#zexal manga spoiler

[astralhope]

Episode 146 & Rank 55

[invidiatechdemo]

*punts this into the aether* another mangacap edit, this time of a full page. i was really indecisive about it, so there's a couple versions, but For Now, this is the only version that's getting posted.

this spawned out of a desire to have more images of kyoji, but i will not lie i had a lot of fun with this! ^_^

[linkspooky]

Just got done with reading your "How To Do a Dark Deconstruction of your Shonen Hero" post, first off amazing work as always! As much as it pains me to hear (good faith, non-reactionary and well thought-out) criticism due to having gotten into MHA in middle school when I was impressionable and attached onto works quicker than I do, it was satisfying to hear someone as well-worded as yourself put into words a thought that I had. For a while I could only summarize it by thinking "Man MHA sure does feel toothless and inconsistent about what it delivers on, and what ideas or themes or messages or what have you are left in the fridge and forgotten about."

It was also fun to hear about Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, growing up YGO was only ever a game some of my friends played or "HEART OF THE CARDS" and Kaiba memes, so hearing that there was a lot more to the series was a welcome surprise, even if quite anecdotal on my part.

As for the question part of this ask, near the middle of it you brought up how despite being quite captivated with the idea and the final result, you weren't as impressed with how YGO got there, and vice versa with MHA in how it was paced better but so far(let me have a little bit of hope lol) ultimately hasn't made good on it's "storytelling promise" if you will.

With the preface that no story is "perfect" along with the fact that everyone has their own interests, biases, icks, etc., I wanted to ask if there was a story which in your opinion, that blends proper pacing and build-up, with proper follow-up and payoff? I had the idea of deconstructing the perfect shonen protag or similar character in mind, but I'm also curious to hear about other ideas as well if you have them.

PS Thanks again for writing and posting these. They're often the highlight of my day when I remember to get around to reading them. And apologies for this long-ass ask hehe.

If you want a shonen series with similiar themes of "saving the villains" as MHA and Season 3 of Yu-Gi-Oh GX! but better pacing, buildup, payoff and overall story structure then both manga then I strongly reccomend another Yu-Gi-Oh series, Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal.

To begin with as a disclaimer I think Yu-Gi-Oh, but especially the spinoffs post 5DS get a bad reputation. For several reasons, the dub, but also the Duel Monsters anime adaptation is kind of bad. A lot of people forget that Yu-Gi-Oh! started out as a very dark urban fantasy, or just the fact that it runs in the same magazine as MHA and JJK. Once you get over the fact that it revolves around card games, Yu-Gi-Oh is as much of a battle shonen as MHA or JJK.

If you give Zexal a chance, it has everything MHA promised us. A conflict where there's really no heroes and villains, a story about what it means to save people, and a protagonist who wants to save everyone.

Yu-Gi-Oh no Cristo!

If you want to take my word for it that Zexal is good, and avoid spoilers then don't read any further. However, I thought I'd demonstrate HOW Zexal tackles the same themes that My Hero Academia tried to tackle.

I'm going to limit this analysis to Zexal I, because while Zexal II is superior in every way I don't want to spoil the whole darn show. Zexal deconstructs the idea of what it means to save others, by having the central conflict in its first season focus on several different factions where no side is the clear good guy. it also tackles the theme of "revenge", and how no character's revenge is justified no matter how wounded they are.

Zexal has three main characters, Yuma, Kaito, and Shark. The latter two are deuteragonist, and tritagonist respectively, and vacillate between being rivals and outright antagonists. If you wanted a story where Shigaraki post My Villain Academy was basically given deuteragonist status alongside Deku then this is the story for you. From her on out I'm going to focus on the cycle of revenge and also the intertwining arcs of Yuma, Shark and Kite and how these characters develop the themes.

Before I get to the World Duel Carnival, I would be amiss to mention that Zexal has a faster start then any Yu-Gi-Oh anime barring 5DS. The introductory arc is episodic in nature, but it does two things really well, first establishing Yuma as a character and second laying the groundwork for both Shark and Kaito showing they are human beings with their own motivations even when they act as antagonists to Yuma. World Duel Carnival starts at 27, but in my opinion the real conflict starts in episode 33 with the introduction of the Tron Family.

