Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 100
Oct. 25th, 2010 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cypsiman2Recap of what happened in episode 98. Seriously. That's...all that we get before the opening credits. Can you say "padding"? Good, I knew you could.
TITLE SCREEN! THE ULTIMATE ARCANA (THE WORLD) indeed, persona has taught me this lesson quite well.
So the episode proper begins with Samejima flying Edo back to Duel Academia, and we still have no idea how Samejima knew where to find Edo, or for that matter, to even look for him. Seriously, even if Judai and Kenzan had told Samejima that Edo and his boat were gone, that wouldn't be enough for him to desperately fly out and pick him back up. Also, Samejima didn't even know what Edo was doing there, since he just asked Edo that very question. So...why is Samejima doing any of this? To facilitate the plot, in the fashion of a device, so to speak. Oh hey, flashback to material that we just covered in the recap. Redundant much? And now another flashback to Chibi Edo standing at his father's grave. And there's Saiou, out of nowhere, offering Chibi Edo his umbrella. Blah blah blah, the rain does not fall forever and destiny guided me here. Later, Saiou does Tarot reading with Chibi Edo, and says that the upright Hierophant represents Chibi Edo, signifying that he shall be the one to guide Saiou. Specifically, Saiou hopes that Chibi Edo will be able to guide Saiou away from the fate of destruction that he has forseen for himself, and draws The Devil, saying that this represents himself. The Devil signifies temptation and confinement, which does fit Saiou's eventual and utterly pointless establishment of the Association of Light. And then Chibi Edo says something about holding up a really big umbrella, and I'm sure that it's supposed to be cute and precious, but considering that the evil that is supposed to take Saiou over is supposed to be Evil Cosmic Hippy Space Radiation, it's rather difficult to be emotionally invested in any of this.
Back to the present, there are storm clouds above Duel Academia, because that fits in so well with the light motif that is supposedly present in this season. Edo orders the helicopter to land at the Obelisk White dorm, and when he sees Saiou through a window, Edo does the only reasonable thing; he leaps out of the helicopter, curls into a ball, and dives through the glass window. Because stopping to walk through the front door would have taken too long. And speaking of time...the way Edo is acting, you would think that time was very short to stop Saiou, which is true but only from the meta-perspective that there's only 5 episodes left in this season, including this one. From the perspective of the characters, there's in fact all the time in the world; Saiou can't use the Laser Satellite of Doom unless he has both keys, so as long as Judai and Edo stay away from Saiou and hold on tight to the keys, Saiou can't ever fulfill his ambitions. This means that all the tension here is completely and utterly artificial and as such has no effect on the discerning viewing audience. Also, Edo is not bleeding out of every major artery, because Anime. Samejima yells at Edo, but Edo ignores him and continues to run after Saiou. Suddenly, lightning strikes the helicopter. It smashes against the dorm, and Judai, Shou, Kenzan, and Asuka are just randomly walking by when they see it. Also, Asuka looks excessively horrified for no reason; I blame bad animation. They run to the crash site, finding that the Helicopter has been suspended on some vines. Blah blah blah, Samejima tells them where Edo is, and Judai tells Asuka to stay behind and take care of things here. Wow, even I didn't think I could hate Judai this much. Neat. Asuka is left behind to do...nothing, as far as I can discern, and we cut back to Edo running around the Obelisk White dorm, which is inexplicably rather dark.
Edo comes upon Saiou's tarot deck, which conveniently has The Devil already drawn, because subtlety is for losers, and he sees a light shining from behind a panel. The panel opens up, revealing a secret tunnel down. He follows it down, and ends up in a very, very, VERY elaborate room. When exactly did Saiou have this room installed? And the big statue of the lady sculpted? Also, we hear Saiou laughing at this really funny joke, you just had to be there, blah blah blah, Edo pulls out the Bloo-D and finally asks Saiou for the truth. Saiou is all 'hey, that's destiny for you, man', and Edo demands elaboration. So, apparently the Light of Ruin exploded deep in the universe, and ten years ago this tiny piece of it fell to Earth, and for no apparent reason, implanted itself into the Bloo-D card. No, I still don't get why it did this, let's just move on. After DD stole the card and killed Edo's dad, he came to Saiou and wanted him to...forsee Bloo-D's destructive power or something, and leaving aside how DD would even know to go look for Saiou in the first place...oh, right, destiny. That sure is a convenient cop-out for the writers, isn't it? Anyway, this is when the Light of Ruin left the card and entered Saiou, leaving behind just a little husk of itself back in the card. Blah blah blah, Saiou rants about how the Light revealed to him that he needed to rebuild the world, he whines about how unfair things were for him and Mizuchi growing up, and so he must destroy the world to recreate it so that nothing bad like that can ever happen again. So, you know, stock shonen plot #27. If this were Disgaea, even Flonne would openly mock how cliche Saiou is being.
