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Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 118
It's just a straight recap of the end of the last episode. Nothing new to say about that.
TITLE SCREEN! THE TERROR! VENOMINOM THE POISONOUS SERPENT KING the boredom, judai tediously summons neos.
Seriously, these are some really subpar subs to be working from, almost on the level of Hong Kong subs. Thank you 4Kids, for deciding to invoke copyright now, of all times. PROFESSOR COBRA brags, and Demon Eye turns to watch the monitor, and it speaks to PROFESSOR COBRA with the male voice, telling him to keep tormenting Judai, and his wish will be granted. Judai takes his turn, and plays Fusion, sending Sparkman and Edgeman to the grave to summon Plasma Viceman. There are some significant differences between Plasma Viceman in the anime, and the one in real life. The real life one has 2600 attack points, as opposed to 2800 attack points, and you can discard a card in your hand to destroy an attack position monster your opponent controls. But Judai's using the anime one, so he goes ahead and attacks, destroying Venom Snake for 1600 points of damage. Noise from the peanut gallery, and PROFESSOR COBRA says that Judai's monster won't last long in this field. First, he activates Snake Whistle; when a reptile monster you control is destroyed, you can special summon a level-four or lower reptile from your deck. Furthermore, he also activates Damage Equals Reptile, allowing him to special summon a reptile from his deck with attack power equal to the damage he just took. Thus, he special summons the 1600 attack power Venom Boa, and the level-4 Venom Serpent. And now it is the end phase, so a Venom Counter gets placed on Plasma Viceman, reducing its attack power by 500, noise from the peanut gallery, and PROFESSOR COBRA takes his turn. He uses Venom Serpent's effect to add another Venom Counter to Plasma Viceman, while Venom Boa's effect lets him place two venom counters onto Plasma Viceman, leaving the mighty hero with a paltry 800 attack points. Seriously, shut up Peanut Gallery, you're not Anzu, you don't know how to do this.
But in any event, now that PROFESSOR COBRA has used the effects of his snakes, he goes ahead and sacrifices them to summon Venominon the King of Venomous Serpents. Oh, and it has a dark aura, and when Johan looks through Ruby Carbuncle's tail, he can see that same aura around Cobra. Way to get the heroes up to speed on shit we already knew, u guis. Anyway, Venominon's attack power is equal to the number of reptiles in PROFESSOR COBRA'S grave times 500, so that gives it a total attack power of 1500. Venominon attacks and destroys Plasma Viceman for 700 points of damage, sets a card, and ends his turn. Then Johan starts making noise, demanding to know about the spirit he sees around PROFESSOR COBRA and what he's really planning. PROFESSOR COBRA tries to claim that he isn't planning anything for no discernible reason, and of course no one's buying it. Okay, now he's coming clean, saying that he's trying to create a miracle, using 'that person's' power, and now that he's pulled his sleeve back, the idiot squad finally picks up on the fact that he's not wearing a glove. PROFESSOR COBRA then explains how in the past, he was in the Special Force Army of a Country. Wow, a country? I never would have guessed! Anyway, his group was sent on a secret search mission, but for what they weren't told. That seems asinine and stupid, how are they supposed to search for something if they don't know what they're looking for? Over to Amon Garam, he asks the Demon Eye if it was what PROFESSOR COBRA had been sent to look for. It does not respond, and PROFESSOR COBRA continues his story. The helicopter is struck by lightning, crashes, and COBRA was the sole survivor. He decided to go ahead and continue the mission, and apparently he has a PDA that shows him where the target is. Which would make it a retrieval mission, not a search. That's just nitpicking though. He reaches the spot, which is a crater, and that is a very goofy looking gas mask. He goes in, and finds a severed demonic hand.