In comparison My Hero finishes the Stain arc around episode 33, so I'd say they equally have as strong a start, and both works have introduced their main trio in that time.

With the Tron Family the secondary antagonists of the season we're finally introduced to the season's main confict of revenge. There are four factions and I'm going to take the time to explain each one's motivation before digging in deeper.

The conflict starts with the parents of the three main characters, Lord Byron Arclight (who will later return as Tron), Dr. Faker, and Kazuma Tsukumo. The three of them were studying alternate dimmensions together when Dr. Faker betrayed his two close friends. Kazuma and Lord Byron were dropped into an alternate dimmension as sacrifices to open the door between dimmensions. Kazumi did his best to try to save himself and Lord Byron, but he was unsuccesful and they both dropped out of the world.

Arclight wandered around between dimmensions, until he was eventually saved by the Barian world, a world of pure chaos kind of like the flipside of our world. However, his salvation came with a cost he was reverted from an adult man to a ten year old's body, and he also lost half of his face which is now a black hole (it's weird I'm not sure how that happened). The only thing that sustained Tron was the idea of getting revenge against Dr. Faker and now that he's returned he's determined to have it.

Tron had three sons, Michael, Thomas and Christopher. Which he renames III, IV, and V because he can't be bothered to remember their names I guess. Tron was once a very loving father and left his children behind on what was supposed to be a temporary research trip. However, their father apparently died, and Christopher the oldest was not old enough to take custody so III and IV were sent to different orphanages. At the same time Christopher was broken-hearted to learn that the man who killed his father, was the father of his student and close friend Kaito Tenjo, and ended that relationship for those reasons.

With the return of Tron the family was allowed to be back together with a now older Christopher taking custody of his brothers and now parenting his ten year old father (which is hilarious by the way). However, Tron distorted by the Barian world and his desire for revenge now uses his sons as tools in his revenge scheme against Dr. Faker. All three sons comply on the thin hope that if they complete their father's revenge, he will go back to being loving Byron Arclight. The Tron Family is a family united by revenge, but also defined by an intense family loyalty to each other, both as siblings, and to their father. While their father may not deserve it, all three sons love him deeply and would do anything to try to save him.

IV: You can't trust me that much. Just because I can't become an obedient servant to you like III and V. IV: But even so...I still also...for your sake. IV: Dad, you always smiled gently in the past. IV: But... after you returned from the parallel world it's like you had an entirely different personality. IV: Despite that we were still willing to follow you, Tron. Shark: Stop pretending to be a victim. Shark: Even if you were being used, I won't forgive you for what you did.

Which dovetails nicely into the conflict between Shark and IV. IV, obeying his father's orders challenged Shark's sister to a duel in a building that later blew up. He knew about the first part, but not the second, but still is somewhat responsible despite his ignorance. He did his best to save Shark's sister from the flames getting scarred in the process, but she was left comatose.

Soon after, IV engineered Shark's disgrace as a duelist, by purposefully letting his cards fall on the ground so Shark could see them during a tournament so he'd be disqualified for taking a peek.

All of these under his father's orders to turn Shark into yet another tool of revenge against Dr. Faker, as a wildcard to be pointed in Faker's direction. IV further antagonizes him by giving him a Numbers Card knowing that the darkness of the Numbers card will soon possess him in order to further his father's scheme. He also just wants to flat out defeat Shark so he can prove to his father he's more useful.

Shark looks like the clear victim in this situation, but his complete lack of sympathy for IV is total hypocrisy. Because, Shark is also only after revenge for what was done to him and his sister. Shark was hurt by IV's revenge, but Shark will also attack completely innocent people, including Yuma, just to get his revenge against IV. Shark is the aggrieved victim, but he fights only for revenge not to save someone and he just does not care for anyone other than his sister, himself and Yuma to an extent. Unlike IV, who has the added motivation of saving someone, and also is self-aware that he did something wrong that he can't take back.

