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

valkyrie-duelist:

valkyrie-duelist:

kaiowut99:

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.

silvormoon:

kaiowut99:

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”

I’m doing this off the top of my head, and mostly from some rather old and sketchy memories, so please forgive me if I’m a little disorganized or not 100% accurate. Still, I’ll give it my best shot!

Misawa is basically that kid who was probably at the top of his class back at his old middle school. He was the gifted kid everything came easily to, and he expected that this state of affairs would continue when he got to Academy Island. He thought he was going to walk in and do his thing, everyone would be very impressed with him, and he wouldn’t really have to do anything much or exert himself particularly. Only it didn’t happen that way, because Duel Academia is where the kids who are gifted in dueling go, and half the people he comes into contact with are also really, really good at stuff. Suddenly he’s not having it all his own way anymore. He’s having to compete for attention with genuine showstoppers like Juudai and Manjoume, who aren’t just good but also personable and exciting. Even on those occasions when Misawa wins, he just isn’t as interesting as these other guys, and the more time passes, the more he finds himself overshadowed.

Of particular note is his interaction with Taniya, which I think a lot of people get wrong. It’s so easy to read Misawa’s character as “he cares too much about science and logic, and he needs to be more in touch with his emotions!” Being too logical is never Misawa’s problem. His problem is that he wants to be logical and his emotions overrule him. That’s why he loses and continues to lose to Taniya. She’s a very passionate person, but she can also be calm and logical when the situation calls for it, and when they first meet, Misawa hasn’t got that kind of balance. The minute she starts appealing to his heart instead of his head, he comes unglued.

So the season two and the Society of Light comes along, and his life is starting to unravel, because here is where his personality flaws are really starting to bite him. Right from the start, we’ve seen that he’s a guy who thinks he has it all and doesn’t need to change. The first time he meets Juudai, they banter over which of them is going to be number one in the school, with the strong implication that Misawa thinks it’s going to be him. When everyone goes rushing off to look at the shipment of rare cards (the one Chronos takes for Manjoume, as it turns out), Misawa says he doesn’t need to worry about them because his decks are already perfect. Even when he loses the key he’s supposed to be protecting, he comes off as more concerned about what went down between him and Taniya than the fate of the universe.

We tend to treat him as a part of the friend group, but we rarely see him hanging out with the others as friends. When he hangs out with the group, it’s because he wants something from them, whether it’s getting them to help him repaint his room when he expects to be promoted, or whether he’s just enjoying lording over them to “train” them during the Seven Stars arc. He doesn’t hang out with them just for the fun of it.

And the other characters notice this. I really think the whole reason Sho starts in on the whole “Oh, are you here?” routine is because basically, Misawa doesn’t make an effort to hang out with the gang most of the time. It’s less of a “you are unimportant to us” thing and more a “look who decided to grace us with his presence!” thing. He took it for granted that his friends would be there when he wanted them, so he didn’t make much of an effort to keep in touch with them, and then when he did finally realize he wanted them around, the damage was already done.

And then the Society of Light swoops in. Saiou played Misawa better than he played that piano of his. He saw how much Misawa cared about his reputation, he saw how he was starting to realize that he was being overshadowed by the flashier and more charismatic duelists, and he realized that there was no reason he needed to try to recruit Misawa when it was clear Misawa would come to him given enough time. Misawa wanted a fast track to being admired without having to put in the actual effort, and Saiou promised him exactly that. (Pay close attention to Misawa’s vision just before he throws the duel with Manjoume, and you’ll see that his imagination is populating the Society with swarms of cute girls ready to welcome him into the fold - those pesky emotions overruling logic again!) So he joins the Society.

And doesn’t enjoy it because it still doesn’t get him what he wants. Finally, Zweinstein shows up, and his duel with Juudai makes Misawa finally confront the idea that he needs to work on himself. So he goes off on a journey to find himself and drops out of the plot for a bit, which is unfortunate for his characterization but it’s what we’ve got.

