Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 153
Dec. 27th, 2010 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cypsiman2So, Johan, he's just spent the past twenty or so episodes possessed by an enraged, psychotic, and venomously jealous Duel Monster Spirit that hates him with the fire of a thousand burning suns for daring to be Judai's one true love instead of hir. He was utterly helpless to stop his body, his voice, even his deck, from bringing the greatest torment to Judai possible. Boy, he must be all kinds of shell-shocked from all this, forced to rethink the entire meaning of his life in light of the whole "Yubel is crazy and should not be allowed anywhere near any humans ever" ordeal, right? And I can't blame you for thinking something like that, since Johan is still basically a palette swap of Judai, so you'd imagine the writers would get the two mixed up and accidentally devote some time to his manpain...but nope, he's just fine. As always, the focus is on Judai and his manpain as whines about how all of this is Yubel's fault, and therefore his, for absolute bullshit reasons. No Judai, this isn't your fault; there are ten million other things that are your fault, that you should feel bad about and throw yourself on your own sword to cleanse the shame that you've cast upon all your friends with your callous, selfish asshole behavior, but shooting Yubel into space was not one of them. By the way, Yubel is just floating over them, watching this whole thing. Blah blah blah, Judai is fed up with Yubel dragging his friends, all three of them at this point, into this, this is between him and hir. More bullshit about the Supreme King, blah blah blah, Judai says the Supreme King is dead, because apparently he doesn't accept Misawa's bullshit exposition, and Yubel says that sie will take their duel to where no one will be able to bother them.
TITLE SCREEN! CONFRONTATION OF THE CHOSEN CARDS! ELEMENTAL HEROES VS. YUBEL hey, who wants to take odds on a forced misplay to make the duel go the way the writers want it to go?
Judai begins walking, but Johan calls out to him; blah blah blah, Johan wants to go with him but is too physically exhausted and not the least psychologically scarred, so he gives Judai his deck. Chronos makes noise, I don't care what he has to say, and then Judai starts randomly glowing and flies up. Because! So, as Judai glowily flies after Yubel, he runs into more random flashback bubbles. He gets enveloped in one, and for the umpteenth time we see the Edo-ripoff. Yep, there's Yubel attacking him for very stupid reasons, the bubble bursts, and Yubel says that that's what sie did, sie made anyone who made Judai cry go away. And because Yubel is a sub-moron, sie completely failed to notice how hir actions turned little Judai into a complete pariah, making him far more miserable than before. Of course, as far as Yubel is concerned, Judai should only have ever have been paying attention to hir in the first place, and forgotten everyone else ever. You know, no matter how much the show keeps using the word "love", this isn't "love", this is a psychotic obsession. Another flashback bubble, reminding of that inane contest that Kaiba Corp shouldn't have been able to run without being sued into oblivion, and a shot of Yubel getting shot into space. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Judai's parents had some real pull, but that can't be right, that would totally go against Judai's characterization as an everyman...oh, right, that's already been fucked all to hell long ago. Bubble bursts again, and Yubel whines about even though sie loved Judai soooooo much, he still launched hir into space anyway. Judai is aghast, it wasn't like that, he wanted her to be exposed to the space waves of Justice...I still gape at how little sense that entire concept makes, and that somehow everyone in the entire world just goes along with it for no better reason than because the script says so.
Blah blah blah, recap of the premise of season two, and apparently while Judai's neo-space cards got the good waves of dark gentle justice, Yubel got the evil bad-wrong mean light of destruction. Yes, that's right, the Light of Destruction corrupted Yubel, and made hir the way sie is now...which, by all evidence given to us, including in this very episode, is not even the tiniest little bit different from how sie was before sie was shot into space. True, sie is more creative in hir tortures than before, but that's a difference of degree, not of kind. Just five and a half minutes into this episode, and we're already buried in nonsequitur insanity. Also, this is the same Light of Destruction from last season, right? You know, the cosmic horror that was so inept that it couldn't even beat a guy who's deck was based on a Guyver ripoff? Anyway, apparently Yubel kept on crying out to Judai, but one day he stopped answering hir...okay. Another bubble, and this time we flashback to something we haven't already seen. Yeah, little Judai kept having nightmares of Yubel shrouded in flames, crying to him in pain, and his parents, being the kind, loving people that they are, saw that Judai was in pain, and so had all his memories of Yubel erased.
