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Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 136
So...what happened last time again? Oh, right, Manjoume was just casually killed off so that Judai could feel manpain. Glorious.
TITLE SCREEN! ACTIVATE SCRIPTURES OF WICKEDNESS! REIGN, OVERLORD OF DARK WORLD so that's the book that teaches stupid writers to capriciously kill off characters.
Shot of that stupid comet, Shou riding that stupid Sonic Duck to safety, Goldd and Silva are supposedly pursuing Shou but they spend a long time standing around and talking before getting the lead out, and while they do prove surprisingly fast, Shou's Sonic Duck abomination leaps over the side of the canyon. And then falls to a horrible death. Do Goldd and Silva bother to go down and confirm that Shou is indeed a corpse? Of fucking course not, and of course it wasn't really Shou, it was just a copy that O'Brien created with Copy Doll, a card that not only has no place in his deck, but is never used outside of this episode. RANDOM PLOT DEVICE, HO! Yeah, remember how the last time we saw Shou, he had been cornered by Goldd and Silva? If you did, congratulations, because then you've gotten one on the writers, who clearly didn't. I mean, how the hell could Jim and O'Brien have found Shou and set up that ludicrous decoy like that if the writers did remember what happened in just the last episode alone? Blah blah blah, Shou is worried about what Judai said about how he'd sacrifice anything and everything to rescue Johan and Freed's friends, and Jim and O'Brien can't exactly dissuade him from these worries. And now back to the duel. Bronn sets two cards to end his turn, and Bronn openly wonders if Judai would like to surrender now and go straight to hell. If this were Yuugi...well, if this were Yuugi, this situation would never have been reached in the first place, but if it were Yuugi in this position, he would surrender to save the lives of his friends in a heartbeat. Judai? He gets Neos jabbering on about how he must use all his strength to win, it is the fate of a duelist, all that bullshit. Judai, remembering how Manjoume died when he did damage to Brron, engages his manpain and summons Featherman in defense. Judai's surviving friends breathe a sigh of relief, but the monsters jeer at this development.
Brron mocks Judai and says he'll be making the decision for him, activating his trap card Darkness Half; this reduces his Zure's attack power by half, and special summons two Dark Tokens with 1000 attack points onto Judai's side of the field. Blah blah blah, Judai won't attack with these monsters either, but Brron activates his other trap card, Dark Tournament; all monsters switch to attack position and must attack, but no monsters are destroyed by battle this turn. The monsters are preparing to attack, Judai is begging them to stop, and how convenient, this is exactly when Jim, O'Brien, and Shou arrive. Now Judai's monsters attack, each one doing 100 points of damage to Brron, which means that Sacred Scriptures of Wickedness does its thing three times, sending Anguish, Sadness, and Hatred to the grave. Kenzan demands to know how Judai could have sacrificed them all like this, Fubuki says that the pain that they feel is the pain of being betrayed by a friend, and Asuka must now carry the sadness of having been betrayed by Judai. The amazing thing about all this is that the writers think that all this magical coercion is remotely necessary for the characters to be feeling this way and saying the things that they're saying. Okay, if Asuka were in control of herself, she'd be saying different things, but all three of them are quite right to condemn Judai with their dying breaths. The fact of the matter is that this entire contrived set-up could not have happened if Judai were to have stopped and thought about what he was doing and actually tried to work with his friends instead of treating them like tedious burdens. And now they're all dead. Not only is this cruel and mean-spirited, but the writers have now killed off the only two decent characters left, seeing as Misawa, Rei, and Amon have already vanished into plot-holes. There is now literally no one left I can even remotely care about, making this show even more painful than it already was. And yet, it will get so much worse. So. Much. Worse.
