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

(Previously: Episodes 95 and 96 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-97: He Appears! The Mysterious World Champ!

The true objective of GeneX, hosted by Principal Samejima, was to find who it is that holds the “ultimate D card.” Similarly, Ed Phoenix has been dueling in order to find the criminal who killed his father and walked away with that card. At the same time, the Dueling Pro League’s World Title Match was about to get underway–one involving the Champion who has ruled over the Pro League for the past decade, DD. DD is also Ed’s guardian, and his duel with Doctor Collector and his IQ of 200 gets underway. But their match is over in an instant–at the hands of DD, and the ultimate D card he used.

TURN-98: Activated at Last! The Ultimate D Card

Ed learns the truth–that DD, the World Champion, killed his father and stole his card–and is challenged to a duel.* Ed battles by making full use of his D-Hero cards, but just as it seemed that he was on equal footing with the World Champion, DD at last activates the ultimate D card, Bloo-D. Faced with this predicament, Ed…

*Should note the preview text I translated for this mentioned that he was challenged “for the key Saiou entrusted him with,” but… this wasn’t actually mentioned, and DD challenged him to a “duel to the death.” Though I guess that kinda works with how the dub tried to tie him to the Society of Light, lol.

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A smidge late, but episodes 97 and 98 are finalized!

Got ourselves an interesting two-parter here, as we circle back to Ed’s season-long quest to find his father’s killer and the ultimate D card stolen from him, introducing us to his foster dad DD. Why is DD his foster dad? As we find out, for reasons–ones related to wanting to keep tabs on the investigation into all that. But in the years since, DD’s gone on to rule the Pro League for a decade, thanks in large part to the mysterious powers of the Light of Destruction within him–which, as Pegasus tells Samejima, is behind the Phoenixes’ tragedy and… several other events in history. Ed gets closure with his dad at the end of it all, as our ultimate D Bloo-D absorbed him, and he gets to finally get his life moving again.

Very much enjoyed these two episodes for what they were in completing Ed’s arc; I felt it pretty believable in GX’s context, with how his motivations were fueled by finding his dad’s killer now that he can do something about it, and his rise through the Pro League being to find the guy at the top who’d have his dad’s Bloo-D. Also a nice touch is that, when he finds out DD only took care of him as a means to keep up to speed on the investigation into it, Ed discards any sense of respect he had for him (notably, Ed initially used “anata” (a more polite-yet-casual “you”) with him, but once that revelation’s made, he switches to the ruder “kisama” and calls him “human trash” for what he did). Both were also screenwritten by Shin Yoshida, and 98 in particular gets helped by the animation work from Tea Sun In’s team.

Edit-wise, not as many as last time; I only touched up 97 in two spots, while 98 got more of the handful of fixes I made, totaling 10 for both episodes–97 was more consistency/quality-of-watching stuff, while 98 had that plus a couple of quick card fixes. Due to Tumblr’s dumb link limit in posts yeeting them out of the tags used for them and limiting their reach, and since I still wanted a visual element to it, I’ve made a separate post here with my usual fix/edit breakdown for the interested!

Quick housekeeping: made a quick revision to 95 to fix a consistency error in my translated credits; the name “Chan Yoon Lee” under the Key Animation credits should actually be “Chan Woong Lee;” since they’re a Key Animator consistently on Chi Man Park’s team, and the “Yoon Lee” name only shows up this once, it’s fair to say it was a typo on the JP team’s part. (EDIT, 7/6: Updated 98 to correct “an unique” typo in one of DD’s lines, and reword another one about Bloo-D’s absorbed souls later on.)

Anywho, enjoy! Next up, I’ll be working on 99-101 which work nicely to continue from where 98 leaves us as we start getting into Season 2’s endgame, with Ojin coming for Judai’s key and Ed confronting Saiou (in two really good episodes). I will be a bit more casual with it as my birthday’s next Monday and I may or may not have plans for it, lol, but stay tuned!

(Previously: Episodes 93 and 94 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-95: A Ruthless Brotherly Duel – Ryou VS Shou

Wishing for his kind and respectable brother to be himself again, Shou challenges the Hell Kaiser to a duel. But a callous Ryou conditions it on having a duel in which an electric current will rush through them with every drop in their Life Points. And so, a brotherly duel begins between Ryou and Shou. Shou does develop his dueling–respecting his opponent as always–but Ryou pounces on him, in full command of the Cyber Style’s Reverse deck.