But when he comes back, there are subtle signs that he’s a changed man. The first thing he says when he sees the transported Academy is not “come and save me” but “don’t come here, it’s dangerous!” Later, we see him making every effort to save the others and get them home safely, without showing any signs of wanting to be hailed as a hero for it. When Juudai sets out to rescue Johan, Misawa comes along even though he believes the chances of surviving are infinitesimally small, because that’s his friend and he needs to help him. They’re little things, mostly, but they demonstrate that he’s finally stopped letting his ego rule his actions and started caring more about other people.

And so he gets his reward. He’s one of the few people to survive the Dark World arc without anything tragic happening to him, he re-unites with the woman he loves and helps her save her people, and presumably he gets to live happily ever after, which is better than some of the cast gets.

You might treat him as a foil for Marufuji Ryo, who also suffered from “gifted kid” syndrome. Both of them had a meltdown when they finally ran up against people who were better than they were and broke their illusions of themselves as “perfect”. Their main difference is that Misawa went looking outside himself for reassurance and got sucked into the Society of Light, whereas Ryo turned inwards, rejecting everyone around him and devoting himself solely to building himself up.

So anyway, that’s my analysis of Misawa. I know it’s not the mainstream opinion, but I hope it at least gives you a starting point for further consideration.

…Yeah, I think you pretty much nailed it! 

I’ve picked up on a lot of this as I’ve re-gone through episodes, especially his tendency to focus on logic over his emotions (which you addressed very well, and which definitely comes into play with Tanya), but you put it all together really well. :) 

Definitely onto something with his concern over his reputation (which gets highlighted in 82 as Manjoume and all the converted White students laugh at him calling himself Ra’s “top student,” with a classmate even saying, “you’re hyping yourself up!”) And yeah, that part about his not really hanging out with the group as a friend I think has some merit to it.  Even in 82, he really only ends up with the group initially because of his inner turmoil about the Society of Light and whether the group feels anxious over potentially joining them with half the school converted (to which Judai basically says “we always have and always will be Reds”).  I do think he does hang out decently with the others (their getting together to watch Ryou duel Ed, for example), but I think there’s something there, and with putting the “Oh, you’re here” thing in the lens of his usually wanting something out of the interaction which does feel accurate, so I think you’re right in how after his time with Zweinstein later, his mindset has shifted and he’s selflessly trying to help them get back home–it does feel different from the slightly smug, “my deck’s perfect,” Misawa we have initially.  When that “Eureka!” hit, it definitely really hit.

And I suppose it does speak to our human need for validation, too, in the way he looks outside himself to Saiou and the SoL for it only to learn the lesson that it comes from within.  I think it’s realistic that he’d go off for a while and do the work to improve himself, and he does ultimately come back stronger for it.  Also like the nod to the other extreme that happened with Ryou and his closing himself off to focus only on winning, respecting opponents be damned.

zeravmeta:

genuinely what pushes yuya from a really good protag into “oh my fucking god” levels of good for me is the reveal that while he’s the personification of zarcs pure wish to make others happy he’s not perfect yuya has had so many instances in arc v where he gave into anger, where he wasn’t always happy, where he retreated into himself and refused to accept help from his friends but what ultimately separated him from zarc is that he still never gave up on this ideal and instead managed to grow it past what even zarc once wanted. he was zarcs second chance but he was also JUST as prone into falling into the same pitfalls that zarc fell into: he stumbled, hurt people by mistake and intentionally, got frustrated and impatient, acted rashly, but was still able to hold onto his wish and didn’t let anyone else twist it in the end like it was twisted for zarc. the only instance where yuya actively gives up on his wish was when he first dueled barret and chose yuzu over his wish and he literally tortures himself with it for the rest of the synchro arc bc while it was something he believed in whole heartedly he was also just borrowing it from his dad bc it was the only memento he had of him for years and it was only jack telling him that he doesn’t have to abandon that wish but rather speak it and believe it in HIS OWN WORDS where yuya managed to begin growing out of his role as merely an alter ego. even then, he still wasn’t perfect nor all were all of his traumas and problems resolved, and when shit hit the fan and when the literal fate of the universe hinged on him defeating yuri while all his friends were screaming at him that he HAD to win was only when he fully became zarc once more because he was pushed to his limit the same way zarc was. AND DESPITE ALL THAT, it was when his friends put themselves through the same hell he was put through, when they suffered a gauntlet of defeats at his hand after having relied on him so heavily to absolutely win was when their words, HIS words actually managed to reawaken that wish from zarc. zarc was SCARED when told that he still held onto his original wish, but yuya took that step with courage despite the fear aaaaauuuuaaaghahhh watch arc v

(via blueeyeswhitegarden)

chromsai:

Oh man. I haven’t done this in a while but…

Let’s talk about something real quick:

Let’s talk about what an important and wholesome message this is.