Okay, in this shot Saiou looks like a donkey, rather reducing his dramatic impact, to put it mildly. Blah blah blah, all this destiny talk was much more interesting and fulfilling back in the Seto Kaiba vs. Isis Ishtar duel in Battle City. Edo whines a lot about how apparently he can't be the one to help Saiou for...some reason, and then Edo remembers his childhood promise, and gets over it, I guess. Then Saiou asks for Edo to turn over the key to him, the one that Saiou told him not to give back to him no matter what, and then Judai, Kenzan, and Shou run in, and Judai spells out to Edo that giving the key to Saiou would be very bad. Yes, apparently Edo had no idea what the key was for, and never once bothered to try and find out. Which confirms that Edo is just as stupid as Judai. That is horrifying.
EYECATCH!
So the medical team has just rescued Samejima and the pilot, and Asuka looks to Obelisk White before asking Samejima what's going on, he explains, and Asuka, the skilled and experienced duelist, decides that she'll just sit on her thumb and believe in Judai. Because, you know, actually giving her something to do would just kill the writers. Kill them dead. Back to where the alleged plot is taking place, Judai and Saiou yell at Edo about the key, more transposition of young Saiou in Edo's eyes, and Edo demands that Saiou tell him what happened to the real Saiou. This prompts Saiou to abandon all subtlety, and he starts glowing with the Light of Ruin. He says that he is now the Light of Ruin, and that Edo's destiny has been sealed all along. Edo denies this, and challenges Saiou to a duel for the fate of the key. Judai disagrees, but is quite ineffectual. Blah blah blah, the duel begins. Saiou goes first, and for some reason one of his cards is blank. Putting that off to the side for the moment, Saiou summons Arcana Force III, The Empress. It of course stops in the upright position, which means that every time Edo normal summons a monster, Saiou gets to normal summon one too. Then Saiou sets a card to end his turn. Noise comes out of Judai's noise hole, and then Edo takes his turn. He summons Diamond Guy in defense, which lets Saiou summon a monster from his hand, Arcana Force IV, The Emperor. It also stops upright, so all of Saiou's Arcana Force monsters will gain 500 attack points. Edo then activates Diamond Guy's effect, sending Destiny Draw to the grave to be activated on his next turn. Edo sets a card to end his turn, and why are his legs so spread out? That looks intensely uncomfortable.
Saiou's turn, he summons The Chariot, it gains 500 attack points, and shock of shocks, upright again, not even bothering with waiting for Edo to say "stop". The Chariot attacks and destroys Diamond Guy, so Edo activates Destiny Signal to special summon Defend Guy from his deck in defense mode. Saiou uses The Chariot's effect to special summon Diamond Guy to his side of the field, and now Saiou has four monsters on the field, so he ends his turn. Noise from the peanut gallery, Edo takes his turn, and seriously, Edo, stand with proper posture! Edo activates Destiny Draw from his grave, discarding a Destiny Hero to draw two cards. Then he summons Dunk Guy in defense mode, which activates The Empress's effect, allowing Saiou to sacrifice her and Diamond Guy to summon Arcana Force XVIII, The Moon. It's attack rises to 3300, and once again face-up with no formality. From now on, during his standby phase, Saiou gets to special summon a Moon token to the field. Edo realizes that Saiou's strategy is centered around using The Empress and The Moon to quickly summon high level monsters, and then activates Dunk Guy's effect, sending another D-Hero from his hand to the grave to inflict 500 points of damage to Saiou. Brief outburst from the peanut gallery, and Edo sets a card to end his turn.
