coastworthy:

a real guy’s being dudes moment

toon-girl-abby:

GUYS THE PIRATE EPISODE OF GX IS TOTALLY MORE RELEVANT THAN EXPECTED

I SWEAR, PEOPLE EITHER MEME OR PUT DOWN THE PIRATE EPISODE FOR BEING UNIMPORTANT AND IT REALLY IS BUT THE THING IS, THE WHOLE THING IS LIKE A SUMMARY PLAYED FOR LAUGHS VERSION OF STUFF THAT HAPPENS IN THE REALLY SERIOUS PART OF SEASON 3, WHICH I AM GONNA MENTION SO BEAR WITH ME.

Breathes

Look, I normally don’t do any liveblogging or the like but I need to get this out of my mind, it’s important. I already talked a little bit about this but I am gonna go in detail as I rewatch this episode in the OG version since I watched the Latino dub for nostalgia and because the episode really was not that important, technically speaking. Still, there are a few maybe coincidences I wanted to mention from having watched the dub and another liveblogging. Any screenshots I may post will have Spanish subs, I apologize, couldn’t find a place with English subs. Spoilers for the whole show warning!

So, episode 38! “水中デュエル！伝説の都アトランティス/An underwater duel! The Legendary City of Atlantis” Let’s go!

First off, Judai and Sho have a little bump in their relationship in this episode!

“You are mean, Aniki! How could you just eat my fried shrimp?!”

This episode is very light and the “conflict” between them is laughable, with Judai doing the equivalent of stealing your pal’s fries (which is what he did, except change fries with shrimp). The dub kinda made Jaden more of a douchebag by changing it to him trading Syrus’ bed for a card.

“I’m sorry, my bad. As I saw that you weren’t eating it, I assumed that you hated it”

The stolen shrimp thing is more Judai screwing around and he did apologize for it, even explaining that he thought Sho didn’t like shrimp (still, it’s called asking, Judai) while outright stealing his friend’s bed and exchanging it for a card is a lot more serious and he never apologizes for it in the dub. And it wasn’t even supposed to be that serious, when the Pirate Guy mentions about Syrus not liking Jaden as part of the reason why he shouldn’t be tied down to Duel Academia, I didn’t even notice that Sho didn’t actually come with the rest of Judai’s cheerleaders (apparently it was shown in the OG that he didn’t come but like, I either missed it out in the dub or they just deleted the scene, I would need to rewatch dub version again to check, man, but I am assuming that I didn’t notice that Syrus didn’t go to the submarine with the rest) but it’s pretty obvious still that the thing was petty and dumb and Sho wouldn’t stop being Judai’s friend/lil bro figure just because of that.

“I don’t like this… We only fought because of the fried shrimp and now I won’t see Aniki ever again…”

No, we would need to fast-forward to almost one hundred episodes later/2 seasons later for more serious reasons why Judai and Sho would stop being the best of friends. Still, it hurts to watch this even then because I already know Judai’s and Sho’s friendship really didn’t last.

Second! Is… Is it just me or the villain of this episode was, uh, oddly stalkerish? Out of freaking nowhere this pirate/marine guy (Nicknamed Admiral in the dub, real name is given in the OG as Anacis and he is really a merchant and a sorta marine but I prefer using pirate guy for short if not using his true name) comes to Duel Academia with the sole intention of recruiting Judai for his own Duel Academia.

Kuriboh head boy over here assumes that pirate guy is a Seven Stars/Shadow Rider (I swear the dub name is more cooler, as much as I prefer the OG in other respects), and the OG version makes the misunderstanding more clear by showing the microphone that pirate guy used was malfunctioning and it was blaring noise all over the place so nobody hears well what his intentions really are and since Judai had been fighting Kagemaru’s stooges all over the place, it was really easy to assume it was more of the same. I mean, the guy had a vampire, a tiger, another apparently famous pharaoh that wasn’t Atem who turned out to be a fake legend, some goofy spirits, and as serious as Amnael was, he was still silly cat lover Daitokuji-sensei (nyah!) and he was silly before and after the reveal, but not during. It was not really a stretch that he would have a pirate on board. And he did mention the Phantom Beasts, and that wasn’t a misunderstanding soooooo…

“I-I can’t breath!” AKA the reason why this episode is memed on aside from the whole dueling pirate thing

Anyways! Yeah, it wasn’t his deal and it wasn’t a Shadow game, as hilariously cringe that everyone on Team Judai’s assumptions on the matter were. The OG does give a bit more of a motivation to Anacis in that he mistakenly (as well) assumed that beating Judai would give him the Phantom Beasts, but it wasn’t his whole intention for the thing. As Judai points out to him, since everyone was confused on the onset about how any of this worked, the duel had no reason to be but pirate guy doesn’t stop.