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AND THE 2007 GENDO IKARI WORST FUCKING PARENT EVER AWARD GOES TO MR. AND MRS. YUKI, FOR THINKING THAT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!
And that's before we even get into the insanity of casually dropping in cheap, readily available memory alteration technology that parents can use on their children, whenever. I mean, you could get a damn good, damn long story out of that by itself, but for the GX writers, it's just a cheap plot device brought in after the fact to explain why the fuck none of this shit was around in Season One. And speaking of season one, remember the time when Misawa brought Judai over to the Ra Yellow cafeteria to eat Lobster, and how agog Judai was at getting to eat Lobster? Which rather suggested that he was middle class at best? Yeah, that clearly doesn't apply anymore, now does it? And if you'll turn attention to season two, when Judai went to visit Hippy-Space and speak with the Hippy-Space Dolphin, recall how Judai said that for "some reason" he'd forgotten all about his Hippy-Space excitement? If you wanted to be generous, you could say that this was what he was talking about...but GX does not deserve that generosity, this show's contempt towards continuity and consistency is well chronicled. Also, note how Judai isn't the least bit horrified by what his parents did to get him to shut up about Yubel. That boy is seriously jaded. Also, I've no idea why erasing his memories of Yubel is supposed to make it so that he can't hear hir psychically screaming in his head about how it hurts so much. Blah blah blah for a damn long time as Yubel goes on and on about how sie couldn't understand how Judai could hurt hir so much after all the love sie showed him. As you can see, Yubel-land is a very special, and by special, I mean stupid, sort of place. In Yubel-land, causality does not exist and attacking someone's friends unprovoked isn't a good reason for that person to want to get rid of you, not that Judai was even doing that. Anyway, Yubel's pre-existing psychosis lets her reinterpret her suffering as a sign of Judai's love.
Judai then passes through Yubel's giant demon eye, which just makes me scratch my head as I wonder what the hell the writers were on, and Yubel says that that was when sie decided to fill all twelve dimensions of existence with the "love" that Judai showed hir. Thus, sie magically arranged for all of Judai's friends to be filled with anguish and suffering, and sie says that sie has been proven right, for Judai is right here in front of hir, and laughs like a stupid person. For sie is very, very, very, very stupid. And I can feel my braincells as I am forced to listen to hir drivel. And now back to the other characters who are still alive. Shou asks Chronos to hold Amon's duel disc for him, blah blah blah, he's going to go watch over Judai because he promised Ryou he would do so, not that there's anyone who would give a shit about this inane promise of his, and now he's randomly glowing and flying. My head hurts. Chronos wants to stop him, but Johan stops him, saying that there is a reason that all this has happened, there presence here is not coincidence, and Shou needs to be there so he can tell everyone afterwards why we were forced to sit through episode after episode of Judai's wangsty manpain. And they even say that this is the important role that "God" gave to Shou. Yes, Shou doesn't even deserve his own story, his only purpose here is to chronicle Judai's story. That is just so abjectly miserable, and the writers are just too myopically focused on Judai to see this. Also, this isn't what "God" dictated, this is what Shou chose because of what imaginary Judai told him...oh, right, in the eyes of the writers, Judai is God, so that would mean that God did assign this role to Shou. Of course, there's no way that Chronos or Johan could know this, so fuck them anyway.
So as Shou is flying up, and Ojama Yellow is there too because apparently Yubel wasn't annoying enough on hir own. They fly up into a bubble, and see Manjoume writhing in pain. However, this apparently isn't a flashback, as Manjoume suddenly starts talking to Shou, asking if he can hear him. Say it with me everyone, What, The, Fuck? And now Judai and Yubel arrive at the top of the clouds. Yubel asks Judai why he looks so pissed, Judai says that if Yubel was so mad with him, sie should have taken it out on him and left everyone else out of it, but Yubel repeats her spiel about how all of this was to show Judai hir love and make him happy. Judai is all "You tortured and killed my friends, how the fuck was that supposed to make me happy", and Yubel opens hir noisehole again, saying that that's what love is. Why are we putting up with this inanity again? Why doesn't Judai just make Yubel shut the flaming fuck up and get her to stop spouting hir blather? I mean, it's not even an interesting variety of crazy, like the Joker's. It's just horrific, and stupid, that's all it is. To repeat myself, you can't just call something "love", you actually have to demonstrate it. Again, look at the relationship between Amon and Echo; that was intensely fucked up and insane in many ways, yet it was still recognizable as love. This drivel, is not. Judai realizes that Yubel is just plain far too insane for words to reach, and decides not to bother trying to explain to her the 10,001 ways in which sie is wrong. Blah blah blah, the duel begins.
