Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 89
Oct. 14th, 2010 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cypsiman2So apparently Ms. Tome is Judai's live in maid, since he can get away with barking orders at her to feed him. Why am I supposed to like Judai again? The same goes for Kenzan too, and Shou is just sitting there like a lump. Oh, hey Manjoume, you plan on actually doing something this season? Oh, ha ha, all of Manjoume's food is black, it is to laugh. Seriously, show, lighten thy hand; like I mentioned before, Hero was more subtle with the color symbolism than this show. Blah blah blah, Judai is still incredibely annoying, and again, were he a genuinely good friend, you'd think he'd have picked up on Shou's depression and done something about it. Oh, once Manjoume points out Shou, now Judai picks up on the fact that his best friend is depressed. I thought Judai said he was going to do something about his tendency to ignore the plight of his friends? Meh, I already knew it was a crock, considering that he isn't bothering with rescuing Asuka or Misawa. Anyway, according to Shou, Hell Kaiser Ryou has supposedly arrived for the tournament. I have to say, what sort of cockamamie tournament is this, where people can show up whenever they feel like? Honestly, it doesn't feel like a tournament, it's just a vague excuse for some random duels. And oh dear god, Judai's perpetual excitement is like nails on a chalkboard, I'm not even kidding. Seriously, not even a single meager ounce of empathy or sympathy in this twit, or else he wouldn't have acted like a total jackass when it is so manifestly obvious that Shou is still upset over his brother who he's always idolized turning into a complete jackass. Then again, Judai is the moron who didn't see any problem with Saiou gaining control of a satellite that can destroy the world, so it's not like this level of sociopathy is new to him.
TITLE SCREEN! HELL KAISER VS. DARKNESS FUBUKI if this is supposed to be about fubuki and ryou, why did we waste the opening with judai and the rest of the idiot squad?
Now we're at the beach, and for some reason all the girls are dueling in their swim-suits. That seems a bit odd. And...OH MY GOD, IT'S FUBUKI! AND HE'S ON A SPEEDBOAT! YAY FUBUKI! And once again, we have that same instantaneous outfit change that Manjoume used in the previous episode, because, anime. And holy moly, there's a stampede of fanservice heading right for Fubuki! You know what I think? I think all the boys who were watching the show wrote in to complain that they weren't getting enough fanservice, and so the writers put together this scene as though to say "there, there's your damn fanservice. Now leave us alone, we're trying to think of something so stupid that even you people won't like it and then the show will be canceled and then we can finally be free from our contracts and can move on with our lives!" Granted, a fair amount of that is wishful thinking, but I'll stick with it anyway. And Fubuki, demonstrating that he scores a 6 on the Kinsey Scale, hides from the busty school girls in bikinis. Hee. And now he's got his hair combed and a fake mustache and he's reading the paper. Again, hee.
And now we have a flashback; apparently Fubuki never knew that Ryou spent his formative years in a monastery, owing to the fact that as was established earlier, the entire Cyber Dojo plotline didn't make a lick of sense. Samejima claims that Cyber End Dragon has been passed on for generations, which, again, impossible. The writers honestly seem to have no idea how old the card game created by Pegasus actually is; the numbers are a bit vague, but by the time of GX, seventeen or eighteen years is a pretty safe estimate. Anyway, Samejima wants Fubuki to knock some sense into Ryou, since he himself failed due to the fact that he dueled like an idiot and misplayed his cards. Well, flashback's over. Now Fubuki's looking down at the lighthouse, where Hell Kaiser Ryou is just standing around, not doing anything. He thinks about how he was possessed by "Darkness", and how Judai, Asuka, and Ryou were all their for him. Also, flashback to a conversation that never actually took place. This poor writing device will be used again in the future. Anyway, point is that Fubuki felt the light coming from Asuka and Ryou like a lighthouse guiding the ships, and so he is thankful to them. And then they make out.
What?