Shou, seeing all this, determines that this is what Judai meant when he was talking about sacrifice, while O'Brien and Jim keep being silent. Kenzan, Fubuki, and Asuka appear in the book, and the veins on that stupid blank card are now pulsing. Brron is convinced that the time has come for the card to be awakened, even though the Ball of Doubt hasn't been harvested yet, apparently oblivious to the fact that Shou is just right over there, waiting to be killed to fuel Judai's precious, precious manpain. Brron also decides that Judai's turn is over, and takes his. He calls upon the Scriptures to release its power into the blank card, calling it...Super Fusion. And you can tell that Judai is really feeling that manpain, because he just doesn't give a shit. But no, it turns out that Brron really does need that fifth sacrifice, and for some reason he just won't look over all of three feet to the right to notice Shou standing right there, with the Glowing Brand of Doubt on his cheek in plain view. Judai then snaps into awareness, and is shocked with horror that his friends have been killed off, just so that Brron could get that one card. But, since Brron didn't get the fifth sacrifice, he'll settle for summoning a material monster that would have been used for Super Fusion. He removes the Scriptures, as well as the four Wicked Rune cards in his grave from play, to summon the level-eight Reign-Beaux, Overlord of Dark World, with 2500 attack points. Brron says that this monster is in truth merely a material monster for the summoning of the level-12 Colorless, and then has Reign-Beaux attack Featherman for 1500 points of damage.
EYECATCH!
Brron then switches Zure, who's attack power is still stuck at 900, to defense, which is at 1500, and then he sets a card to end his turn. Brron wonders whether Judai will soon go on to see his friends, and upon seeing Judai draw his next card, is shocked that Judai could still have the spirit to go on. Judai then declares his vendetta against Brron, and is truly pissed off. This is amusing to Brron, and why shouldn't it be? Judai is just some dumb ass kid, not a fucking clue in that empty cavern he calls a skull. Naturally, Judai sacrifices the Dark Tokens to summon Neos, plays Common Soul to special summon Air Hummingbird from his hand, contact fuses into Air Neos, which gains 1200 attack points due to the difference in life points, attacks and destroys Reign-Beaux for 1200 points of damage, and now Contact Out, bringing back Neos and Air Hummingbird, Neos destroys Zure, and Air Hummingbird attacks directly for 800 points of damage. Then Judai activates Air Hummingbird's effect to recover 1000 life points, and while the effect always looks goofy, it's just glaring how out of place it is here, much like the Sonic Ducks were. At least the music is silent during this part, small favors and all that. Brron just laughs, declaring all this anger and pain to be the real thrill of a duel, and activates his trap card Revenge Soul, allowing him to take Reign-Beaux, which was destroyed this turn, and put it back in his hand. Judai ends his turn, Brron takes his. He draws and plays Dark World Reload; this lets him take a monster with Dark World in its name, and add it to his hand, but then he must discard a monster with Dark World in its name from his hand to the grave. This, by the way, is the theme of the Dark World monster archetype, their effects being activated when discarded from the hand. Naturally, the card that Brron takes from his deck, and the card that he discards, are one and the same, Celeri Guru of Dark World.
Now that it has been discarded, it's effect activates, special summoning itself to Judai's side of the field. And when Celeri is special summoned, the opponent must discard a card from their hand, and since it was special summoned to Judai's side of the field, that means that it is Brron who will be discarding a card. That card is of course Reign-Beaux, and when it is discarded as part of an opponent's card effect, it gets special summoned to the field, and can activate one of two effects; either destroy all the opponents spells and traps, or destroy all their monsters. Naturally, Brron opts for the monster destruction effect, and then attacks Judai directly, leaving him with just 800 life points. Judai has now fallen to his knees in pain, the monsters cheer, and Brron sets a card to end his turn, doubting that Judai has the spirit to get back up again. But Judai does get up, recites the names of the friends he'd gotten killed through his own colossal stupidity, saying that he won't let the demon born from their sacrifice survive, and What The Fuck? Seriously, What. The. Fuck? His eyes just...turned golden. They changed color...in accordance with his mood. ...Do the writers not understand that this is the ultimate mark of a Gary Stu? The magical sparkly eyes that change colors? Really, that's one of the lacking points of the Mary-Sue Litmus test; sure, special eye colors are present, but not changing eye colors. And yeah, they're just staying that way, because that's how Gary-Stu's eyes work. Seriously, the writers seem to be redundant in their efforts to make this bullshit impossible to take seriously. But in any event, Judai plays Oversoul to bring back Neos, and then plays the brand-new, available in stores today, because even as we're aping being dark and edgy, we still need to shill these cards like a motherfucker, Assault Armor. This raises Neos's attack power by 300, Judai's got that whole glowing aura deal going on again, it still looks incredibly stupid, declares he won't forgive Overlord Reign, as opposed to Brron, and declares his attack.