Yubel goes first and summons Sacrifice Lotus, with zero attack points. Sie then sets a card, and then activates the permanent spell card, Magic Chronicle, which sie says will record their future and bind them together. Yubel then takes five cards from hir deck, and removes them from play, saying Judai will understand soon, and sie ends hir turn. Judai's turn, and he hopes his precious Elemental Heroes will bring him the miracle he needs.
EYECATCH!
Oh hey, what a shock, Judai's opening move is to play Fusion and summon Flame Wingman. That's, what, the eighth time he's done that this season alone? It certainly feels like it, what with all of Judai's duels just washing together in a big mesh. In any event, this activates the effect of Magic Chronicle; whenever the opponent activates a spell card, a chronicle counter is placed onto Magic Chronicle. Judai ignores this and declares his attack, Sacrifice Lotus is destroyed, but Yubel activates hir trap card, Demon Balsam Seed; for every 1000 points of battle damage you would take, negate that damage and special summon one Demon Balsam Seed token. Thus, Yubel only takes 100 points of damage, and special summons two tokens. Judai, in what will soon be revealed to be a gross misplay, sets a card and ends his turn. Yubel's turn, sie sacrifices her tokens to summons Split Demon Rose, and why exactly are all of Yubel's monsters plants? I don't get it. Anyway, as with all the rest of Yubel's monsters, this one has zero attack points, but when it attacks an attack-position monster, its attack power becomes equal to that monster's attack power. Furthermore, when Split Demon Rose is destroyed and sent to the grave, two Demon Rose tokens get special summoned to hir side of the field. So sie attacks, Judai doesn't want her to have hir two tokens again, and so he activates the card he set last turn, De-Fusion, splitting Flame Wingman back into Featherman and Burst Lady in defense.
And now you should be able to see the gross mistake that Judai made; what Judai should have done was to have played De-Fusion during his previous battle phase so that he could destroy both of Yubel's tokens, preventing hir from being able to use them for a high level summon. But he didn't, because if he did, sie would be screwed over and the duel would not be able to proceed to its ordained, and beyond horrific conclusion. Anyway, Split Demon Rose can't use its effect against Defense position monsters, so Yubel cancel's hir attack, but since Judai activated a second Spell Card, a second Chronicle Counter is added to Magic Chronicle, which makes two, the maximum it can have at any one time. Sie then explains that on her turn, sie can remove two Chronicle Counters from Magic Chronicle to add a card that sie removed from hir deck with it, but the choice of which card is up to the opponent. That is a damn powerful card, so you can bet that not only is it considerably nerfed in the real life game, much like the rest of Yubel's deck, but Judai will never draw or play anything like R-Righteous Justice to destroy it. Because then the entire forced point of this duel would not be able to come to fruition, and that would be bad, for certain values of bad. Oh, and FYI, one of the cards is Super Fusion. Yubel opens hir noisehole some more about how Super Fusion is the symbol of the Supreme King and how sie will use it to fill all twelve dimensions with hir "love", so once Judai is ready to accept hir "love", he can give it back to hir. Judai instead gives hir the trap card Zero Sprite. Yubel is dissapointed, but still anticipates the moment when Judai will accept hir love. Sie ends hir turn, and I search for a hammer to smash my own skull with to make the pain go away.