TURN-96: The Relativity Field! Judai VS the Genius Doctor

In order to take back one of his important keys, a Saiou struck by the Waves of Light once again sends in an assassin against Judai. The assassin is Zweinstein, a genius physics expert with a deck made logically–Judai’s weakest point of all. Zweinstein activates his Relativity Field to start things off. He then summons* a Monster that negates Judai’s Fusion, his forte, gaining an edge as the duel unfolds.

*This is referencing Singularity Demon’s effect in the episode, but he doesn’t actually summon it; it’s more of a hand-trap he discards to negate Fusion.

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Got my subs for episodes 95 and 96 all nice and finalized!

These two episodes are a great time, but 95 in particular is great. It’s the culmination of those little bits we’ve had of Shou observing Ryou’s fall from grace since his loss to Ed, knowing he’d face him one day and preparing himself for it, and the whole time they’re dueling, he holds onto some hope that he can turn Ryou back into the big brother he knew–only to realize by the end that Ryou, after what he’s seen underground, really is just focused on winning, willing to be as “cruel” or “foul” as it takes if it helps. You do feel for the little guy, moreso when this gets flashed back to in 137 during Season 3 (another favorite, as it’s a big development episode for Shou). Also, Judai being a friend and watching over him knowing this was his choice to make, building him up about using Power Bond, rushing over once the duel’s over–it’s sweet.

96 is also one of my favorites because of the good art/dynamic animation, courtesy of Kyoung Soo Lee’s animation team (especially those last few scenes after Judai destroys Relativity Field, but just the Solid Vision putting them in space the entire time). The premise isn’t too bad, we check in with Misawa who’s realizing that just joining the Society of Light isn’t enough for him to make a name for himself, and he bumps into God Einstein Zweinstein who tells him that logic beats “coincidence,” before he tries to convey this to Judai and prove his Grand Unified Duel Theory. I like the Dueling Physics idea and the Einstein parody (he won a Nobelly Prize!), and the match between his logic and Judai’s intuition–and who doesn’t enjoy the randomness of Misawa’s extra Eureka moment, lmao. Still a bit meh on it being the last we see of him for a while, but it is nice seeing him when he does come back. (Also, I like how it’s not at all mentioned how Ojin managed to get a recording of Chronos calling for Judai to trick him with… very GX lol)

Edit-wise, both episodes had a fair amount of animation error fixes I applied; 95 saw more card-related errors than the quick one in 96, while both had a fair share of more quality-of-watching ones with split-screens, incomplete footage frames, or miscolorings (and in Burstlady’s case, another missing shoulder strap). Due to Tumblr’s dumb link limit in posts yeeting them out of the tags used for them and limiting their reach, and since I still wanted a visual element to it, I’ve made a separate post here with my usual fix/edit breakdown for the interested–altogether, that’s about 26 between both episodes, which I think I hit sometime in S1 when doing double-releases for a bit, but since most were quality-of-watching things, they were pretty quick to work on for the most part.

Anywho, enjoy! Looking forward to revisiting 97 and 98 next as we circle back to the Pro Leagues and get Ed’s best episode of the Season in the process; as Judai put it in 96’s preview for 97, “Ed’s Wheel of Fortune’ll suddenly start to turn…”

(Previously: Episodes 91 and 92 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-93: A White Night Duel! Judai VS Asuka (Part 1)

The two personalities within Saiou are at odds with each other–one is a spirit impacted by the Waves of Light and now aims to destroy the world, while the other is a good spirit trying to prevent that.  In order to prevent the world’s destruction, the good spirit hands two important keys over to Judai and Ed–upon learning of that, the Saiou impacted by the Waves of Light sends in Asuka to face Judai in order to retrieve his key.  With the powerful deck she was given by Saiou, Asuka begins her offensive on Judai with her White Night Queen.

TURN-94: The White Night Dragon! Judai VS Asuka (Part 2)

Asuka’s deck, enhanced by Saiou, gradually drives Judai into a corner.  Struggling, Judai appeals to Asuka’s heart as he tries to return her to her old self, but few of Judai’s words sink into her as she finally summons her strongest card, White Night Dragon.  At an impasse, Judai uses a trump card packed with the “feelings for Asuka” that Manjoume and Fubuki entrusted him with, but…

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My subs for episodes 93 and 94 are revised and finalized!