Reign is destroyed for 300 points of damage, and then Judai sends Assault Armor to the grave, letting Neos attack again. But Brron is prepared, confident that Judai's anger and hate will guarantee his own victory, and activates his face down card, the quick-spell card Gateway to Dark World, which lets him special summon Reign back from his grave, though he can't do any other special summons this turn. This would be why he didn't activate on his last turn to finish Judai off. Judai has no intention of stopping the attack, and both monsters are destroyed for no battle damage. Brron then looks at the remaining card in his hand, Cobal the Excavator of Dark World. All he has to do is summon it, attack Judai directly with it, and the battle damage will let him send it to the grave to get back Gateway to Dark World, letting him special summon Reign back from the grave to finish Judai off. Naturally, since Brron just helpfully spelled out his entire strategy to us, Judai is bound to screw it over with the last remaining card in his hand. What card does Judai play at this juncture? Why, Requiem Duel! What the hell is Requiem Duel you ask? Why, it's very simple; during the battle phase, when both player's monsters are destroyed by battle and sent to the grave, both players can special summon those monsters back to the field, with their effects negated and destroyed automatically at the end of the battle phase. Now, theoretically, there are situations where such a card could prove useful, like if the opponent's monster was using its effect or support cards to make it equally strong as your monster, but by and large, it is a horribly situational card that only exists to force forward the unsubtle point that Judai just wants to keep destroying Reign. We know all this, because Judai spells it out to us. You see all that trust the writers have in us to figure this shit out for ourselves? No? THAT'S BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST! YOU CAN'T HAVE THE CHARACTERS DECLARE HOW THEY FEEL, THAT MAKES ME FEEL ANGRY!
However, Brron can't meet Judai's demand due to the effect of Gateway to Dark World, and so Judai attacks directly for the win. However, even as he dies, Brron continues to laugh mockingly at Judai, saying that his heart has now been saturated by the negative feelings of Anger, Hatred, Anguish, and Sadness. Judai demands to know where Freed's friends and Johan are, but Brron says that its like he said, the blood of the captured warriors has seeped into the sand, including Johan, who is very dead. Judai refuses to believe this, but it doesn't matter, as Brron is now dead and can't talk or laugh or anything. The monsters in the stands are freaked about Brron's death, and now Jim, O'Brien, and Shou feel like being part of the episode. Yes, because it was so damn important to not be there for Judai in the heat of the moment, otherwise the perfectly contrived plot might not have been fulfilled. Oh, and now Judai's eyes are back to normal. Shou says that Johan and everyone else are dead now, Judai says that they'll go avenge them, and Shou is not believing a word of it. He says that up to this point, he'd been like the sun, shining upon everyone and giving them strength to do the impossible (total bullshit, but let's leave that aside for the moment), but that was all just a lie, only able to last so long as Judai's needs were satisfied. When they're not, Judai has no problem sacrificing everyone else to meet his own needs, and no matter who Judai beats, it won't bring anyone back, Judai's doing it only for his own sense of self-satisfaction. Two points; one, I still find it hilarious that the writers seem to think that Shou would need his emotions to be magically manipulated to say all this shit, when he's absolutely right, and two...doesn't anyone notice the bit glowing magical kanji on Shou's face? It's not exactly being subtle! Shou runs off in tears, Jim runs after Shou, and O'Brien justifiably kicks Judai while he's down, telling him that they told him to wait for them and not run off on his own, so he's not going to bother with spelling this shit out to Judai anymore, he needs to figure it out for himself, and so Judai is left utterly alone.
Judai then falls to his knees and wallows in his manpain, whining that he was just doing what he thought was right, who could have imagined that recklessly running around on impulse without even the least little clue or respect for his friends could have ended like this, some hypocritical bullshit about how everyone hasn't been by his side, and he cries to the sky 'what did I do wrong!?', and I want to motion like I'm going to smack him across the face, and then tell him he's not worth it. And then that stupid blank Super Fusion card floats on down. Whatever. And now we're apparently inside Judai's inner world, which is dark and full of blank cards. How appropriate. Oh, there are cards with the images of Judai's dead friends on them, but they disappear. And now a voice speaks to Judai, as a strange entity appears behind him. It tells him that to defeat evil, you must become evil, to overcome the cruel world of deceits takes power. And I roll my eyes at all this, as Judai's problem has not, is not, and will never be lack of power; it is simply a matter of fucking thinking for a change, actually considering the concerns of his friends, listening to their rational, thought out points and taking them seriously. But then again, Judai is a moron, so he would believe that the issue is one of power. The entity calls upon Judai to finish the Super Fusion card, and Judai demands to know who he is. The entity, whose outline has changed to resemble Judai's, declares that it is the Supreme King, the ruler of this world, and Judai's eyes turn a blank gold. End episode.
