#let's see if i can time that Yubel reveal just right lol

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 124-125 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 122-123 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-124: An Academy Divided! The Hunger Duel

With zombie students on the prowl within the academy and materialized Monsters roaming outside, Judai and the others have been driven into critical circumstances. Even so, they strengthen their defenses, such as by building a barricade to protect the remaining students. But in the midst of it all, Harada, Teraoka, and Yamanaka escape, unable to bear their hunger, and go missing. As Judai and the others look for these missing students, they hear from Martin, who attempts to trade the food storehouse for the power plant area near Judai and the others. They duel for these areas, and the three students are their opponents, bearing the Masks of Laughter, Apathy, and Anger. O'Brien, Johan, and Jim take them on, but...

TURN-125: Johan, Jim, and O'Brien VS the Three Masked Knights

The duels for the food storage area continue as Johan faces the Mask of Apathy, O'Brien the Mask of Laughter, and Jim the Mask of Anger. Johan is gradually cornered by the Mask of Apathy's Silent Space, while Jim gets his Life reduced by Angered Anchor Knight. O'Brien is composed as he duels, soon realizing that these duels are a ruse as he speeds up his match. Johan and Jim, after hearing the truth from O'Brien that it is all a ruse, change gears and start to counterattack, as well. Elsewhere, Rei sees Vice-Principal Napoleon run off out of worry for Martin and brings Judai along to go after him.

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Wanted to get these done a bit sooner after 122-123 took longer than ideal, but at least it's exactly a month later that I'm posting these lol. Episodes 124 and 125 are now finalized! Not a bad pair of episodes as the students start getting to their food breaking point after a few days in this new dimension, all the while a certain someone, through Martin, starts to make their move. While we probably could've used a bit more around the concept of Spirits fusing with people--or at least who the Card Spirits were--it was an interesting idea which allowed some time to shine for Johan, Jim, and O'Brien, with O'Brien showing some of his ex-soldier instincts as he realizes that Martin set their duels up as a ruse to cover up what he was really after--the three Phantasm Cards?! It's also hard to go wrong with another episode helmed by Kyoung Soo Lee's animation team in 125, semi-jarring as the quality bump could be coming off 124 from Chi Man Park and Sun Ming Nam. (Also, Judai finding out that Martin is Napoleon's son is always classic.) (Also also, I really wish the dub kept O'Brien silently walking away as Mask of Laughter reads the effect of his Draw Bomb, instead of making Axel tell him what it is; dampens the comedy there originally.)

Animation error-wise, I applied a fair few fixes across both episodes; 124 mostly saw its errors in the second half of the episode and were more quality-of-watching fixes like split-screen timings with half a handful of quick card error fixes--or I should probably say "pawful" with a Pharaoh-related error in the preview involved, too--while 125 had the most that I picked up on and fixed, with a few card errors, the aforementioned Pharaoh error, and more QOW stuff. Breakdown under the cut below as always for the interested!

Anywho, enjoy! I'll probably do some preliminary setup for 126 and 127 as I shift gears to more proper work on the TFSP re-translation and get work done on Kite and Kotori's story events, along with some other interesting code sleuthing I've been slowly working on related to that voice update I shared the other week, and also look at ARC-V "Dub-Uncut" episode 2 a bit more. Depending on how I feel after 126-127 in terms of what I want to work on, I may decide to either do 128 on its own or do 128-130 together as 128 leads into the Judai/Johan/Martin duel that culminates in Yubel's reveal 🤔 (May also depend on which route gets to coincide with the GX remaster starting in April, lol.) Stay tuned!

Fixes and Edits! (124)

As Judai and the others hear Martin suggest trading the Food Storage Facility for the Power Generator Complex in their territory, after Judai notes that it's buried in sand, Johan wonders why he'd want that area before Kenzan whispers to Judai about going ahead and trading it because it's apparently useless--but as that overhead shot of them starts, Johan's missing his closed mouth in the 3-4 frames before he starts to move his head. Quickly fixed in Sony Vegas by masking/splicing in his closed mouth from a later frame and adjusting it for where his head is at the start of the shot.

