Watcher points a finger (from here on there seems to be only one of her, not three) and Elon begins levitating as the background glitches out. She’s tugged towards the Watcher, and when the outstretched finger touches her forehead, the screen goes white.

Then we’re back to the pixel graphics from the first minigame, in the same dark woods as before, but Elon and Naarah aren’t skeletons — they’re living girls. Elon is pale, with long red hair and blue eyes; Naarah is quite a bit smaller, with brown skin and dark blue-tinged hair in pigtails. Interestingly, Elon wears a blue dress and Naarah’s dress is red, despite their typical color associations. Elon stands over a crying Naarah, her expression sullen. After a few seconds, the credits roll.

This time, the “minigame” just shows a static image of a mirror. Well, almost static — the clock resting on the dresser below the mirror moves in real time, matching the time set on the player’s computer. At exactly three AM system time, the Watcher appears in the mirror, which is then overtaken by static, and the scene changes to Elon and Naarah as we saw them during the end of the last video. Initially, it seems to be the same as before, with Elon standing over Naarah as she cries, but this time there’s dialogue. Here, have a transcript I stole from the wiki because it was easier than typing it up again myself:

After this, the mirror becomes static once more; if you wait three minutes, this image displays for a single frame before the game closes:

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that’s a dog in Naarah’s drawing. This also seems to explain why she’s crying in the scene we just saw. Why the dog was killed (sacrificed on an alter, looks like) is a mystery I’ll tackle when we cover the later sagas.

Also, in the interest of equality, this time it’s Elon who jumpscares you if you type “murder.” Typing doesn’t do anything else in this game, though.

That concludes the Intro Saga! This post is already really long and I’m not going to bother giving closing thoughts at this point especially considering the series is still ongoing. Stay tuned for the next installment, coming whenever I get around to it!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

#26

Short opinion: This is the best book.  Not the best Animorphs book, just the best book of all time.  Period.

Long opinion:

This is one of those books where plot and character are difficult to sort out, because the plot is so character-driven and the characters are so influential to the plot that they are irreparably wrapped up in each other—and the entire story is driven by the protagonists’ agency.  This book opens and closes on Jake’s dreams, and in that first dream sequence he’s this tiny, helpless human in the face of this ginormous cosmic power.  I love that this scene draws attention to the fact that Jake first encountered Crayak under circumstances when he was literally the most helpless he’s ever been in his life: Jake is literally paralyzed because of the dying yeerk inside his brain when he suddenly finds himself facing down this malicious all-knowing deity.  In that scene Jake describes himself as the “keeper” of his brother’s memories (Have I mentioned the Cain parallels recently?), foreshadowing both the fact that by the end of the book he’ll be the only being with Howler DNA or memories in the whole universe, and the fact that by the end of the series he’ll be the only being with Tom’s memories in the universe.

The next scene with the kids watching a production of Lion King (funny how that plot hinges on the villain killing his older brother…) in a way that makes them utterly themselves: Rachel is pretty much daring a guy to try and hit on her so she can release a little pent-up frustration on a harasser, Marco is pulling ridiculous stunts to get Jake to laugh, Cassie is totally zoned out because let’s be real she doesn’t give a crap about the fine arts, and Jake is enjoying the peace and quiet for a bit while also not giving a crap about the fine arts.  When Ax shows up he’s totally confused but goes into hyper-protective mode toward his team anyway, and when Tobias pops up he figures out in two seconds flat what it took everyone else a few minutes to catch on to: this is the Ellimist at work.  

One of my favorite subtle moments in the series is when Marco snarks at the Ellimist about the pinnacle of ketran evolution being the ability to look like a teenager with braces, and then almost immediately has a silent freak-out because he just sassed a divinity.  I really love how Marco’s quick thinking gets him in trouble almost as much as it gets him out, and how it shows that even his clever one-liners are a coping mechanism rather than a calculated attempt to appear cool.  His inability to get through a stressful situation without making dumb jokes literally almost gets the kids killed in #30 and #42, and here he has the good sense to realize that the Ellimist is the absolute last person he should be mocking—about ten seconds after he’s already gone and done it.