So now with all the flashbacks over and done with, Fubuki takes Ryou over to the volcano, and declares that here he shall dive into the darkness to rescue Ryou. And again, that instantaneous clothe-changing trick, how does it work? Also, I'm not sure why the entire deck is dark and evil, when "Darkness" has been confined to a single card. But hey, in this case, the noble gesture actually manages to outweigh the plot-holes, so I'll give it a pass. Don't expect this to be a recurring development, it's still quite stupid. Blah blah blah, Ryou says he'll use his new deck, and the duel begins. Okay, Fubuki goes first, and summons Red-Eyes Black Chick, which looks decidedly cuter than last time. And of course, he sacrifices it right away for Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Now Inferno Fire Blast, dealing 2400 damage to Ryou before he could even take his turn. The explosion is visible from quite a ways away, and then Fubuki sets a card to end his turn. Ryou praises Fubuki's skill, but warns him to beware the power of "Darkness". Fubuki assures him that he's in full control, and indeed the "Darkness" recedes.
Hell Kaiser Ryou's turn, and he summons...Cyber Dark Horn! Okay, this is one of the super forbidden cards, let's see what it can do! Okay, it only has 800 attack points, but surely it has a superb effect, right? I mean, the whole point of putting Ryou through this character retooling was to shill these cards, so they've got to be worth it, right? Not quite. See, when summoned, it takes a level four or lower dragon type monster in either player's graveyard, and equips it to it, increasing its attack power by the equipped monster's attack power. See, even on the face of it, this isn't as good as Cyber Dragon, since its dependent on either you or the opponent running dragons, making it easy to run into the situation where you have to summon it when there are no appropriate dragons in the grave. And that's not even getting into the fact that once the Cyberdarks made it into the game, they were nerfed! That's right, in the real game, Cyberdark Horn can only target monsters in your own grave, and they have to be level 3 or lower. In short, its an exceptionally difficult to run archetype as compared to the straightforward power of the Cyber Dragons.
Anyway, off of that tangent, Ryou decides to take Red-Eyes Black Chick from Fubuki's grave, increasing Cyberdark Horn's attack power to 1600. Also, Cyberdark Horn inflicts piercing damage, and if it would be destroyed by battle, the equipped monster is destroyed instead, rather like Pegasus's Relinquished. Of course, Cyberdark Horn still can't stand up to Red-Eyes Black Dragon, so Ryou equips Megamorph to Cyberdark Horn, doubling its original attack power since his life points are lower than Fubuki's. Thus, both monsters have the same attack power, but Cyberdark Horn will survive the battle, while Red-Eyes will not. But Fubuki activates Negate Attack...negating the attack. Personally, I think it would have been better if it had been Mystical Space Typhoon or something like that; that way he could have destroyed Red-Eyes Black Chick, which is acting as an Equip Spell, which would result in Cyberdark Horn being destroyed for 800 damage, and thus Fubuki would win. Unfortunately, since the whole point of this episode is to shill out the Cyberdarks and act like they're ZOMG so powerful, pointing out their glaring weaknesses like that just wouldn't do. Now Ryou sets a card, and ends his turn.
Fubuki wonders what else Ryou's deck has in store for him, and not how the original Cyberdragons were decidedly far more powerful than this, even in their basic incarnation. Because its much easier to tell everyone that Ryou's new deck is so much more powerful, rather than, you know, showing it. Fubuki's turn, and the card he draws emits a dark aura. And now "Darkness" is laughing at Fubuki, but he doesn't care, he's trying to rescue his friend, so he'll take whatever risks are necessary. Thus, he sacrifices Red-Eyes Black Dragon for the Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon. The dark power tries to take over Fubuki's body, but he fights back, all for the sake of his friend.
EYECATCH!