Saiou blathers on about fate, and gets to take advantage of Defend Guy's effect to draw another card. Furthermore, he also gets to special summon a Moon Token to the field, and now he will sacrifice both the Moon Token and The Chariot to summon the final arcana Force monster, the last member, Arcana Force XXI, ZA WORUDO! I mean, The World. Lots of bright shiny lights for this summon, and with the Emperor on the field, The World has 3600 attack points. Big shock guys, Saiou gets it upright again! You know, this duel would be a lot more tense if the writers were to play a bit more fairly. Saiou has The Moon and The Emperor destroy Defend Guy and Dunk Guy, respectively, which now leaves Edo open to a direct attack. Saiou has The World attack directly, but now Edo activates his trap card, D-Fortune; when attacked directly, you can remove a D-Hero in the grave from play to negate the attack and end the battle phase. However, Saiou activates The World's effect, sacrificing The Moon and The Emperor to skip Edo's turn! Damn, now there's a boss monster! Saiou draws a card, rants for a bit, and apparently is going to try to hump Edo or something, I do not even know, and Edo has no idea how lucky he is that Saiou didn't draw a monster which he could summon and attack Edo with. Saiou attacks directly with The World for 3100 points of damage...and honestly, Saiou could have ended this right here and now; when he first summoned The World, he could have sacrificed the Moon token and The Moon instead of the Chariot; this would have allowed Saiou to use The Chariot to destroy Dunk Guy and special summon it to his side of the field. Thus, Saiou would have been able to sacrifice Dunk Guy and The Chariot, skipping Edo's turn and leaving him with The Emperor and The World, and together they would have attacked Edo directly for the win. And considering how stupid Saiou's actual victory is, (this would be a spoiler, except that this show is far too predictable for that), this would have been far more preferable.
And...no, no, no. You don't get to make up an extra Arcana Force monster. Even though all aspects of the Tarot, like all aspects of the occult, are fictitious and made up, that doesn't mean you get to screw around with them willy nilly. Also, what is the point of an extra 23rd Arcana Force monster, considering that you haven't even touched half of the major arcana of the tarot. Also, why is that card NOW being filled in? What is the connection between dealing damage to Edo, and that card getting inked in? Never explained! And now Edo drops to his knees and mopes, and now we get Chibi Edo running in the rain with an umbrella, yelling for Saiou. And...that's it! End episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel continues, Saiou summons a tentacle monster, and Saiou is playing both sides, apparently. EPISODE TITLE, EDO, THE FINISHING BLOW! (BLOO-D) card of the week is The World.
Well, plot holes, annoyances, and shoddy duel choreography aside, that wasn't too bad. It won't stay that way for very long.
TITLE SCREEN! THE ULTIMATE ARCANA (THE WORLD) indeed, persona has taught me this lesson quite well.
So the episode proper begins with Samejima flying Edo back to Duel Academia, and we still have no idea how Samejima knew where to find Edo, or for that matter, to even look for him. Seriously, even if Judai and Kenzan had told Samejima that Edo and his boat were gone, that wouldn't be enough for him to desperately fly out and pick him back up. Also, Samejima didn't even know what Edo was doing there, since he just asked Edo that very question. So...why is Samejima doing any of this? To facilitate the plot, in the fashion of a device, so to speak. Oh hey, flashback to material that we just covered in the recap. Redundant much? And now another flashback to Chibi Edo standing at his father's grave. And there's Saiou, out of nowhere, offering Chibi Edo his umbrella. Blah blah blah, the rain does not fall forever and destiny guided me here. Later, Saiou does Tarot reading with Chibi Edo, and says that the upright Hierophant represents Chibi Edo, signifying that he shall be the one to guide Saiou. Specifically, Saiou hopes that Chibi Edo will be able to guide Saiou away from the fate of destruction that he has forseen for himself, and draws The Devil, saying that this represents himself. The Devil signifies temptation and confinement, which does fit Saiou's eventual and utterly pointless establishment of the Association of Light. And then Chibi Edo says something about holding up a really big umbrella, and I'm sure that it's supposed to be cute and precious, but considering that the evil that is supposed to take Saiou over is supposed to be Evil Cosmic Hippy Space Radiation, it's rather difficult to be emotionally invested in any of this.