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(Previously: Episodes 89 and 90 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-91: The Grim Reaper’s One-Turn Kill

Rumors have spread of a duelist taking part in GeneX who defeats his opponents in one turn.  This turns out to be Tachibana, who gained his drawing power through a pact with a Grim Reaper card.  Judai ends up dueling Tachibana, who’s sold his soul to the Grim Reaper, and with the start of their duel, Tachibana draws his “One-Hit Knockout! Slash Draw” Magic Card and comes at Judai with his One-Turn Kill. Can Judai possibly…

TURN-92: The Triangle Duel

As word goes around that rank-and-file Instructor Chronos and Vice-Principal Napoleon are being “fired,” Principal Samejima shouts “Get out of here!” at them.  They were both disheartened, but they happen to catch Chairman Pegasus of Industrial Illusions, Inc., on his way to visit Principal Samejima, and they ask for employment with I2.  Pegasus says he will approve their employment if they somehow defeat him in a duel, and so starts a Triangle Duel between Pegasus, Chronos, and Napoleon.  Can Chronos and Napoleon hope to…

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*Pegasus voice* I give you finalized!91 and 92! deeeesu

Slight delay in finalizing these aside, these episodes aren’t too bad; some continuity with the Duel Academia’s North Campus in Tachibana and his struggle to make the decks he cares about work, making him turn to a Grim Reaper spirit promising to improve his drawing ability–at the cost of his soul. Works well enough for a one-shot episode in GX, nice seeing another One-Turn Kill strategy after Ojin’s in 84, plus the animation looks really good throughout, along with “Impossible Victory” being used as Tachibana switches arms with his Disk to reject the Grim Reaper’s influence.  92′s fun with Pegasus making another cameo–this time, actually dueling–and the premise being that Chronos and Napoleon thought Samejima fired them when he was just frustrated was up GX’s humor alley–though it is interesting Toon Kingdom didn’t come out in the card game until long after GX (I liked the shot of it as we see Toon Red Archery Girl, Toon Summoned Daemon, and the other Toons he used in DM as a nice homage).  Pegasus’ll still have some time in S2 and S3, related to the plot Samejima thought about early in the episode, so he’ll be back.  Kind of a shame they didn’t make a GX remix for his Toon World theme from DM though, lol; points to the dub for using theirs.  (Tachibana’s voice in the dub was also really good.)

Edit-wise, both episodes had a fair amount of fixes I applied, mostly on the card error and quality-of-watching end (including some interesting split-screen issues), but there were 2-3 bigger ones I was able to make work; due to Tumblr’s dumb link limit in posts yeeting them out of the tags used for them and limiting their reach, and since I still wanted a visual element to it, I’ve made a separate post with my usual fix/edit breakdown for the interested!

Anywho, enjoy! These make for a little breather as we get into Judai vs White Asuka next time and some changes to Saiou’s SOLA plans.  Been looking forward to revisiting the next stretch of eps for a while as Season 2 closes on some of its best episodes; should be fun.

(Previously: Episodes 85 and 86 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-87: Fight, Ojama Trio! (Part 1)

Manjoume faces off with a pro duelist, winning overwhelmingly using the White Knight Swordsman he wields as a member of the Society of Light.  Seeing that Judai was watching his duel, Manjoume requests a bout with him, but Judai notices that the Ojama Trio aren’t in Manjoume’s deck.  He tracks down the Ojama Trio’s cards, knowing that Manjoume cared for them, and thinks of using their cards to try and return Manjoume to normal.  And so, with the Ojama Trio in tow, Judai and Manjoume duel at last.

TURN-88: Fight, Ojama Trio! (Part 2)

As a member of the Society of Light, Manjoume uses the White Knight Lord card entrusted to him by Saiou to pummel Judai incessantly.  Meanwhile, Judai fights defensively, using the Ojama Trio cards that Manjoume had cared for.  Despite all the attacks he takes, Judai presses on with the Ojama Trio, who appeal to Manjoume about the fact that they were friends.  And then… seeing the rough state the Ojama Trio have been beaten into, Manjoume at last comes to his senses.

(EDIT, 3/9/23: Re-uploaded 88 to correct a sub typo I missed before Judai uses Mystic Wok, and also updated “Cyber Dark Horn” in the preview to “Cyberdark Horn” to match its use in 89.)

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New year, new finalized episodes~

My subs for 87 and 88 are now revised and finalized as we get 2023 underway, and it’s a pretty good duo of episodes.  Judai and Manjoume finally have a rematch to settle their score–well, they would if Manjoume remembered what that score was–and in the process, Judai works to snap him out of his Society of Light brainwashing by using the Ojamas.  Of course, he promptly gets thrown under the bus by them once it works, but they did fight hard to save him; Judai even said stuff that was kinda touching! I do still like the bit where Judai tells Manjoume how angry he is with himself that he couldn’t even tell that his friends lost and were in such dire straits that they joined the SoL (a shame the dub wrote that out), and Ojama Yellow–as beat-up as he is–pleading with Manjoume to remember them before he eventually reclaims his sense of self is such a good scene, between Mariko Nagahama’s acting, the music, and the pained “Manjoume…” (ie, “Listen to the guy…”) from Judai in response.  I also do love how Manjoume’s all “If they want to be clean, I’ll be the thorn in their side soiling things a little!” [paraphrasing], as well as the theme of having been through so much of life’s mud that of course no one would come out unstained.  (Also unfortunate that the dub decides to replace his montage of said stains and the Ojamas helping him overcome them with a focus on Society of Light stuff.)