Judai's turn, he summons Sparkman, equips him with Spark Gun, this adds another Counter to Magic Chronicle, he switches Yubel's monster to defense, which it has 1500 points of, So now Sparkman can destroy it without worrying about its effect, but now Yubel has hir Demon Rose tokens with 1200 points of damage. You know, considering how supposedly worried Judai was about those tokens, Judai sure didn't do anything to stop Yubel from getting a hold of them. So yeah, Judai ends his turn, Yubel takes hirs, sets a card, and sacrifices hir tokens to summon...hirself. Yes, there are now two of hir. Excuse me for a moment as I clean up all the vomit that just spontaneously manifested in my living room. As before, Yubel has zero attack points, and it can't be destroyed by battle. More inane love drivel, "Yubel" attacks Sparkman which is represented by it compelling Sparkman to attack it, and then a bunch of thorny vines appear around "Yubel". No, seriously, I don't fucking get it. Revolutionary Girl Utena, I got. Simoun, I got. FLCL, I got. This? This is just incoherent, the writers are just randomly throwing in plant imagery without any conception of what the fuck its supposed to mean or why its being used. By comaprison, Aki Izayoi's plant deck in 5Ds, back before her character was assassinated, was rich with imagery and meaning. These writers are just terrible. More noise comes from Yubel's noisehole, and Judai takes the damage that Yubel would have, 1600 points. More drivel about "love" and pain, shut the hell up Yubel, and during the end phase Yubel special summons Sacrifice Lotus from hir grave to the field in accordance with its effect, and then sacrifices it in accordance with "Yubel's" effect, where a monsters must be sacrificed during the end phase or else it would be destroyed.
Oh, how insipid, Yubel just smirked. To compound the dread of this entire scenario, someone out there just squeed. Yes, Yubel has fangirls. That is just...why am I the least bit shocked? There are legions of shallow fan-twits who just love inane psychos and give legitimate fangirls like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
koi_no_soshan a bad name. And now Yubel ends hir turn. Judai begins to fear that he won't be able to defeat Yubel and make a miracle, draws Hero Barrier, switches Sparkman to defense, sets Hero Barrier, and ends his turn. Yubel wants to know why Judai didn't attack so that they could hurt each other even more, Judai says he just wants to bring an end to Yubel's pain...the pain he brought upon hir...but Yubel opens hir noisehole once more about how hir pain is Judai's "love" for hir, and Judai despairs. Seriously, why the fuck would he even care about ending Yubel's pain? Yubel has brought nothing but suffering to Judai the entire time he's been alive, the drivel about the "Light of Destruction turning hir evil and crazy" is just that, drivel. Super-speed flashback montage of everyone who Judai's killed or gotten killed up to this point, he declares he needs to use overwhelming power, and his eyes randomly turn gold for an instant. For he is Gary Stu, accept no substitutes. Yubel laughs, takes hir turn, sets a card, and declares hir attack against Sparkman. Judai activates Hero Barrier to negate the attack, but Yubel activates hir permanent trap card, Zero Sprite, which equips itself to "Yubel". The equipped monster has its attack power reduced to zero, but it can attack twice, so the cost is meaningless for "Yubel", something that Judai only now catches on to. You know, for someone who said that "Yubel" was his favorite card as a kid, he sure has no idea how it works. Also, one wonders why Yubel didn't set and activate Zero Sprite one turn earlier, which would have allowed hir to win. Oh, right, that would end the duel early, so we can't have that. Misplays all over the motherfucking place, it's got to be GX.
Anyway, "Yubel" attacks Sparkman again, dealing 1400 points of damage to Judai, Sacrfice Lotus is summoned and sacrificed, and Yubel ends hir turn. Judai despairs some more about how he's going to lose, and then Shou shows up. You know, I thought the point of this arrangement was that no one would be intruding upon the duel. Consistency, this show does not has it. And speaking of no consistency, Shou has an important message for Judai; everyone isn't dead! Show of hands, who honestly thought that GX would have the spine to really kill off 90% of its cast for keeps? No one? Not even Chad from Accounting? No, especially not Chad from accounting. Flashback to Shou's encounter with Manjoume, he explains how he and the others didn't die, they've all been trapped in a hell-dimension where Yubel could feed on their strength. Also, Manjoume does not seem to harbor any resentment towards Judai for being trapped in hell because of him and Yubel. Gosh, it's almost as though the writers don't care about him or the others, viewing them only as plot devices with which to push Judai's buttons as needed. No, wait...that's exactly what it is. And in a side note, on at least two occasions, Manjoume's voice actor provided the voice for a monster-of-the-week on the Super Sentai that I've been watching. And he manages to have more dignity in those roles. That is so unspeakably sad. Blah blah blah, it's all up to Judai, he must become one with the Supreme King to save everyone, repeat of Misawa's bullshit exposition, Yubel is surprisingly unresponsive to Shou's intrusion, Judai closes his eyes, says he must reawaken the Supreme King within him to defeat Yubel, and when he opens his eyes, they are gold, and it still looks really stupid. Nothing at all like the majesty of Yuugi's transformation when Atem takes over. End episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel continues, bullshit is spouted about the "True Judai", and bad animation abounds. EPISODE TITLE, SUPREME KING JUDAI RESURRECTED card of the week is sacrifice lotus, which is massively nerfed in the real game.
