Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 74
Aug. 10th, 2010 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cypsiman2We open with lots of yelling and cheering from the Society of Light, and it really hurts to see Manjoume and Asuka acting like brainwashed drones, it really does. Blah blah blah, Saiou says nothing the least bit interesting or relevant. Oh hey, Misawa's in this episode! And he even got a line! So, is Judai FINALLY going to get off his ass and do something about the Society of Light? What do you fucking think?
TITLE SCREEN! REVIVING FROG! LIVING FROG! DEATH FROG! i think i've got a frog in my throat.
Wow, this is stupid, AND painful! Chronos and Napoleon are bickering, not over anything important, but rather where the big study trip will be held. Naturally, Chronos wants to go to Italy, while Napoleon wants to go to France. GET IT?! And now the Society of Light shows up; they say that Saiou already knows where they're going to go, and speak of the devil, he shows up and prattles on about fate, and the two grown men in the positions of power and authority are intimidated by a bunch of brainwashed drones. Pathetic. And now for no particular reason, Judai's there. Yeah, he wants to pick where they're going to go for the "study trip", Manjoume and Asuka tell him to get the fuck out, but he just ignores them. Blah blah blah, he challenges Saiou, over the location of the field trip and not over releasing his friends from mind control, Saiou accepts on the condition that if Judai loses he will join the Society of Light. AND WHERE THE FUCK IS MISAWA? Oh wait, there he is. Blah blah blah, Saiou says he won't duel himself, he'll be sending someone from the Society of Light to duel in his place.
Scene transition, and we hear a lady reading The Princess and the Frog. Asuka goes to fetch her, as apparently she is the duelist he chose. And her name is Princess Rose. Really. She says she'll get ready, SCENE TRANSITION, and now we're at the dueling arena. Blah blah blah, noise from the peanut gallery, Judai says something stupid, and now Princess Rose finally arrives. And she is wearing a stupid dress, and her hair done-up all stupid like. Seriously, WHAT??? SHOW, LESS IS MORE! I REPEAT, LESS IS MORE! And like Ran before her, I in no way buy that she is a student. No fucking way. Blah blah blah, empty dialogue is empty, and the duel begins.
Princess Rose goes first, and summons Tadpole in defense position, with zero defense power. Also, do not call her monster 'not beautiful'. She does not like it when you do that, as Kenzan learns. And that's it for her turn. Judai's turn, and he summons Air Hummingbird, using its effect to gain 2500 life points. Then he attacks and destroys Tadpole, which activates its effect, allowing Rose to add another one from her deck to her hand. Shut the hell up Judai, the word 'interesting' means nothing coming from you. When you actually start calling someone's deck, not interesting, then I'll pay attention to your brainless prattle. And yeah, Judai ends his turn without setting a damn thing. Hell, even Judai's lackeys have no idea why Judai thinks that's interesting, though really this is just another excuse for the writers to hate on Misawa. Fuck them.
Rose takes her turn, and plays the spell card Living Frog; she sends the Water attribute Tadpole in her hand to the grave, in order to special summon another Water attribute monster from her grave, so the original Tadpole comes back. And of course, it takes Misawa to figure out that Rose is aiming for a Sacrifice Summon. And so Tadpole is sacrificed to summon Death Frog, with 1900 attack points. Then it's effect is activated; for every Tadpole in the grave when Death Frog is summoned, Rose gets to special summon another Death Frog from her deck. There are two, so out comes two more Death Frogs. And she is blushing, do I even want to know why? Do I even want to be watching this show? Judai thinks this is really cool, and Rose asks if he's impressed by her princes who protect her. He is confused, she says that Saiou told her that he could see spirits, so surely he must be able to see her princes. And of course, because she's a girl, there are no princes, only frogs, at least as far as Judai is able to tell. Rose insists that while they may look like frogs, they are in fact the handsome princes who have always protected her (from what? no, of course the writers aren't going to elaborate on that, that would make sense!), and then we are subjected to bishie vision, which is full of bishies.