It crawls up to him and speaks to him with the child's voice, begging for help and saying it will help him in turn. COBRA takes off the very silly gas mask, asks what the demonic talking hand is talking about as opposed to just shooting it, and even when it talks about the darkness in COBRA'S heart, he still doesn't shoot it. Someone did not read Faustus. Judai and Amon react at the same time, and back in the flash back, the demonic hand makes the glowing naked spirit boy appear. Again, clothes, put them on. COBRA turns to the boy, and calls him Rick. He walks up to touch the phantasm, and it disappears into a thousand sparkles. PROFESSOR COBRA explains that Rick was an angel who saved his life, and so we get an earlier flashback, before the first flashback's even had a chance to finish. Wheeeee! COBRA'S in a warzone, receives orders to fall back, and he spots a baby, in a little baby basket, just lying in the middle of a pile of burned out rubble. CONTRIVENCE! He runs to the baby, and there is an explosion where he was, and so COBRA believes that this child saved his life. Flash ahead to the kid getting his first duel monster cards, COBRA tells him to listen to the nanny, and then a light breeze blows away all the cards into the street, because this kid has the weakest grip ever it would seem. The kid runs out into the street, and from out of fucking nowhere, he is run over by a goddamn bus! Also, there is profoundly weird about how this scene is set-up. Basically, the side of the street that COBRA and his son are on has no sidewalk...but the other side does. What I would give to be a fly on the wall of that urban planning meeting. Seriously, that is just so weird, and I don't know why it's there. And no, that bus can't be there to pick up Professor Cobra, it's facing the wrong way for that. Thus, what should be a tragic Start of Darkness is instead both hilarious and confusing at the same time.
EYECATCH!
Back to COBRA and his meet-up with the Demon Hand, and still speaking with the child voice, it says it knows how much COBRA wants to see his son again, so if he'll just please help it, cut to Demon Eye and Amon, cut to Judai and company, and Johan is for some reason the one leading moral charge against what PROFESSOR COBRA is doing. Seriously, we're not going to go with an established character that we would care about? We're going to go with the blank, vapid, dull, uninteresting sparkly new guy? Okay...and yeah, PROFESSOR COBRA doesn't give a shit what happens to anyone else, so long as he gets his son back. Remember, the villain is the one who doesn't care about the consequences of his actions so long as his selfish desires are fulfilled. Blah blah blah, the dead don't come back to life, honest, and Kenzan whispers to Shou that they should just take PROFESSOR COBRA down by force, rather then indulging in this duel. Yes, go ahead, try and assault the giant muscle man who is also a trained soldier and is empowered by an incredibly powerful demonic spirit. Please, do so. Just you two, no one else, that's how much confidence I have in your abilities. Ah, the Demon Eye does not approve, so it summons a mess of real vines and real snakes. Kenzan thinks that they're just solid vision, but Jim is not so stupid, and he sends in Karen to save Shou and Kenzan. Ahh, they don't believe in Shou and Kenzan the way I do. Nuts. PROFESSOR COBRA proclaims that this is but a small sample of the power that "that person" can bring, and no one shall interfere. Blah blah blah, shit we already know, and the child voice really wants Judai to suffer. Now, don't get me wrong, I want Judai to suffer more than is humanly possible, but I'd still like to know why this Demon seems to have it in for Judai. And now Judai finally takes his turn. He summons Bubbleman, draws two cards with its anime effect, equips it with Bubblerod, which raises its attack power by 800 and lets him draw a card when he gets destroyed, and then he plays R-Right Justice, letting him destroy Venom Swamp.
However, PROFESSOR COBRA was prepared for such a tactic, and activates his trap card Order of the Serpent Lord, discarding a Venom monster to negate Judai's spell card. This also means that Venominon gains another 500 attack points, which means Judai would have been much better off attacking first, and then activating his spell card. But, Judai didn't, because he's not a great duelist no matter how much the show insists otherwise. Judai sets a card to end his turn, Venom Swamp's effect kicks in, and PROFESSOR COBRA attacks and destroys Bubbleman for 900 points of damage, which lets Judai draw a card. Then Judai activates A Hero Emerges, which is the wrong timing, you activate that when the opponent declares their attack, not after they've blown up your monster. Anyway, no points for guessing that Judai summons Neos, and Venom Swamp's effect kicks in at the end of PROFESSOR COBRA'S turn, reducing Neos's attack power to the same as Venominon's. Judai's turn again, he summons Aqua Dolphin, and then he plays the brand new, no one will ever play in real life even though it was released, Neos Extend. This lets Judai sacrifice a Neo-Spacian for a trivially stronger version of itself from his fusion deck. So Aqua Dolphin becomes Marine Dolphin, and Judai performs Contact Fusion for Marine Neos, which has 2800 attack points. Lots of oohs and ahhs from the Peanut Gallery, and Marine Neos's effect allows it to destroy one random card in the opponent's hand per turn. This is of course another Venom Snake, so Venominon's attack power rises again. But Marine Neos is still marginally stronger, so he attacks and destroys Venominon for 300 points of damage. But, PROFESSOR COBRA is not put out by this, revealing that when it is destroyed, Venominon can be special summoned back from the grave by removing another Reptile in the grave from play. Blah blah blah, Demon Eye wants more power from Judai, and Amon wonders just how long he's been stuck to the wall anyhow. Elsewhere, we see Amon's submarine, full of what I can only imagine to be mercenaries, and it is the Submarine Lady, AKA Echo. And now we cut back to the duel, making that cutaway a complete waste of time.
