Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V S1E7: “Imperial Wrath of Treason”
Now that's an appropriate name for this episode, and a promising one! Wrath has returned to Central, and with the questions of loyalty and treason to the people, the government, and Father all flying aro...
...
...oh. Sorry. Just my wishful thinking playing tricks on me again.
Last episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V in queue, at least. So that's one good thing I suppose. Well, if this show feels like improving my opinion of it, this is its last shot. I'm not optimistic about this, but I'm not completely hopeless about it either.
The episode opens on yet another anemone-haired animu boy skulking in an alley. He's clutching a magical-looking doodad in his hand, and wears an obscuring mask and goggles.
The camera pans up toward the apex of the LeoCorp tower, where Florida Boy his practicing with his pokey men. The show has done a pretty good job of conditioning the audience to not pay attention to anything that happens during Action Duels and instead to watch what people are doing outside of them, so my brain immediately shut down to wait for us to get back to the alley ninja. If I missed something important in this scene, you'll have to forgive me; it's become involuntary at this point. The chances of this are small, at least, because the pokey-man practice quickly ends and Florida Boy starts demanding that his minions praise him. Which they do, in a "no one ___ like Gaston" kind of way. It's...mildly amusing, I guess. His minions also observe that Yuya's sense of showmanship might be rubbing off on him in an irritating way, which would certainly explain at least part of this. The focus of the praise he demands is on how, rather than just having good cards, he has personal strategic brilliance that makes him a great duelist.
Then he attributes his loss to Yuya on Yuya having had better cards. Even though he had taken Yuya's best cards at the time. Which causes his minions to see the contradiction and start losing faith in him. He doesn't take it well.
He's able to retain his leadership position due to being rich and intimidating (mostly rich), but he's clearly taken a reputational hit.
Also, he's obsessed with getting revenge on Yuya now. Strangely, neither he NOR any of his more down-to-earth henchmen seem to want revenge on that little kid who humiliated them in the most classic schoolyard way of beating them up while being half their size. They seem to have totally forgotten that part. Like it only happened because the shit writers of this shit show realized they needed something other than non-binding holographic pokey-man contests to make characters do things, and are now doing their bests to try to make us forget that so that we'll still care about the stupid duels.
Also, why did Florida Boy want Yuya to duel him so much in the first place? Him gaining an irrational need to beat Yuya after that humiliating defeat is undermined by him seeming to have already had one before it.
He's planning his revenge. Meanwhile, at the You Show school, Yuya and his friends are being happy go lucky. Roll OP. Nurse headache. Brace self for it getting worse.
Zuzu and one of the little kids are bringing ice cream back to You Show to share with the rest when they happen to cross paths with two of Florida Boy's minions. The latter don't notice them, but are conversing loudly enough to be overheard.
The tone of the conversation makes it seem like they really do think that their bigwig is losing it, and the implication - wearing LeoCorp dueling club uniforms as they are - is that breaking off their friendship with the owner's son might have consequences for them, so they're just rolling their eyes and humoring him. Their motives make more sense than almost anyone else's at this point.
Zuzu and the little'un run to their destination to warn Yuya that Florida Boy is going to do something underhanded and news article worthy. Yuya saved them from that punk a couple episodes ago, so its their turn to help him out against the same.
Erm. I'd already be pretty paranoid about further retaliation, if I were in Yuya or Blue's place, so this should be less of a warning and more of a confirmation. Also, DID Yuya actually save them when he caught them mid-descent from the holographic tower? WOULD that fall have actually killed them? I'd take this as confirmation that it would have, but this could also just be the show continuing its attempts at gaslighting its audience into thinking Yuya rather than Blue was the one who freed them in the end.
Cut to the mysterious alley ninja, no longer in an alley, staring up at the LeoCorp tower.
Is this Yuya's father, returned from his coward's death? I begin to suspect that it might be.
