Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 102
Oct. 27th, 2010 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cypsiman2Oh hey, we've got subs again. That...doesn't make this show any better, just mildly less inconvenient. In any event, we once again open up with a recap of how the last episode ended, which is totally unnecessary, and only exists to pad for time.
TITLE SCREEN! THE WAVE OF LIGHT VS. THE NEO-SPACIANS oh goody, more adventures with the hippy-space animal friends.
So Saiou is still cackling, and Edo collapses to his knees. Judai walks up to Edo, Edo says that's not the real Saiou anymore, tells Judai to carry the torch and save both the world and the real Saiou and then...he turns into sand. I...do not even know why the writers chose to have this happen, much less how it could conceivably happen in the context of this show. The closest to anything like this happening in the original series was in the Memory World Arc, when the Thief King Bakura turns to sand and dies, and that's more symbolic of the fact that his role in the game had been played out then anything. This...is just random. Saiou says something about Edo having outlived his usefulness, which puzzles me since Edo never did anything useful for the Light of Ruin, so, you know, Saiou's line doesn't make any sense. Then Saiou points to that big statue in the room, and uses telekinesis to take Edo's key and put it on one of the hands of the statue. You know, as opposed to just taking it. Suddenly, Edo reappears in the statue's other hand. Also, his hair is no longer dyed white. Which makes both his turning to sand and his hair turning white both unexplained and utterly pointless. Saiou explains that the arms form the scales of judgment, balancing the two keys against Edo's life, and if the stopper is removed, Edo will die. I'm not even going to try to go into the physics fail here. Suddenly, Lava! That has to be a building code violation. As Saiou explains, Judai can either toss in his key to keep Edo out of the lava, or he can let Edo die.
Suddenly, explosions! Explosions rock the island, and for some reason the writers try to act like the Genex Tournament is some sort of war zone. Samejima announces that the time has come for the finale of the Genex tournament, where the two remaining duelists will face each other. Then we get an internal monologue about how Samejima must see the Genex tournament through to the end, but I have no idea why, considering it has been completely irrelevant to everything, including itself. Now we get scenes of Association of Light duelists running around, blowing stuff up apparently, and comic relief is attempted with Chronos and Napoleon, and fails. Also, at some Manjoume got a bunch of custom banners set up. Yes, Manjoume's rallying everyone against what remains of the Association of Light. If only the Association of Light had ever done anything relevant aside from just standing there and talking about how great the Light is, then maybe I could care. But enough of that nonsense, back to the other nonsense! Kenzan is confident that the lava is just solid vision, Shou's not so sure, and suddenly, Lynd and Prince Prince are there for no reason at all! Seriously, there is nothing for them to do here. Blah blah blah, Saiou snaps his fingers and Edo starts slipping to his doom. Now, because Judai is a moron, he does not threaten to either break the key or throw it into the lava unless Saiou lets Edo go and face him in a duel. And man, are they dragging this out. Seriously, we know how its going to end, enough with the false tension! Yes, Judai goes and tosses the second key onto the other arm, which somehow balances against Edo's weight, making me wonder how heavy those keys are.
Saiou mocks Judai for valuing one person over that of the whole world, blah blah blah, and once again the Halloween Ghost Prop of Evil comes out to play. Then Judai starts hearing a voice in his head, a voice that redundantly re-explains everything all over again. The voice, by the way, is Neos, who has no mouth. How that's supposed to work, I don't know. I mean, it's not like Neos is an Andalite who communicates through thought speech or anything like that. Seriously, there is no new information here, just a reminder that only Judai can save the entire universe from Hippy Space Destruction. Judai challenges Saiou, as I'm not going to waste my time calling him 'the host of the light of ruin/destruction' every five seconds, to a duel, and if Saiou loses he must give up everything. Saiou points out that since Judai already gave him the second key, there's no reason for him to waste time dueling Judai, and Judai realizes that he's right. This is supposed to be an instance of Saiou being Dangerously Genre-Savvy, but if the extent of your savvy is your ability to outwit Judai, it's not a particularly dangerous savvy, now is it? Not to mention the fact that up to this point, Saiou has not been the least bit genre savvy at all, performing villainous actions and forming cults for no better reason then that's script said he was supposed to do. So no, I'm not impressed by this. At all. Still, the fact that even Shou and Kenzan can't defend Judai's idiocy is a pretty nice bit of consolation.