Later, once everyone is outside and Johan, Jim, and O'Brien decide they'll be the ones to duel the Masks, we get a shot of each staring down their opponents--but in the first one with Johan and Mask of Apathy, there are two issues as they slide in for their split-screen: 1) the first frame of the split-screen slide-in has them already halfway into the screen, leading to the slide-in not being as smooth as it usually is, and 2) just as it looks like they've set up the split-screen and connected their splits, there's another frame of movement where they actually fully move into position. Fixed #1 by re-doing their splits in Sony Vegas to be more fluid/natural, masking/splicing each split over the still shot of them and moving them accordingly, fixing #2 in the process.

A bit later as the duel gets underway, Johan, Jim, and O'Brien join a split-screen to shout "Duel!" as we cut to their Disks activating, while the same is done with the three Masks--though in the last frame of their split-screen, before we see all three of their Disks, Mask of Laughter's split changes to show his Disk first, with the sky background behind him; the background then changes as we cut to see all three of their Disks so that the ground under him is behind his Disk the way it is for the others'. Fixed in Vegas by just replacing this error frame with a flash white frame so that we get a white flash going from their split-screen into their Disks to match Johan, Jim, and O'Brien.

The very next shot, we see Johan and Mask of Apathy's LP counters pop up as they get underway, both sliding in for a split-screen as Johan lets him go first--but because, with the exception of Johan and Apathy being drawn with their Disks on and Johan going on to slide back out as Apathy takes his turn, this is the same shot as #2 above, the same error with the un-smooth split-screen slide-in happens. Fixed in Vegas by reprising the edit I did there to make the slide-in more fluid, tweaking things slightly with the new split borders I applied for consistency with the rest of the new footage here.

A bit later, as Mask of Laughter makes his first move, Fool Clown's effect makes him discard his hand, but the Laugh Bombers he discards this way then hit O'Brien for damage--as he discards, two issues come up: 1) he doesn't have Fool Clown in Monster Zone #4 on his Disk, where he'd placed it in the prior shot and we see it in subsequent shots, and 2) noticed while fixing #1, there's a quick frame [the one linked earlier] as Laughter moves his hand away from his Cemetery where there's a blank gap between his fingers, and the part of his Disk under his hand should be visible there. Fixed in AfterEffects, #1 by placing a Fool Clown proxy I whipped up into place in Monster Zone #4, then masking Laughter's hand in over it as it moves in to send the cards off and then backs away, while I fixed #2 by actually masking in the corrected gap between his fingers from the clip in #6 below (being the same shot again, save for some shading differences on Laughter's and Mask of Anger's hands) and then applying slight masks along the edges of his cards to overlay them over what remained of the blank gap.

Sometime after that, during Mask of Anger's first turn, he discards to activate the effect of his Angered Anchor Knight--but as he does, like in #5 above (being the same shot), his Knight is missing from Monster Zone #4 on his Disk. Fixed while fixing #5 in AfterEffects, as I could simply copy/paste the effects I used on Fool Clown to apply them to the layer with the Angered Anchor Knight proxy I put into place.

During the preview for 125, we see Pharaoh come up to Rei's leg to get her attention, and there are two quick issues that come up: 1) there's a quick movement frame (lasting for three frames) where Pharaoh's upper left leg/paw isn't fully drawn in towards the bottom, causing the ground behind him to be visible under the last brown spot, and 2) the movement frame immediately after (also lasting three frames) has the same leg/paw missing its spots suddenly before they come back in the next movement frame. Fixed both in 125 proper first using Photoshop and Vegas, as I first used Photoshop to fill in the missing skin to fix #1, fixing #2 by using the next frame with his leg/paw spots back to cut out the leg itself and duplicate it into the error frame in #2, adjusting it to fit and erasing any extra parts I didn't need as it was in a similar enough position to work--once both frames were fixed, I mixed them into the preview's footage in Vegas.