(Also, fun fact: both episodes were screenwritten by Shin Yoshida, who does get some ire in other parts of the franchise, but in GX it’s interesting that he’s actually the screenwriter for a lot of the fan-favorite episodes [he also goes on to write Dark Johan vs Ryou in Season 3, for example]; his writing both helps them feel cohesive. [They had the same Storyboarder in Noriyoshi Nakamura, too.])

Editing-wise, not as many animation/card fixes as I did for 85 and 86, but there were still a fair amount for these two, and 88 did get more in the way of card error fixes.  All told, I fixed up six errors in 87, and eight in 88.  As always, details under the cut below, if curious!

Enjoy! Next up, will be working on 89 and 90, featuring Hell Kaiser Ryou vs Fubuki (which also sets the stage for Shou’s duel against Ryou in the 90s) and getting a little wine-drunk with Sommelier Parker’s duel against Asuka and more GeneX shenanigans.  Have also been looking forward to 90 specifically to re-do one of my earliest on-screen translation edits with the better editing skills I have now, so stay tuned for that. :)

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 85 and 86 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episode 84 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-85: A Wielder of the God Card The Divine Winged Dragon of Ra?!

A researcher named Franz appears before Judai, who learns from Pegasus and Hayato Maeda–who rushed over from I2 (Industrial Illusions, Inc.)–of his employment with I2 and the threat he poses by using a copy of the strongest card, The Divine Winged Dragon of Ra. Judai and Franz duel, and right as they start, he summons The Divine Winged Dragon of Ra. By all rights, he should incur a punishment from the God, but he controls said God with the Mound of the Bound Deity Magic Card he himself created. It all comes down to the Skyscraper 2 – Hero City Field Magic that Hayato designed for Judai.

TURN-86: The Runway of Dueling

Just as Judai laments his lack of competition, a drum is suddenly struck amid a flurry of cherry blossoms–from which a pro duelist named Kabukid enters the scene, clad in kabuki clothing, and challenges Judai to a duel. Claiming that pro dueling is about dueling to entertain the audience, Kabukid activates his Kabuki Stage – Great Bridge Field Magic to set a flashy stage. Harboring some doubts about such flashy dueling, Judai…

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(EDIT, 1/21/23: Reuploaded 86 with an additional card error fix, as I missed an earlier instance of Dramatic Pose in Kabukid’s hand after its activation that should’ve been New Year Drum; see #3 in the list below if curious.)

Just narrowly missed getting these out in time for Christmas, but episodes 85 and 86 are finalized! Hope everyone’s having a gentle holiday season, and hopefully these help a bit as these are two of my favorite episodes in Season 2. 85 I definitely remember being pretty hype with Ra–copy or not–showing itself in GX, and both the OST and Pegasus reappearing (as well as some coloring choices in a lot of the scenes to give things a bit more of a grim look [which we saw some of in 82, but it does feel as though the art quality starts to pick up a bit here]) definitely helps add a bit of weight to it. 86 is also a fun one with quite a few Japanese references, and specifically to kabuki theater–so much so that I’d actually popped onto some Japanese-learning forums when first working on 86 back in 2011 for help to decipher some–and has Judai meet someone who’s so into his craft for others that he hadn’t thought of enjoying the process for himself. Definitely is a shame the dub does away with most of the culture nods, understandable as it might be, since the original sound design also adds to the fun feel of the episode, with the drums and vocal interludes here/there, but making Orlando a Broadway actor is probably the best way to adapt Kabukid’s character (though it does make the kabuki callbacks with his deck fall a bit flat). Also got us an OP update as of 85, featuring a disappointed not-Principal Chronos after Samejima’s return [I’ve been waiting to use that new clip since translating the names in the OP as I started finalizing Season 2], as well as one of the few episodes where Judai properly uses Bubbleman’s two effects correctly in 86, lol.)