Oh hey, Judai just beat some random schlub. I don't care! Also, by random coincidence he's dueling right by the volcano, and can thus see Ryou and Fubuki dueling. That's awful convenient, at least in terms for letting Judai butt into an episode that doesn't concern him at all. Oh hey, Shou and Kenzan are there too. Nope, still don't care about them, can we please get back to the characters who are actually interesting? Blah blah blah, flashback, blah blah, padding for time, blah, and running. Finally, back to the duel. The "Darkness" keeps trying to do its thing as Darkness Dragon's attack power increases to 2700, allowing him to attack Cyber Horn for 300 damage and destroying the equipped Chick, returning it to Fubuki's grave, which makes Darkness Dragon's attack power rise to 3000. And now Fubuki plays Super Rejuvination; during the end phase, he gets to draw one card for every dragon monster that he discarded from his hand or sacrificed on the field. Of course, since he only sacrificed one dragon monster, this is decidedly unimpressive. Really, here it's like a more situational Jar of Greed, why would you even bother? And now "Darkness" is laughing; while I'm sure he's supposed to be laughing at Fubuki, I think he's laughing at the writers.
Ryou's turn, he switches Cyberdark Horn to defense, and then summons Cyber Dark Edge. What a surprise, he snatches Chick again, and Edge's effect is to reduce its attack by half to attack directly. Thus, Fubuki takes 800 damage, and then he sets another card to end his turn. Fubuki's turn, "Darkness" flowing all around him, and he plays Dragon Heart; by sending three dragons from his deck to the grave, he raises the attack power of a Dragon monster he controls by 1000 for this turn, but he can't perform a normal summon. In addition, Darkness Dragon's effect still applies, so that's another 900 attack points, bringing Darkness Dragon up to 4600, and the "Darkness" overflows in him painfully, but he swears that he shall be the light in the darkness that guides Ryou back to his friends. For all of them he puts his soul on the line, and attacks Cyberdark Edge with Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon. Oh, and the idiot squad arrives, like I care. Chick is destroyed, and now Ryou has to take 3000 points of damage, and it is now that he activates his trap card, Power Wall; for every card that you send from your deck to the grave, you reduce the battle damage you take from an attack by one hundred. Thus, Ryou sends thirty cards to the grave in the most overdramatic and impractical fashion possible, by grabbing the cards, and just throwing them away.
Not only does this meant that he's going to have to spend a lot of time picking up his cards and hope they don't get so badly scratched that his duel disc can't read them, but this also technically means that he never actually inserts them into the graveyard slot in the duel disc. Thus, strictly speaking, the effect of his trap card shouldn't apply, and he should thus, lose. I for one think it would be both hilarious and dramatically appropriate for Ryou to lose from being a complete and total drama queen, but the writers think differently. And it is this, and not anything else, that convinces Fubuki that all is lost, Ryou is forever trapped in darkness. Because he didn't respect his deck. Yeesh, even the Yuugi vs. Pandora duel wasn't this silly. Anyway, since Fubuki's lost his spirit, this lets "Darkness" take over, causing the silly and thoroughly impractical mask to magically appear on Fubuki's face. "Darkness" introduces himself, and plays Dragon's Gunfire, using it to destroy a monster with 800 defense or less on the field. Thus, Cyberdark Edge goes boom, and at the end of his turn, Darkness Dragon's attack power drops to 3900. Darkness mocks Ryou for only having three cards left, having thrown away so much of his deck just to avoid a single attack.
Ryou is unaffected by this, and activates his other face-down card, Call of the Haunted, bringing back the recently destroyed Edge. "Darkness" calls this useless in the face of his dragon's might, but Ryou's not done yet; now he summons Cyberdark Keel, and while it has the effect of dealing 300 damage every time it destroys a monster by battle, we will never actually see this effect in use. Finally, Ryou activates Fusion, combining the three Cyberdarks into Cyber Dark Dragon, with 1000 attack points, and when summoned it can equip any dragon from either player's graveyard to itself, increasing its attack power by the equipped monsters attack power. Thus, he targets Red-Eyes Black Dragon, increasing his attack power to 3400. But "Darkness" is still unimpressed, as even with that bit of theft Darkness Dragon is still stronger at 3600 attack points. But Ryou has yet to apply Cyber Dark Dragon's other effect; for every card in his graveyard, its attack power increases by 100. There are now 37 cards in Ryou's grave, so Cyber Dark Dragon's attack power becomes 7100. This is still less impressive than a Power Bond summoned Cyber End Dragon, or even the Limiter Removal improved Cyber Ogre 2, both of which are significantly easier to pull off. And this is still before we get into how Cyberdark Dragon was nerfed for the real life game; you can only get a dragon from your own grave, and you only count the monster cards in your grave. So really, what was the point of sealing these cards away in the first place? Even in the anime, they're still worse than the regular, fully approved and safe-for-use Cyberdragon cards. You'd think that the writers wouldn't do something like this, and yet they have.