So Saiou reaches out with the Light to grab the keys, and from out of nowhere, Neos shows up. Yeah, he just, shoots down from the stars to keep Saiou from grabbing the keys. Why he didn't intervene earlier or point out that Judai could have threatened to have destroyed the key, I've no idea. Also, again, if Neos and Judai are supposed to represent the Gentle Power of Dark Justice or whatever gobbledygook the writers are going on about, then why does Neos appear in a big beam of light that nearly blinds everyone? Some consistency between theme and image would not go amiss, writers. Yeah, Neos says he'll guard the keys so that Judai can duel Saiou...one wonders why Neos doesn't just beat up Saiou himself, but apparently that would be too much "Dangerously Genre Savvy" for one episode. Badly animated and brief beam-o-war, and Saiou insists that this too was foreseen, which makes exactly as much sense as it sounds. So yeah, we'll get our precious duel. Elsewhere! Hell Kaiser Ryou defeated some schmuck in 5 turns, and a figure emerges from some bushes. She's wearing a mask, but there's something very familiar about this young lady. Also, something very different about her. I can't put my finger on what either of these things are, but I'm sure they'll come to me in due time. She challenges Hell Kaiser, he says she's got no chance, but she says this is her dream. So Hell Kaiser Ryou just gives her his medal, saying that the Genex Tournament is kid's playground to him, and can't provide him the victory he seeks. Back to the school building, guess what? Yep, Manjoume's the Genex champion, having finished off the Association of Light, like that matters in the least. Also, Manjoume is being carried on a palanquin. Remember, it was wrong of Misawa to want people to praise his name and cheer him on, stroking his ego.
Asuka shows up from out of nowhere, and points out that Judai did technically beat Manjoume, so how can he be the champion. He mutters to her that that duel was a no-count, which would be bull, except that this tournament doesn't matter in the least, so I find it hard to care about things like that. Blah blah blah, this scene is vaguely offensive to Asuka's character but it's such a low level that it too fails to get a rise from me, and before Samejima can declare Manjoume the winner, Masked Girl shows up. She tosses down the GX medal that Hell Kaiser gave her, I'm just assuming that, Chronos asks who she is, and Manjoume tells her to take off her mask. But before she'll do that, she has a question; Mr. Samejima, what exactly does the winner of the GX tournament receive? "A kiss from Ms. Tome," everyone in the school face-faults, "is not the only prize!" Hey, a rare moment of genuine comedy! Ladies and gentlemen, a joke that actually works! But yeah, the real prize is any one thing within Samejima's power. Manjoume wants to get back into Obelisk Blue, while Mask Girl wants to get into Osiris Red. Bwuh? Samejima points out that winning the Genex tournament would be more then enough to straightaway qualify for Obelisk Blue, but if that's what she wants, Samejima will give her that. Satisfied, she takes off her mask, and ZOMG TEH REI! I mean, yes, it is Rei Saotome, that grade-school girl back from season one who dressed up like a boy to go chase after Ryou. Well, that answers the question of what's familiar about her, but there's something different about her. Hmmm...Oh well, I'm sure the show will point it out for me, and I'll feel like a real lunk-head afterward. So yeah, while Judai's dueling for the fate of the world, this much more interesting duel will be going on.
EYECATCH!