NEXT TIME! It's an entire episode of Shou and Ojama Yellow being whiners. How fun. EPISODE TITLE, SHOU'S DECISION, PROOF OF FRIENDSHIP card of the week is reign.
Let's go over the past few episodes, look at what had to happen to reach this state. First, Judai needs to reach this alternate dimension, which depends on him being able to find that random portal and getting all of his friends to help him. Next, he needs to duel Scarr to draw the attention of the Dark World army, Laz needs to escape from the Detention Camp so that he can tell Judai about the kid who randomly looks like Johan, Judai's friends all then have to be captured which requires that they all refuse to defend themselves. Then they need to be infected by random magical balls of bad emotions that literally come out of nowhere, be captured again, and then Judai has to be able to reach Brron's fortress so that he can unwittingly kill all of his friends. There were so many goddamn places where that would have fallen apart if any of the characters were to have behaved intelligently or in character, that for all the noise about how this is supposedly deconstructing "The Power of Friendship", it's just an idiot plot, plain and simple. And it will get worse. As vile, petty, and mean-spirited as these episodes have been, it will get worse.
TITLE SCREEN! ACTIVATE SCRIPTURES OF WICKEDNESS! REIGN, OVERLORD OF DARK WORLD so that's the book that teaches stupid writers to capriciously kill off characters.
Shot of that stupid comet, Shou riding that stupid Sonic Duck to safety, Goldd and Silva are supposedly pursuing Shou but they spend a long time standing around and talking before getting the lead out, and while they do prove surprisingly fast, Shou's Sonic Duck abomination leaps over the side of the canyon. And then falls to a horrible death. Do Goldd and Silva bother to go down and confirm that Shou is indeed a corpse? Of fucking course not, and of course it wasn't really Shou, it was just a copy that O'Brien created with Copy Doll, a card that not only has no place in his deck, but is never used outside of this episode. RANDOM PLOT DEVICE, HO! Yeah, remember how the last time we saw Shou, he had been cornered by Goldd and Silva? If you did, congratulations, because then you've gotten one on the writers, who clearly didn't. I mean, how the hell could Jim and O'Brien have found Shou and set up that ludicrous decoy like that if the writers did remember what happened in just the last episode alone? Blah blah blah, Shou is worried about what Judai said about how he'd sacrifice anything and everything to rescue Johan and Freed's friends, and Jim and O'Brien can't exactly dissuade him from these worries. And now back to the duel. Bronn sets two cards to end his turn, and Bronn openly wonders if Judai would like to surrender now and go straight to hell. If this were Yuugi...well, if this were Yuugi, this situation would never have been reached in the first place, but if it were Yuugi in this position, he would surrender to save the lives of his friends in a heartbeat. Judai? He gets Neos jabbering on about how he must use all his strength to win, it is the fate of a duelist, all that bullshit. Judai, remembering how Manjoume died when he did damage to Brron, engages his manpain and summons Featherman in defense. Judai's surviving friends breathe a sigh of relief, but the monsters jeer at this development.
Brron mocks Judai and says he'll be making the decision for him, activating his trap card Darkness Half; this reduces his Zure's attack power by half, and special summons two Dark Tokens with 1000 attack points onto Judai's side of the field. Blah blah blah, Judai won't attack with these monsters either, but Brron activates his other trap card, Dark Tournament; all monsters switch to attack position and must attack, but no monsters are destroyed by battle this turn. The monsters are preparing to attack, Judai is begging them to stop, and how convenient, this is exactly when Jim, O'Brien, and Shou arrive. Now Judai's monsters attack, each one doing 100 points of damage to Brron, which means that Sacred Scriptures of Wickedness does its thing three times, sending Anguish, Sadness, and Hatred to the grave. Kenzan demands to know how Judai could have sacrificed them all like this, Fubuki says that the pain that they feel is the pain of being betrayed by a friend, and Asuka must now carry the sadness of having been betrayed by Judai. The amazing thing about all this is that the writers think that all this magical coercion is remotely necessary for the characters to be feeling this way and saying the things that they're saying. Okay, if Asuka were in control of herself, she'd be saying different things, but all three of them are quite right to condemn Judai with their dying breaths. The fact of the matter is that this entire contrived set-up could not have happened if Judai were to have stopped and thought about what he was doing and actually tried to work with his friends instead of treating them like tedious burdens. And now they're all dead. Not only is this cruel and mean-spirited, but the writers have now killed off the only two decent characters left, seeing as Misawa, Rei, and Amon have already vanished into plot-holes. There is now literally no one left I can even remotely care about, making this show even more painful than it already was. And yet, it will get so much worse. So. Much. Worse.