Shark is very much a case of "well, my revenge is different from your revenge" somehow, and it makes him look like a hypocrite. Which is why Shark wavers between being an anti-hero and an anti-villain, because in spite of his mroe heroic qualities and his friendship with Yuma he pretty consistently is only motivated to duel for revenge and not for saving others like Yuma is and the show is clear on it's themes of "there is no such thing as a justified revenge."

Shark does not get his revenge, in fact the same way IV is manipulated to pointing his anger at Shark, Shark gets manipulated by Tron to pointing all of his anger at Yuma. Yuma basically has to act as the punching bag, in order to try to calm Shark down again and in Shark's own words even if you were being used, I won't forgive you for what you did.

Shark won't forgive IV, but he ends up committing the exact same unforgivable acts, and by his own logic manipulation is not an excuse.

Now that we've introduced Shark as the wildcard, the last faction is Dr. Faker's. Kaito and Dr. Faker both are fighting to save Haruto, Faker's second son and Kaito's little brother. Here is the twist with Dr. Faker's betrayal he's presented as a "I did everything for power" type of villain, but he's actually doing everything to save his son from dying and is willing to backstab his closest friends to do so, and turn his son Kaito into a pawn. There's an added layer of complication where Dr. Faker is legitimately using his son as a pawn, but much like the Tron Siblings, Kaito is also willing to comply because saving Haruto is just as important to him.

Kaito is a numbers hunter who rips out the souls of people in order to reclaim numbers cards from them, something which ages them and leaves them completely comatose. Kaito also blatantly says on several occasions, he doesn't care how many people he has to hurt to save his brother. So Kaito's motivations aren't revenge like Tron's, but he's also just as willing to get innocent people involved. He even attacks Shark once who didn't even have a number card, simply for GETTING IN THE WAY when he was trying to steal Yuma's key.

Kaito's not just an "I'll do anything to save my brother" type of character, he actively does not care about how many victims he creates along the way.

KAITO: You're wrong. Just one person matters to me. I only care about Hart.

And he sure does mean that. His own allies? Don't matter. His former friend Christopher? Doesn't care. Yuma who actively wants to save Hart too? Get out of the way bucko.

YUMA: Kaito, Droite fought desperately against Tron for your sake. YUMA: Droite liked y- KAITO: That's none of your concern.

Kite's obsession with saving his brother is all-consuming, and even ignores that Haruto does not want Kaito hurting himself for his sake, because it is just as much about Kaito as it is about Haruto.

Kaito also clashes with V from the Tron Family, and is deeply hurt by the fact that V will make punching bags out of both Kite and Haruto in order to get revenge against their father.

However, Kaito who has at this point put several people in comas in order to save his brother (the exact same motivation V has for his father and two younger brothers) is a complete hypocrite in this regard.

V: Friend you say? V: But that ideal was completely wrecked by Dr. Faker. V: Could you forgive that person's son? V: When I realized the truth, I... KAITO: Enough of this nonsense.

I'm sure none of the people Kaito put in comas had brothers, and they all kicked puppies when no one was looking. Even after Kaito realizes that Christopher was only trying to save his family the same way that he was, and promises to inherit his feelings, he forgets all about that when dueling Tron.

Kaito's one and only loss in the whole series comes from when he loses himself to revenge against Tron after he provoked him one too many times by tormenting Haruto. Once again, no matter what the reason revenge is never justified in Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal!

Tron: You're right I have no emotions. Droite and Shark... I was willing to even use my sons in order to create rage. Kaito: Say what? Tron: You did pretty well, too! You get angrier and angrier when it comes to Haruto. It's all thanks to you, have a look.

As much as Kaito would like to make a martyr of himself, he is just like the Tron siblings, just like Shark, an angry little kid lashing out against innocent people for the pain both him and his brother has suffered. Even kaito who has the most explicit desire to save someone, succumbs to revenge in the end when he's pushed.