For some reason Shou regards Ryou's mass discard strategy as a sign of disrespect to the opponent, and I'm really not sure why; I mean, is it that Ryou is implying he doesn't need his whole deck to beat you? Really, the writers at some point should have actually explained what "respect" dueling entailed that distinguishes it from "dis-respect" dueling. I mean, I know that I regard Judai's jackassery at the end of every duel to be pretty damn rude, but it would be nice to know what page the writers are on, even if I have no intention of being on it. Also, everyone is more concerned over Ryou's dueling strategies than they are about the fact that Fubuki's just been possessed again, so they can just bugger off. Finally, Ryou declares his attack, and destroys Darkness Dragon for 3500 points of damage, winning the duel.
Suddenly, Ryou is speaking directly to Fubuki's mind, making me wonder when he gained telepathy. Fortunately, I can ignore the plot-holes for a second, because this scene is actually decent. Ryou appears as a burning light before Fubuki to guide him out of the darkness, and explains that he hasn't been taken by the darkness or anything like that, he just wanted to find out what lied in the deepest darkness that not even the light could reach. I'm sorry, tangent for a moment, but according to Kingdom Hearts, even in the deepest darkness there is always a light, and I know for a fact that I will trust Disney over GX any day of the week. Oh, and apparently what Ryou found in that darkness and power was the desire to obtain victory. Basically, the writers just redundantly spelled out what happened back in episode 65. Woo. Anyway, Fubuki's despair really helps to sell the scene, and then "Darkness" is banished once more, having accomplished nothing and revealing absolutely nothing about what it is or why its even still around. Because the GX writers have no idea what they're doing.
Ryo smiles for a millisecond, and shockingly, Judai and Kenzan briefly behave like actual humans by going to Fubuki's side. However, Shou does not participate in this bout of humanity and instead just glares at Ryou. Fubuki wonders if Ryou hasn't entirely forgotten his feeling of respect in his heart, and all of Ryou's cards have just magically returned to his deck, because watching Ryou have to scour all over the place to pick up his cards would have been genuinely funny and so the writers avoided that. Oh, but when Fubuki tosses his GX medal to Ryou, Ryou just steps on it, saying that he only cares about the victory itself. Ryou walks past Shou, there is actual effective silence for a change, and then Shou silently declares that he'll be the one to defeat his brother. What exactly he's waiting for, I don't know, the characters seem to have a bizarre need to declare that they're going to do something, and then needlessly delay doing it. End episode.
NEXT TIME! A bunch of random throw-away jokes, err, I mean Pro Duelists, are mopping the floor with Duel Acaemia, particularly Junko and Momoe and HOLY MOLY, ASUKA'S GOING TO GET TO DUEL! EPISODE TITLE, PRIDE OF THE ACADEMIA card of the week is cyberdark dragon, which as we've established doesn't even begin to live up to the hype.
Sure, this episode had its problems, serious problems at that, but owing to the fact that it focused on the relationship between Fubuki and Ryou, it can't be as terribad as previous episodes were. Unfortunately, unless I'm mistaken, this is the last time that Fubuki and Ryou get to meaningfully interact. ;_;
TITLE SCREEN! HELL KAISER VS. DARKNESS FUBUKI if this is supposed to be about fubuki and ryou, why did we waste the opening with judai and the rest of the idiot squad?