Judai's turn is over, so that means Venom Swamp's effect places a Venom Counter onto Marine Neos, who appareantly doesn't go away at the end of the turn like all the other contact fusions, and PROFESSOR COBRA takes his turn. He plays Venom Shot, which requires that he control Venominon on the field. By sending a Venom monster from his deck to the grave, he gets to put two venom counters onto Judai's monster, so Venominon now has 2500 attack points, while Marine Neos has 1300. Venominon attacks, and Marine Neos goes boom for 1200 points of damage. Also, Karen has the most pathetic growl, ever. That just...why would you do that? I'm not even sure that Crocodiles do growl in real life anyway. I don't picture them as growling, I picture them as quiet killers. PROFESSOR COBRA then mocks Judai and his desire for a fun duel, and for that, I'm willing to overlook the whole "deal with the devil" bit. Judai can't believe that this man who's openly announced that he would kill everyone on the island if it would bring his son back any sooner would jeer his opponent like that, and I'd roll my eyes, except they've already quit. Yeah, I'm blind now. Fortunately, I have a truly epic sixth sense, so I can keep watching anyway. Demon Eye laughs, and transitions from Child Voice to Woman Voice to Man voice while talking about how its beloved Judai will soon be able to see it. Okay, this is getting creepy. Stop that. Seriously, GX Writers? You are getting in way over your heads on this, you are not capable of doing this sort of storyline without horrifically botching it up. So stop it now, before it is too late. End Episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel goes on, something about Venominaga, and Judai fears that just having a fun duel won't see him through this time, and I don't feel the least bit sorry for him. EPISODE TITLE! TRIPLE CONTACT FUSION! MAGMA NEOS card of the week is marine neos
Like I said, the bizarre bits of Cobra's back story kills the possibility of tragedy, which makes this all feel null. On the other hand, the duel choreography isn't all that bad, to be honest. Not enough to save this certainly, but a step above what we usually get. It's just a shame that the conclusion is so foregone, isn't it?
TITLE SCREEN! THE TERROR! VENOMINOM THE POISONOUS SERPENT KING the boredom, judai tediously summons neos.
Seriously, these are some really subpar subs to be working from, almost on the level of Hong Kong subs. Thank you 4Kids, for deciding to invoke copyright now, of all times. PROFESSOR COBRA brags, and Demon Eye turns to watch the monitor, and it speaks to PROFESSOR COBRA with the male voice, telling him to keep tormenting Judai, and his wish will be granted. Judai takes his turn, and plays Fusion, sending Sparkman and Edgeman to the grave to summon Plasma Viceman. There are some significant differences between Plasma Viceman in the anime, and the one in real life. The real life one has 2600 attack points, as opposed to 2800 attack points, and you can discard a card in your hand to destroy an attack position monster your opponent controls. But Judai's using the anime one, so he goes ahead and attacks, destroying Venom Snake for 1600 points of damage. Noise from the peanut gallery, and PROFESSOR COBRA says that Judai's monster won't last long in this field. First, he activates Snake Whistle; when a reptile monster you control is destroyed, you can special summon a level-four or lower reptile from your deck. Furthermore, he also activates Damage Equals Reptile, allowing him to special summon a reptile from his deck with attack power equal to the damage he just took. Thus, he special summons the 1600 attack power Venom Boa, and the level-4 Venom Serpent. And now it is the end phase, so a Venom Counter gets placed on Plasma Viceman, reducing its attack power by 500, noise from the peanut gallery, and PROFESSOR COBRA takes his turn. He uses Venom Serpent's effect to add another Venom Counter to Plasma Viceman, while Venom Boa's effect lets him place two venom counters onto Plasma Viceman, leaving the mighty hero with a paltry 800 attack points. Seriously, shut up Peanut Gallery, you're not Anzu, you don't know how to do this.