Judai, not understanding the concept of primal cosmic evil force, demands to know why Saiou wants to destroy the world. Saiou's all 'Hey, everyone wants to destroy something, I'm just fulfilling fate', and Judai's all 'nuh uh, the Hippy Space Dolphin said other wise' and...can we please just skip this, and go back to Rei vs. Manjoume? Please? Anyway, Saiou tires of trying to get through Judai's insanely thick skull, and now they duel. Saiou lets Judai take the first turn, Judai summons Bubbleman, draws two cards with its anime effect, he equips it with Bubbleshot, and ends his turn. Saiou's turn, and he summons The Chariot. Since Fate is on Saiou's side, the card lands upright regardless of what Judai would like, he attacks Bubbleman, Judai destroys Bubbleshot to keep Bubbleman from being destroyed and reducing his damage to zero, but of course Saiou knew that would happen, so he activates Foresight of Fate; at the end of a battle phase where he failed to destroy the opponent's monster, this lets him special summon a level-4 or lower Arcana Force monster from his hand. So out comes Arcana Force VI, The Lovers in defense. Shock of shocks, he gets the upright effect, and ends his turn. Noise from the Peanut Gallery, and Judai takes his turn. He plays E-Emergency Call to add Featherman from his deck to his hand, and now he plays Double Fusion, prompting lots of blather that I'm just going to gloss over in favor of explaining the card effect; by paying 500 life points, he can perform two fusion summons this turn. So first he fuses Featherman and Burst Lady into Flame Wingman, and then Flame Wingman and Sparkman into Shining Flare Wingman. With four elemental Heroes in the grave, that means its attack power rises to 3700. He has it attack and destroy The Chariot, and between battle damage and its effect, it does 3700 points of damage to Saiou, leaving him with just 300 life points.
Saiou, rather then being disheartened by this, laughs with joy at Judai's destructive impulse. And now he has a very silly face, and I can't take him seriously. I mean, I never took him seriously to begin with, but if I had been, this is when I would have stopped. Blah blah blah, humans desire destruction, the universe desires destruction, its the cycle of destruction and rebirth, the imperfect universe shall give way to the perfect universe of White Light, and if Saiou ever planned on saying anything the least bit interesting, now would be a good time. No? You sure about that Saiou? All right, if you say so. Judai switches Bubbleman to defense, and then summons Air Hummingbird from his hand, using its effect to recover 1500 life points, and ends his turn. Note that even Saiou is WTF when he sees the visual representation of Air Hummingbird's effect. Saiou's turn, and now he plays his Field Spell card, Light Barrier. This, like the Arcana Force monsters, has upright and reverse effect, and Saiou uses his power over fate to make it stop in the upright position. A barrier of light surrounds them and spreads out, and Saiou explains that from now on all non-Arcana Force monsters will have their effects negated, so Shining Flare Wingman's attack drops to 2500. Also, Neos is in pain, despite the fact that he's not even technically an effect monster, setting aside the constant abuse of Contact Fusion. Yes, somehow the Light Barrier also affects Duel Spirits, Neos whines about how he can't use his powers within the barrier, and then suddenly Saiou takes over Prince Prince again! That really doesn't make sense, considering that Judai defeated Prince Prince to release him from Saiou's control just a few episodes ago. But hey, since Saiou's lost all of his cronies at this point, we've got to bring in someone to facilitate the rest of the plot, no matter how many holes it tears or how little sense it makes.
So Saiou snatches the keys, sends them to Prince Prince, and tells him to go blow up the world. Oh, and now Edo is going to die again. Oh wait, never mind, Kenzan rushes to rescue him in a scene that violates the corpse of physics. Whatever. Lynd tries to stop Prince Prince, but is stopped by Saiou. Now Kenzan will go chase after Prince Prince, and he'll be joined by Lynd. Saiou laughs and goes on an evil rant, Neos begs Judai to win and destroy the Light Barrier, Judai swears he'll stop Saiou, and then the Halloween Ghost Prop of Evil decides to show up again for the very end of the episode. End episode.
NEXT TIME! blah blah blah the duel continues, blah blah blah destiny is not pre-determined blah blah blah I still don't care. EPISODE TITLE, JUDAI'S PINCH, THE FIELD SPELL LIGHT BARRIER. card of the week is light barrier.