Immediately after #7, we see Rei turn towards Pharaoh before looking past him to see Napoleon running back into the Academia--though as Rei turns to look at Napoleon, her collarbone vanishes for some reason. Fixed using Photoshop and Vegas for 125 proper first, using the frame right before she turns as reference to splice in her collarbone lines and adjust them slightly in the movement frames as she turns towards Napoleon; once fixed, I then mixed the six or so fixed frames into the preview's footage in Vegas.

Fixes and Edits! (125)

During the recap of 124 at the beginning, we see the shot of Mask of Laughter sending his hand to the Cemetery through Fool Clown's effect to hit O'Brien with damage, with the same error in missing Fool Clown in Monster Zone #4 on his Disk, along with the same blank-gap error between his fingers in that one frame. Fixed by reprising my fix from 124 proper.

Getting into 125 proper, as Johan reacts in shock at Mask of Apathy having another Magic Card to use in Silent Torment, Apathy slides in on a split-screen to explain its effect, but Johan moves a frame before Apathy's split starts to slide in. Fixed in Vegas by redoing the start of Apathy's slide-in slightly so that he starts his slide-in during the frame Johan starts to move.

A bit after that, cutting back to Jim's duel with Mask of Anger, Anger activates Angered Anchor Knight's effect again to deal Jim damage, but as his Knight's anchor closes in on Jim, his Weathering Soldier is missing from Monster Zone #4 on his Disk, which we also see it in in the very next shot as his LP go down. Fixed using AfterEffects by applying a proxy, then applying some motion tracking to zoom it in while the Zone's visible.

A bit later, after Napoleon and Rei worry about Martin and why he's doing all this, we see a montage of all the Duel Zombies roaming inside the Academia--but when we see Shou and Ayukawa, their decks are missing in the deck slots on their active Disks, while all the other Zombies have theirs in place (and later, as they walk towards Judai and Martin, their decks are there). Thought of fixing this, but due to having to find a similarly angled shot or two to then try to mask into place and move with them, possibly using motion tracking, I left it as-is.

Sometime after that, Napoleon decides to sneak back into the Academia to try and find Martin, which Pharaoh notices; he scoots over to paw at Rei's leg to get her attention, but there are two quick issues that come up: 1) there's a quick movement frame (lasting for three frames) where Pharaoh's upper left leg/paw isn't fully drawn in towards the bottom, causing the ground behind him to be visible under the last brown spot, and 2) the movement frame immediately after (also lasting three frames) has the same leg/paw missing its spots suddenly before they come back in the next movement frame. As noted under 124, I fixed both in 125 proper first using Photoshop and Vegas, as I first used Photoshop to fill in the missing skin to fix #1, fixing #2 by using the next frame with his leg/paw spots back to cut out the leg itself and duplicate it into the error frame in #2, adjusting it to fit and erasing any extra parts I didn't need as it was in a similar enough position to work--once both frames were fixed, I mixed them into the footage in Vegas.

Immediately after #5, Rei turns towards Pharaoh before looking past him to see Napoleon running back into the Academia--though as Rei turns to look at Napoleon, her collarbone vanishes for some reason. As noted under 124, I fixed this using Photoshop and Vegas for 125 proper first, using the frame right before she turns as reference to splice in her collarbone lines and adjust them slightly in the movement frames as she turns towards Napoleon; once fixed, I then mixed the six or so fixed frames into the footage in Vegas.

Later, after O'Brien figures out that these duels are a ruse and gets his turn underway, the first time he uses Fire Back to re-summon Fire Trooper, he notes that Mask of Laughter will take another 1000 points of damage; he slides in on a split screen and chuckles as he drops to 1500 LP, only for O'Brien to slide Laughter out of the split-screen by moving to activate a second Fire Back--but Laughter starts moving for the slide-out a frame before O'Brien starts to move, and the slide-out also lasts about 12 frames when they're usually about 7-8, causing it to be slightly out of sync with the slide-out SFX. Fixed this in Vegas by first timing it so that Laughter sliding out happens as O'Brien moves, then by snipping out a frame or two of the slide-out to slightly speed up the slide-out to time it better with the SFX.