Good god, the first seven minutes or so of this one had more bullshit than most series accumulate in 100 episodes. And yes, it will get even worse, though the nadir of terribleness will soon be upon us. Be afraid, be very afraid.
TITLE SCREEN! CONFRONTATION OF THE CHOSEN CARDS! ELEMENTAL HEROES VS. YUBEL hey, who wants to take odds on a forced misplay to make the duel go the way the writers want it to go?
Judai begins walking, but Johan calls out to him; blah blah blah, Johan wants to go with him but is too physically exhausted and not the least psychologically scarred, so he gives Judai his deck. Chronos makes noise, I don't care what he has to say, and then Judai starts randomly glowing and flies up. Because! So, as Judai glowily flies after Yubel, he runs into more random flashback bubbles. He gets enveloped in one, and for the umpteenth time we see the Edo-ripoff. Yep, there's Yubel attacking him for very stupid reasons, the bubble bursts, and Yubel says that that's what sie did, sie made anyone who made Judai cry go away. And because Yubel is a sub-moron, sie completely failed to notice how hir actions turned little Judai into a complete pariah, making him far more miserable than before. Of course, as far as Yubel is concerned, Judai should only have ever have been paying attention to hir in the first place, and forgotten everyone else ever. You know, no matter how much the show keeps using the word "love", this isn't "love", this is a psychotic obsession. Another flashback bubble, reminding of that inane contest that Kaiba Corp shouldn't have been able to run without being sued into oblivion, and a shot of Yubel getting shot into space. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Judai's parents had some real pull, but that can't be right, that would totally go against Judai's characterization as an everyman...oh, right, that's already been fucked all to hell long ago. Bubble bursts again, and Yubel whines about even though sie loved Judai soooooo much, he still launched hir into space anyway. Judai is aghast, it wasn't like that, he wanted her to be exposed to the space waves of Justice...I still gape at how little sense that entire concept makes, and that somehow everyone in the entire world just goes along with it for no better reason than because the script says so.
Blah blah blah, recap of the premise of season two, and apparently while Judai's neo-space cards got the good waves of dark gentle justice, Yubel got the evil bad-wrong mean light of destruction. Yes, that's right, the Light of Destruction corrupted Yubel, and made hir the way sie is now...which, by all evidence given to us, including in this very episode, is not even the tiniest little bit different from how sie was before sie was shot into space. True, sie is more creative in hir tortures than before, but that's a difference of degree, not of kind. Just five and a half minutes into this episode, and we're already buried in nonsequitur insanity. Also, this is the same Light of Destruction from last season, right? You know, the cosmic horror that was so inept that it couldn't even beat a guy who's deck was based on a Guyver ripoff? Anyway, apparently Yubel kept on crying out to Judai, but one day he stopped answering hir...okay. Another bubble, and this time we flashback to something we haven't already seen. Yeah, little Judai kept having nightmares of Yubel shrouded in flames, crying to him in pain, and his parents, being the kind, loving people that they are, saw that Judai was in pain, and so had all his memories of Yubel erased.
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AND THE 2007 GENDO IKARI WORST FUCKING PARENT EVER AWARD GOES TO MR. AND MRS. YUKI, FOR THINKING THAT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!