EYECATCH!
Oh, now we've got Saiou with candles, messing about with Tarot Cards, and going on about the Duel Monster spirits, how unlike him, both Judai and Rose can see them, he wonders what this duel will bring. And back at the duel, Shou learns that you do not mention that the fairy tale about the Princess and the Frog was in fact a fairy tale. And quite frankly, with all the completely insane, inane, contradictory bullshit that this show has asked us to swallow unquestioningly, for it to turn around and act like THIS would be crazy...yeah, Judai can only see the Solid Vision images of the Death Frogs, no spirits at all. Fuck this show so very fucking hard. And now the duel finally resumes as Rose plays Death Chorus; when you control three Death Frogs, you can destroy every card on your opponent's side of the field. Which is of course wasted here, seeing as Judai has only one weak-ass monster on the field. This is the sort of card you save for when your opponent has lots of cards on the field. But, the writers have not but pudding for brains, so she plays the card now and blows up Air Hummingbird. Now all three Death Frogs attack directly, and Judai's left with just 800 life points. Blah blah blah, Rose isn't done yet, she plays Fusion and fuses her three Death Frogs into Three Death Frog, with 2500 attack points. Judai is impressed, like that means anything, and seriously, even Shou and Kenzan are all 'we don't know that guy'. More shenanigans with the Prince nonsense, and now Rose ends her turn.
Judai's turn, he summons Bubbleman, draws two cards with its bullshit effect, and then fuses Bubbleman and Clayman into Mudballman in defense position. Then he sets two cards to end his turn. Rose's turn, she plays Pot of Greed, and then Foolish Burial, sending Reviving Frog from her deck to her grave. Then Flute of Hemelin; since she just sent a monster to her grave, she can send all the rest of the same monster in her deck to the grave, so that sends two more Reviving Frogs into her grave. And now Three Death Frog's effect activates, increasing its attack power by 500 for every Reviving Frog in her grave, so with three, that makes an attack power of 4000. Noise from the Peanut Gallery, and Three Death frog eats Mudballman. Judai activates Hero Signal, special summoning Featherman from his deck. But, Rose just goes ahead and plays De-Fusion, splitting Three Death Frog back into, well, three Death Frogs. She attacks, and Judai activates Hero Halo, which keeps Featherman from being destroyed in battle by a monster that has 1900 attack power or higher. Rose does this thing where she calls Featherman an evil magician, Judai objects, Manjoume is looking down at the duel and he can't see any spirits on Rose's side of the field, just in case you didn't get the memo that girls are icky and yucky and can't have special powers on account of not having a penis like all right minded people.
And now Rose sacrifices all three of her Death Frogs to special summon Amphibian Angel - Frog-Hael...which only has 1400 attack points. However, by sacrificing three monsters for its summon, Rose gets to destroy all spells and traps on the field, so boom goes Hero Halo, and also, she gets to summon all her frog monsters back from the grave...wait a second, why the fuck didn't she do this BEFORE?! She could have sent the Reviving Frogs to the grave, de-fused Three Death Frog into the three Death Frogs, sacrificed them for Angel Amphibian, destroying all of Judai's traps, which he would have been helpless to stop, and then she'd destroy Mudballman with Three Death Frog like before and attack directly for the win. Or, you know, she could have saved Death Chorus for when she needed it, and blown up all of Judai's cards that way. Mother of fuck, I hate it when the writers do this, blatantly rigging the duel so Judai will win, even when he should have lost. Oh, and the opponent isn't allowed to attack Angel Amphibian. And now Rose's turn is over.
