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cypsiman2Well, this was the final season of Yugioh GX, a veritable blight on the good name of the original series. This season, for whatever reason, was cut down from the standard 52 of the past three seasons to a comparatively anemic 24 episodes. However, by making Shin Yoshida head writer once more, they were able to cram in as much fail as humanly possible. The first example of this copious fail of course lies with the animation, character designs, and music. The animation, if anything, has gotten worse, the character designs are lazy and uninspired, and there is no new music whatsoever. And unfortunately, it gets much, much worse from here. As we will see, the plot suffers from copious plot holes, glaring retcons, and wretched pacing.
By all logic, the fact that the season was cut down to 24 episodes from 52 should have resulted in all the writing and pacing being really tightened up, with a determined effort to make every episode count. However, Shin Yoshida thinks that logic smells funny and isn't sparkly enough, so he'll have nothing to do with it, so while the first four or five episodes are focused and each progress the plot in one way or another...the rest of the season just flounders. You have seven episodes in a row that have nothing to do with the plot, strictly concerned with "character development" for a supporting cast that has been grossly neglected throughout the entire series; of course, by completely and utterly divorcing this "character development" from the progression of the plot, it becomes completely meaningless. Then there's Judai's trip over into Domino City, which was clearly a forced plot device to get him out of the way so that "Mr. T" could take over the entire school without even token resistance and nothing of note or value happens in Domino City, save for delving into poorly written wangst for O'Brien and Saiou and meeting up with Johan, the latter of which could have just happened at Duel Academia itself. So basically, you've got a good 12 episodes in the middle that were complete wastes of time. Marvelous, simply marvelous pacing there Shin Yoshida.
And the retcons, oh god, the retcons, they just breed like rabbits, don't they? Let's see, first off, that part where Asuka had recovered all of Fubuki's memories for him? Never happened, since Judai has to do it all over again! Also, Seaweed Hair was apparently there all along, that's why there was never ever any mention of a third mutual friend of Fubuki's and Ryou's. You've also got Darkness being rewritten from a generic mook to the final boss with powers and motives that were never even remotely hinted at before, and to top it all off, suddenly Judai is the only Osiris Red student left, even though there's absolutely no reason at all why everyone else should have been promoted out of the dorm. Also, plotholes, so many goddamn plot holes. Why is no one aside from Judai even remotely affected by what happened to them in season 3? You'd think that near-death experiences would have some sort of impact, but you'd be wrong, dead wrong. How the hell does Ryou get back to the real world, months after everyone else does, despite the fact that he was super-duper double dead? NO FUCKING CLUE, HE JUST DOES! Not to mention, nothing about what happened with the Abandoned Dorm or Seaweed Hair makes even a lick of sense.
And really, it's just a bad plot; all it is is yet another chance for the writers to remind us that Judai is Card Game Jesus, and everyone else is useless deadweight, utterly dependent on Judai's mercy and grace to be able to survive, much less accomplish anything. Also, fuck that garbage about Duel Monsters being the source of all existence, that's just...ughh, such blatant attempts to keep trying to top themselves instead of toning it down and focusing on writing a good story. But really, it's the characters where the fail truly lies.
Judai...fucking Judai. He's not even human anymore. He's fused with Yubel, the psychotic monster that nearly destroyed the entirety of existence to get hir way, and the sum total effect of this is that Judai starts acting all mopey and he can't have fun and he won't hang out with his friends anymore. It is just such whiny entitled white fratboy pain that I just can't even begin to care. And really, how can anyone possibly relate to Judai at this point? He spends most of his time talking with spirits instead of actual people, conspicuously avoiding his friends, refusing to let them know basic information about what is going on, preventing anyone from being able to defend themselves. His "Character Arc" is all about him learning how to be able to have fun again, and apparently Shin Yoshida thought this was so brilliant that not only did he do it twice, but he had it completely overtake Asuka's "Character Arc". Classy.