You know, if Judai could have gotten Bubbleman into the grave, Shining Flare Wingman would have had 4000 attack points, and with its effect Judai would have won right then and there. A shame that Saiou was too clever for that. Would have been a nice change of pace
TITLE SCREEN! THE WAVE OF LIGHT VS. THE NEO-SPACIANS oh goody, more adventures with the hippy-space animal friends.
So Saiou is still cackling, and Edo collapses to his knees. Judai walks up to Edo, Edo says that's not the real Saiou anymore, tells Judai to carry the torch and save both the world and the real Saiou and then...he turns into sand. I...do not even know why the writers chose to have this happen, much less how it could conceivably happen in the context of this show. The closest to anything like this happening in the original series was in the Memory World Arc, when the Thief King Bakura turns to sand and dies, and that's more symbolic of the fact that his role in the game had been played out then anything. This...is just random. Saiou says something about Edo having outlived his usefulness, which puzzles me since Edo never did anything useful for the Light of Ruin, so, you know, Saiou's line doesn't make any sense. Then Saiou points to that big statue in the room, and uses telekinesis to take Edo's key and put it on one of the hands of the statue. You know, as opposed to just taking it. Suddenly, Edo reappears in the statue's other hand. Also, his hair is no longer dyed white. Which makes both his turning to sand and his hair turning white both unexplained and utterly pointless. Saiou explains that the arms form the scales of judgment, balancing the two keys against Edo's life, and if the stopper is removed, Edo will die. I'm not even going to try to go into the physics fail here. Suddenly, Lava! That has to be a building code violation. As Saiou explains, Judai can either toss in his key to keep Edo out of the lava, or he can let Edo die.
Suddenly, explosions! Explosions rock the island, and for some reason the writers try to act like the Genex Tournament is some sort of war zone. Samejima announces that the time has come for the finale of the Genex tournament, where the two remaining duelists will face each other. Then we get an internal monologue about how Samejima must see the Genex tournament through to the end, but I have no idea why, considering it has been completely irrelevant to everything, including itself. Now we get scenes of Association of Light duelists running around, blowing stuff up apparently, and comic relief is attempted with Chronos and Napoleon, and fails. Also, at some Manjoume got a bunch of custom banners set up. Yes, Manjoume's rallying everyone against what remains of the Association of Light. If only the Association of Light had ever done anything relevant aside from just standing there and talking about how great the Light is, then maybe I could care. But enough of that nonsense, back to the other nonsense! Kenzan is confident that the lava is just solid vision, Shou's not so sure, and suddenly, Lynd and Prince Prince are there for no reason at all! Seriously, there is nothing for them to do here. Blah blah blah, Saiou snaps his fingers and Edo starts slipping to his doom. Now, because Judai is a moron, he does not threaten to either break the key or throw it into the lava unless Saiou lets Edo go and face him in a duel. And man, are they dragging this out. Seriously, we know how its going to end, enough with the false tension! Yes, Judai goes and tosses the second key onto the other arm, which somehow balances against Edo's weight, making me wonder how heavy those keys are.
Saiou mocks Judai for valuing one person over that of the whole world, blah blah blah, and once again the Halloween Ghost Prop of Evil comes out to play. Then Judai starts hearing a voice in his head, a voice that redundantly re-explains everything all over again. The voice, by the way, is Neos, who has no mouth. How that's supposed to work, I don't know. I mean, it's not like Neos is an Andalite who communicates through thought speech or anything like that. Seriously, there is no new information here, just a reminder that only Judai can save the entire universe from Hippy Space Destruction. Judai challenges Saiou, as I'm not going to waste my time calling him 'the host of the light of ruin/destruction' every five seconds, to a duel, and if Saiou loses he must give up everything. Saiou points out that since Judai already gave him the second key, there's no reason for him to waste time dueling Judai, and Judai realizes that he's right. This is supposed to be an instance of Saiou being Dangerously Genre-Savvy, but if the extent of your savvy is your ability to outwit Judai, it's not a particularly dangerous savvy, now is it? Not to mention the fact that up to this point, Saiou has not been the least bit genre savvy at all, performing villainous actions and forming cults for no better reason then that's script said he was supposed to do. So no, I'm not impressed by this. At all. Still, the fact that even Shou and Kenzan can't defend Judai's idiocy is a pretty nice bit of consolation.