Back to the present, there are storm clouds above Duel Academia, because that fits in so well with the light motif that is supposedly present in this season. Edo orders the helicopter to land at the Obelisk White dorm, and when he sees Saiou through a window, Edo does the only reasonable thing; he leaps out of the helicopter, curls into a ball, and dives through the glass window. Because stopping to walk through the front door would have taken too long. And speaking of time...the way Edo is acting, you would think that time was very short to stop Saiou, which is true but only from the meta-perspective that there's only 5 episodes left in this season, including this one. From the perspective of the characters, there's in fact all the time in the world; Saiou can't use the Laser Satellite of Doom unless he has both keys, so as long as Judai and Edo stay away from Saiou and hold on tight to the keys, Saiou can't ever fulfill his ambitions. This means that all the tension here is completely and utterly artificial and as such has no effect on the discerning viewing audience. Also, Edo is not bleeding out of every major artery, because Anime. Samejima yells at Edo, but Edo ignores him and continues to run after Saiou. Suddenly, lightning strikes the helicopter. It smashes against the dorm, and Judai, Shou, Kenzan, and Asuka are just randomly walking by when they see it. Also, Asuka looks excessively horrified for no reason; I blame bad animation. They run to the crash site, finding that the Helicopter has been suspended on some vines. Blah blah blah, Samejima tells them where Edo is, and Judai tells Asuka to stay behind and take care of things here. Wow, even I didn't think I could hate Judai this much. Neat. Asuka is left behind to do...nothing, as far as I can discern, and we cut back to Edo running around the Obelisk White dorm, which is inexplicably rather dark.
Edo comes upon Saiou's tarot deck, which conveniently has The Devil already drawn, because subtlety is for losers, and he sees a light shining from behind a panel. The panel opens up, revealing a secret tunnel down. He follows it down, and ends up in a very, very, VERY elaborate room. When exactly did Saiou have this room installed? And the big statue of the lady sculpted? Also, we hear Saiou laughing at this really funny joke, you just had to be there, blah blah blah, Edo pulls out the Bloo-D and finally asks Saiou for the truth. Saiou is all 'hey, that's destiny for you, man', and Edo demands elaboration. So, apparently the Light of Ruin exploded deep in the universe, and ten years ago this tiny piece of it fell to Earth, and for no apparent reason, implanted itself into the Bloo-D card. No, I still don't get why it did this, let's just move on. After DD stole the card and killed Edo's dad, he came to Saiou and wanted him to...forsee Bloo-D's destructive power or something, and leaving aside how DD would even know to go look for Saiou in the first place...oh, right, destiny. That sure is a convenient cop-out for the writers, isn't it? Anyway, this is when the Light of Ruin left the card and entered Saiou, leaving behind just a little husk of itself back in the card. Blah blah blah, Saiou rants about how the Light revealed to him that he needed to rebuild the world, he whines about how unfair things were for him and Mizuchi growing up, and so he must destroy the world to recreate it so that nothing bad like that can ever happen again. So, you know, stock shonen plot #27. If this were Disgaea, even Flonne would openly mock how cliche Saiou is being.
Okay, in this shot Saiou looks like a donkey, rather reducing his dramatic impact, to put it mildly. Blah blah blah, all this destiny talk was much more interesting and fulfilling back in the Seto Kaiba vs. Isis Ishtar duel in Battle City. Edo whines a lot about how apparently he can't be the one to help Saiou for...some reason, and then Edo remembers his childhood promise, and gets over it, I guess. Then Saiou asks for Edo to turn over the key to him, the one that Saiou told him not to give back to him no matter what, and then Judai, Kenzan, and Shou run in, and Judai spells out to Edo that giving the key to Saiou would be very bad. Yes, apparently Edo had no idea what the key was for, and never once bothered to try and find out. Which confirms that Edo is just as stupid as Judai. That is horrifying.
EYECATCH!
So the medical team has just rescued Samejima and the pilot, and Asuka looks to Obelisk White before asking Samejima what's going on, he explains, and Asuka, the skilled and experienced duelist, decides that she'll just sit on her thumb and believe in Judai. Because, you know, actually giving her something to do would just kill the writers. Kill them dead. Back to where the alleged plot is taking place, Judai and Saiou yell at Edo about the key, more transposition of young Saiou in Edo's eyes, and Edo demands that Saiou tell him what happened to the real Saiou. This prompts Saiou to abandon all subtlety, and he starts glowing with the Light of Ruin. He says that he is now the Light of Ruin, and that Edo's destiny has been sealed all along. Edo denies this, and challenges Saiou to a duel for the fate of the key. Judai disagrees, but is quite ineffectual. Blah blah blah, the duel begins. Saiou goes first, and for some reason one of his cards is blank. Putting that off to the side for the moment, Saiou summons Arcana Force III, The Empress. It of course stops in the upright position, which means that every time Edo normal summons a monster, Saiou gets to normal summon one too. Then Saiou sets a card to end his turn. Noise comes out of Judai's noise hole, and then Edo takes his turn. He summons Diamond Guy in defense, which lets Saiou summon a monster from his hand, Arcana Force IV, The Emperor. It also stops upright, so all of Saiou's Arcana Force monsters will gain 500 attack points. Edo then activates Diamond Guy's effect, sending Destiny Draw to the grave to be activated on his next turn. Edo sets a card to end his turn, and why are his legs so spread out? That looks intensely uncomfortable.