Interesting as both episodes are, equally interesting (on some level) were some of the animation/card fixes I worked on for them; I fixed up nine errors in 85 and 12 in 86. List below the spoiler, as usual, for the curious! Also including some Translation Notes for 86, as there were a couple of cultural nods throughout.

Enjoy! Next time, it’s a Judai VS Manjoume rematch as Judai tries to undo Saiou’s hold on him, with some help from the O[jama]-Heroes! Shouldn’t stain their friendship too much, hopefully.

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(Previously: Episodes 82-83 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-84: The Curtain Rises on GeneX! Aim for Number One!

Principal Samejima declares the start of a Dueling World Cup*, a large dueling tournament in which Academia Island serves as the stage for the students and Pro Duelists participating.  Saiou duels a celebrity from a powerful country in Europe, Prince Ojin, who boasts of victory through a One-Turn Kill, and Saiou himself predicts that the duel will end before his turn arrives.  The ATK of the Prince’s Satellite Cannon becomes 4000, and it begins an attack aimed at Saiou…

*“Dueling World Cup” is how the GeneX Tournament seems to have been described in the pre-airing episode summary for this episode.

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Well, then…

After a few unintended hiccups and the resulting recovery–as previously mentioned–episode 84 has finally been finalized! I guess if there’s ever a better time for one to experience hard drive issues, it’d be right as we kick off an obligatory tournament arc, haha.  Principal Samejima, after his duel with Ryou last time, returns to the Duel Academia to announce the start of the GeneX Tournament–one which he’s spent months traveling abroad to organize and bring in some heavy-hitting talent for.  As things kick off, Saiou engages one of those heavy hitters, a prince from a small European country, for a duel to win control of the SOLA laser satellite they’ve launched–one with the power to brainwash wipe out all life on Earth.  It’s a good transition episode, setting up GeneX’s rules and also a key factor in Season 2’s endgame through the introduction of Ojin and SOLA, while giving Shou, Kenzan, and newly-White Misawa some dueling time.  We’ll see that, at some points, it kinda feels like GeneX is on the backburner, but it’s a good backdrop for a few things that’ll happen in this part of the season.

Part of the delay with this one, the aforementioned hiccups aside (which mostly covered October), was handling a few animation and card fixes for this episode; one in particular was a pretty complex one to work on but still came out well.  Details below the cut, as usual, for the curious!

Enjoy, and hope those celebrating enjoyed their time with friends/family this Thanksgiving! Next up, I think I’ll be going back to double releases to make up for some lost time, so 85 and 86’ll be on the way after a short little break the next couple days, though I did begin some work on them already over the last few weeks. (Doing just 84 and then more doubles works nicely, since there are a few two-parters coming up that I’ll be able to get out this way.) Stay tuned!

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(Previously: Episodes 80-81 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

82: Misawa VS Manjoume – The Assault Cannon Beetle

As a consequence of being the only one uninvited by the Society of Light, Misawa anxiously wonders if he is being thought of as weak.  He confronts Saiou himself, who says that he will leave the island if beaten in a duel, but Manjoume duels Misawa in his stead.  Manjoume fuses his three new Union Monsters to summon “Assault Cannon Beetle” (ATK/ 2800), using the Ojamas as bullets to reduce Misawa’s LP down to 1600.  Misawa’s intellectual “focus ahead” plays get him far, but…

83: Hell Kaiser Ryou VS Master Samejima

In search of a powerful, locked-away deck, Hell Kaiser Ryou pays a visit to his old Cyber Style Dueling Master–one Principal Samejima–and the teacher and student duel.  Ryou summons Cyber End Dragon right off the bat, but Samejima defends himself with a copy of his Monster.  Playing to the “soft and fair goes far” proverb, Samejima’s Cyber Ogre absorbs the ATK of Ryou’s Monster, its own ATK reaching 4000, but Ryou evades that using Cyber Laser Dragon.  Samejima snatches Ryou’s Cyber End Dragon with a Trap Card, leading to his final decisive moves…

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Episodes 82 and 83 are now finalized! Misawa’s anxiety over the way he’s perceived leads him to join the Society of Light, while Ryou decides he’s come as far as he can with just Cyber End and visits his dojo-master-turned-Principal Samejima for some secret cards.  Manjoume’s Beetrons were actually neat, and while I’m sure I was doubtful of how Misawa joining the SOL made sense years back, I do think it does now given the context of Misawa’s wanting recognition and not being the odd man out (and Ed’s putting it into words also puts a different lens on his early Season 1 self).  For 83, admittedly the Cyber Style stuff does come a bit out of nowhere (the Japanese blog I reference for lines occasionally also thought so lol), but it’s believable enough for GX, and does give us some more background on Ryou’s childhood to juxtapose with his current “I only need victory, respect be damned” self.  Samejima finally making his return after Season 1 as his dojo master was also a bit cool, ngl, and hey, turns out he was working on our upcoming tournament arc!

