There’s actually one more, that would fit between ‘Solemn Scolding’ and ‘Condemned Maiden’
Also it’s hard to tell in the card image used here for Forbidden Scripture (since it was clearly taken form a holofoil card) buuuut if you closely at the bottom left, you can see the old man in the doorway behind her.
Also to add bit to this, the theme of Arc-V is to take a step forward with courage.
Everything bad that happen with Leo and Zarc happened because they couldn’t let go of the past (Leo wanting to get Ray and the original world, his old world, back. Zarc wanting to beat Ray, become one, and destroy everything because he practically went insane).
It was put to Yuya, who at the very beginning was in a runt because he couldn’t let go of the past and even if he took a step forward (Pendulum summoning) he couldn’t do it with courage (he got very upset when he found out other people can use Pendulum too), to fix, not fix but inspire I guess, those two and everyone else to move on with their lives.
The ending was sad yes. Reiras a baby and possibly has some of Zarcs soul in him (at least it’s good). Heartland is in shambles. The six counterparts lost their own bodies.
But look Shuns smiling, the Yuu boys worked together with Yuya, and the bracelets girls were smiling at the end. Let me tell you it’s hard to be happy and continue on after a bunch of shit like this happens.
Yet they’re all somewhat content. It takes courage to accept somethings won’t be the way thy use to be and life just goes on and it’s different.
Yea the ending was bittersweet but the cast, despite all the shit they went through, are taking a step forward into a brand new unknown tomorrow with the courage to keep smiling and continuing on.
So we all saw what happened, Yuya used Monster Reborn to get Tuning Magician back, Pendulum Summoned his stuff back and played Paladin, seemingly having come out of thin air, as is tradition for protagonists.
But-
He could have used Monster Reborn to get Salutiger back, Pendulum Summon and then go into Dark Rebellion via Silverclaw and Salutiger and then use its ability to drain 3000Atk from the 4000Atk Hama and deal 4500 damage to the 3200Lp Shinji.
But I guess that doesn’t sell cards.
The point of the duel, or at least the second half of it, was to prove that low level monsters can have a purpose. Everyone disregarded Tuning Magician as being useless and worthless. Yuya using Tuning Magician to Synchro summon Enlightenment Paladin and use its effect to his advantage was not pointless. He wanted to show that Tuning Magician could be useful and summoning Enlightenment Paladin does that. Summoning Dark Rebellion wouldn’t have had the same kind of message in that regard.
Just because Yuya could have won another way doesn’t make Enlightenment Paladin pointless or unnecessary. If anything, I like that Yuya had more than one option to win at that point, especially when he was able to use a rather negative effect to his advantage at the end. While selling a new card was definitely a factor here, there was also clearly more than that going on with the duel. Dismissing Enlightenment Paladin just because Yuya could have won in a different way comes off as completely ignoring the message Yuya wanted to convey with Tuning Magician in the first place.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal’s connection to the other series both past and present has been revealed at last. Which leaves us with the question. Can we call Zexal canon now knowing this?
I love how the options are ‘defend yourself by fleeing dramatically via window” “Something’s in here, better hop in” And “Just set my fathers murderer on fire and jumped out of the helicopter into a dorm to combat my possessed-by-an-alien-light best friend/brother figure”
is it me or do Chazz’s eyes get warmer as Judai’s get colder?
Someone else made a very interesting point in the tags for this post. They said something along the lines of ‘reverse character development.’ That’s not necessarily how I’d put it, but it does get close to a very interesting thing, related to Manjoume and Judai’s development. Namely, they both move in opposite sides, in relation to the other and each one ends up where you’d have expected the other would be, at the beginning of the series.
Manjoume. At the start, he’s very much the loner, the bully, the rich kid with a superiority complex the size of the island. People likely expected some development on his part, but not enough that it would move him in any way from the ‘dark, brooding, predominantly solitary member of the group’ shtick he had going on. Yet by the end of the series, no only has he proven himself to be a capable and competent leader on the Duel Academia campus, but he’s also shown that he has the charisma necessary to make whole stadiums shout out his name. At first, he didn’t have friends, but rather toadies keen to get an advantage by being close to him, yet during the fourth season, he knew that he had people he could implicitly rely upon, just as they could rely on him.. From the schemer in the shadows, who stooped to destroying Misawa’s deck, he’s become a man wholly comfortable in the limelight, no longer willing to use underhanded means to achieve his goals.
Judai. He looked deceptively easy to peg at first. The lazy genius. The wunderkind with a fantastic future likely ahead of him, in spite of his lackadaisical attitude. The golden boy, all red like a warm bonfire, drawing people to him like an ambulatory magnet. In true shounen fashion, people were waiting for him to take leadership at the Academia and become the shining beacon and catalyst for the entire school. Only when he actually seized leadership, he was both utterly terrible at it…. and then far, far too good, when he lost absolutely everything and the only thing left to him was an artifact of power and a whisper of ‘don’t let their deaths have been in vain by stopping now.’ By the very last season, I believe Judai is horrified by the prospect of leadership. He absolutelydoesn’t want it, both out of guilt and since it no longer fits the person he’s become. By the end, he’s the quiet warrior in the shadows, content to watch from afar, intervene quickly when there’s no other option and then pull back just as fast. It also takes time for him to reconnect to the people who call him 'friend’, because a lot of damage was done on both sides of that relationship. As for fame, renown, leadership… all these things no longer matter to him, so he doesn’t bother with them.