"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

clockworkspider:

What makes me really emotional is that Yusho, the person Dennis idolized, is his teacher, and now he’s a teacher himself. <3

So, 144 was a fun episode, especially in light of this post by Kahun on NAC about the symbolism in what Dennis and Yuya were doing. While I do wish his thing from 114 was acknowledged as part of his development this episode (maybe a monologue or something, to address your reply, @blueeyeswhitegarden), I think it came out pretty well, and his sendoff with teaching the kids Yusho-style “Enterduelment” was a nice touch. Shows that, yeah, Yuya’s moving out of his dad’s shadow, and gives Dennis a great chance to atone and get Heartland closer to peace and moving onward. It didn’t click at first with my first watch earlier that Ed was alluding to Dennis acting, but catching it the second time around with the HQ raw, it made sense. Him going from Fusion to Xyz was a good symbolic touch that showed to the Heartlanders that he’d changed.

The duel was fun too, and I found it funny how Trapeze Magician–or his Rank-Up, I forget–kept Yuya from that one Action Card. And I like how they used him jumping down below the screen to grab that Miracle that he uses near the end. Not sure how I feel about Yuya using a card with him in the art lol (besides awww), but I liked the combo. But what I especially loved were those shots of Yuya Pendulum Summoning, but, like, the shot before the stock footage seamlessly transitioned into it (and if someone could gif those, that’d be great!). After last episode’s jarring switch from him facing left and rollerblading to PENDULUM SHOUKAN, it was refreshing. The entire episode looked pretty great too, and I also noticed they used part of that shot of Yuya rollerblading from OP5, so I think that was a shot Yokota might’ve worked on.

Also, the duel starting with “Wavering Feelings” playing (that’s my jam), and that Action Duel theme during that one turn… The music was on-point this episode.

Hopefully Shun gets a good sendoff too, and I like that we’re getting some more much-needed childhood flashbacks of him and Ruri (who so casually uses Mirror Force and Shun’s smiling but he’s probably screaming internally). And Gil-bo Noh should at least make it as much of a visual treat as this episode.

dragonowlie:

Wake me up

Wake me up inside

That was a cute sendoff for Dennis, but they reaaally should’ve acknowledged that thing he did in 114…