Had a few animation/card and other quality-of-watching fixes I handled for each episode, hence the slight delay, and for 83′s hardsub, I also translated an article Shou was reading about Ryou’s rise as Hell Kaiser.  Details below the cut, as usual, for the curious.

Enjoy, folks–with these done and the GeneX arc about to start, I think the next release will just be episode 84 to set it up and also take a light breather, and then I’ll resume my catch-up double-releases with 85 and 86, which’ll coincide with an update to the OP (plus, that way I also don’t leave half of Judai vs Manjoume or Judai vs Asuka hanging on a cliff later lol).  Stay tuned!

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(Previously: Episodes 77-79 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

80: Alice in Despairland

A beautiful transfer student named Alice has appeared at the Red dorm.  Kenzan goes crazy about Alice, but a doubtful Misawa comes to know of a puzzling rare card with the same name.*  That night, Judai finds out that Alice immensely detests duelists and is trying to capture Kenzan, leading Judai to duel Alice.  Alice summons zero-ATK doll parts one after another before summoning Doll Chimera, a doll that they haphazardly combine into.  With each attack Doll Chimera takes, its parts increase and its ATK steadily rises…

*This part seems to reference the bit from the end of 79 of Misawa researching the Alice in Despairland card–since this was included in one of these episode spoilers from the time, it looks like it really was cut from the episode more last-minute.

81: A Quiz Duel?! VS Quizzer Panel 9

Kanda the Quiz King, who has secretly fallen in love with Asuka, happens to find Asuka arguing with Judai and challenges him to a duel.  Kanda uses a Quiz deck based around activating the Quiz Hour Permanent Magic.  Once he does, he becomes cheery, as if his personality changed, and with each of Judai’s attacks, he presents him with a challenge as a quiz-show host would.  Judai clears the test-of-strength tasks, but gets the dueling-knowledge challenges completely wrong, causing his LP to fall…

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Episodes 80 and 81 are now finalized! Two episodes more on the breather side after our Field Trip of Hell, as Judai and co get back to Duel Academia and run into a Duel Spirit from Wonderl–I mean, Despairland, whose card was mistreated and made it want revenge.  I do wonder if there would’ve been more nightmare fuel with the shot that was shown in 79′s TV airing that went unused in this episode, but Doll Chimera is plenty creepy on its own too.  81′s a favorite since the premise of Kanda’s deck is really unique, and I always did wish they’d print his cards, lol.  It’s also interesting because Kanda’s shy love for Asuka and the way he’s all “If you don’t stop this I’ll have to duel you” to Judai, as I mentioned before, is likely inspired by the Densha Otoko/”Train Man” story, down to the forum posts as he asks for love advice.  It was also nice to hear some OST we haven’t heard since Season 1, and Burstlady’s summon animation in this episode is one of my favorites, making her look pretty cool, lol.

Part of the delay here was handling a fair amount of card/animation fixes and translation edits (for 81) between both episodes, including a few big card ones for episode 80; more details below the cut, for the interested. :)

Enjoy, folks! These should be up on NAC in a day or two.  Next time, we’ll be tackling episodes 82 and 83–Misawa wanting to join the Society of Light(?!) and the return of one interesting Principal–so stay tuned for those! Once those are done, we’ll be hitting the GeneX arc of Season 2, which I’m looking forward to revisiting.

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GX Finalized-Subs!81 (WIP) - A Strapping Issue (Installment #12 probably)

Meant to try to show this off early last week once I had finished the edit up, but lol got busy and forgot.

So, one of my “favorite” (affectionate) reoccurring animation errors–should go back and check how many of these I have found so far lol–comes in here in episode 81, as Judai has Burstlady attack one of Kanda’s Quiz Panels after the eyecatch. As you can see, in the first clip as Judai declares her attack, Burstlady’s drawn without her shoulder strap connected to the cuff on her arm as she usually is; in the second clip shown, as she fires her Burstfire, not only is her shoulder strap still missing–her shoulder is now colored like the red on her outfit too (this one I don’t think I’ve bumped into too often in the show; I know I fixed an error like that back in the OP1 video).