The tragedy of season 1 is that basically every faction involved has a case of "my revenge is more important than your revenge, and my loved ones are more important than your loved ones". Even though both the Tron Family, and Kaito are fighting to save their families, neither of them ever backs down or considers the other side's motivations because THEIR PAIN is more important.

The last faction of the story is Yuma's, and as stated above Yuma is the only one who attempts to see his opponent's side. Yuma's central motto is "if we've dueled each other, then we're already friends." He also believes that duels should never be used as tools for hurting each other, something Shark, Kaito and the Tron Family all gleefully do in their conflict against one another.

Yuma is a deconstructoin of the "save everyone" because while he is involved in the conflict too because he lost his father to Dr. Faker, unlike the other three factions he has a support system. He still has his grandmother and sister, childhood friends, friends at school and Astral.

This fact is explicitly called out in his duel against III who by that point Yuma considers a friend. III spends a day with Yuma, bonding with him over their shared love of archaelogy, seeing his family and home life, only to turn against him.

Yuma tries to reach out to III the entire time through the duel and talk him down, and it doesn't work because Yuma with his support system, cannot truly understand where III is coming from and the desperation that drives him. Yuma's not caught in the same rock and hard place that III is, and all the sympathy and good intentions in the world cannot overcome the difference between that.

Yuma also in spite of his desire to solve things peacefully is basically forced to still fight, because if he loses a duel his close personal friend Astral will die, so it's actively a challenge for him to seek the third way to settle things without contributing to the cycle of revenge.

So Yuma represents the correct path, forgiveness and understanding the other's point of view, but it also shows that Yuma is able to do that because unlike everyone else he has a support system. Yuma is not internally more good than Shark, Kite, or the rest. He's just in a place where he can afford to look at the other people's perspectives because he's not desperately fighting for survival.

It's also a challenge for him to do so, because Yuma is someone very immature. As I said with III he does not understand the depths of what they are feeling even if he wants to make the pain go away. He tries to offer his unwavering support to people, but he fails just as often as he succeeds due to his immaturity.

In Yuma's case it's less being a perfect hero, but rather making an unrelenting effort to help others and offer a hand that matters. Yuma's character development in season 1 for me crystallizes in his final redemption of Tron, the character besides Faker who makes him the most angry because of his gleeful abuse of his sons for the sake of revenge. Not only does Yuma start to get through to Tron at points in the duel, because he tries so hard to make Tron understand how much he's hurt his sons, but at the end of the duel he mirrors his father's own action of trying to save both himself and Byron Arclight I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Yuma: I won't give up! Tron: But why? Why are you trying to save me? Yuma: It's obvious, isn't I? Everyone I duel are my friends. Yuma: I don't understand all that complicated stuff, but we create bonds through dueling. And since you dueled me you are my friend. Tron: I finally understand. Your dueling goes beyond my desire for revenge. Yuma I can't live the same way as you and Kazuma, but I can't let Dr. Faker go either. I'll release all the souls I captured.

Yuma does represent the themes of love, and understanding being the only way to heal revenge (because more revenge does not fix anything) but he's not just propped up as a saint by the narrative. He's a character who has to go through serious character development before he's finally able to back up his good intentions with actual concrete action.

Yuma isn't just good internally, but rather his constant efforts to find the third path, and befriend other people is what makes him the hero of the story. Yuma is Deku done right and I will stand by this.

I hope I've been able to demonstrate the themes of Zexal, and I would be amiss to mention this is just Zexal I. Zexal II the second season does all of this even better. The Barians are an even better version of the League of Villains because despite starting a war with the main characters, they are all sympathetic and their point of view is just as valid as Astral and Yuma's. I don't want to spoil Zexal II though, so if anything about Zexal I caught your eye I reccomend watching both series.

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

List of villains I don't think should've been redeemed

THE FINAL CHARACTER IS A GO RUSH ONE SO SCROLL WITH CAUTION

Pegasus (DM)

I've heard the manga killed him at the end of Duelist Kingdom and... yeah that would've been better than the awkward and unexplained change of heart he had. His sort of good guy role in Waking the Dragons (and I guess Pyramid of Light) probably should've been filled by another character. He's kind of funny in GX though, sue me-

Dartz (DM)

This was just... a total asspull in the last episode. I like Waking the Dragons more than most and even I can admit that. Dartz was a really cool twisted mass manipulator with no trace of sympathetic qualities and then they just decide last minute that he was turned evil by a rock... okay. It lines up with the lore, I guess, it just feels kind of pointless and weird.