Shou, seeing all this, determines that this is what Judai meant when he was talking about sacrifice, while O'Brien and Jim keep being silent. Kenzan, Fubuki, and Asuka appear in the book, and the veins on that stupid blank card are now pulsing. Brron is convinced that the time has come for the card to be awakened, even though the Ball of Doubt hasn't been harvested yet, apparently oblivious to the fact that Shou is just right over there, waiting to be killed to fuel Judai's precious, precious manpain. Brron also decides that Judai's turn is over, and takes his. He calls upon the Scriptures to release its power into the blank card, calling it...Super Fusion. And you can tell that Judai is really feeling that manpain, because he just doesn't give a shit. But no, it turns out that Brron really does need that fifth sacrifice, and for some reason he just won't look over all of three feet to the right to notice Shou standing right there, with the Glowing Brand of Doubt on his cheek in plain view. Judai then snaps into awareness, and is shocked with horror that his friends have been killed off, just so that Brron could get that one card. But, since Brron didn't get the fifth sacrifice, he'll settle for summoning a material monster that would have been used for Super Fusion. He removes the Scriptures, as well as the four Wicked Rune cards in his grave from play, to summon the level-eight Reign-Beaux, Overlord of Dark World, with 2500 attack points. Brron says that this monster is in truth merely a material monster for the summoning of the level-12 Colorless, and then has Reign-Beaux attack Featherman for 1500 points of damage.
EYECATCH!
Brron then switches Zure, who's attack power is still stuck at 900, to defense, which is at 1500, and then he sets a card to end his turn. Brron wonders whether Judai will soon go on to see his friends, and upon seeing Judai draw his next card, is shocked that Judai could still have the spirit to go on. Judai then declares his vendetta against Brron, and is truly pissed off. This is amusing to Brron, and why shouldn't it be? Judai is just some dumb ass kid, not a fucking clue in that empty cavern he calls a skull. Naturally, Judai sacrifices the Dark Tokens to summon Neos, plays Common Soul to special summon Air Hummingbird from his hand, contact fuses into Air Neos, which gains 1200 attack points due to the difference in life points, attacks and destroys Reign-Beaux for 1200 points of damage, and now Contact Out, bringing back Neos and Air Hummingbird, Neos destroys Zure, and Air Hummingbird attacks directly for 800 points of damage. Then Judai activates Air Hummingbird's effect to recover 1000 life points, and while the effect always looks goofy, it's just glaring how out of place it is here, much like the Sonic Ducks were. At least the music is silent during this part, small favors and all that. Brron just laughs, declaring all this anger and pain to be the real thrill of a duel, and activates his trap card Revenge Soul, allowing him to take Reign-Beaux, which was destroyed this turn, and put it back in his hand. Judai ends his turn, Brron takes his. He draws and plays Dark World Reload; this lets him take a monster with Dark World in its name, and add it to his hand, but then he must discard a monster with Dark World in its name from his hand to the grave. This, by the way, is the theme of the Dark World monster archetype, their effects being activated when discarded from the hand. Naturally, the card that Brron takes from his deck, and the card that he discards, are one and the same, Celeri Guru of Dark World.