I know the fandom loves to give Yusho a lot of crap, especially with how he acts during the last arc of the show, among a few other things, but let’s just appreciate that even if Yusho isn’t the best father in Yugioh history, he’s still a good dad overall.

Good especially for Yuya.

Keep reading

heartarcv:

Okay, you all made me get out of my rocking chair for this.

It’s been over two and a half years since Arc-V ended and we all processed our feelings about it, but a week or two ago there was another blow-up in the Yugioh fandom over the production struggles during the Arc-V era and their correlation to the quality of the series toward the end. I’d like to address these claims.

First of all, it is extremely common for anime production deadlines to get delayed and for the ending episodes to be produced in less and less time. Any article about the anime production process, as well as KyoAni’s series “SHIROBAKO” itself, show this to be par for the course in the anime industry. Any given anime series, Yugioh or otherwise, likely has gone through some of these typical production struggles at some point or other; including the changing of core staff such as animation directors and episode directors bowing out of the production to work on other properties. None of these things should be cited as evidence of a huge production upheaval.

Secondly, I have seen several of these “poor production” claims of Arc-V reference a couple of tweets made by an animator close to the end of 2016, in which they complain that their model sheets (from which they reference character designs) not being delivered on time and thus delaying their ability to get their work done. These are not valid sources of proof that Arc-V was in a downward spiral with its production quality either, and here is why:

1) It’s an open secret that animators in Japan are paid very little, so most key animators need to take on projects from multiple properties at a time in order to make enough money. Many key animators are freelancers, meaning they aren’t employed solely by one studio and only work on those projects but rather are contracted by any studio that calls upon them; therefore these tweets could have been in reference to anything, not necessarily Arc-V. So this is not concrete proof that Arc-V was suffering from production disarray, and as I mentioned before, this kind of delay is extremely common anyway.

2) Even if these tweets *were* referring to Yugioh, the timing (the comment in the tweet stating that this animator’s deadline was the end of 2016) would suggest that it was either one of the very last 6 or so Arc-V episodes in the series, or that it was a cut for VRAINS. This animator’s complaint was that their model sheets had not been delivered, but there were no brand new characters introduced in the last 8 episodes of Arc-V. If these model sheets were for an Arc-V cut, they would have to be monsters—meaning the bottleneck probably came down from Konami and the OCG, not from Studio Gallop or the writing team. But, as we know, the debut of Yugioh VRAINS was delayed four weeks and filled in with Yugioh LABO (which was pretty much just a talk show that hyped up the first looks at VRAINS and introduced the cast and setting); so these tweets could just as easily, if not much more easily, have been animation cuts for VRAINS.

Also, claims that Ebina Hidekazu, one of Studio Gallop’s in-house animation directors since Yugioh ZEXAL, left the franchise after his work on Arc-V episode 135 because he “hated the series so much,” is simply grotesque speculation and has no validity whatsoever. High-quality animation directors will find new opportunities with higher pay, and there is no reason to believe Ebina left Yugioh because he hated his job.

Lastly, it must be mentioned that the single most impactful factor to the success of a Yugioh series in the eyes of Konami, who finances the series, is the return from card sales. Regardless of the story movement, if the cards are selling well the show will be considered a success. Online polls and blog reviews are of very little significance to Konami’s marketing priorities, but if the series is selling cards, it’s doing its job.

Misinformation travels quickly, especially when it is fueled by a fandom’s frustration with the result of a series and bias toward bad press. Nonetheless, it is ignorant, disrespectful, and selfish to project your own distaste on the cast and crew and the people who worked hard on the series. 