Also, I...have to take back what I said before. Zuzu and the younger kid DON'T hurry off to warn Yuya. Rather, Zuzu sends the other off to do that, while she herself follows the henchmen to their clubhouse in an old warehouse (wait, why are they meeting in this ramshackle ground-level clubhouse now instead of inside the LeoCorp building?). Rooftop ninja watches from the nearby rooftop as she creeps along the warehouse's walls. At first it looks like she's eavesdropping to gather more information, which could have been a reckless - but arguably worth it - course of action. But no, that's not what she's doing either. Instead, she kicks the door open, marches up to Florida Boy and his cronies, and starts bitching them out for being jerks.
But...Zu...these guys assaulted and kidnapped you just a couple of days ago! Why the everloving FUCK would you choose to confront them alone, in their home turf, without even making sure that the adults knew where you were beforehand?
This isn't the kind of thing you can chalk up to childish stupidity or naivete. Children are smarter than this. In fact, children are usually MORE skittish around things that have hurt them in the past than adults are! There's no leverage she has here. No self-defense weapon. No reason to expect this to go any better than it did last time, and quite a lot of reasons to expect it to go worse. She certainly has no reason to think that talking at them aggressively is going to intimidate or dissuade them. What the fuck does she even think she's trying to do?
Florida Boy is understandably bemused. Zuzu starts doing her best to insult him, calling him a terrible duelist, a cheater, and a coward, trying to get him to duel her.
Hmm. I gueeess this might work at getting him to take her to a dueling club (I doubt he's got a holoprojector here in this old warehouse) to play against her, if she gets under his skin enough. She has absolutely no assurance that he won't just beat her senseless instead, though. Or that he won't beat her senseless and THEN accept her dueling challenge. Or accept her challenge, but then drag her bag to his dad's secure compound and beat her senseless after the match regardless of who wins. In no case will she have accomplished anything, even if he accepts in ANY capacity.
Next thing that happens is her looking shocked when one of the henchbullies closes the door behind her, locking her in.
What a fucking twist. :/
Florida Boy gives her one last chance to take back what she said. She refuses. So, he...straps his card reader onto his wrist and prepares to duel her.
...
......
.............
"I'm giving you one last chance to take that back before I do exactly the thing you want me to do!"
Are you for real, show? Really for real?
Well, I guess they have a holoprojector in here after all, then. For whatever reason.
Mercifully, there is not a duel here in the end. Yes, this Yu-Gi-Oh! show has made me relieved when it ends up NOT having a Yu-Gi-Oh! match due to what total wastes of time and attention it wasted them on up until now. This is honestly a pretty impressive accomplishment. But anyway, Rooftop Ninja kicks in the door, knocks over two of the henchbullies (not that that's too impressive, since tiny younger kid Blue did the same thing not long ago), and steps inside.
Well, he's definitely not Yusyo. Seen up close now, his proportions are those of a kid around the others' age.
Zuzu and the bad guys all ask who the fuck this guy is. He doesn't answer, at first. He just eyes a little pin thingy on Florida Boy's shirt collar; it looks very similar to the little eldritch doodad he was playing with in his hand back in the alley. I guess that's what he's here for. Finally, he responds to their questioning by stepping in front of Zuzu, telling her he doesn't want her to get hurt again, and then glaring at Florida Boy and throwing back his sleeve to reveal a very different and much bulkier version of the card-readers. One which looks like it might actually be cybernetically grafted into place.
When he activates it, the user interface looks very different too. And the text on the screen notably is using words like "enemy target" rather than "opponent" or "duel" or the like. His theme music that starts playing is, likewise, much more techno-y and violent sounding than the soundtrack's usual.
And, this is where I did something very, very stupid.
I saw this entrance, and those visual details, and had the thought that this guy might not be an action duelist at all. Is it going to turn out that while the public was distracted by the monster duels, military or corporate researchers have been quietly weaponizing hard light technology? Has this kid gotten his hands on a prototype SWAT team tactical projector, capable of creating hard light constructs without needing an external system and without being bound to any safety protocols or the rules of any games?