Now we're at the beach, and for some reason all the girls are dueling in their swim-suits. That seems a bit odd. And...OH MY GOD, IT'S FUBUKI! AND HE'S ON A SPEEDBOAT! YAY FUBUKI! And once again, we have that same instantaneous outfit change that Manjoume used in the previous episode, because, anime. And holy moly, there's a stampede of fanservice heading right for Fubuki! You know what I think? I think all the boys who were watching the show wrote in to complain that they weren't getting enough fanservice, and so the writers put together this scene as though to say "there, there's your damn fanservice. Now leave us alone, we're trying to think of something so stupid that even you people won't like it and then the show will be canceled and then we can finally be free from our contracts and can move on with our lives!" Granted, a fair amount of that is wishful thinking, but I'll stick with it anyway. And Fubuki, demonstrating that he scores a 6 on the Kinsey Scale, hides from the busty school girls in bikinis. Hee. And now he's got his hair combed and a fake mustache and he's reading the paper. Again, hee.
And now we have a flashback; apparently Fubuki never knew that Ryou spent his formative years in a monastery, owing to the fact that as was established earlier, the entire Cyber Dojo plotline didn't make a lick of sense. Samejima claims that Cyber End Dragon has been passed on for generations, which, again, impossible. The writers honestly seem to have no idea how old the card game created by Pegasus actually is; the numbers are a bit vague, but by the time of GX, seventeen or eighteen years is a pretty safe estimate. Anyway, Samejima wants Fubuki to knock some sense into Ryou, since he himself failed due to the fact that he dueled like an idiot and misplayed his cards. Well, flashback's over. Now Fubuki's looking down at the lighthouse, where Hell Kaiser Ryou is just standing around, not doing anything. He thinks about how he was possessed by "Darkness", and how Judai, Asuka, and Ryou were all their for him. Also, flashback to a conversation that never actually took place. This poor writing device will be used again in the future. Anyway, point is that Fubuki felt the light coming from Asuka and Ryou like a lighthouse guiding the ships, and so he is thankful to them. And then they make out.
What?
So now with all the flashbacks over and done with, Fubuki takes Ryou over to the volcano, and declares that here he shall dive into the darkness to rescue Ryou. And again, that instantaneous clothe-changing trick, how does it work? Also, I'm not sure why the entire deck is dark and evil, when "Darkness" has been confined to a single card. But hey, in this case, the noble gesture actually manages to outweigh the plot-holes, so I'll give it a pass. Don't expect this to be a recurring development, it's still quite stupid. Blah blah blah, Ryou says he'll use his new deck, and the duel begins. Okay, Fubuki goes first, and summons Red-Eyes Black Chick, which looks decidedly cuter than last time. And of course, he sacrifices it right away for Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Now Inferno Fire Blast, dealing 2400 damage to Ryou before he could even take his turn. The explosion is visible from quite a ways away, and then Fubuki sets a card to end his turn. Ryou praises Fubuki's skill, but warns him to beware the power of "Darkness". Fubuki assures him that he's in full control, and indeed the "Darkness" recedes.
Hell Kaiser Ryou's turn, and he summons...Cyber Dark Horn! Okay, this is one of the super forbidden cards, let's see what it can do! Okay, it only has 800 attack points, but surely it has a superb effect, right? I mean, the whole point of putting Ryou through this character retooling was to shill these cards, so they've got to be worth it, right? Not quite. See, when summoned, it takes a level four or lower dragon type monster in either player's graveyard, and equips it to it, increasing its attack power by the equipped monster's attack power. See, even on the face of it, this isn't as good as Cyber Dragon, since its dependent on either you or the opponent running dragons, making it easy to run into the situation where you have to summon it when there are no appropriate dragons in the grave. And that's not even getting into the fact that once the Cyberdarks made it into the game, they were nerfed! That's right, in the real game, Cyberdark Horn can only target monsters in your own grave, and they have to be level 3 or lower. In short, its an exceptionally difficult to run archetype as compared to the straightforward power of the Cyber Dragons.