And now Manjoume will be a total prat, as he insists that he take over the duel for Rose. Why? Is it because she was railroaded into making bad dueling choices? NO! Judai of course doesn't want his fun, no-stakes at all why would there ever be any stakes ever, duel interrupted, Rose doesn't want the duel interrupted either, but Manjoume proclaims that Rose lied, she can't see the spirits of duel monsters! Because, you know, she has an icky yucky vagina, and everyone knows you need a mighty penis to be able to see spirits. At least, you know, that's the rather telling subtext of this episode. Blah blah blah, Manjoume is an idiot, Rose insists she really does see her princes all around her, goes on about how she read the Frog Prince as a child frogs have always been her friends who looked out for her, and when she got her Frog deck, she could see them! And then Judai starts saying shit that halfway approximates how the occasional spirit we saw in the manga actually worked! Seriously, after all the bullshit about alternate dimensions and hippy-space, we are, in this throw-away excuse for an episode, actually going to get a taste of how the original metaphysics of Yugioh actually worked? What a fucking waste...
And so Manjoume walks away, and Judai takes his turn. And god, do I hate Judai's smarmy voice. Winged Kuriboh appears behind Judai for a moment, I guess to signify that Rose really did see it or some bullshit like that, and now Judai plays Pot of Greed, because why not! Then he summons Burst Lady, plays Oversoul to bring back Clayman, and next up is Skyscraper. And now for Judai's latest one-episode wonder that was never released into the real card game, Power Charger, which he equips to Featherman. This will let Featherman gain attack points equal to the attack power of the monster it destroys by battle. And now for the final step of this out-of-Judai's-ass super situational combo, Feather Shot, which will let Featherman attack as many times as Judai has Elemental Heroes on the field. So yeah, Featherman blows up one Death Frog for 100 points of damage, gains 1900 attack power, attacks another Death Frog for 1000 points of damage, gains another 1900 attack power, and destroys the third one for 2900 points of damage, thus letting Judai win in a single turn. Fucker.
Blah blah blah, Rose sticks her tongue out at Judai, walks away, and as she does this tiny ugly little frog prince spirit thing appears at her side, which I think is supposed to imply that by dueling Judai, Rose was able to awaken the spirit, or some such Gary Stu bullshit, like it even fucking matters, Rose is never going to show up again, just like all the rest of the Duelists of the Week that Judai's defeated over the series. And so Shou and Kenzan congratulate Judai on winning this utterly meaningless duel, not even slightly aware that they could have used this opportunity to have rescued their friends. Fuckers, the lot of them. Oh, right, now Judai gets to pick where the school field trip will be held. Gawrsh, I wonder where on Earth Judai could possibly want to go. Could it be...yes, it is exactly as Saiou predicted, Domino City, as represented by the Tower card. Thus, making this entire episode a complete fucking waste of time. Oh, and apparently the writers seem to be taking the whole 'Tower' thing literally, since now we're given a shot of the Kaiba Corp tower. Need I explain that in the Tarot, the Tower stands for a collapse of one's system of values and beliefs? No? Good! End fucking episode.
NEXT TIME! So yeah, the school goes to Domino City, and Sugoroku Mutou gets to cameo. EPISODE TITLE, SCHOOL EXCURSION TAG DUEL! Card of the week is Three Death Frog.
This episode was bad enough, what with Judai's face constantly getting shoved into the camera, but the blatant sexism...episode 70 certainly didn't get THAT out of the writer's systems, that's for damn sure!
TITLE SCREEN! REVIVING FROG! LIVING FROG! DEATH FROG! i think i've got a frog in my throat.
Wow, this is stupid, AND painful! Chronos and Napoleon are bickering, not over anything important, but rather where the big study trip will be held. Naturally, Chronos wants to go to Italy, while Napoleon wants to go to France. GET IT?! And now the Society of Light shows up; they say that Saiou already knows where they're going to go, and speak of the devil, he shows up and prattles on about fate, and the two grown men in the positions of power and authority are intimidated by a bunch of brainwashed drones. Pathetic. And now for no particular reason, Judai's there. Yeah, he wants to pick where they're going to go for the "study trip", Manjoume and Asuka tell him to get the fuck out, but he just ignores them. Blah blah blah, he challenges Saiou, over the location of the field trip and not over releasing his friends from mind control, Saiou accepts on the condition that if Judai loses he will join the Society of Light. AND WHERE THE FUCK IS MISAWA? Oh wait, there he is. Blah blah blah, Saiou says he won't duel himself, he'll be sending someone from the Society of Light to duel in his place.