Aki's Father (5Ds)

I've said my piece on this and I refuse to start this crap again:

https://www.tumblr.com/overobsessedfanboy23/688979888324132864/i-have-some-concerns-about-akis-arc?source=share

Faker and Tron (Zexal)

Putting them in the same place because I have the same issue with both of them: they're more abusive parents. The Tenjos and Arclights respectively weren't pressured by the narrative or other characters to forgive them like SOME parents in this series but they did absolutely nothing to forgive forgiveness, especially Faker. I could maybe be okay with this if it was just one of them who was redeemed and the other ran off or something (like Heartland did) but both of them being redeemed is a step too far for me.

Leo Akaba (Arc V)

Yet another horrible dad who did not deserved to be forgiven (one of Yugioh's worst habits if you ask me), except this one is also a conqueror who started a war and Yugioh-murdered millions of people by turning them into cards (something they didn't know was reversible until late in the series) and he gets off scott free. Chilling with the others and not incarcerated or anything. Why.

EARLY GO RUSH SEASON 2 SPOILERS IN THE SECTION BELOW. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Phaser (Go Rush)

Okay this one's actually kind of complicated. I think a redemption for him could have worked if there was more leading up to it and more that deconstructed and challenged his views. But there wasn't. So I'm left feeling confused why his wimpy ass "I'm sorry, a box told me to do it" was immediately taken seriously and his horrible actions were forgiven while Manabu's pleas of "I was a double agent and was trying to do the right thing!" were ignored and lead to him being repeatedly bullied. Why did these two things happen in not just the same show but alongside each other seriously what the hell?!

[akidachi]

I am VIBRATING to see more of your absolutely delish art!!

!!!!!!

so i know everyone on here follows me for tma but...

have a canon bi king!

[zordonmlw7]

For how important it was supposed to be to the plot, Yuji Yagumo deserved better than dying in a flashback of a flashback OF A FLASHBACK

[murasakinohoshi]

Something familiar...

[keylimejuice]

the importance of cologne as a character

i hope tumblr doesn’t bug the images but oh well :’))

spoilers for the end of the zexal manga, please skip if you don’t want spoilers.

princess cologne is a character in the manga who yuma takes in after dueling her. although she really doesn’t have a major role after her arc, she definitely does help flesh out astral in the manga more than he could be in the anime.

astral is a character who is heavily limited in his interactions. because he is invisible to most people, he can’t exactly talk to them and so he’s forced to rely on yuma to communicate to others. this was clearly seen in the anime as astral was basically a satellite character attached to yuma, and couldn’t talk with most of the main cast. even when they could finally see him, it was already near the end of the show and valuable moments of progression for astral was already lost. this loss makes astral a character who is both connected and disconnected to zexal: he is important and central to the story, but he feels completely isolated from the rest of the cast and hardly has an interactions with them.

this one character changes everything about astral in the manga. now it’s not only yuma who is affected by astral, it’s also cologne. yuma is not astral’s only friend anymore, now there’s cologne. even though she doesn’t show much relevance to the general plot after being taken in and is really just there during downtimes when the boys are resting, cologne shows that she’s attached to both of them. this attachment makes astral’s death (permanently sealed, but it’s basically death) at the end of the manga to be much more impactful than his deaths in the anime. it’s even worse considering how his deaths were reversible in the anime, making them less impactful in the long run.