Anyway, off of that tangent, Ryou decides to take Red-Eyes Black Chick from Fubuki's grave, increasing Cyberdark Horn's attack power to 1600. Also, Cyberdark Horn inflicts piercing damage, and if it would be destroyed by battle, the equipped monster is destroyed instead, rather like Pegasus's Relinquished. Of course, Cyberdark Horn still can't stand up to Red-Eyes Black Dragon, so Ryou equips Megamorph to Cyberdark Horn, doubling its original attack power since his life points are lower than Fubuki's. Thus, both monsters have the same attack power, but Cyberdark Horn will survive the battle, while Red-Eyes will not. But Fubuki activates Negate Attack...negating the attack. Personally, I think it would have been better if it had been Mystical Space Typhoon or something like that; that way he could have destroyed Red-Eyes Black Chick, which is acting as an Equip Spell, which would result in Cyberdark Horn being destroyed for 800 damage, and thus Fubuki would win. Unfortunately, since the whole point of this episode is to shill out the Cyberdarks and act like they're ZOMG so powerful, pointing out their glaring weaknesses like that just wouldn't do. Now Ryou sets a card, and ends his turn.
Fubuki wonders what else Ryou's deck has in store for him, and not how the original Cyberdragons were decidedly far more powerful than this, even in their basic incarnation. Because its much easier to tell everyone that Ryou's new deck is so much more powerful, rather than, you know, showing it. Fubuki's turn, and the card he draws emits a dark aura. And now "Darkness" is laughing at Fubuki, but he doesn't care, he's trying to rescue his friend, so he'll take whatever risks are necessary. Thus, he sacrifices Red-Eyes Black Dragon for the Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon. The dark power tries to take over Fubuki's body, but he fights back, all for the sake of his friend.
EYECATCH!
Oh hey, Judai just beat some random schlub. I don't care! Also, by random coincidence he's dueling right by the volcano, and can thus see Ryou and Fubuki dueling. That's awful convenient, at least in terms for letting Judai butt into an episode that doesn't concern him at all. Oh hey, Shou and Kenzan are there too. Nope, still don't care about them, can we please get back to the characters who are actually interesting? Blah blah blah, flashback, blah blah, padding for time, blah, and running. Finally, back to the duel. The "Darkness" keeps trying to do its thing as Darkness Dragon's attack power increases to 2700, allowing him to attack Cyber Horn for 300 damage and destroying the equipped Chick, returning it to Fubuki's grave, which makes Darkness Dragon's attack power rise to 3000. And now Fubuki plays Super Rejuvination; during the end phase, he gets to draw one card for every dragon monster that he discarded from his hand or sacrificed on the field. Of course, since he only sacrificed one dragon monster, this is decidedly unimpressive. Really, here it's like a more situational Jar of Greed, why would you even bother? And now "Darkness" is laughing; while I'm sure he's supposed to be laughing at Fubuki, I think he's laughing at the writers.
Ryou's turn, he switches Cyberdark Horn to defense, and then summons Cyber Dark Edge. What a surprise, he snatches Chick again, and Edge's effect is to reduce its attack by half to attack directly. Thus, Fubuki takes 800 damage, and then he sets another card to end his turn. Fubuki's turn, "Darkness" flowing all around him, and he plays Dragon Heart; by sending three dragons from his deck to the grave, he raises the attack power of a Dragon monster he controls by 1000 for this turn, but he can't perform a normal summon. In addition, Darkness Dragon's effect still applies, so that's another 900 attack points, bringing Darkness Dragon up to 4600, and the "Darkness" overflows in him painfully, but he swears that he shall be the light in the darkness that guides Ryou back to his friends. For all of them he puts his soul on the line, and attacks Cyberdark Edge with Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon. Oh, and the idiot squad arrives, like I care. Chick is destroyed, and now Ryou has to take 3000 points of damage, and it is now that he activates his trap card, Power Wall; for every card that you send from your deck to the grave, you reduce the battle damage you take from an attack by one hundred. Thus, Ryou sends thirty cards to the grave in the most overdramatic and impractical fashion possible, by grabbing the cards, and just throwing them away.