I fixed these frames in Photoshop, painting in the shoulder strap/cuff combo (and fixing the third frame’s error on the part of her outfit where the coloring of her right breast’s skin cuts into the red part), while also recoloring her shoulder in the second clip’s frames and using the original coloring as a guide to draw on the shoulder strap. For the second clip, I also added a light screen layer to light up the edit as the light from the flames were around it. I think I did a pretty good job keeping it looking consistent throughout, and I figured it’d make sense to keep the cuff highlights as I extended it into the shoulder strap while adding the shading; hopefully it does look good!

(Previously: Episodes 71 and 72 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

73: Kenzan VS Saiou! It’s Dinosaur DNA, Don

To see the “unwavering power” he had foreseen for himself, Saiou visits the Academia and challenges Kenzan to a duel. The cards in Saiou’s Tarot deck cause fate to alternate through their upright and reversed positions.  Kenzan faces him with his Dinosaur deck, and for a moment it looked as though he was in the lead, but Saiou seemed to foresee even that.  As he cleverly uses the upright and reversed effects of his Strength, the symbol of this “unwavering power,” Saiou drives Kenzan into a corner.

74: Treeborn Frog! Living Toad! Death Frog!

To decide the destination of the upcoming field trip, Judai duels Rose, a fair lady representing Saiou whose deck is a Frog deck.  She opens by accumulating T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s in her Cemetery to summon three Death Frogs (ATK/1900), using her Death Chorus Magic Card to wipe out Judai’s Monsters for a direct attack–one that inflicts a massive amount of damage.  She then fuses all three to summon her Three-Death Frog.  But Judai thinks something is off about Rose and her obsession with frogs…

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Ding, finalized!73 and 74 are done!

This next double-release is good, 73 is a bit of an infamous Kenzan ep as we find out about his *deep breath* DIIINOsaur DNA, but we also have Saiou making moves to make sure there aren’t any hitches to his plans, as he makes it to Duel Academia to see what this “unwavering power” is that he foretold through his Tarot.  We also have a nice callback to the Drawiches from Season 1 (and Ed just drawing the Golden Eggwich like it’s nothing), in a few scenes that the dub for some reason decided not to include, and we see some more of Saiou’s interesting deck and how it ties into his idea of fate.

74′s also neat as it introduces the field trip we’ll be going on the next few episodes (BYOBento), and we’re introduced to Princess Rose, with her Frog deck and the nods to the Frog Prince fairy tale–also showing that Saiou seems to have connections to some big people in the world (coming in handy later).  She also works to tie in Judai’s Spirit-seeing abilities (and we get this good scene), while also establishing that Manjoume so far still has his despite joining the Society of Light.  It’s also a Kyoung Soo Lee-team episode in terms of animation direction, and it looks gorgeous–this is around the point his episodes start to look really good, and there are a lot of really nice shots.  (Though I may be noticing that much more because of the DVDRip quality of the video remember when it was so hard to get 74 in good quality)

In terms of animation fixes and stuff, both episodes got a fair amount of them that I picked up on, from little quality-of-life stuff to card fixes and bigger animation error fixes that came out nicely, along with an onscreen translation teasing what I’ll be doing in 75.  Details below the cut, as usual, along with a few Translation Notes for some things that came up.

Enjoy, folks! With these done, we’re off to Domino Town for the next couple releases! (Oh, and I opted to work with “Domino Town” for the name, since “Domino City” struck me as a bit of a mistranslation of 童実野町 (Domino-cho)–I went through my logic here.) The next double-release will be with 75 and 76 as Shou and Kenzan’s bonding the last while comes full circle in a Tag Duel (as we revisit Mizuchi’s first appearance too), then I’ll likely try to knock out 77-79 together so that I don’t end the release after on a cliffhanger, lol.  Stay tuned!

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(Previously: Episodes 69 and 70 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

VS the Game Champ! The Giant Battleship Tetran Takes Off

Ryusei Gin, a champion at shooter games, is sent as an assassin by the white Society*.  Judai and Gin go on to battle using a dueling system akin to space battleships.  Gin’s “Giant Battleship Tetran” gains three shields, making it fairly indestructible, and his “Boss Rush” Permanent Magic allows him to summon Giant Battleships like his Crystal Core and Big Core back-to-back.  Judai uses his mole-like “Gran Mole” to create a wormhole in the vacuum of space, but…

(*The summaries I’m translating from refer to the Society of Light as 白の結社 [shiro no kessha/white society] vs 光の結社 as intended; likely its earlier name, though since Manjoume already namedropped the Society of Light back in 67, not sure why it’s still here for now, lol.)