Scene transition, and we hear a lady reading The Princess and the Frog. Asuka goes to fetch her, as apparently she is the duelist he chose. And her name is Princess Rose. Really. She says she'll get ready, SCENE TRANSITION, and now we're at the dueling arena. Blah blah blah, noise from the peanut gallery, Judai says something stupid, and now Princess Rose finally arrives. And she is wearing a stupid dress, and her hair done-up all stupid like. Seriously, WHAT??? SHOW, LESS IS MORE! I REPEAT, LESS IS MORE! And like Ran before her, I in no way buy that she is a student. No fucking way. Blah blah blah, empty dialogue is empty, and the duel begins.
Princess Rose goes first, and summons Tadpole in defense position, with zero defense power. Also, do not call her monster 'not beautiful'. She does not like it when you do that, as Kenzan learns. And that's it for her turn. Judai's turn, and he summons Air Hummingbird, using its effect to gain 2500 life points. Then he attacks and destroys Tadpole, which activates its effect, allowing Rose to add another one from her deck to her hand. Shut the hell up Judai, the word 'interesting' means nothing coming from you. When you actually start calling someone's deck, not interesting, then I'll pay attention to your brainless prattle. And yeah, Judai ends his turn without setting a damn thing. Hell, even Judai's lackeys have no idea why Judai thinks that's interesting, though really this is just another excuse for the writers to hate on Misawa. Fuck them.
Rose takes her turn, and plays the spell card Living Frog; she sends the Water attribute Tadpole in her hand to the grave, in order to special summon another Water attribute monster from her grave, so the original Tadpole comes back. And of course, it takes Misawa to figure out that Rose is aiming for a Sacrifice Summon. And so Tadpole is sacrificed to summon Death Frog, with 1900 attack points. Then it's effect is activated; for every Tadpole in the grave when Death Frog is summoned, Rose gets to special summon another Death Frog from her deck. There are two, so out comes two more Death Frogs. And she is blushing, do I even want to know why? Do I even want to be watching this show? Judai thinks this is really cool, and Rose asks if he's impressed by her princes who protect her. He is confused, she says that Saiou told her that he could see spirits, so surely he must be able to see her princes. And of course, because she's a girl, there are no princes, only frogs, at least as far as Judai is able to tell. Rose insists that while they may look like frogs, they are in fact the handsome princes who have always protected her (from what? no, of course the writers aren't going to elaborate on that, that would make sense!), and then we are subjected to bishie vision, which is full of bishies.
EYECATCH!
Oh, now we've got Saiou with candles, messing about with Tarot Cards, and going on about the Duel Monster spirits, how unlike him, both Judai and Rose can see them, he wonders what this duel will bring. And back at the duel, Shou learns that you do not mention that the fairy tale about the Princess and the Frog was in fact a fairy tale. And quite frankly, with all the completely insane, inane, contradictory bullshit that this show has asked us to swallow unquestioningly, for it to turn around and act like THIS would be crazy...yeah, Judai can only see the Solid Vision images of the Death Frogs, no spirits at all. Fuck this show so very fucking hard. And now the duel finally resumes as Rose plays Death Chorus; when you control three Death Frogs, you can destroy every card on your opponent's side of the field. Which is of course wasted here, seeing as Judai has only one weak-ass monster on the field. This is the sort of card you save for when your opponent has lots of cards on the field. But, the writers have not but pudding for brains, so she plays the card now and blows up Air Hummingbird. Now all three Death Frogs attack directly, and Judai's left with just 800 life points. Blah blah blah, Rose isn't done yet, she plays Fusion and fuses her three Death Frogs into Three Death Frog, with 2500 attack points. Judai is impressed, like that means anything, and seriously, even Shou and Kenzan are all 'we don't know that guy'. More shenanigans with the Prince nonsense, and now Rose ends her turn.