But in any event, now that PROFESSOR COBRA has used the effects of his snakes, he goes ahead and sacrifices them to summon Venominon the King of Venomous Serpents. Oh, and it has a dark aura, and when Johan looks through Ruby Carbuncle's tail, he can see that same aura around Cobra. Way to get the heroes up to speed on shit we already knew, u guis. Anyway, Venominon's attack power is equal to the number of reptiles in PROFESSOR COBRA'S grave times 500, so that gives it a total attack power of 1500. Venominon attacks and destroys Plasma Viceman for 700 points of damage, sets a card, and ends his turn. Then Johan starts making noise, demanding to know about the spirit he sees around PROFESSOR COBRA and what he's really planning. PROFESSOR COBRA tries to claim that he isn't planning anything for no discernible reason, and of course no one's buying it. Okay, now he's coming clean, saying that he's trying to create a miracle, using 'that person's' power, and now that he's pulled his sleeve back, the idiot squad finally picks up on the fact that he's not wearing a glove. PROFESSOR COBRA then explains how in the past, he was in the Special Force Army of a Country. Wow, a country? I never would have guessed! Anyway, his group was sent on a secret search mission, but for what they weren't told. That seems asinine and stupid, how are they supposed to search for something if they don't know what they're looking for? Over to Amon Garam, he asks the Demon Eye if it was what PROFESSOR COBRA had been sent to look for. It does not respond, and PROFESSOR COBRA continues his story. The helicopter is struck by lightning, crashes, and COBRA was the sole survivor. He decided to go ahead and continue the mission, and apparently he has a PDA that shows him where the target is. Which would make it a retrieval mission, not a search. That's just nitpicking though. He reaches the spot, which is a crater, and that is a very goofy looking gas mask. He goes in, and finds a severed demonic hand.
It crawls up to him and speaks to him with the child's voice, begging for help and saying it will help him in turn. COBRA takes off the very silly gas mask, asks what the demonic talking hand is talking about as opposed to just shooting it, and even when it talks about the darkness in COBRA'S heart, he still doesn't shoot it. Someone did not read Faustus. Judai and Amon react at the same time, and back in the flash back, the demonic hand makes the glowing naked spirit boy appear. Again, clothes, put them on. COBRA turns to the boy, and calls him Rick. He walks up to touch the phantasm, and it disappears into a thousand sparkles. PROFESSOR COBRA explains that Rick was an angel who saved his life, and so we get an earlier flashback, before the first flashback's even had a chance to finish. Wheeeee! COBRA'S in a warzone, receives orders to fall back, and he spots a baby, in a little baby basket, just lying in the middle of a pile of burned out rubble. CONTRIVENCE! He runs to the baby, and there is an explosion where he was, and so COBRA believes that this child saved his life. Flash ahead to the kid getting his first duel monster cards, COBRA tells him to listen to the nanny, and then a light breeze blows away all the cards into the street, because this kid has the weakest grip ever it would seem. The kid runs out into the street, and from out of fucking nowhere, he is run over by a goddamn bus! Also, there is profoundly weird about how this scene is set-up. Basically, the side of the street that COBRA and his son are on has no sidewalk...but the other side does. What I would give to be a fly on the wall of that urban planning meeting. Seriously, that is just so weird, and I don't know why it's there. And no, that bus can't be there to pick up Professor Cobra, it's facing the wrong way for that. Thus, what should be a tragic Start of Darkness is instead both hilarious and confusing at the same time.
EYECATCH!
Back to COBRA and his meet-up with the Demon Hand, and still speaking with the child voice, it says it knows how much COBRA wants to see his son again, so if he'll just please help it, cut to Demon Eye and Amon, cut to Judai and company, and Johan is for some reason the one leading moral charge against what PROFESSOR COBRA is doing. Seriously, we're not going to go with an established character that we would care about? We're going to go with the blank, vapid, dull, uninteresting sparkly new guy? Okay...and yeah, PROFESSOR COBRA doesn't give a shit what happens to anyone else, so long as he gets his son back. Remember, the villain is the one who doesn't care about the consequences of his actions so long as his selfish desires are fulfilled. Blah blah blah, the dead don't come back to life, honest, and Kenzan whispers to Shou that they should just take PROFESSOR COBRA down by force, rather then indulging in this duel. Yes, go ahead, try and assault the giant muscle man who is also a trained soldier and is empowered by an incredibly powerful demonic spirit. Please, do so. Just you two, no one else, that's how much confidence I have in your abilities. Ah, the Demon Eye does not approve, so it summons a mess of real vines and real snakes. Kenzan thinks that they're just solid vision, but Jim is not so stupid, and he sends in Karen to save Shou and Kenzan. Ahh, they don't believe in Shou and Kenzan the way I do. Nuts. PROFESSOR COBRA proclaims that this is but a small sample of the power that "that person" can bring, and no one shall interfere. Blah blah blah, shit we already know, and the child voice really wants Judai to suffer. Now, don't get me wrong, I want Judai to suffer more than is humanly possible, but I'd still like to know why this Demon seems to have it in for Judai. And now Judai finally takes his turn. He summons Bubbleman, draws two cards with its anime effect, equips it with Bubblerod, which raises its attack power by 800 and lets him draw a card when he gets destroyed, and then he plays R-Right Justice, letting him destroy Venom Swamp.