Also, Jake and Rachel’s relationship in this book is heartbreaking and awesome.  When the kids first learn about the conflict with the Iskoort they’re understandably reluctant to get involved in yet another cosmic war but Rachel especially argues that they shouldn’t get themselves killed needlessly in a conflict that has nothing to do with the yeerks… Until Jake admits that Crayak has been harassing him in his dreams.  Rachel does a one-eighty to “No Crayak space monster is gonna beat up on my cousin” the millisecond she finds out (#26).  Marco also jumps sides of the argument immediately with an eye to defending Jake, and before they know it they’re already off to the races.  Later on, just before the final battle, Rachel literally holds Jake in her arms in grizzly morph while he becomes a Howler for the first time, because she’s the only person Jake trusts to kill him without hesitation if he loses control of the morph.  These two share a level of trust—Jake trusts Rachel to defend his life, but also more importantly to know when to end his life when the cost of defending it would be too high, and Rachel has exactly the same level of trust in Jake—that we don’t see with any other pair on the team.  It goes way, way beyond their simple shared willingness to get their hands dirty; it’s about trusting each other with their lives but also with their deaths.  

This is also the book where (if he didn’t already have it) Jake definitely earns the title of “war-prince.”  Not only does he fight a battle against two infinitely more powerful beings and win, not only does he outmaneuver the most deadly alien species the kids ever face using the power of love, but he also plays the part of Team Mom throughout this nightmarish field trip while just as scared and lost as everyone else present.  He takes the time to check on Cassie in the middle of the night while also terrified the Howlers will attack at any moment.  He gently talks Marco down when Marco’s about to panic at the sheer foreignness of the situation.  He not-so-gently calls Erek on the fact that Erek is lying by omission for large parts of this book.  All the while he also weighs and balances everything he knows about the Howlers and the Iskoort, constantly gathering more information (frequently at risk to his own life, as with that awesome-nutso gambit with jumping off a cliff to acquire Howler DNA) until eventually he figures out the motivations of everyone else jerking him around.  He describes himself as “an ant on a chessboard,” but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn how to play.  By the end of the book he’s thinking on the same level as the Ellimist and Crayak, while also viscerally understanding the ordinary Howler or Iskoort.  As Rachel’s bulletin board says:  ’“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.’ - Sun Tzu” (#4).  

Jake also verbally embraces the title of “prince” for the first (possibly only) time in the series during this book, twice ordering Ax to defend his own life against the Howlers.  Jake doesn’t totally get andalite culture, evident in the fact that he’s not sure why Ax cares so much about having run from an unwinnable battle.  But he also knows and understands (and cares about) Ax, enough so to grasp that what Ax needs is the reassurance of his prince that he didn’t do anything wrong.  Jake has to practically step on Rachel’s toes to stop her from volunteering for the suicide mission (because of course) but he does it, aware that Ax will view this as a chance to reaffirm his place on the team and regain what “honor” he lost by running from the Howler.  Jake is never comfortable with the leadership role, and least comfortable of all when someone puts a formal title on his leadership.  However, he also understands that when Ax is literally ready to die in order to affirm his place on the team, the whole “prince” bit is not about him; it’s about helping Ax.  And so he calls himself Ax’s prince, not once but twice, in order to save Ax’s life.  Because it’s what needs doing in order to keep the team alive.  

In addition to the spot-on characterization and the mind-bogglingly huge plot, this book also has some vicious commentary on philosophy of war.   Marco actually calls Erek on the fact that, when the Animorphs are about to be slaughtered by a far more powerful enemy, Erek’s decision not to act is an action in and of itself.  Maybe Erek doesn’t have a choice about not causing harm, even at the expense of preventing a murder, but Erek also sure as hell does not have the moral high ground.  Pacifism is not a righteous course of action in the face of atrocity, and Erek standing by to watch his friends get slaughtered—knowing all the while that the entire Iskoort species also hangs in the balance—is not the moral high ground.  Jake actually feels loathing for the Pemalites as he frantically flies back toward the hopeless battle that might have cost Cassie and Rachel their lives, thinking that he’ll never forgive them if they got his friends killed with their short-sighted, obsessive nonviolence when they programmed the Chee.  

The social comment in this book isn’t a particularly comforting or comfortable one (but then when are they ever, in Animorphs books?) but it is an important message: that the world is an ugly place in which simple neutrality is the prerogative of the privileged.  One cannot call oneself moral simply by standing by and refusing to fight back while evil triumphs (X).  As Cassie points out to Jake, only slave owners and Nazis have ever had the luxury of branding entire groups of people as uniformly evil and one’s own cause as uniformly good (#26).  In order to stop a terrible wrong, the kids have to commit a terrible wrong.  The war is not won through anything as easy as standing on principle, because no lofty abstract principle ever works in 100% of cases in the real world.  Erek is no better or worse than any of the kids because he is held to a certain standard of behavior by external constraints; even an idea as pure as “do no harm” does not stand up when one has the chance to stop genocide and cannot.  

Crayak understands the idea better than the Pemalites did, when he designs the Howlers: the opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference (X).  The Chee aren’t programmed to hate—or to love—any other species.  