Judai's turn, he summons Bubbleman, draws two cards with its bullshit effect, and then fuses Bubbleman and Clayman into Mudballman in defense position. Then he sets two cards to end his turn. Rose's turn, she plays Pot of Greed, and then Foolish Burial, sending Reviving Frog from her deck to her grave. Then Flute of Hemelin; since she just sent a monster to her grave, she can send all the rest of the same monster in her deck to the grave, so that sends two more Reviving Frogs into her grave. And now Three Death Frog's effect activates, increasing its attack power by 500 for every Reviving Frog in her grave, so with three, that makes an attack power of 4000. Noise from the Peanut Gallery, and Three Death frog eats Mudballman. Judai activates Hero Signal, special summoning Featherman from his deck. But, Rose just goes ahead and plays De-Fusion, splitting Three Death Frog back into, well, three Death Frogs. She attacks, and Judai activates Hero Halo, which keeps Featherman from being destroyed in battle by a monster that has 1900 attack power or higher. Rose does this thing where she calls Featherman an evil magician, Judai objects, Manjoume is looking down at the duel and he can't see any spirits on Rose's side of the field, just in case you didn't get the memo that girls are icky and yucky and can't have special powers on account of not having a penis like all right minded people.
And now Rose sacrifices all three of her Death Frogs to special summon Amphibian Angel - Frog-Hael...which only has 1400 attack points. However, by sacrificing three monsters for its summon, Rose gets to destroy all spells and traps on the field, so boom goes Hero Halo, and also, she gets to summon all her frog monsters back from the grave...wait a second, why the fuck didn't she do this BEFORE?! She could have sent the Reviving Frogs to the grave, de-fused Three Death Frog into the three Death Frogs, sacrificed them for Angel Amphibian, destroying all of Judai's traps, which he would have been helpless to stop, and then she'd destroy Mudballman with Three Death Frog like before and attack directly for the win. Or, you know, she could have saved Death Chorus for when she needed it, and blown up all of Judai's cards that way. Mother of fuck, I hate it when the writers do this, blatantly rigging the duel so Judai will win, even when he should have lost. Oh, and the opponent isn't allowed to attack Angel Amphibian. And now Rose's turn is over.
And now Manjoume will be a total prat, as he insists that he take over the duel for Rose. Why? Is it because she was railroaded into making bad dueling choices? NO! Judai of course doesn't want his fun, no-stakes at all why would there ever be any stakes ever, duel interrupted, Rose doesn't want the duel interrupted either, but Manjoume proclaims that Rose lied, she can't see the spirits of duel monsters! Because, you know, she has an icky yucky vagina, and everyone knows you need a mighty penis to be able to see spirits. At least, you know, that's the rather telling subtext of this episode. Blah blah blah, Manjoume is an idiot, Rose insists she really does see her princes all around her, goes on about how she read the Frog Prince as a child frogs have always been her friends who looked out for her, and when she got her Frog deck, she could see them! And then Judai starts saying shit that halfway approximates how the occasional spirit we saw in the manga actually worked! Seriously, after all the bullshit about alternate dimensions and hippy-space, we are, in this throw-away excuse for an episode, actually going to get a taste of how the original metaphysics of Yugioh actually worked? What a fucking waste...