Not only does this meant that he's going to have to spend a lot of time picking up his cards and hope they don't get so badly scratched that his duel disc can't read them, but this also technically means that he never actually inserts them into the graveyard slot in the duel disc. Thus, strictly speaking, the effect of his trap card shouldn't apply, and he should thus, lose. I for one think it would be both hilarious and dramatically appropriate for Ryou to lose from being a complete and total drama queen, but the writers think differently. And it is this, and not anything else, that convinces Fubuki that all is lost, Ryou is forever trapped in darkness. Because he didn't respect his deck. Yeesh, even the Yuugi vs. Pandora duel wasn't this silly. Anyway, since Fubuki's lost his spirit, this lets "Darkness" take over, causing the silly and thoroughly impractical mask to magically appear on Fubuki's face. "Darkness" introduces himself, and plays Dragon's Gunfire, using it to destroy a monster with 800 defense or less on the field. Thus, Cyberdark Edge goes boom, and at the end of his turn, Darkness Dragon's attack power drops to 3900. Darkness mocks Ryou for only having three cards left, having thrown away so much of his deck just to avoid a single attack.
Ryou is unaffected by this, and activates his other face-down card, Call of the Haunted, bringing back the recently destroyed Edge. "Darkness" calls this useless in the face of his dragon's might, but Ryou's not done yet; now he summons Cyberdark Keel, and while it has the effect of dealing 300 damage every time it destroys a monster by battle, we will never actually see this effect in use. Finally, Ryou activates Fusion, combining the three Cyberdarks into Cyber Dark Dragon, with 1000 attack points, and when summoned it can equip any dragon from either player's graveyard to itself, increasing its attack power by the equipped monsters attack power. Thus, he targets Red-Eyes Black Dragon, increasing his attack power to 3400. But "Darkness" is still unimpressed, as even with that bit of theft Darkness Dragon is still stronger at 3600 attack points. But Ryou has yet to apply Cyber Dark Dragon's other effect; for every card in his graveyard, its attack power increases by 100. There are now 37 cards in Ryou's grave, so Cyber Dark Dragon's attack power becomes 7100. This is still less impressive than a Power Bond summoned Cyber End Dragon, or even the Limiter Removal improved Cyber Ogre 2, both of which are significantly easier to pull off. And this is still before we get into how Cyberdark Dragon was nerfed for the real life game; you can only get a dragon from your own grave, and you only count the monster cards in your grave. So really, what was the point of sealing these cards away in the first place? Even in the anime, they're still worse than the regular, fully approved and safe-for-use Cyberdragon cards. You'd think that the writers wouldn't do something like this, and yet they have.
For some reason Shou regards Ryou's mass discard strategy as a sign of disrespect to the opponent, and I'm really not sure why; I mean, is it that Ryou is implying he doesn't need his whole deck to beat you? Really, the writers at some point should have actually explained what "respect" dueling entailed that distinguishes it from "dis-respect" dueling. I mean, I know that I regard Judai's jackassery at the end of every duel to be pretty damn rude, but it would be nice to know what page the writers are on, even if I have no intention of being on it. Also, everyone is more concerned over Ryou's dueling strategies than they are about the fact that Fubuki's just been possessed again, so they can just bugger off. Finally, Ryou declares his attack, and destroys Darkness Dragon for 3500 points of damage, winning the duel.