If you were unhappy with Arc-V, you’re free to feel that way. But take this advice: don’t go digging into the production history for “proof” that your opinion is “right.” Just own your opinion for what it is, leave the fans whose opinions differ alone, and focus that energy on something you do enjoy.

written by and given permission to be shared by Bekalou

(via blueeyeswhitegarden)

homura-bakura:

So, lately, I’ve been rewatching Penguindrum.  I’ve also been reading a lot of analyses of Penguindrum, and in turn I’ve been looking up analyses of some of my other favorite surrealist anime, mostly Ikuhara’s work.  And remembering how Penguindrum ended, I found myself thinking about how almost all of Ikuhara’s main works end sort of…bittersweet.  Progress has been made, but something huge has been lost as well, leaving the end feeling almost unsatisfactory.

And that’s gotten me to thinking about analyzing shows that have similar endings, that aren’t necessarily made to be…well, as dense as that particular brand of anime.  Specifically, I’ve been thinking about Arc V, and again about the ending that left a lot of people upset.  I was and still am to a point one of those people who was disappointed with how it ended, but looking back at it in hindsight, and especially through the lens of the previously mentioned anime, I wondered if maybe there was something more to the decision than first appeared.

Now before I start the actual meat of this post, let me disclaim that I would be among the first to admit that it’s probably “not that deep.” But there’s the distinct possibility that it is, and regardless of whether my conclusions were intended conclusions, the act of analyzing fiction against one’s own individual interpretation is an important final step in the process of any creative endeavor.

Keep reading

iamcelestos:

I probably talked about this ages before, but I’m not sure if I did so hey let’s talk about it again, this time with screencaps (thanks @alicethedragonvalkyrie, and I think those are @kaiowut99​‘s subs). I thought about the Dark World arc and specifically, the creation of Super Polymerization (Super Fusion). The way in which it was created made me think, and I’ve come to some… interesting conclusions.

This relates to episodes 134 onwards.

The five Wicked Doctrines/Runes/curse marks were implanted onto Judai’s friends, each representing one of five negative emotions: anger, sadness, anguish, hatred and doubt. These, as are sacrifices in general, are said to be critical to activate Super Poly:

Most important here is the fact that there are FIVE of these runes, and all five appear to be needed for Super Poly’s activation.

Now, clearly, issues arise with the gathering. The five runes all attach to different hosts, but the absence of one causes problems. Manjoume, Asuka, Fubuki and Kenzan are captured by Brron’s men, but Shou (the fifth) is missing.

During his duel with Judai, Brron then attempts to use Super Poly, despite having a missing component:

Of course, as we know, Brron does not succeed in using it, and even as Judai gains it post-duel, it does not seem to be complete. Haou/the Supreme King, within Judai, is aware of the card being incomplete:

Considering there was such emphasis on the 5 runes and their hosts being sacrificed, why is it that suddenly, the focus has switched to sacrificing anyone that dares to oppose Haou?

There were five components to activate Super Poly: the five hosts of the five runes. Five ‘special’ souls. One is missing, so… perhaps, it looks like the countless ‘ordinary’ souls of those in Dark World appear to be the replacements for that one ‘special’, marked one.

Shou, interestingly, never seems to be aware of this, and he never notices his own mark. This is in line with the other four who were sacrificed - none of them seemed to notice that they had been marked, and did not pick up on the emotions the runes were drawing out of them and emphasising. Instead, Shou does what he feels he can do: run, survive, and gradually come to accept his role as an observer in the game of life (I may discuss this in another meta post - Shou’s behaviour in later S3 is so so fascinating).

Either way - five special souls, or four special ones plus as many mundane souls as is needed to replace the fifth. How many souls became the replacement for Shou’s one, it is impossible to say, but it’s chilling to think it may have been as many as millions (as some fans have claimed). If Shou was unaware of his mark, then it’s likely that he never made the connection between himself and the fact that so many others had to be killed.

Still, that makes for some interesting thinking, in meta analysis and fanfic: how Shou would have felt, knowing the choice rested between either his one death, or the death of so, so many others - and the latter ended up being the case.

TL;DR - the countless civilian ‘deaths’ during Haou’s ‘reign’ in Dark World were due to one person’s absence. Shou himself may or may not have been aware of his position as a lynchpin, but it’s frightening to think what would have been going through his mind if he did know.