And so Manjoume walks away, and Judai takes his turn. And god, do I hate Judai's smarmy voice. Winged Kuriboh appears behind Judai for a moment, I guess to signify that Rose really did see it or some bullshit like that, and now Judai plays Pot of Greed, because why not! Then he summons Burst Lady, plays Oversoul to bring back Clayman, and next up is Skyscraper. And now for Judai's latest one-episode wonder that was never released into the real card game, Power Charger, which he equips to Featherman. This will let Featherman gain attack points equal to the attack power of the monster it destroys by battle. And now for the final step of this out-of-Judai's-ass super situational combo, Feather Shot, which will let Featherman attack as many times as Judai has Elemental Heroes on the field. So yeah, Featherman blows up one Death Frog for 100 points of damage, gains 1900 attack power, attacks another Death Frog for 1000 points of damage, gains another 1900 attack power, and destroys the third one for 2900 points of damage, thus letting Judai win in a single turn. Fucker.
Blah blah blah, Rose sticks her tongue out at Judai, walks away, and as she does this tiny ugly little frog prince spirit thing appears at her side, which I think is supposed to imply that by dueling Judai, Rose was able to awaken the spirit, or some such Gary Stu bullshit, like it even fucking matters, Rose is never going to show up again, just like all the rest of the Duelists of the Week that Judai's defeated over the series. And so Shou and Kenzan congratulate Judai on winning this utterly meaningless duel, not even slightly aware that they could have used this opportunity to have rescued their friends. Fuckers, the lot of them. Oh, right, now Judai gets to pick where the school field trip will be held. Gawrsh, I wonder where on Earth Judai could possibly want to go. Could it be...yes, it is exactly as Saiou predicted, Domino City, as represented by the Tower card. Thus, making this entire episode a complete fucking waste of time. Oh, and apparently the writers seem to be taking the whole 'Tower' thing literally, since now we're given a shot of the Kaiba Corp tower. Need I explain that in the Tarot, the Tower stands for a collapse of one's system of values and beliefs? No? Good! End fucking episode.
NEXT TIME! So yeah, the school goes to Domino City, and Sugoroku Mutou gets to cameo. EPISODE TITLE, SCHOOL EXCURSION TAG DUEL! Card of the week is Three Death Frog.
This episode was bad enough, what with Judai's face constantly getting shoved into the camera, but the blatant sexism...episode 70 certainly didn't get THAT out of the writer's systems, that's for damn sure!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-08-12 11:30 pm (UTC)Poor Misawa. Shou, Kenzan, shut up. The reason he can't see anything interesting about the dumb deck is that there isn't anything interesting about it. 'Tanoshii' and 'Omoshiroi' are practically the only words Juudai knows, that's all.
So apparently Rose practices polyandry?
Sheesh, even this episode is trying to take itself mostly seriously. This is why GX fails at being crack.
I'll comfort myself with memories of Miyuki-chan (I needed surreal, metaphorical shoujo which I could easily interpret for once, you see ;P).
In some series, Rose being a fake wouldn't come across as so sexist, since there would be a relatively equal number of people of both genders capable of seeing spirits. But when you have so few representatives of a group in a work of fiction, how you treat the few there are holds much more weight. Something like that, my brain's going fuzzy. Sort of like how if you only have one homosexual character in your book/series and that character embodies common stereotypes, then you have a case of Unfortunate Implications.
Shouldn't Fubuki be here and worrying about his little sister having joined a cult? And come to think of it, why has no one done anything to contact Kaiser Ryou after his breakdown? I understand Shou not bothering, but Asuka and Fubuki?
no subject
Date: 2010-08-12 11:45 pm (UTC)Seventy-four repetitive and dull episodes of Judai's one-note tediousness, and counting.
I...guess? I mean, if someone were to have commented on that, it could have been interesting, but no.
These writers, they really can't commit to anything at all. Thus, they fail at everything.
Miyuki-chan? Which one is that one again?
Exactly! The fact that there are so few female characters on the show makes the sexism in how they get treated in the narrative that much more pronounced. By contrast, the female characters in the original not only have more pronounced roles, but are even able to interact with one another on occasion! And on a few of those occasions, their interactions have nothing to do with the boys! Which is not to say that the original series couldn't have done better, but GX is just a huge leap down in that regard.
Because the plot says that they're not supposed to, so they don't. Characters acting on actual motivation is anathema to this show.