Asuka, Manjoume, and Shou, they all fall into the same trap; their "character development" arcs are completely pointless, serving only to color the particular variety of wangst that "Darkness" will inflict upon them all later. Also, there is a notable pattern whereby each character's "path in life" is basically forced upon them; Samejima and Chronos recommend Asuka go to "Duel College" without any concern for her prior decisions, Ryou forces Shou to abandon his own deck to play a mangled version of Ryou's and take up his mantle in the Pro Leagues, and while Manjoume had decided on his own to try to get into the Pro Leagues, he's still inexplicably rejected all over the place until Judai and Chronos force him to become Edo's toady, which after a contrived and badly written sequence, makes him a shoo-in. It is just really insulting and half-assed.
Kenzan...I have to laugh how once again, he is just so fucking irrelevant, gets no focus, and his precious "dino dna" is once again a pure liability. Season 2, he's practically the center of existence, season 4, not even a footnote.
Unfortunatelyk, I can't laugh when it comes to Rei and Misawa; Rei gets to do nothing, while Misawa no longer exists and never did. Two characters with such potential, utterly wasted by these brainless writers.
But the one I feel truly sorry for has to be Fubuki; he finally gets some character focus, only for it all to be wrapped up with Seaweed Hair's whiny self-indulgent bullshit, and we're supposed to believe that he feels so strongly about this guy that has never been mentioned or even hinted at throughout the three preceding seasons, that his "failure" to save him has been haunting him all this time...not buying it.
Chronos, par for the course, is not so much developed as he is rewritten for no adequately explained reason. Daitokuji, meanwhile, also par for the course, accomplishes absolutely nothing this season, meaning that there was absolutely no reason at all for his ghost to have stuck around all this time, and thus does GX piss all over the conclusion of the ceremonial battle of the original series for no reason at all. And of course, Samejima continues to be the worst principal ever, making all his hand-wringing really annoying.
And now to discuss the villains of this season. Trueman, AKA Mr. T, aka PVC Bondage Leather Man. What the hell were the writers thinking, calling him "Mr. T"? We were obviously supposed to take this guy seriously, and yet...could they have honestly have never heard of The A-Team? Mind you, aside from having a semi-decent voice, he's just...evil for the sake of being evil. We have no idea where he comes from, what he is, why he's doing all this, he just exists to be the bad guy. Then we have Seaweed Hair, who's backstroy and motivations make no sense, his plan is stupid, and he's just plain a terrible villain. Finally, "Darkness". Really, take what I said about Mr. T and Seaweed Hair, you can apply it all to him as well. Plus, why does he play a card game with Judai instead of just stepping on him?
Finally, lets bring in some numbers; first, this season has 20 duels, and of those duels, Judai is in 15 of them, and only the last one has any sort of "dispute" to it, but we'll get into that in just a bit. Technically, Asuka gets three, but all those are shared with Judai and she is horribly overshadowed everytime. Manjoume gets two, one against Judai, and he threw that one for no fucking reason at all. Shou gets one, as does O'Brien and Kenzan. Johan gets two duels, one against Judai and one alongside him, and Fubuki gets two, one against Judai, one against Seaweed Hair. But, there's one duel that still deserves discussion in particular, Judai vs. Juugi; If Juugi had been replaced by Yuugi, he would not have wasted Thousand Knives on Bubbleman; instead, he would have attacked and destroyed Bubbleman with Retrained Elf Swordsman, attacked directly with Dark Magician, Judai activates A Hero Emerges to bring out Neos, Yuugi cancels his attack, AND THEN, he plays Thousand Knives to destroy Neos. Since this would take place outside the battle phase, Judai's Death and Rebirth trap would not trigger, and Judai would be forced on the defensive; he'd summon Card Trooper in defense, send three cards to the grave, Yuugi summons Alpha the Magnet Warrior, attacks and destroys Gardna, attacks directly with Swordsman for 1400 points of damage, attack directly with Dark Magician and Judai negates with Necro Gardna. Judai's turn, he summons Sparkman in defense, Yuugi summons Swift Gaia with its effect, attack and destroy sparkman, Judai now gets to activate Death and Rebirth, intending to get rid of Dark Magician, but Yuugi activates Switch to change the target to Swift Gaia, Dark Magician attacks and destroys Sparkman for 900 points of damage, and then attacks directly with both remaining monsters for the win. As you can see, I did not change any of the cards drawn, merely the timing for when one card in particular should have been played. Thus, we are thoroughly reminded of just how terrible the duels are in this show, both in quantity, and quality. Sickening.
