"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."
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Need me some meta analysis of Misawa’s character progression from “You might make a nice rival, #1-kun” to “what’s wrong with wanting your skills to be recognized?” that doesn’t boil down to “they didn’t know what to do with him or his cards so they made him a joke lol”
Tbh I think him getting a little too comfortable in his spot as #1 Ra Yellow played a part in it, he went from “I’ll only move up to blue when I’m good enough” to “I can become blue whenever I want to so I’m taking things easy for now” he didn’t really start trying until Edo badmouthing him made him realize he wasn’t being seen as one of the best duelists like he thought+not being recruited by the Society of Light, because he could’ve built the deck that was about to beat Manjoume at any point if he put his mind to it, but he just didn’t until he felt that who he was was no longer enough, but by that point his mind had gotten so fragile that he self destructed, plus after that he didn’t focus on the opponents that would actually get him attention but it seems he was just facing anyone to get that dose of “yeah, I’m super cool and smart and awesome”, and before he could really course correct he changed careers to help the doctor with his reserach.
tl;dr mix of him not trying hard enough when it really mattered and his fragile mind making him self sabotage like Edo said.
Not entirely related but I think he should’ve started dueling more people out of spite “oh, you think I’m not the best? ok, prove it, losers” then beating those 3 guys and feeling better and realizing there was probably something else going on, but at that point I’m just writing fanfiction in my head.