And that's before we even get into the insanity of casually dropping in cheap, readily available memory alteration technology that parents can use on their children, whenever. I mean, you could get a damn good, damn long story out of that by itself, but for the GX writers, it's just a cheap plot device brought in after the fact to explain why the fuck none of this shit was around in Season One. And speaking of season one, remember the time when Misawa brought Judai over to the Ra Yellow cafeteria to eat Lobster, and how agog Judai was at getting to eat Lobster? Which rather suggested that he was middle class at best? Yeah, that clearly doesn't apply anymore, now does it? And if you'll turn attention to season two, when Judai went to visit Hippy-Space and speak with the Hippy-Space Dolphin, recall how Judai said that for "some reason" he'd forgotten all about his Hippy-Space excitement? If you wanted to be generous, you could say that this was what he was talking about...but GX does not deserve that generosity, this show's contempt towards continuity and consistency is well chronicled. Also, note how Judai isn't the least bit horrified by what his parents did to get him to shut up about Yubel. That boy is seriously jaded. Also, I've no idea why erasing his memories of Yubel is supposed to make it so that he can't hear hir psychically screaming in his head about how it hurts so much. Blah blah blah for a damn long time as Yubel goes on and on about how sie couldn't understand how Judai could hurt hir so much after all the love sie showed him. As you can see, Yubel-land is a very special, and by special, I mean stupid, sort of place. In Yubel-land, causality does not exist and attacking someone's friends unprovoked isn't a good reason for that person to want to get rid of you, not that Judai was even doing that. Anyway, Yubel's pre-existing psychosis lets her reinterpret her suffering as a sign of Judai's love.
Judai then passes through Yubel's giant demon eye, which just makes me scratch my head as I wonder what the hell the writers were on, and Yubel says that that was when sie decided to fill all twelve dimensions of existence with the "love" that Judai showed hir. Thus, sie magically arranged for all of Judai's friends to be filled with anguish and suffering, and sie says that sie has been proven right, for Judai is right here in front of hir, and laughs like a stupid person. For sie is very, very, very, very stupid. And I can feel my braincells as I am forced to listen to hir drivel. And now back to the other characters who are still alive. Shou asks Chronos to hold Amon's duel disc for him, blah blah blah, he's going to go watch over Judai because he promised Ryou he would do so, not that there's anyone who would give a shit about this inane promise of his, and now he's randomly glowing and flying. My head hurts. Chronos wants to stop him, but Johan stops him, saying that there is a reason that all this has happened, there presence here is not coincidence, and Shou needs to be there so he can tell everyone afterwards why we were forced to sit through episode after episode of Judai's wangsty manpain. And they even say that this is the important role that "God" gave to Shou. Yes, Shou doesn't even deserve his own story, his only purpose here is to chronicle Judai's story. That is just so abjectly miserable, and the writers are just too myopically focused on Judai to see this. Also, this isn't what "God" dictated, this is what Shou chose because of what imaginary Judai told him...oh, right, in the eyes of the writers, Judai is God, so that would mean that God did assign this role to Shou. Of course, there's no way that Chronos or Johan could know this, so fuck them anyway.
So as Shou is flying up, and Ojama Yellow is there too because apparently Yubel wasn't annoying enough on hir own. They fly up into a bubble, and see Manjoume writhing in pain. However, this apparently isn't a flashback, as Manjoume suddenly starts talking to Shou, asking if he can hear him. Say it with me everyone, What, The, Fuck? And now Judai and Yubel arrive at the top of the clouds. Yubel asks Judai why he looks so pissed, Judai says that if Yubel was so mad with him, sie should have taken it out on him and left everyone else out of it, but Yubel repeats her spiel about how all of this was to show Judai hir love and make him happy. Judai is all "You tortured and killed my friends, how the fuck was that supposed to make me happy", and Yubel opens hir noisehole again, saying that that's what love is. Why are we putting up with this inanity again? Why doesn't Judai just make Yubel shut the flaming fuck up and get her to stop spouting hir blather? I mean, it's not even an interesting variety of crazy, like the Joker's. It's just horrific, and stupid, that's all it is. To repeat myself, you can't just call something "love", you actually have to demonstrate it. Again, look at the relationship between Amon and Echo; that was intensely fucked up and insane in many ways, yet it was still recognizable as love. This drivel, is not. Judai realizes that Yubel is just plain far too insane for words to reach, and decides not to bother trying to explain to her the 10,001 ways in which sie is wrong. Blah blah blah, the duel begins.
Yubel goes first and summons Sacrifice Lotus, with zero attack points. Sie then sets a card, and then activates the permanent spell card, Magic Chronicle, which sie says will record their future and bind them together. Yubel then takes five cards from hir deck, and removes them from play, saying Judai will understand soon, and sie ends hir turn. Judai's turn, and he hopes his precious Elemental Heroes will bring him the miracle he needs.