So yeah, that's the final season; after the sheer rage of season 3, I'm just too exhausted to really tear into this, but rest assured, it is wretched in every way.
By all logic, the fact that the season was cut down to 24 episodes from 52 should have resulted in all the writing and pacing being really tightened up, with a determined effort to make every episode count. However, Shin Yoshida thinks that logic smells funny and isn't sparkly enough, so he'll have nothing to do with it, so while the first four or five episodes are focused and each progress the plot in one way or another...the rest of the season just flounders. You have seven episodes in a row that have nothing to do with the plot, strictly concerned with "character development" for a supporting cast that has been grossly neglected throughout the entire series; of course, by completely and utterly divorcing this "character development" from the progression of the plot, it becomes completely meaningless. Then there's Judai's trip over into Domino City, which was clearly a forced plot device to get him out of the way so that "Mr. T" could take over the entire school without even token resistance and nothing of note or value happens in Domino City, save for delving into poorly written wangst for O'Brien and Saiou and meeting up with Johan, the latter of which could have just happened at Duel Academia itself. So basically, you've got a good 12 episodes in the middle that were complete wastes of time. Marvelous, simply marvelous pacing there Shin Yoshida.
And the retcons, oh god, the retcons, they just breed like rabbits, don't they? Let's see, first off, that part where Asuka had recovered all of Fubuki's memories for him? Never happened, since Judai has to do it all over again! Also, Seaweed Hair was apparently there all along, that's why there was never ever any mention of a third mutual friend of Fubuki's and Ryou's. You've also got Darkness being rewritten from a generic mook to the final boss with powers and motives that were never even remotely hinted at before, and to top it all off, suddenly Judai is the only Osiris Red student left, even though there's absolutely no reason at all why everyone else should have been promoted out of the dorm. Also, plotholes, so many goddamn plot holes. Why is no one aside from Judai even remotely affected by what happened to them in season 3? You'd think that near-death experiences would have some sort of impact, but you'd be wrong, dead wrong. How the hell does Ryou get back to the real world, months after everyone else does, despite the fact that he was super-duper double dead? NO FUCKING CLUE, HE JUST DOES! Not to mention, nothing about what happened with the Abandoned Dorm or Seaweed Hair makes even a lick of sense.
And really, it's just a bad plot; all it is is yet another chance for the writers to remind us that Judai is Card Game Jesus, and everyone else is useless deadweight, utterly dependent on Judai's mercy and grace to be able to survive, much less accomplish anything. Also, fuck that garbage about Duel Monsters being the source of all existence, that's just...ughh, such blatant attempts to keep trying to top themselves instead of toning it down and focusing on writing a good story. But really, it's the characters where the fail truly lies.
Judai...fucking Judai. He's not even human anymore. He's fused with Yubel, the psychotic monster that nearly destroyed the entirety of existence to get hir way, and the sum total effect of this is that Judai starts acting all mopey and he can't have fun and he won't hang out with his friends anymore. It is just such whiny entitled white fratboy pain that I just can't even begin to care. And really, how can anyone possibly relate to Judai at this point? He spends most of his time talking with spirits instead of actual people, conspicuously avoiding his friends, refusing to let them know basic information about what is going on, preventing anyone from being able to defend themselves. His "Character Arc" is all about him learning how to be able to have fun again, and apparently Shin Yoshida thought this was so brilliant that not only did he do it twice, but he had it completely overtake Asuka's "Character Arc". Classy.
Asuka, Manjoume, and Shou, they all fall into the same trap; their "character development" arcs are completely pointless, serving only to color the particular variety of wangst that "Darkness" will inflict upon them all later. Also, there is a notable pattern whereby each character's "path in life" is basically forced upon them; Samejima and Chronos recommend Asuka go to "Duel College" without any concern for her prior decisions, Ryou forces Shou to abandon his own deck to play a mangled version of Ryou's and take up his mantle in the Pro Leagues, and while Manjoume had decided on his own to try to get into the Pro Leagues, he's still inexplicably rejected all over the place until Judai and Chronos force him to become Edo's toady, which after a contrived and badly written sequence, makes him a shoo-in. It is just really insulting and half-assed.