in the anime astral died twice: first to iii/trey when he snapped, and then to 96 when he detonated himself to end mist for good. his first death was quickly reversed and brushed aside, while his second death was heavier and more somber. however, even his second death was only limited to yuma mourning and the other characters didn’t seem too moved. yuma’s friend group even insensitively tried to throw a party in yuma’s room to “cheer him up” when kotori knew just how distraught yuma was over his partner’s death. she was there! she was horrified over what she saw! and yet she didn’t stop the rest of the number’s club from trying to drag yuma out to feel better. it felt so jarring to see how yuma was the only one who was really affected by astral dying, but it shows just how disconnected astral was to the rest of the cast. he simply never had that big of an impact on the rest of them.

in the manga, we do not see how cologne reacts to astral’s death. in fact, we don’t see how any of the characters other than yuma react to it at the end of the manga. but astral having that bond with cologne implies that yuma isn’t the only affected person this time. astral made an impact on someone else in the manga. someone else cared about him, someone else enjoyed his company. and him being ripped away from both yuma AND cologne hurts so much harder than the anime.

this is helped with just how much better astral was shown is in the manga. his goal is the same: collect all the numbers to regain his memories, but his little interactions with the world around him makes him a much more enjoyable character to read. he gets excited about amusement parks and superheroes, he makes light banter and jokes, and he’s far more expressive. overall, i was more attached to manga astral. there were so many moments where i had to stop and just hold myself thinking about just how more spirited astral is in the manga, compared to how he was so stiff and serious all the time in the anime.

overall, while cologne may not have a big role in the manga plot-wise, she definitely helped flesh out one of the more neglected characters in zexal.

tl;dr: i love cologne :D<

[astralhope]

"I loved that smile of yours."

"I will always love you."

[thesilverlock]

ooooh hoo hoo okay! >:) what were your emotional/laughing moments in ygo? and both a popular and unpopular opinion in the fandom? you’re so cool <33

(( AAAAAAAA PALLOt, KEYYY, YOU’RE THE COOL ONE HERE. GOT IT?? Adsfgdhjks Thank you sm for the ask dear ♡ ))

« Yu-Gi-Oh Questionnaire »

Emotional / Hilarious Moment: Actually? The most emotional moment, most emotional EPISODE for me, is the finale.

  To this day, I have to be in a rEALLy good mood to be able to sit down and watch “Forever ZEXAL”. Otherwise it might put my mood into a spiral of sad adfsgdhj xD

  It’s not at all that I don’t like the last episode!! The opposite, even. I do like it, but I hate endings. This series meant a lot to me, from middle school into teens, in more ways than I’ll likely ever admit online. It saved me, tbh.

  So ye AFSGHDJK last episode, rarely can I do it.

  Part I laughed hardest at? Pick literally ANY of Astral’s dub one-liners. Especially shade towards Yuma. I can still be coaxed into ugly-laughing at those !

~♡~

Popular Opinion: We should have gotten a ZEXAL III.

~♡~

Unpopular Opinion: Ooo b o y I’m not looking to get crucified here, but - >>;;; I personally don’t believe Keyship is canon. In the TV series or the manga.

(spoilers)

  Yes I know all about the “aishiteru” thing, but after doing some research myself, I found this little passage -

“The literal translation of “Aishiteru” (愛してる) is “I love you” or “I’m in love with you”. But it expresses such a sincere and deep love that Japanese only use it in long-term relationships and very emotional situations. Such as getting married or when someone is on their death bed.

When you are parting ways with a dear friend or when a beloved one is on their death bed you can say or might hear the phrase 愛してる (aishiteru), too. In this situation, the phrase becomes an affectionate final goodbye that expresses one’s deep love and respect for that very person." - ( link to article )

  Realistically, knowing Konami, I am pretty certain this how it was meant to be perceived canonically. Not a romantic thing - but a very tender, sincere final goodbye of two dear friends. And that is how I have always viewed it as well.

♡

[dualumina]

You joke but this legitimately happened in the manga

Bonus:

Astral, Guardian of the Corn

*Kotori gets out of the Duel Coaster*

Astral: MY SEAT NOW.

[tophyart]

Are you going to continue uploading the 99000 webcomic soon? Also are u gonna convert any of your aus into webcomics or something similar? e.g. villiandeku, the Save, or posting them on your other accounts or something?