EYECATCH!
Oh hey, what a shock, Judai's opening move is to play Fusion and summon Flame Wingman. That's, what, the eighth time he's done that this season alone? It certainly feels like it, what with all of Judai's duels just washing together in a big mesh. In any event, this activates the effect of Magic Chronicle; whenever the opponent activates a spell card, a chronicle counter is placed onto Magic Chronicle. Judai ignores this and declares his attack, Sacrifice Lotus is destroyed, but Yubel activates hir trap card, Demon Balsam Seed; for every 1000 points of battle damage you would take, negate that damage and special summon one Demon Balsam Seed token. Thus, Yubel only takes 100 points of damage, and special summons two tokens. Judai, in what will soon be revealed to be a gross misplay, sets a card and ends his turn. Yubel's turn, sie sacrifices her tokens to summons Split Demon Rose, and why exactly are all of Yubel's monsters plants? I don't get it. Anyway, as with all the rest of Yubel's monsters, this one has zero attack points, but when it attacks an attack-position monster, its attack power becomes equal to that monster's attack power. Furthermore, when Split Demon Rose is destroyed and sent to the grave, two Demon Rose tokens get special summoned to hir side of the field. So sie attacks, Judai doesn't want her to have hir two tokens again, and so he activates the card he set last turn, De-Fusion, splitting Flame Wingman back into Featherman and Burst Lady in defense.
And now you should be able to see the gross mistake that Judai made; what Judai should have done was to have played De-Fusion during his previous battle phase so that he could destroy both of Yubel's tokens, preventing hir from being able to use them for a high level summon. But he didn't, because if he did, sie would be screwed over and the duel would not be able to proceed to its ordained, and beyond horrific conclusion. Anyway, Split Demon Rose can't use its effect against Defense position monsters, so Yubel cancel's hir attack, but since Judai activated a second Spell Card, a second Chronicle Counter is added to Magic Chronicle, which makes two, the maximum it can have at any one time. Sie then explains that on her turn, sie can remove two Chronicle Counters from Magic Chronicle to add a card that sie removed from hir deck with it, but the choice of which card is up to the opponent. That is a damn powerful card, so you can bet that not only is it considerably nerfed in the real life game, much like the rest of Yubel's deck, but Judai will never draw or play anything like R-Righteous Justice to destroy it. Because then the entire forced point of this duel would not be able to come to fruition, and that would be bad, for certain values of bad. Oh, and FYI, one of the cards is Super Fusion. Yubel opens hir noisehole some more about how Super Fusion is the symbol of the Supreme King and how sie will use it to fill all twelve dimensions with hir "love", so once Judai is ready to accept hir "love", he can give it back to hir. Judai instead gives hir the trap card Zero Sprite. Yubel is dissapointed, but still anticipates the moment when Judai will accept hir love. Sie ends hir turn, and I search for a hammer to smash my own skull with to make the pain go away.
Judai's turn, he summons Sparkman, equips him with Spark Gun, this adds another Counter to Magic Chronicle, he switches Yubel's monster to defense, which it has 1500 points of, So now Sparkman can destroy it without worrying about its effect, but now Yubel has hir Demon Rose tokens with 1200 points of damage. You know, considering how supposedly worried Judai was about those tokens, Judai sure didn't do anything to stop Yubel from getting a hold of them. So yeah, Judai ends his turn, Yubel takes hirs, sets a card, and sacrifices hir tokens to summon...hirself. Yes, there are now two of hir. Excuse me for a moment as I clean up all the vomit that just spontaneously manifested in my living room. As before, Yubel has zero attack points, and it can't be destroyed by battle. More inane love drivel, "Yubel" attacks Sparkman which is represented by it compelling Sparkman to attack it, and then a bunch of thorny vines appear around "Yubel". No, seriously, I don't fucking get it. Revolutionary Girl Utena, I got. Simoun, I got. FLCL, I got. This? This is just incoherent, the writers are just randomly throwing in plant imagery without any conception of what the fuck its supposed to mean or why its being used. By comaprison, Aki Izayoi's plant deck in 5Ds, back before her character was assassinated, was rich with imagery and meaning. These writers are just terrible. More noise comes from Yubel's noisehole, and Judai takes the damage that Yubel would have, 1600 points. More drivel about "love" and pain, shut the hell up Yubel, and during the end phase Yubel special summons Sacrifice Lotus from hir grave to the field in accordance with its effect, and then sacrifices it in accordance with "Yubel's" effect, where a monsters must be sacrificed during the end phase or else it would be destroyed.