However, PROFESSOR COBRA was prepared for such a tactic, and activates his trap card Order of the Serpent Lord, discarding a Venom monster to negate Judai's spell card. This also means that Venominon gains another 500 attack points, which means Judai would have been much better off attacking first, and then activating his spell card. But, Judai didn't, because he's not a great duelist no matter how much the show insists otherwise. Judai sets a card to end his turn, Venom Swamp's effect kicks in, and PROFESSOR COBRA attacks and destroys Bubbleman for 900 points of damage, which lets Judai draw a card. Then Judai activates A Hero Emerges, which is the wrong timing, you activate that when the opponent declares their attack, not after they've blown up your monster. Anyway, no points for guessing that Judai summons Neos, and Venom Swamp's effect kicks in at the end of PROFESSOR COBRA'S turn, reducing Neos's attack power to the same as Venominon's. Judai's turn again, he summons Aqua Dolphin, and then he plays the brand new, no one will ever play in real life even though it was released, Neos Extend. This lets Judai sacrifice a Neo-Spacian for a trivially stronger version of itself from his fusion deck. So Aqua Dolphin becomes Marine Dolphin, and Judai performs Contact Fusion for Marine Neos, which has 2800 attack points. Lots of oohs and ahhs from the Peanut Gallery, and Marine Neos's effect allows it to destroy one random card in the opponent's hand per turn. This is of course another Venom Snake, so Venominon's attack power rises again. But Marine Neos is still marginally stronger, so he attacks and destroys Venominon for 300 points of damage. But, PROFESSOR COBRA is not put out by this, revealing that when it is destroyed, Venominon can be special summoned back from the grave by removing another Reptile in the grave from play. Blah blah blah, Demon Eye wants more power from Judai, and Amon wonders just how long he's been stuck to the wall anyhow. Elsewhere, we see Amon's submarine, full of what I can only imagine to be mercenaries, and it is the Submarine Lady, AKA Echo. And now we cut back to the duel, making that cutaway a complete waste of time.
Judai's turn is over, so that means Venom Swamp's effect places a Venom Counter onto Marine Neos, who appareantly doesn't go away at the end of the turn like all the other contact fusions, and PROFESSOR COBRA takes his turn. He plays Venom Shot, which requires that he control Venominon on the field. By sending a Venom monster from his deck to the grave, he gets to put two venom counters onto Judai's monster, so Venominon now has 2500 attack points, while Marine Neos has 1300. Venominon attacks, and Marine Neos goes boom for 1200 points of damage. Also, Karen has the most pathetic growl, ever. That just...why would you do that? I'm not even sure that Crocodiles do growl in real life anyway. I don't picture them as growling, I picture them as quiet killers. PROFESSOR COBRA then mocks Judai and his desire for a fun duel, and for that, I'm willing to overlook the whole "deal with the devil" bit. Judai can't believe that this man who's openly announced that he would kill everyone on the island if it would bring his son back any sooner would jeer his opponent like that, and I'd roll my eyes, except they've already quit. Yeah, I'm blind now. Fortunately, I have a truly epic sixth sense, so I can keep watching anyway. Demon Eye laughs, and transitions from Child Voice to Woman Voice to Man voice while talking about how its beloved Judai will soon be able to see it. Okay, this is getting creepy. Stop that. Seriously, GX Writers? You are getting in way over your heads on this, you are not capable of doing this sort of storyline without horrifically botching it up. So stop it now, before it is too late. End Episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel goes on, something about Venominaga, and Judai fears that just having a fun duel won't see him through this time, and I don't feel the least bit sorry for him. EPISODE TITLE! TRIPLE CONTACT FUSION! MAGMA NEOS card of the week is marine neos
Like I said, the bizarre bits of Cobra's back story kills the possibility of tragedy, which makes this all feel null. On the other hand, the duel choreography isn't all that bad, to be honest. Not enough to save this certainly, but a step above what we usually get. It's just a shame that the conclusion is so foregone, isn't it?