So last night I watched A Fistful of Dollars, something I’ve intended on doing for some time. This is a film every Crash Town fan should watch. While the YGO Wikis are not completely accurate, one thing they do seem to have right is that Crash Town was heavily inspired by this iconic movie. There were so many things throughout the film that Crash Town referenced, it’s hard to know where to begin.
Let’s start with a brief summary of the film. Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name arrives in the small town of San Miguel, where two rival gangs are locked in a war for control of the town. He arrives wearing a poncho and is accosted by several bullies. He takes them out and decides to pit the gangs against each other, which results in misunderstandings and bloodshed on both sides and eventually causes the death of the less powerful of the gangs. He has a showdown with the other gang leader in the town square to save his friend and successfully defeats him. With the town free, he heads on out to his next adventure.
Fans of Crash Town can immediately pick out references like the classic poncho, the warring gangs, and the town square showdown. There are many more.
Even the names themselves are references in some cases. The anime gives us Sergio, for the director Sergio Leone, and the game Over the Nexus gives us Clint, for our star. There is one other important name, and we’ll get into that in a bit.
Upon arriving in town, Clint asks which of the gangs is the most powerful. He is told the Rojo Brothers, and he sets about trying to join them with a show of his strength by killing the bullies from the rival gang who tormented him and his mule. He discovers the sadistic and lustful leader of the Rojo gang is holding a mysterious woman hostage, and later he is able to reunite her with her husband and son and get them safely out of town.
As with Crash Town, the more powerful and cruel gang is the one most widely developed. We see many instances of the Rojo Brothers’ sadism, including gunning down an entire military convoy trying to deliver some gold. By contrast, the sheriff John Baxter’s group is more mysterious and not as well-developed. Baxter certainly doesn’t seem to be a sadist, even if he isn’t strictly upholding the law. We’re told the Baxters are gun-runners, but we don’t see them engaging in criminal activities or shooting people down for no reason. They’re apparently participating in the war and hiring gunslingers, but judging from the Rojo gang’s attacks on them throughout the film, I would venture to say that Baxter is hiring men for self-defense and not to cruelly gun his enemies down in the streets. They certainly come across as more sympathetic, if either gang is so, and towards the end of the film the entire gang is massacred by the brothers. Baxter’s widow screams at them for shooting her husband and her son, as they were unarmed. She is then shot down as well.
Crash Town featured two brothers, Malcolm and Lawton. The movie has three. The movie opens with the most powerful and evil brother currently away, but he joins the action before long. This character is definitely the Lawton counterpart, despite what Crash Town does with his name.
And so we come to the third important name, the only character name from the movie that is retained for Crash Town. This evil brother’s name is Ramon. Of course, for Crash Town the name Ramon was switched and given to the John Baxter counterpart. Was this irony or complete seriousness? Baxter was the sheriff, the one possible force for law in town. The brothers muse at one point that the Baxters want peace in town. The name Ramon means “protector.” Instead of leaving the name with the Lawton character, where it would be a true irony, it was given to the one man who was standing in the way of a complete, totalitarian takeover of Crash Town. Ramon/Radley was indeed Crash Town’s protector until Kalin finally stepped up to the task himself and took Lawton down. Who knows how long Ramon held off the takeover before Kalin even arrived? As bad off as Crash Town was when Yusei got there, it became far worse after Malcolm and Lawton assumed total control.
Some may protest that Radley was part of the problem in town. Technically this is true, but the situation is not cut-and-dry. Radley’s Bunch is not as well-developed as Malcolm’s Crew and instead, they are much more mysterious. We never see their part of the dyne mine and we don’t know that they torture their miners like Malcolm’s Crew does theirs. Canon never says or shows this. For all we know, they may indeed be deliberately trying to protect the town as well as to make money from the mine.
It’s interesting that while Clint’s character is assaulted by members of Baxter’s gang, in Crash Town Yusei is cornered by Malcolm’s Crewmembers instead of Radley’s Bunch. Was this change deliberate? It certainly makes more sense, since Malcolm’s Crew is repeatedly shown to be bullies while Radley’s Bunch is not. And it makes Radley’s Bunch look more sympathetic than their counterparts, Baxter’s gang.