Hey there yes i going to continue 99000 comic actually i was inspired and probably in few days i post another short comic little spoiler is yuma vs alit i want to show something there

About the other comic villain deku that one is advanced on youtube with 9 parts until now i will work soon the part 10 but maybe you mean to post the draws here on my social media and yes i will post them here just a little lazy with edition but i will do it soon

For servant dragon i have a plot and a little advance is on my patreon few pages but i stop a little but i need continue also little spoiler is the duel yuya vs yuri

About chaos zexal the reason i am making a little more about him is because i am getting ideas to how i can add him to 99000 plot history or maybe turn him into a side history i still thinking about him but another part for him is coming and is about astral and Yuma having and interesting chat.

The save is like a side history from 99000

And the webcomic 99000 i going to continue too just a little slow cause this webcomic have more effort than villain deku or my other draws because the difference is mostly all my recent draws are like doddles and sketch nothing difficult and easy for me to do thats why i can do 80 to 150 draws for villain deku in one month but is because is a doddle whiles the webcomic 99000 needs doddle then i need do Lineart and that part took so much time then i pass to flat color then shading and for last dialogs so yes took me a little more time and effort.

Also probably i change the style of comic page in the future pages for 99000 so not going to looks like as a comic or manga page but will be like 4 panels on line as the ways i am making recently my short comics here this is for me to get used to for when i need post my future project for webtoon

So this what i have for now i hope i reply your questions anon UwU

[elemental-daddy-neos]

My various relationships with the different Yugioh mangas look a little like

DM: OwO? Darker plots? Less filler? Kaiba with a gun? You have my interest

GX: New characters, new girls, no Yubel- No Tyranno? Oh! Oh!!! Death for GX manga! Death for GX manga for 1000 years! ...I'll still probably read it but I'm mad they did away with dino boy >:c

5Ds: Crow hates kids and the twins are evil, I do not see it, I do not acknowledge it, it just doesn't exist in my eyes

Zexal: Gayer than the anime which was already pretty gay, other than that I know nothing (except that Kite can't cook for shit which is pretty funny if you ask me)

Arc-V: I fear this one more than any other Whose idea was it to take Yuya's childhood friend and make her his mom? What was wrong with Yoko? The idea of the writers going "yeah this milf is nice and all, but you know who Really should have married Yusho? Yuzu." just makes me vastly uncomfortable

Vrains: ...I don't know I'm not even done with the anime and I've tried so hard to avoid spoilers, so I genuinely know nothing about its manga

[asterism343]

Discord reactions to pictures of random Yu-Gi-Oh! characters that I just kept sending

some big zexal spoilers ahead actually, i’ll tag for that

yugo died once in the anime, twice in the manga, bit of a stretch to count both but still very impressive

(Thomas got no reaction, surprisingly. neither did Michael.)

[iyliss]

So. I reworked my list of yugioh deaths, completed for Vrains and Gx, and produced brand new graphics~ Not all of them are very clear so uh before some comments, I’ll add some explanations. I’ll only put actual spoilers in the commentary part, the explanations should be safe.

First, what I counted as a death or not. I used a rather broad definition of a moment that is treated as a death scene by the characters and the writers. Said scene can be seen directly, through a flashback, or through another character telling it. It means that a character who we know has a died, but we do not know how, when, or why, wouldn’t have this counted as a death. Meanwhile, a character who simply leaves the screen for a minute before coming back can also be called dead if the scene is written as such, and the character reacts accordingly.

Next, about the different information I have picked up. Mostly about realism, permanence, time and game. A “realistic” death means that the exact thing that killed the character could have killed someone in real life. A “permanent” death counts if, by the end of the story, the character isn’t shown or implied alive. A past death occured before the moment the series started. A game-related death is a death who came directly from a card game, and where the outcome of said duel would have prevented said death. The character can have 3 status: protagonist (helping the hero), antagonist (opposing the hero) or minor (no real influence in the story nor toward a protagonist). I counted the status of the character at the moment they died, so some of them died as antagonist then, later, as protagonist (or the opposite). Also, “//” means that I could not find the information. I usually avoid counting them in some more complex charts.