Suddenly, Ryou is speaking directly to Fubuki's mind, making me wonder when he gained telepathy. Fortunately, I can ignore the plot-holes for a second, because this scene is actually decent. Ryou appears as a burning light before Fubuki to guide him out of the darkness, and explains that he hasn't been taken by the darkness or anything like that, he just wanted to find out what lied in the deepest darkness that not even the light could reach. I'm sorry, tangent for a moment, but according to Kingdom Hearts, even in the deepest darkness there is always a light, and I know for a fact that I will trust Disney over GX any day of the week. Oh, and apparently what Ryou found in that darkness and power was the desire to obtain victory. Basically, the writers just redundantly spelled out what happened back in episode 65. Woo. Anyway, Fubuki's despair really helps to sell the scene, and then "Darkness" is banished once more, having accomplished nothing and revealing absolutely nothing about what it is or why its even still around. Because the GX writers have no idea what they're doing.
Ryo smiles for a millisecond, and shockingly, Judai and Kenzan briefly behave like actual humans by going to Fubuki's side. However, Shou does not participate in this bout of humanity and instead just glares at Ryou. Fubuki wonders if Ryou hasn't entirely forgotten his feeling of respect in his heart, and all of Ryou's cards have just magically returned to his deck, because watching Ryou have to scour all over the place to pick up his cards would have been genuinely funny and so the writers avoided that. Oh, but when Fubuki tosses his GX medal to Ryou, Ryou just steps on it, saying that he only cares about the victory itself. Ryou walks past Shou, there is actual effective silence for a change, and then Shou silently declares that he'll be the one to defeat his brother. What exactly he's waiting for, I don't know, the characters seem to have a bizarre need to declare that they're going to do something, and then needlessly delay doing it. End episode.
NEXT TIME! A bunch of random throw-away jokes, err, I mean Pro Duelists, are mopping the floor with Duel Acaemia, particularly Junko and Momoe and HOLY MOLY, ASUKA'S GOING TO GET TO DUEL! EPISODE TITLE, PRIDE OF THE ACADEMIA card of the week is cyberdark dragon, which as we've established doesn't even begin to live up to the hype.
Sure, this episode had its problems, serious problems at that, but owing to the fact that it focused on the relationship between Fubuki and Ryou, it can't be as terribad as previous episodes were. Unfortunately, unless I'm mistaken, this is the last time that Fubuki and Ryou get to meaningfully interact. ;_;
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Date: 2010-10-15 12:39 am (UTC)Poor Fubuki. He and Asuka are the best characters on this show, yet they're barely ever allowed to show up.
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Date: 2010-10-15 12:47 am (UTC)Will everyone stop throwing around the world 'respect'? It's clear that they don't understand it's definition at all.
You know what? I'm going to wait a while on that 'manga!Juudai has a nightmare about anime!Juudai' fic, so that I can properly include all of this crap in it.
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Date: 2010-10-15 12:52 am (UTC)I KNOW! I mean, yeah, Ryou was being standoffish in the duel, and a bit disdainful, but honestly? He was as "respectful" as he was in any duel back in season 1! Again, a simple thesis statement would have gone a long way for me to be able to understand just what it is they mean when they talk about "Respect Duelings" or whatever it was that Ryou was taught at the Cyber Dragon Dojo.
Oh no, you can't include all of it! If you do, then poor Manga!Judai will have a nervous breakdown, and he won't be able to duel Reggie MacKenzie to save Midori from her shadow game! (Why yes I did just pick up Volume 5 of GX, why do you ask?)
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Date: 2010-10-15 12:59 am (UTC)Don't worry, it's a dream- the more wakeful Juudai gets, the fuzzier the details are. He'll go into a tangent about his anime self's rudeness, and by the time it's done, he'll only vaguely remember the creepy cult stuff. So he won't go mad from the stupid, I promise ;)
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Date: 2010-10-15 01:03 am (UTC)Good! Manga!Judai stands by his friends and doesn't act like a total asshole to Misawa for no particular reason, so we like him! XD
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Date: 2010-10-15 12:48 am (UTC)Poor them indeed, and it won't be getting any better for them in season 3. Season 4...is a mixed bag. They get more attention, but that attention is...bad.
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Date: 2010-10-15 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-15 01:34 am (UTC)At least in the manga, he gets to be in an awesome tag duel alongside Asuka.