Since this is YGO, the entire gang doesn’t get wiped out when Malcolm and Lawton decide to assume complete control. But Radley does meet his fate similarly to John Baxter, when Lawton challenges him to a duel and then doesn’t let him get off one move, instead using effect damage to cruelly and painfully take him out on the first turn. The uncut version of this scene shows him being shot over and over by a Gatling gun-wielding Duel Monster. It is gruesome and horrifying and is very similar to some of the massacre scenes in A Fistful of Dollars. At the end of the round, Radley collapses unconscious.
Unlike poor Yusei, who is “befriended” by the traitorous Barbara, Clint’s character makes a genuine friend in the saloon owner. There doesn’t really seem to be a Barbara character in the film. The closest would be the woman Ramon is holding hostage out of lust. In Crash Town, Lawton certainly took a shine to Barbara, although there it was mutual (and the dub has it that they’re married).
Even the adorable boy West is represented in A Fistful of Dollars; the hostage woman Marisol’s son is likely whom West was based on. The child is always agonizing over not being able to see his mother and keeps trying to get over to her. Marisol, hence, becomes a female version of Sergio/Jordan, West and Nico’s father who becomes a prisoner in Malcolm’s sadistic part of the mine.
For the town square climax, Clint’s friend the saloon owner is abducted and held hostage, his arms strung above his head as he stands near a wooden pillar. Someone cracks a whip. This certainly brings to mind Lawton and Barbara tying up West and Nico to a pillar in the town square, and who could forget Barbara’s whip? Clint takes Ramon Rojo out during a climatic gun fight and he drops dead. It’s not quite as iconic as the moment where Lawton is defeated by Kalin and crashes to the ground, but at least it’s a relief. The friend is rescued and the film ends as happily as is possible considering everything that happened.
There are other parallels, such as that the Rojo Brothers like explosives just as Lawton does. At one point Clint’s character is captured and tortured by them, which could be thought of as a bit of a parallel with the mine and Malcolm’s Crew torturing the miners. There is an intense scene where he tries to escape their grasp. Earlier in the film, he also overhears the brothers plotting to kill him, paralleling that Malcolm’s true plan was to betray Yusei all along. We also have a live body being transported in a coffin when Clint hides in one.
All in all, this is an important piece of movie history that deserves to be remembered as a classic and as what launched both Clint Eastwood’s career and the spaghetti Western genre. Crash Town keeps its legacy alive and fresh. And for me personally, I am just so excited by the parallels running between John Baxter and Radley. Maybe things were deliberate, maybe not, but to me it looks like more possible evidence that Radley was indeed intended to quietly be considered the town’s first protector. Baxter having been the sheriff, and Radley’s original name Ramon meaning “protector,” and seeing how Crash Town fell apart without him there to push back against Malcolm, all says it loud and clear to me.
Remember the second duel between Bohman and PM. Ai said something about hearing a voice inside him, what if this was Ryoken’s voice that Yusaku kept hearing during the incident ? which what led Ai to have this special instinct unlike the other ignis since Ryoken didn’t talk to the other kids
As I see it, the part that Ryoken specifically reached out to Yusaku (Ryoken said in #43 that he watched “you” in singular, not plural form in both the original Japanese sub and dub, as in only Yusaku), while hearing all the children’s screaming during 6 months of the Hanoi Project is no doubt an unexpected and important factor that contributes to Ai’s uniqueness as an Ignis, if not the only one.
Interestingly, it never mentioned if Ai had also heard Ryoken’s voice during, but while he watched Yusaku reacted to it, it seemed like Ai also reacted the moment his voice came through, as seen in #19:
And when Ai dissipated, he broke in two:
Another point to note is that as an observer of the Ignises’s growth, it’s also never mentioned if the Professor Kogami ever took notice of Ai’s strange behaviors among the Ignises or not.
Ai also demonstrated to have something akin to human’s sixth sense during Playmaker’s last Speed Duel against Bohman in #72,
It raises the same question that never gets any answer: what exactly was Ai’s “something inside me”.