Now that it has been discarded, it's effect activates, special summoning itself to Judai's side of the field. And when Celeri is special summoned, the opponent must discard a card from their hand, and since it was special summoned to Judai's side of the field, that means that it is Brron who will be discarding a card. That card is of course Reign-Beaux, and when it is discarded as part of an opponent's card effect, it gets special summoned to the field, and can activate one of two effects; either destroy all the opponents spells and traps, or destroy all their monsters. Naturally, Brron opts for the monster destruction effect, and then attacks Judai directly, leaving him with just 800 life points. Judai has now fallen to his knees in pain, the monsters cheer, and Brron sets a card to end his turn, doubting that Judai has the spirit to get back up again. But Judai does get up, recites the names of the friends he'd gotten killed through his own colossal stupidity, saying that he won't let the demon born from their sacrifice survive, and What The Fuck? Seriously, What. The. Fuck? His eyes just...turned golden. They changed color...in accordance with his mood. ...Do the writers not understand that this is the ultimate mark of a Gary Stu? The magical sparkly eyes that change colors? Really, that's one of the lacking points of the Mary-Sue Litmus test; sure, special eye colors are present, but not changing eye colors. And yeah, they're just staying that way, because that's how Gary-Stu's eyes work. Seriously, the writers seem to be redundant in their efforts to make this bullshit impossible to take seriously. But in any event, Judai plays Oversoul to bring back Neos, and then plays the brand-new, available in stores today, because even as we're aping being dark and edgy, we still need to shill these cards like a motherfucker, Assault Armor. This raises Neos's attack power by 300, Judai's got that whole glowing aura deal going on again, it still looks incredibly stupid, declares he won't forgive Overlord Reign, as opposed to Brron, and declares his attack.
Reign is destroyed for 300 points of damage, and then Judai sends Assault Armor to the grave, letting Neos attack again. But Brron is prepared, confident that Judai's anger and hate will guarantee his own victory, and activates his face down card, the quick-spell card Gateway to Dark World, which lets him special summon Reign back from his grave, though he can't do any other special summons this turn. This would be why he didn't activate on his last turn to finish Judai off. Judai has no intention of stopping the attack, and both monsters are destroyed for no battle damage. Brron then looks at the remaining card in his hand, Cobal the Excavator of Dark World. All he has to do is summon it, attack Judai directly with it, and the battle damage will let him send it to the grave to get back Gateway to Dark World, letting him special summon Reign back from the grave to finish Judai off. Naturally, since Brron just helpfully spelled out his entire strategy to us, Judai is bound to screw it over with the last remaining card in his hand. What card does Judai play at this juncture? Why, Requiem Duel! What the hell is Requiem Duel you ask? Why, it's very simple; during the battle phase, when both player's monsters are destroyed by battle and sent to the grave, both players can special summon those monsters back to the field, with their effects negated and destroyed automatically at the end of the battle phase. Now, theoretically, there are situations where such a card could prove useful, like if the opponent's monster was using its effect or support cards to make it equally strong as your monster, but by and large, it is a horribly situational card that only exists to force forward the unsubtle point that Judai just wants to keep destroying Reign. We know all this, because Judai spells it out to us. You see all that trust the writers have in us to figure this shit out for ourselves? No? THAT'S BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST! YOU CAN'T HAVE THE CHARACTERS DECLARE HOW THEY FEEL, THAT MAKES ME FEEL ANGRY!
However, Brron can't meet Judai's demand due to the effect of Gateway to Dark World, and so Judai attacks directly for the win. However, even as he dies, Brron continues to laugh mockingly at Judai, saying that his heart has now been saturated by the negative feelings of Anger, Hatred, Anguish, and Sadness. Judai demands to know where Freed's friends and Johan are, but Brron says that its like he said, the blood of the captured warriors has seeped into the sand, including Johan, who is very dead. Judai refuses to believe this, but it doesn't matter, as Brron is now dead and can't talk or laugh or anything. The monsters in the stands are freaked about Brron's death, and now Jim, O'Brien, and Shou feel like being part of the episode. Yes, because it was so damn important to not be there for Judai in the heat of the moment, otherwise the perfectly contrived plot might not have been fulfilled. Oh, and now Judai's eyes are back to normal. Shou says that Johan and everyone else are dead now, Judai says that they'll go avenge them, and Shou is not believing a word of it. He says that up to this point, he'd been like the sun, shining upon everyone and giving them strength to do the impossible (total bullshit, but let's leave that aside for the moment), but that was all just a lie, only able to last so long as Judai's needs were satisfied. When they're not, Judai has no problem sacrificing everyone else to meet his own needs, and no matter who Judai beats, it won't bring anyone back, Judai's doing it only for his own sense of self-satisfaction. Two points; one, I still find it hilarious that the writers seem to think that Shou would need his emotions to be magically manipulated to say all this shit, when he's absolutely right, and two...doesn't anyone notice the bit glowing magical kanji on Shou's face? It's not exactly being subtle! Shou runs off in tears, Jim runs after Shou, and O'Brien justifiably kicks Judai while he's down, telling him that they told him to wait for them and not run off on his own, so he's not going to bother with spelling this shit out to Judai anymore, he needs to figure it out for himself, and so Judai is left utterly alone.