More specifically, this book also calls Erek out on his tendency to consider himself above the Animorphs because of his nonviolence.  Erek is every bit as vengeful (bloodthirsty, even) as Ax or Rachel throughout this whole conflict, but he also refuses to acknowledge that fact.  He conveniently forgets to mention the fact that the Howlers are innocent (relatively speaking) in their childish indifference to death and ignorance of failure until Jake also discovers that fact.  Years before the Animorphs use Erek to do their dirty work in the fight against Tom’s yeerk, Erek uses them to do his dirty work through setting up the fight with the Howlers and letting them annihilate another species without even having all of the facts about who they’re fighting.  

The motif is writ large throughout the series: war is won through sacrifice, and most of those sacrifices are not as clean or glorious as simply dying for one’s cause.  Erek stands by, choosing to give up the fight after only one battle turns too ugly for his liking (#10), and as a result the entire species of Howlers gets wiped out by Crayak.  As a result of his later actions, both Tom and Rachel get killed and the Blade ship remains free to conquer another planet (#53).  And yet this is a being who (allegedly) never hurts anyone for any reason.  Erek is self-righteous, vengeful, and morally hypocritical.  That fact gets a little lost in books like #20, #32, or #45, but here Jake makes the contrast between his friends—who are running headlong into a deadly battle for the sake of some yeerk-descendants—and the Chee—who are forced to stand by and risk nothing with nothing gained—painfully clear.  

This book offers no simple answers, and it shows that in war, there are no simple answers.  However, it also ends with Jake surrounded by his friends, taking triumph from the fact that he’s just a helpless little human facing down a malicious all-knowing deity whose ass he just kicked.  USING THE POWER OF LOVE.  Have I mentioned that this is the best book ever written?  

[calvinwatchesstuff]

Let’s Watch Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Episode 1

Well this has been a long time coming, hasn’t it? 

I’ll be honest: I’ve been putting this off for a while. I honestly don’t know why; maybe the idea of watching a series when I’m literally sharing a universe with some of its main characters is a little awkward for me. But seeing as Konami just announced that the next Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, will be airing in April, I figure I might as well start watching and see if I can catch up in time. I probably can’t, but I’ll do my best. 

Now, I don’t know too much about this series, but I know a little. I know about Pendulum Summoning (which I thought was confusing until I saw the new Link Summoning mechanics and realized how lucky we once were), and I know that Action Duels are a thing. I’ve also seen the design of the main character, and I know that parallel universe become a thing at some point. (Story of my life.) Other than that, I’m going in pretty much blind. Just how I like it. 

Well, no sense putting this off any longer; let’s leap straight into the action! As Dan Green would say... “It’s time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-DUEL!!!” 

Alright, we’re starting off with what looks like a medieval Japanese setting, except there are already holograms. I’m assuming this will be explained in a moment.

OH MY GOD THIS MUSIC IS COOL

Alright, so now we have the new Duel Disk and Life Point counter designs. I gotta say, I like both. I especially like how the counter says how many cards are in each duelist’s hand; that was always something that bugged me.

Alright, so now we have this character. He uses the Superheavy Samurai (or Superheavy Warrior, as it’s translated here), which seems to make sense given his character design. No idea what to say about the monster names, though.

Ah, looks like we already have Advanced Summoning happening!

So this guy’s name is Gongenzaka (oh, THAT’s gonna be fun to type out), and he’s dueling Yuya, who I happen to know is the main character (mainly because his name starts with “Yu”).

“Ladies and gentlemen!” IT BEGINS

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS

And then suddenly we cut to this girl in what appears to be a control room of some kind. So I guess this is a simulation.

…okay, there was a lot of information to be parsed in that scene. We got a bunch of new characters- the girl I assume is the Téa-expy of this generation, her dad, and some other people watching- we got the fact that this equipment seems pretty fragile, and it looks suspiciously like the hologram system (which is called “Solid Vision” now) uses some sort of hard-light technology.

Ah, okay, here we go with the intro. And it looks like I was right: the gimmick of this series seems to be that the holograms have physical mass. That would piss me off, but seeing as they already act like they do anyway, it’s nice to make it official.

This is a really good intro song actually.

“The Trail of Light: Pendulum Summon!” Ah, of course. First episode of a new series, so we have to introduce the new summoning mechanic.

Alright, so I spent extensive time on the wiki prior to this, and I think I FINALLY figured out how Pendulum Summoning works. I’ll check within the series itself, but I’m fairly certain I’ve got it now.

I have to say, I like the aesthetic of this city so far. It’s kind of like Heartland from Zexal, but with some of the glass-and-steel motifs of GX.

Aaaaand there is a building with “LDS” on the side. That’s…interesting.