Highlight the priceless detail “during a duel”. He felt it when Playmaker was dueling. And up until that point whenever Yusaku dueled, he heard Ryoken’s voice.
Playmaker, who also followed and believed in the voice that reached his heart, had no reason to disagree with Ai’s claim right there.
So, the last Master Duel against Bohman wasn’t the only time Vrains had hinted about Ai’s crucial connection to Ryoken. It’s just harder to see than his connection to Yusaku, but it’s there and it counted every single time it had happened. I don’t think I need to mention Ai had acted like a cheeky little shit (and he knew it) when Aqua and the girls questioned him about Revolver in #83, even readily defended Revolver when Soulburner antagonized him.
I did notice something very interesting in season 3 between Ryoken and Ai that may answer this to a certain extent. But then again at this point, every idea is no more than what-ifs and headcanon.
So Soulburner is played by Eddy Lee in the dub. The same guy who does the tough, yet secretly sweet, edgelord, Gladion. He also did Moon Shadow (Tsukikage) in ARC-V.
Funny thing is, the day he finished his battle with Ash in the Pokémon League in Japan is the same day Soulburner first appeared in the dub.
Okay going over episode one again because there’s so much information packed full into there and since everyone’s combed through the obvious information I’m gonna comb through the “doesn’t-seem-too-important-but-I’m-gonna-scream-over-it-anyways” information. Namely, about the special group of people Kusanagi talks about when bringing up the infamous Data Storm of the VRAINS.
Yugo and Rin Duel!?
Yugo and Rin have an emotional reunion. However, Rin then challenges
Yugo to a Duel!! Yugo feels that something is off about Rin’s strategy,
but…!?
This week’s Reiji: Telling Yuya about his promise to Yusho!
Reiji talks to Yuya about the promise he made three years ago. In order
to stop Akaba Leo’s ambition, he asked for Yusho’s help, but…
So having finally watched the latest episode something hit me. Early on we were considering similarities between the City and Academia. That perhaps the reason it was so easy for Jean to take over and why Dennis and Serena never seemed to show any concern about the state of Synchro. But looking back at it, they are very different, highlighted nicely by Shinji’s rants.
In the City, losers are discarded and their voices ignored. Shinji seemed to imply no one would even help Yuzu (although whether Dennis and Yuzu getting attention was just because they were important or because they were hurt is up in the air) just because she’d lost.
Compare that to how Academia has treated its losers (excluding Serena). Barret and Sora have both lost and instead of being cast aside, they keep their rank. They could have been punished but we don’t know. But we do know Sora was sent out in charge of the Obelisk force and given a second chance. And now so is Barret. And despite seemingly not knowing Dennis, Sora’s apparent first thought on learning he was Academia and lost, even not knowing Synchro’s situation with the Council and Security, was to save Dennis from capture and send him home for help. The Professor confirms Dennis has reported in and Yuuri, after failing to capture Yuzu, is being sent out again.
It paints a pretty obvious picture that Academia doesn’t in fact abandon its losers and instead builds them up and sends them out for a chance at redeeming themselves. And this is the problem the City has. I have no doubt Academia is competitive and everyone is trying to get up in the ranks. But Academia has managed to breed loyalty, The City only breeds distrust and rebellion as we see with Shinji. The City has only taught the Commons that the only way to get what you want is to tear others down and step over others. That losing is unacceptable if you want to get anywhere. Academia (quite rightly as a school) allows for mistakes and seeks to fix them .
In a sense, the City gets along by pushing down losers, Academia gets by raising up winners.
4K MEDIA TEAMS WITH BIOWORLD TO DELIVER A NEW LINE OF BRANDED Yu-Gi-Oh! ACCESSORIES Featured products include Headwear, Sleepwear, Footwear, Electronic…
ok the key phrase here is
“Bioworld has the right to feature the animated imagery from each of the popular Yu-Gi-Oh! series …
Bioworld designed products will feature artwork from each of the Yu-Gi-Oh! animated series, including the new Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Yu-Gi-Oh!
”
WE ARE FINALLY GETTING ZEXAL/ARC-V MERCH (and 5D’s/GX/more DM)