As for the charts themselves: the percentage are per series. The number in the last picture is the average number of death a character who died at least once for each series. For exemple, in Zexal, characters who died at least once will have died, overall, 1,58 time in average (so, closer to 2 than 1). Meanwhile, in DM and Arc V, characters dies one time only. The perma-realism graph is based on a score that shows if the death in a series is more often realist / permanent than not. It is calculated as nb of realistic/permanent death - nb of non-realistic/non-permanent death (which mean the number for each series can be compared). the more negative the score is, the more a series will be not-the axes it is negative on (for exemple: vrains tends to have more non-realistic death compared to realistic ones, and they tends to be more permanent than for 5ds).

And, hopefully, that’s enough to understand all the info here! Now some of my own conclusion based on those stats:

(oh, and. if you want any precision, or other charts with those infos, especially for specific series, please tell me!)

For this analysis, I won’t be treating of duel monster. It’s an outsider, and the stats clearly shows it. It especially is because most of the counted death are exclusive to the manga, happened in the early manga, and are of very episodic villains.

Gx and Zexal seems to have much fewer permanent deaths than the other 3 series. It’s because those series ends with the death of certain group of characters (yliaster, ignises, bracelet girls/yuboys beside yuya and yuzu...). The permanent deaths of a series are usually parents, and those group of characters who’s death are quite important for the series’ endings make the difference. And, interestingly, Gx and Zexal are also the series who has the most death. Maybe, also, that admitting that killing your character won’t last make it easier to repeat it?

The realism of the deaths can be rather easily explained for each series. In 5ds, both yliaster and dark signers died of at least one natural death before coming back so the score is the highest. In Arc V, “carding” and few people die from other ways than that one through the series. Arc V is quite special in the sense that, having fewer magic/unrealistic elements than other series, it required (in order to talk about war and therefore the deaths that comes with it),  to kill characters in a not too gruesome yet narratively (and emotionaly) effective way. Introducing this specific alternative, who’s permanency remains secret for most of the series, was a quite nice trick. In GX, most of the death happen in s3 and s4 and are mostly the work of villain killing the same character for isolation and stakes. In Vrains, since it happens in an inherently non-realistic environment, few death can be realistic. And, in Zexal, the realistic deaths happen in flashback (so, not shown directly) while what we see are mostly non-realistic (notice that the One realistic death scene shown is probably the most famous one). That’s likely because Zexal has been written to be seeable by kids, so even if it talked about death, it needed to be as not-real as possible. 5Ds has very varied type of deaths, that is because (again) of dark signers and yliaster who all died in realistic, and various ways. I’d also like to specify that Vrains having this high rate of suicide is actually more sacrifice than anything. Many character (and mostly Akira) ended up “sacrificing themselves” to help Yusaku around the seasons finals.

The average number of death per character is also rather explainable. Arc V is about war, so naturally character will only die once. Zexal and 5ds tends to kill the same people, but for different reasons. Zexal because it’s a very organized story, where specific group of characters will die one after the other (the arclights died twice each, barians had past deaths and present deaths...). Meanwhile, 5ds has two group of villains who both died once, came back in another form, and were killed again for good. In a way, barians are similar to 5ds villains on that matter.

I think the chart of who killed the most people is kind of the one everyone wants to see. It tends to be mostly made of villains killing protagonists (or minor characters, likely their parents), but there are two outsiders: judai and yami yugi (due to season 0). They both killed much more antagonists. Some times happen where antagonists also kills antagonists, but it’s usually underlings (tron killing his sons...). Finally, it’s mostly antagonists who die permanently. Because, well, killing for good a character that isn’t supposed to be entirely sympathetic is much easier. Many villains can be killed rather easily and no one will care. (and I hope you enjoyed ~)

[akidachi]

if u wanna i can give you spoiler-free basic thoughts on 5ds zexal and arc v manga. if you. want.

i already have some spoilers on how the zexal manga ends and some idea on the general concept of the arc-v one but id prefer to go in as blind as possible as i usually do