Saiou's turn, he summons The Chariot, it gains 500 attack points, and shock of shocks, upright again, not even bothering with waiting for Edo to say "stop". The Chariot attacks and destroys Diamond Guy, so Edo activates Destiny Signal to special summon Defend Guy from his deck in defense mode. Saiou uses The Chariot's effect to special summon Diamond Guy to his side of the field, and now Saiou has four monsters on the field, so he ends his turn. Noise from the peanut gallery, Edo takes his turn, and seriously, Edo, stand with proper posture! Edo activates Destiny Draw from his grave, discarding a Destiny Hero to draw two cards. Then he summons Dunk Guy in defense mode, which activates The Empress's effect, allowing Saiou to sacrifice her and Diamond Guy to summon Arcana Force XVIII, The Moon. It's attack rises to 3300, and once again face-up with no formality. From now on, during his standby phase, Saiou gets to special summon a Moon token to the field. Edo realizes that Saiou's strategy is centered around using The Empress and The Moon to quickly summon high level monsters, and then activates Dunk Guy's effect, sending another D-Hero from his hand to the grave to inflict 500 points of damage to Saiou. Brief outburst from the peanut gallery, and Edo sets a card to end his turn.
Saiou blathers on about fate, and gets to take advantage of Defend Guy's effect to draw another card. Furthermore, he also gets to special summon a Moon Token to the field, and now he will sacrifice both the Moon Token and The Chariot to summon the final arcana Force monster, the last member, Arcana Force XXI, ZA WORUDO! I mean, The World. Lots of bright shiny lights for this summon, and with the Emperor on the field, The World has 3600 attack points. Big shock guys, Saiou gets it upright again! You know, this duel would be a lot more tense if the writers were to play a bit more fairly. Saiou has The Moon and The Emperor destroy Defend Guy and Dunk Guy, respectively, which now leaves Edo open to a direct attack. Saiou has The World attack directly, but now Edo activates his trap card, D-Fortune; when attacked directly, you can remove a D-Hero in the grave from play to negate the attack and end the battle phase. However, Saiou activates The World's effect, sacrificing The Moon and The Emperor to skip Edo's turn! Damn, now there's a boss monster! Saiou draws a card, rants for a bit, and apparently is going to try to hump Edo or something, I do not even know, and Edo has no idea how lucky he is that Saiou didn't draw a monster which he could summon and attack Edo with. Saiou attacks directly with The World for 3100 points of damage...and honestly, Saiou could have ended this right here and now; when he first summoned The World, he could have sacrificed the Moon token and The Moon instead of the Chariot; this would have allowed Saiou to use The Chariot to destroy Dunk Guy and special summon it to his side of the field. Thus, Saiou would have been able to sacrifice Dunk Guy and The Chariot, skipping Edo's turn and leaving him with The Emperor and The World, and together they would have attacked Edo directly for the win. And considering how stupid Saiou's actual victory is, (this would be a spoiler, except that this show is far too predictable for that), this would have been far more preferable.
And...no, no, no. You don't get to make up an extra Arcana Force monster. Even though all aspects of the Tarot, like all aspects of the occult, are fictitious and made up, that doesn't mean you get to screw around with them willy nilly. Also, what is the point of an extra 23rd Arcana Force monster, considering that you haven't even touched half of the major arcana of the tarot. Also, why is that card NOW being filled in? What is the connection between dealing damage to Edo, and that card getting inked in? Never explained! And now Edo drops to his knees and mopes, and now we get Chibi Edo running in the rain with an umbrella, yelling for Saiou. And...that's it! End episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel continues, Saiou summons a tentacle monster, and Saiou is playing both sides, apparently. EPISODE TITLE, EDO, THE FINISHING BLOW! (BLOO-D) card of the week is The World.
Well, plot holes, annoyances, and shoddy duel choreography aside, that wasn't too bad. It won't stay that way for very long.