“The three Phantom Beasts… And you! Judai Yuki, I have my eyes on you!”

NO! Pirate guy over here wanted to steal the Phantom Beasts and Judai from under Kaiba’s nose, I suppose, to found his own Duel Academia (which he can totally do, the founding an own Duel Academia bit, because he has a lot of money on him and is fully willing to use it to screw the rules).

“Why is Judai the symbol [of Duel Academia]?!” Same, bro, same.

And here is where I have to ask why?!?!?! I don’t think Judai being Duel Academia’s Ace was that well known at this point in GX. Well, he does mention the versus North Duel Academia thing but like, Kaiser was still there, he was still better than Judai and so well known that he was given that Kaiser nickname in the first place and previous episodes did show that people outside Duel Academia do know him, like a certain Rei Saotome did.

“With this you will belong to me very soon!”

The whole thing reeks a bit stalkerish to me, especially how Anacis seems to be willing to throw an insane amount of money at Judai’s feet just for the sake of buying the guy, which is a bit uncomfortable imo. At one point he even celebrates when the situation seems bleak for Judai by saying “he will own him”. Brrrrrr. But since this episode is lighthearted and stuff, it really mostly plays it as if pirate guy was Abridged Kaiba with his “Screw the Rules, I have money!”, especially with how the guy tries to bend the rules of a duel just by using money! And the dub does make him a little creepier by adding a little of trying to use emotional manipulation like I mentioned before about pointing out that Jaden supposedly had no ties to Duel Academia because Syrus was angry at him.

“Huh? Where are the others?”

Not that the OG version was a slouch in being sleazy by using Judai’s friends to get at him, and trying to isolate him from them and force him to follow his plans anyways after the duel and the power of money failed him, though the dub does make him more evilly manipulative by making it seem like Jaden’s friends just went up and left him! In the OG there was no such misunderstanding, pirate guy is upfront in how he was not willing to honor their bet and was taking Judai by force.

I do think it’s kind of a shame that pirate guy was an one-off because he seemed to be serious about this and it would have been a neat plot, especially if Kaiba had gotten involved with this upstart. Still, we only need to fast-forward to two seasons later to see another stalker villain going after Judai, who is also very incidentally involved with the Phantom Beasts, and this time it’s serious and personal…

“Wait, Judai! This is a Shadow Game! It’s too dangerous to board the enemy territory alone!” Not like you helped him, not now, not in Season 3

Third! After watching the whole thing subbed, I noticed that the dub actually added a bit of a subtext that wasn’t in the OG about Jaden being worried about his friends that are constantly being put in danger because of the Shadow Games. Alexis, Misawa and Chazz all decide to go with Jaden anyways in spite of the risk, and this scene does exist in the OG except without the aforementioned subtext. Still, it’s very uncomfortable to watch because this situation happens for real in Season 3 with Judai’s friends following him in spite of the risks and how that backfired on Judai, horribly.

“Very well. In that case, I will go”

“I can’t let you boast by yourself. I will go too.”

“I will go too.”

“Sho, Hayato. You should come too” But for what reason.

For all it’s worth, it is framed as a friendship thing since Judai invites Sho and Hayato to come with him too but goes to show that Judai was more mature in Season 3 than anyone including the fandom ragged him on about when even he knew the risks of his friends going with him to the Different Dimension. Their deaths in Dark World were more or less their own fault.

Fourth! OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS WHERE JUDAI’S SPEEDBOAT CAME FROM?! WHAT THE FUDGE! AND IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING, JUDAI TRIED TO LEAVE DUEL ACADEMIA IN SEASON 2 WITH A SPEEDBOAT BUT I ASSUMED HE JUST KIND OF STOLE ONE FROM DUEL ACADEMIA OR EVEN MY HEADCANON THAT JUDAI DID OWN A SPEEDBOAT (MY HC BEING THAT HIS PARENTS ARE RICH). TURNS OUT HE DID STEAL A BOAT, I JUST DIDN’T REMEMBER WHERE IT CAME FROM. WOULD NEED TO DOUBLE CHECK SEASON 2 TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE THE SAME BUT IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE ME IF THAT WAS THE CASE.

To conclude, I actually liked this episode a lot more now that I watched it twice! I know ARC-V made a call back to this particular episode with Captain Solo but my gosh, it was just yet another thing that ARC-V botched. Anacis is actually an entertaining villain even as an one-off, with his plans actually having such serious implications to the setting that it feels like a waste that he was just an one-shot, while Captain Solo was a waste of everyone’s time unless you are a Sora fan. Which, I am but even the Fluffal support of that particular episode and Sora and Tsukikage being a deliciously trolling duo isn’t enough to salvage that waste of an episode in a show pressed for time.

yugiohdilf:

happy birthday to shou marufuji!

(via sixweekoldhedgehog)