So Saiou reaches out with the Light to grab the keys, and from out of nowhere, Neos shows up. Yeah, he just, shoots down from the stars to keep Saiou from grabbing the keys. Why he didn't intervene earlier or point out that Judai could have threatened to have destroyed the key, I've no idea. Also, again, if Neos and Judai are supposed to represent the Gentle Power of Dark Justice or whatever gobbledygook the writers are going on about, then why does Neos appear in a big beam of light that nearly blinds everyone? Some consistency between theme and image would not go amiss, writers. Yeah, Neos says he'll guard the keys so that Judai can duel Saiou...one wonders why Neos doesn't just beat up Saiou himself, but apparently that would be too much "Dangerously Genre Savvy" for one episode. Badly animated and brief beam-o-war, and Saiou insists that this too was foreseen, which makes exactly as much sense as it sounds. So yeah, we'll get our precious duel. Elsewhere! Hell Kaiser Ryou defeated some schmuck in 5 turns, and a figure emerges from some bushes. She's wearing a mask, but there's something very familiar about this young lady. Also, something very different about her. I can't put my finger on what either of these things are, but I'm sure they'll come to me in due time. She challenges Hell Kaiser, he says she's got no chance, but she says this is her dream. So Hell Kaiser Ryou just gives her his medal, saying that the Genex Tournament is kid's playground to him, and can't provide him the victory he seeks. Back to the school building, guess what? Yep, Manjoume's the Genex champion, having finished off the Association of Light, like that matters in the least. Also, Manjoume is being carried on a palanquin. Remember, it was wrong of Misawa to want people to praise his name and cheer him on, stroking his ego.
Asuka shows up from out of nowhere, and points out that Judai did technically beat Manjoume, so how can he be the champion. He mutters to her that that duel was a no-count, which would be bull, except that this tournament doesn't matter in the least, so I find it hard to care about things like that. Blah blah blah, this scene is vaguely offensive to Asuka's character but it's such a low level that it too fails to get a rise from me, and before Samejima can declare Manjoume the winner, Masked Girl shows up. She tosses down the GX medal that Hell Kaiser gave her, I'm just assuming that, Chronos asks who she is, and Manjoume tells her to take off her mask. But before she'll do that, she has a question; Mr. Samejima, what exactly does the winner of the GX tournament receive? "A kiss from Ms. Tome," everyone in the school face-faults, "is not the only prize!" Hey, a rare moment of genuine comedy! Ladies and gentlemen, a joke that actually works! But yeah, the real prize is any one thing within Samejima's power. Manjoume wants to get back into Obelisk Blue, while Mask Girl wants to get into Osiris Red. Bwuh? Samejima points out that winning the Genex tournament would be more then enough to straightaway qualify for Obelisk Blue, but if that's what she wants, Samejima will give her that. Satisfied, she takes off her mask, and ZOMG TEH REI! I mean, yes, it is Rei Saotome, that grade-school girl back from season one who dressed up like a boy to go chase after Ryou. Well, that answers the question of what's familiar about her, but there's something different about her. Hmmm...Oh well, I'm sure the show will point it out for me, and I'll feel like a real lunk-head afterward. So yeah, while Judai's dueling for the fate of the world, this much more interesting duel will be going on.
EYECATCH!