Kenzan...I have to laugh how once again, he is just so fucking irrelevant, gets no focus, and his precious "dino dna" is once again a pure liability. Season 2, he's practically the center of existence, season 4, not even a footnote.
Unfortunatelyk, I can't laugh when it comes to Rei and Misawa; Rei gets to do nothing, while Misawa no longer exists and never did. Two characters with such potential, utterly wasted by these brainless writers.
But the one I feel truly sorry for has to be Fubuki; he finally gets some character focus, only for it all to be wrapped up with Seaweed Hair's whiny self-indulgent bullshit, and we're supposed to believe that he feels so strongly about this guy that has never been mentioned or even hinted at throughout the three preceding seasons, that his "failure" to save him has been haunting him all this time...not buying it.
Chronos, par for the course, is not so much developed as he is rewritten for no adequately explained reason. Daitokuji, meanwhile, also par for the course, accomplishes absolutely nothing this season, meaning that there was absolutely no reason at all for his ghost to have stuck around all this time, and thus does GX piss all over the conclusion of the ceremonial battle of the original series for no reason at all. And of course, Samejima continues to be the worst principal ever, making all his hand-wringing really annoying.
And now to discuss the villains of this season. Trueman, AKA Mr. T, aka PVC Bondage Leather Man. What the hell were the writers thinking, calling him "Mr. T"? We were obviously supposed to take this guy seriously, and yet...could they have honestly have never heard of The A-Team? Mind you, aside from having a semi-decent voice, he's just...evil for the sake of being evil. We have no idea where he comes from, what he is, why he's doing all this, he just exists to be the bad guy. Then we have Seaweed Hair, who's backstroy and motivations make no sense, his plan is stupid, and he's just plain a terrible villain. Finally, "Darkness". Really, take what I said about Mr. T and Seaweed Hair, you can apply it all to him as well. Plus, why does he play a card game with Judai instead of just stepping on him?
Finally, lets bring in some numbers; first, this season has 20 duels, and of those duels, Judai is in 15 of them, and only the last one has any sort of "dispute" to it, but we'll get into that in just a bit. Technically, Asuka gets three, but all those are shared with Judai and she is horribly overshadowed everytime. Manjoume gets two, one against Judai, and he threw that one for no fucking reason at all. Shou gets one, as does O'Brien and Kenzan. Johan gets two duels, one against Judai and one alongside him, and Fubuki gets two, one against Judai, one against Seaweed Hair. But, there's one duel that still deserves discussion in particular, Judai vs. Juugi; If Juugi had been replaced by Yuugi, he would not have wasted Thousand Knives on Bubbleman; instead, he would have attacked and destroyed Bubbleman with Retrained Elf Swordsman, attacked directly with Dark Magician, Judai activates A Hero Emerges to bring out Neos, Yuugi cancels his attack, AND THEN, he plays Thousand Knives to destroy Neos. Since this would take place outside the battle phase, Judai's Death and Rebirth trap would not trigger, and Judai would be forced on the defensive; he'd summon Card Trooper in defense, send three cards to the grave, Yuugi summons Alpha the Magnet Warrior, attacks and destroys Gardna, attacks directly with Swordsman for 1400 points of damage, attack directly with Dark Magician and Judai negates with Necro Gardna. Judai's turn, he summons Sparkman in defense, Yuugi summons Swift Gaia with its effect, attack and destroy sparkman, Judai now gets to activate Death and Rebirth, intending to get rid of Dark Magician, but Yuugi activates Switch to change the target to Swift Gaia, Dark Magician attacks and destroys Sparkman for 900 points of damage, and then attacks directly with both remaining monsters for the win. As you can see, I did not change any of the cards drawn, merely the timing for when one card in particular should have been played. Thus, we are thoroughly reminded of just how terrible the duels are in this show, both in quantity, and quality. Sickening.
So yeah, that's the final season; after the sheer rage of season 3, I'm just too exhausted to really tear into this, but rest assured, it is wretched in every way.