Ah, it says “LEO Corporation” on this side. Kind of strange that it’s in English, but sure. I guess that’s what the “L” stands for. I guess my initial guess was kind of ridiculous in context.

And I guess this is where the main characters live: the “You Show Duel School”. Again, kind of strange that the sign is in English, but I’ll roll with it. Less work for the translators, I guess.

And now we have this guy. I guess he runs this place.

So I know that the main character is named Yuya, and I guess Yuzu is the girl with him. Kind of interesting that they both have the “Yu” syllable at the start of their name. Almost feels like they’re setting Yuzu up as another main character.

Okay, wow, this Gongenzaka guy is even more intense than the other guy.

Oh hello there, guy with offensive mustache.

Ah, okay, “Leo Duel School”. So like Duel Academy from GX, except not on an island. Got it.

I see. So this guy “Strong Ishijima” was supposed to duel Yuya’s father (whom the Jumbotron says is named Yusyo, but the translation calls him “Yushou”), but he never showed up.

Well this instructor guy changed his mind real quick when he heard about the free hologram system.

OH MY GOD THE FAN

Oh hey, a pendulum. Can’t imagine that will have any goddamn significance in this series.

Well this got depressing really damn fast.

Also, Yuya’s dad reminds me vaguely of Captain Shanks. I wonder if that’s intentional.

Wait, is this the same day? You mean these LDS guys seriously waited until the day of the tournament to arrange things with the opponent for the title match?!

Oh, okay, looks like it’s a different day.

THE FAN AGAIN

Oh yeah, here we go! The series’ first Action Duel! Let’s see this in action!

And of course now Yuya’s going to take a minute to arrive so the audience will draw parallels with his dad.

…why is Yuya dressed as a clown?

Oh wow, the Duel Disk blades are actually hard light holograms too in this series. I’ll admit, it’s a cool-looking design (though it leaves me damn curious how the cards stay on, especially since the duelists in Action Duels are by definition going to be running around and tilting the Duel Disk at all angles).

Whoa, card explosion out of nowhere at the halfway point! Apparently these are “Action Cards”; I have no idea what that means.

Oh yeah, this was the generation they introduced the “No Draw Phase on the first turn” rule. Neat.

The fact that he’s playing his first card while sliding down a rope off a castle is almost cool enough to distract me from how fucking stupid that hippo monster is.

“Ore no tan! Dorraw!” Oh MAN I’ve missed that phrase.

Holy crap, he performed an Advanced Summon on the first turn? I can see why he’s a champion. (Though it’s kind of weird they haven’t showcased Pendulum Monsters yet. I’m pretty sure Yusei had summoned a Synchro by this point in his first episode.)

Ah, okay, so Action Cards basically allow his monsters to react to events; i.e. this “Evasion” card led him dodge the attack.

Oh wow, a Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist with an actual living parent?! This series IS breaking new ground!

So it looks like Yuma’s gimmick is that he acts like he’s just screwing around and making everyone laugh while he’s actually strategizing and exploring the environment.

What does it take to destroy this fucking hippo?!

Okay, so “Odd-Eyes Dragon” looks like Yuya’s ace monster, but I’m reasonably certain it’s supposed to be a Pendulum Monster. It certainly doesn’t look it here. Actually, the fact that Pendulum Summoning hasn’t been featured yet is kind of strange in and of itself.

And now apparently Duel Disks have a feature that lets you talk with your opponent. Pretty good feature, although it’s kind of pointless considering every duelist in this series can magically hear their opponent from across the field anyway.

Oh wow, that’s actually a really clever strategy.

Yeah, something tells me it’s not going to be that easy.

Ah, of course. I guess Yuya should have realized there would be Action Cards in the castle as well.

Oh that’s very not good.

Yikes. We’re, what, 5 or 6 turns in and Yuya’s already on his last 400 Life Points.

Well, a draw this dramatic has to have a pretty powerful card attached to it.

wait what

WAIT WHAT

Okay, so…the normal monsters in his deck turned into Pendulum Monsters? So does this mean that he just created Pendulum Summoning? I’m…fairly certain that’s cheating, but I’ll brush it off because this is actually really cool.

Yeah, alright, this actually looks pretty sick.

I’m laughing pretty hard right now because at this point Strong Ishijima could literally quote Abridged Yami’s “Did you just summon a bunch of monsters in one turn?” speech.

Oh wow, I like this outro song too.

Well that was different than I expected. I admit, I’m really interested in what’s going on; we already have at least two ongoing mysteries established with the disappearance of Yuya’s dad and whatever the fuck happened with Pendulum Summoning, and I’m eager to see where they go with this. Alright, that’s it for now; see you guys tomorrow for Episode 2!