A few shots later, as O'Brien sends Volcanic Buckshot to his Cemetery as Fire Back's cost, Mask of Laughter takes another 500 points of damage--as the fire from it fades out around him, the Fool Clown that had been on his Disk from the start of the shot suddenly vanishes as soon as it's visible through the fire again, leaving a hole in his Disk that shows the background behind it. Fixed this in AfterEffects, applying my proxy and applying motion tracking to track the shot's movement as it shook around (which did pretty well overall given the fading fire obscuring some pixels) adjusting the brightness on it as the fire fades out, while also applying a solid color layer which I used to mask in some recreated fire lighting on top of the proxy for blending, fading it out as the fire faded.

A bit later, as Jim's about to play his first Time Stream, we quickly zoom up from his Disk to his upper body as he does so, but he's missing his just-summoned Cenozoic Fossil Warrior Skull Pawn in Monster Zone #4 on his Disk when we see it. Fixed in AfterEffects by applying a proxy, giving it some blurring to blend it in with the motion blurring going on.

A few seconds later, as Jim finishes explaining Time Stream's effect, joined on a split-screen by Mask of Anger, he declares his summoning of Mesozoic Fossil Warrior Skull King as their split-screen splits apart, but two things happen: 1) for the first frame of the slide-out, Jim's split is missing its border, and 2) the split-out itself lasts only two more frames. Fixed both in Vegas by re-doing their split-out to be a more fluid 7-8 frames long as they usually are, fixing #1 in the process by making sure Jim's split holds onto its border.

A bit later, after Jim's Skull King destroys Angered Anchor Knight and Mask of Anger uses his effect to bring him back, Jim says he was waiting for that; a confused Anger slides in for a split-screen as Jim explains that Skull King can attack twice and deal piercing damage, causing Anger to gasp and Jim to slide him off their split-screen to have Skull King's second King Swordplay attack happen--all the while, two things happen: 1) Jim moves for their split-screen a frame before Anger starts to slide into place, and 2) the border between them is still there in the first frame as their split-out starts, with their split-out lasting only three more frames. Fixed these in Vegas by first redoing Anger's slide-in to be timed with Jim moving for it, applying some motion blurring on his redone split for blending in the initial few frames, then by redoing their slide-out to be a more fluid eight or so frames as usual, fixing the ghost border issue in the process and timing it so that Anger's fully offscreen as Jim first moves to order Skull King's second attack.

A few scenes later, after Mask of Anger's LP hit zero and Teraoka is freed, Jim exhales in relief as everyone behind him cheers his win, though he's missing Skull King on his still-active Disk in Monster Zone #4. Fixed in AfterEffects by applying a proxy, applying gradual Gaussian blurring as the perspective transitions from him to everyone behind him.

A bit later, during Johan's last turn, Mask of Apathy tries to activate another Silent Magic Card from his hand in response to Johan activating Ruby's effect Special-Summoning his other Gem Beasts, but Johan slides in on a split-screen for a retort, saying that he won't be breaking his Ruby--though a few things happen as Apathy gasps and Johan slides him off the split-screen to use Rainbow Ruins's negate effect: 1) Johan's lip flaps end a second or two before he finishes his line, and 2) Mask of Apathy is moved within his split a frame before he starts to properly slide offscreen as Johan moves. Fixed both in Vegas, first by masking in a few extra lip flaps to fit the end of Johan's line, then by redoing Apathy's split's slide-out so that he slides out as he was during the full split-screen.

Honorary Mentions for the one error as Rei calls out to Napoleon after the eyecatch as they run down a hallway and her jacket is drawn with short sleeves (when her jacket's sleeveless), as well as the one while Judai, Rei, and Pharaoh run up to Martin and Napoleon near the end where the animation team didn't color in the end of Pharaoh's tail (I probably could've handled this one as it was a seven-frame job, but not being able to properly tell the spiky bits of his tail apart, I thought to leave it).