Is this show actually going to pull the rug out from under the audience and shift gears into something more interesting, higher stakes, and more logically consequent from its established worldbuilding?
Like I said, I did something extremely stupid. I got my hopes up.
I really need to stop giving these shows so many chances.
So, Mystery Ninja and Florida Boy start playing calvinball. I'm not even sure what Mystery Ninja "rescued" Zuzu from by doing this. As has already been established, the threat that these boys pose is in their propensity for physical violence. Unless he's stopping them from grabbing or punching Zuzu, he's not helping her at all. Him playing calvinball against Florida Boy before the brawl rather than her playing calvinball against Florida Boy before the brawl doesn't make any difference whatsoever.
Cut to the kid making it back to You Show, just as the sun is setting. She tells the others about the situation, and Zuzu being in trouble. Wait, how does she even know Zuzu is in trouble? She left before she went into the clubhouse! Fucking metagaming little shit. Cut back to the clubhouse, where the calvinball game is being played.
Interestingly, the holographic cards and monsters are working normally, but there's no virtual environment. And, when one of the monsters' effects generates wind that she can feel, Zuzu is surprised by that.
Okay. I guess the card-readers can project the monsters and effects on their own, if perhaps not at super high rez, and you just need the external machine to generate the environments? I guess?
Although...no, wait, in that case why would she be surprised at the monster's wind effect being tactile? That seems like it should still be in the capacities of a device able to create the monster in the first place.
Hmm. Maybe by themselves, the wrist-mounted projectors can only produce standard, intangible holograms. The bigger machines are needed to create hard light constructs, and work in tandem with the card-readers to give substance to the otherwise untouchable projections. Okay, that makes sense. In which case, Roof Ninja's fancy reader probably has a miniaturized hardlight projector in it, letting them feel the wind and presumably touch the monsters without being in a holo-arena. Although, it seems like Florida Boy's monster is the one creating the wind, so...maybe it works on your opponent's monsters too?
I think? I don't know. Either way, it doesn't solve any of the problems with this sequence. It's just something more pleasant and interesting to focus on.
They play. Roof Ninja wins. His winning move partially destroyed the building they're in, sets fires, and bowls Florida Boy over with some scratches and burns. All of them are bewildered at that display of kinetic force outside of a hard light arena. Bewildered, and kind of scared. Roof Ninja advances on Florida Boy, and starts interrogating him about his connection to "the academia." Florida Boy either doesn't know what he's talking about, or does a decent job of pretending not to.
Apparently, the little eldritch-looking doohickey pinned to his collar is related to this "academia." Florida Boy insists that it's just bling from his dad's company. Roof Ninja says that in that case, he has no further interest here, and turns to leave.
Florida Boy realizes that the duel was never quite finished, as he's still at 100 hp. He tries to throw a parting shot at Roof Ninja's back, but Roof Ninja had a trap card thingy active that retaliates and finishes off Florida Boy's hp by launching a giant spike at him. The framing makes it look like the spike is going to actually pierce his body like a real spike and impale him, but whatever is causing these holograms to be hard ones apparently still has some kind of safeties in place, because it just seems to deal equivalent damage to a kick in the stomach.
It would have been more satisfying if Roof Ninja just turned off the hard light effect and totally ignored that parting shot as he left the neighborhood, but oh well. Maybe he's not actually the one who was controlling that. The other bad guys grab their groaning, grimacing leader and flee. As the fires burn themselves out, Zuzu asks who Roof Ninja even is. He removes his mask, revealing a more stern and soldierly version of Yuya with hair styled and dyed in a slightly different ridiculous way. Then he vanishes into thin air.
A moment later, the Yuya we know arrives in a hurry. Alone. Without the super strong blue haired kid. What was he planning to do to help? No idea.
I guess either cyberninja Yuya was a hard light hologram being projected from elsewhere, or there's some time travel thing going on, or Arc-V is starting to go back in the mystical direction of the previous series. I don't really care which though, and that's the end of the last episode in queue so I don't have to.
I have nothing more to say about what I've seen of this series. Not a word.