Judai, not understanding the concept of primal cosmic evil force, demands to know why Saiou wants to destroy the world. Saiou's all 'Hey, everyone wants to destroy something, I'm just fulfilling fate', and Judai's all 'nuh uh, the Hippy Space Dolphin said other wise' and...can we please just skip this, and go back to Rei vs. Manjoume? Please? Anyway, Saiou tires of trying to get through Judai's insanely thick skull, and now they duel. Saiou lets Judai take the first turn, Judai summons Bubbleman, draws two cards with its anime effect, he equips it with Bubbleshot, and ends his turn. Saiou's turn, and he summons The Chariot. Since Fate is on Saiou's side, the card lands upright regardless of what Judai would like, he attacks Bubbleman, Judai destroys Bubbleshot to keep Bubbleman from being destroyed and reducing his damage to zero, but of course Saiou knew that would happen, so he activates Foresight of Fate; at the end of a battle phase where he failed to destroy the opponent's monster, this lets him special summon a level-4 or lower Arcana Force monster from his hand. So out comes Arcana Force VI, The Lovers in defense. Shock of shocks, he gets the upright effect, and ends his turn. Noise from the Peanut Gallery, and Judai takes his turn. He plays E-Emergency Call to add Featherman from his deck to his hand, and now he plays Double Fusion, prompting lots of blather that I'm just going to gloss over in favor of explaining the card effect; by paying 500 life points, he can perform two fusion summons this turn. So first he fuses Featherman and Burst Lady into Flame Wingman, and then Flame Wingman and Sparkman into Shining Flare Wingman. With four elemental Heroes in the grave, that means its attack power rises to 3700. He has it attack and destroy The Chariot, and between battle damage and its effect, it does 3700 points of damage to Saiou, leaving him with just 300 life points.
Saiou, rather then being disheartened by this, laughs with joy at Judai's destructive impulse. And now he has a very silly face, and I can't take him seriously. I mean, I never took him seriously to begin with, but if I had been, this is when I would have stopped. Blah blah blah, humans desire destruction, the universe desires destruction, its the cycle of destruction and rebirth, the imperfect universe shall give way to the perfect universe of White Light, and if Saiou ever planned on saying anything the least bit interesting, now would be a good time. No? You sure about that Saiou? All right, if you say so. Judai switches Bubbleman to defense, and then summons Air Hummingbird from his hand, using its effect to recover 1500 life points, and ends his turn. Note that even Saiou is WTF when he sees the visual representation of Air Hummingbird's effect. Saiou's turn, and now he plays his Field Spell card, Light Barrier. This, like the Arcana Force monsters, has upright and reverse effect, and Saiou uses his power over fate to make it stop in the upright position. A barrier of light surrounds them and spreads out, and Saiou explains that from now on all non-Arcana Force monsters will have their effects negated, so Shining Flare Wingman's attack drops to 2500. Also, Neos is in pain, despite the fact that he's not even technically an effect monster, setting aside the constant abuse of Contact Fusion. Yes, somehow the Light Barrier also affects Duel Spirits, Neos whines about how he can't use his powers within the barrier, and then suddenly Saiou takes over Prince Prince again! That really doesn't make sense, considering that Judai defeated Prince Prince to release him from Saiou's control just a few episodes ago. But hey, since Saiou's lost all of his cronies at this point, we've got to bring in someone to facilitate the rest of the plot, no matter how many holes it tears or how little sense it makes.
So Saiou snatches the keys, sends them to Prince Prince, and tells him to go blow up the world. Oh, and now Edo is going to die again. Oh wait, never mind, Kenzan rushes to rescue him in a scene that violates the corpse of physics. Whatever. Lynd tries to stop Prince Prince, but is stopped by Saiou. Now Kenzan will go chase after Prince Prince, and he'll be joined by Lynd. Saiou laughs and goes on an evil rant, Neos begs Judai to win and destroy the Light Barrier, Judai swears he'll stop Saiou, and then the Halloween Ghost Prop of Evil decides to show up again for the very end of the episode. End episode.
NEXT TIME! blah blah blah the duel continues, blah blah blah destiny is not pre-determined blah blah blah I still don't care. EPISODE TITLE, JUDAI'S PINCH, THE FIELD SPELL LIGHT BARRIER. card of the week is light barrier.
You know, if Judai could have gotten Bubbleman into the grave, Shining Flare Wingman would have had 4000 attack points, and with its effect Judai would have won right then and there. A shame that Saiou was too clever for that. Would have been a nice change of pace