Oh, how insipid, Yubel just smirked. To compound the dread of this entire scenario, someone out there just squeed. Yes, Yubel has fangirls. That is just...why am I the least bit shocked? There are legions of shallow fan-twits who just love inane psychos and give legitimate fangirls like
koi_no_soshan a bad name. And now Yubel ends hir turn. Judai begins to fear that he won't be able to defeat Yubel and make a miracle, draws Hero Barrier, switches Sparkman to defense, sets Hero Barrier, and ends his turn. Yubel wants to know why Judai didn't attack so that they could hurt each other even more, Judai says he just wants to bring an end to Yubel's pain...the pain he brought upon hir...but Yubel opens hir noisehole once more about how hir pain is Judai's "love" for hir, and Judai despairs. Seriously, why the fuck would he even care about ending Yubel's pain? Yubel has brought nothing but suffering to Judai the entire time he's been alive, the drivel about the "Light of Destruction turning hir evil and crazy" is just that, drivel. Super-speed flashback montage of everyone who Judai's killed or gotten killed up to this point, he declares he needs to use overwhelming power, and his eyes randomly turn gold for an instant. For he is Gary Stu, accept no substitutes. Yubel laughs, takes hir turn, sets a card, and declares hir attack against Sparkman. Judai activates Hero Barrier to negate the attack, but Yubel activates hir permanent trap card, Zero Sprite, which equips itself to "Yubel". The equipped monster has its attack power reduced to zero, but it can attack twice, so the cost is meaningless for "Yubel", something that Judai only now catches on to. You know, for someone who said that "Yubel" was his favorite card as a kid, he sure has no idea how it works. Also, one wonders why Yubel didn't set and activate Zero Sprite one turn earlier, which would have allowed hir to win. Oh, right, that would end the duel early, so we can't have that. Misplays all over the motherfucking place, it's got to be GX.Anyway, "Yubel" attacks Sparkman again, dealing 1400 points of damage to Judai, Sacrfice Lotus is summoned and sacrificed, and Yubel ends hir turn. Judai despairs some more about how he's going to lose, and then Shou shows up. You know, I thought the point of this arrangement was that no one would be intruding upon the duel. Consistency, this show does not has it. And speaking of no consistency, Shou has an important message for Judai; everyone isn't dead! Show of hands, who honestly thought that GX would have the spine to really kill off 90% of its cast for keeps? No one? Not even Chad from Accounting? No, especially not Chad from accounting. Flashback to Shou's encounter with Manjoume, he explains how he and the others didn't die, they've all been trapped in a hell-dimension where Yubel could feed on their strength. Also, Manjoume does not seem to harbor any resentment towards Judai for being trapped in hell because of him and Yubel. Gosh, it's almost as though the writers don't care about him or the others, viewing them only as plot devices with which to push Judai's buttons as needed. No, wait...that's exactly what it is. And in a side note, on at least two occasions, Manjoume's voice actor provided the voice for a monster-of-the-week on the Super Sentai that I've been watching. And he manages to have more dignity in those roles. That is so unspeakably sad. Blah blah blah, it's all up to Judai, he must become one with the Supreme King to save everyone, repeat of Misawa's bullshit exposition, Yubel is surprisingly unresponsive to Shou's intrusion, Judai closes his eyes, says he must reawaken the Supreme King within him to defeat Yubel, and when he opens his eyes, they are gold, and it still looks really stupid. Nothing at all like the majesty of Yuugi's transformation when Atem takes over. End episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel continues, bullshit is spouted about the "True Judai", and bad animation abounds. EPISODE TITLE, SUPREME KING JUDAI RESURRECTED card of the week is sacrifice lotus, which is massively nerfed in the real game.
Good god, the first seven minutes or so of this one had more bullshit than most series accumulate in 100 episodes. And yes, it will get even worse, though the nadir of terribleness will soon be upon us. Be afraid, be very afraid.