Judai then falls to his knees and wallows in his manpain, whining that he was just doing what he thought was right, who could have imagined that recklessly running around on impulse without even the least little clue or respect for his friends could have ended like this, some hypocritical bullshit about how everyone hasn't been by his side, and he cries to the sky 'what did I do wrong!?', and I want to motion like I'm going to smack him across the face, and then tell him he's not worth it. And then that stupid blank Super Fusion card floats on down. Whatever. And now we're apparently inside Judai's inner world, which is dark and full of blank cards. How appropriate. Oh, there are cards with the images of Judai's dead friends on them, but they disappear. And now a voice speaks to Judai, as a strange entity appears behind him. It tells him that to defeat evil, you must become evil, to overcome the cruel world of deceits takes power. And I roll my eyes at all this, as Judai's problem has not, is not, and will never be lack of power; it is simply a matter of fucking thinking for a change, actually considering the concerns of his friends, listening to their rational, thought out points and taking them seriously. But then again, Judai is a moron, so he would believe that the issue is one of power. The entity calls upon Judai to finish the Super Fusion card, and Judai demands to know who he is. The entity, whose outline has changed to resemble Judai's, declares that it is the Supreme King, the ruler of this world, and Judai's eyes turn a blank gold. End episode.
NEXT TIME! It's an entire episode of Shou and Ojama Yellow being whiners. How fun. EPISODE TITLE, SHOU'S DECISION, PROOF OF FRIENDSHIP card of the week is reign.
Let's go over the past few episodes, look at what had to happen to reach this state. First, Judai needs to reach this alternate dimension, which depends on him being able to find that random portal and getting all of his friends to help him. Next, he needs to duel Scarr to draw the attention of the Dark World army, Laz needs to escape from the Detention Camp so that he can tell Judai about the kid who randomly looks like Johan, Judai's friends all then have to be captured which requires that they all refuse to defend themselves. Then they need to be infected by random magical balls of bad emotions that literally come out of nowhere, be captured again, and then Judai has to be able to reach Brron's fortress so that he can unwittingly kill all of his friends. There were so many goddamn places where that would have fallen apart if any of the characters were to have behaved intelligently or in character, that for all the noise about how this is supposedly deconstructing "The Power of Friendship", it's just an idiot plot, plain and simple. And it will get worse. As vile, petty, and mean-spirited as these episodes have been, it will get worse.
no subject
I think my hatred for this show just doubled. What sort of idiot writers kill off all of their decent characters, and leave nothing but their horrible hero left? Even if the hero was actually the most amazing character ever, one character alone cannot carry a story of any significant length.
I don't have time tonight, but I'm watching this tomorrow. Blame trainwreck syndrome.
no subject
Blame me. I'm the one who dragged you into this so that I could have someone to share my pain with. Forgive me.
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No, I don't blame you. *hugs* I wanted to watch the series and finally have an informed opinion on it. Before this, I had the vague impression that it was bad, but couldn't really say, since having watched two episodes and found them a bit dumb (episode one and that one with the Black Magician Girl) wasn't enough to go by.
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And now you do have an informed opinion, though as I keep saying, it will get worse.
To take the edge off of GX, I've taken to watching various Super Sentai series, which treat all of their characters with respect. Have you ever watched Super Sentai?
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Gah. I wish I'd bought the bootleg subs back when I was younger and didn't know what bootlegs were. Having raw episodes of the original series would be nice...
But, I'm trying to find somewhere else with the original manga volumes, and I have files of most of the HK subs, so...if I get all the manga, missing a few episodes of the anime from my youtube-downloaded sub videos is fine.
But still, I really wish that companies would refrain from removing from youtube series which don't have official DVD releases. Honestly, how else are we supposed to see them? Buying bootlegs? -_-
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This actually does make me angry. Before you complain about free distribution, companies, make sure that the series is actually available in an official release!
If you sold dvds which had the Japanese version and, preferably, a no-subtitle option, I'd buy them! Really!
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