Destroy the Deck Destruction

The Pro Duelist known as X is sent in as an assassin by the white Society and duels Judai.  X’s strategy focuses on deck destruction, and that unique tactic makes it difficult to defeat him when first encountered.  Falling into that tactic’s trap, Judai’s put into a pinch as many of his cards are sent to his Cemetery.  And while it briefly seemed that he would break through using his Glow Moss, X is able to avoid it.  Before long, it even causes the trust he shares with his deck’s Monsters to sway…

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Happy new year, everyone! Here’s to 2022 bringing us all the growth and life development we want to see for ourselves, and of course to more card game shenanigans in this franchise. 🎉

To usher in the new year, I’ve got our next finalized double release here with GX 71 and 72, which aren’t quite New Year’s-themed, but they still kinda work, haha.  71 treats us to Ryusei Gin, the first of a couple of assassins Saiou will be sending to Judai to test his potential as a threat to him, and it makes for a unique episode; Ryusei being a shooter game champion (Crunchy decided to go with “shoot ‘em ups”, which also works) and incorporating that into his deck/style with the Giant Battleship/BES cards, along with the references to older Konami influential shooters like Gradius–some of which I had to brush up on as I translated a bio sheet on Ryusei!–while he and Judai duel in the Academia’s planetarium makes for an interesting setting, and I love how they worked with the BES cards’ stipulation that they lose a shield in battle by having Judai’s Heroes take one out as they go down.

72 gives us the first use of deck destruction in GX, as Pro Duelist X backs Judai into a corner and actually seems somewhat menacing with the history Ed gives us about him never losing his first duel with someone.  Judai’s big strategy of exploiting Glow Moss’s anime-only send-two-away effect using Elixirer, then Fusion Undone/De-Fusion, then Flash Fusion (which I named so and not Instant Fusion/インスタントフュージョン as Judai names it for later consistency, as it’s called 瞬間融合 [shunkan yuugou] in its next appearance when used by Ryou in 95 [kind of a mess that the other Instant Fusion being released before this one gave it a different OCG name lol]) was interesting, and also works as a light callback to Yugi’s duel vs Strings and Osiris (since X’s own cards made Glow Moss indestructible), which is also neat given upcoming events.  The dub gets a point for naming X “Howard ‘X’ Miller,” giving the milling card game term a nod, but then I don’t get why they opted to make him Sartorius’s lawyer vs a Pro Duelist (since Saiou’s connection to him that way as a manager makes sense) and Jaden was fooled into signing a thing and not coming to duel out of some worry for Manjoume… but that’s a rambling for a different post, lol.

Animation-fix-wise, worked on a fair amount of them; 71 mainly had card fixes, but also got some quick quality-of-watching ones, while 72 had more of the latter but also one or two card fixes.  And as I noted above, Asuka’s file on Ryusei was translated for the hardsub, but I’ll type it out when posting the softsub on NAC for the curious.  List below the cut, as usual!

Enjoy, folks! These are now up on NAC; I’ll start prepping for the next double release covering 73 (DINO DNA) and 74 (FROG PRINCES); stay tuned!

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(Previously: Episodes 67 and 68 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

Chronos VS Napoleon! March of the Toy Soldiers

Interim Principal Chronos and Vice-Principal Napoleon quarrel over the abolition of the Red dorm, and the two Instructors soon decide to duel.  Three Toy Soldiers appear from Napoleon’s Army deck, and through the Forced March and Fife and Drum Corps Magic Cards, they inflict a lot of damage to Chronos.  In that moment, a power shovel* strikes the Red dorm, starting its demolition–but as Chronos uses his Antique Gear Monsters to retaliate, his carpenters begin to rebuild it.

(*The original Japanese summary refers to a wrecking ball here, but the entire episode it’s just Napoleon’s power shovel tearing at the Red dorm.)

Asuka VS Manjoume White Thunder!

Manjoume defeats the Blue students one by one, bleaching the Blue dorm white in a baffling course of action.  He goes on to say that the Society of Light, led by Saiou, will finish the academy, and Asuka duels him hoping to put a stop to that.  Manjoume’s “Hell’s White” Permanent Magic inflicts 600 damage to his opponent, in exchange for forcing him to play while displaying his hand–a strategy that throws Asuka off her game, as Manjoume wastes no time in using his Armed Dragons to corner her.

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Hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving! (Or your regular Thursday if you’re not in the US.) I’ve got finalized!69 and 70 here coming in like a wrecking ball~ (Which… is actually a bit of an accurate reference, given how things change with the Society of Light plot starting here, lol.) These two episodes are fun and interesting to watch, as 69 treats us to Chronos’s first duel of Season 2 and Napoleon’s first ever, as best professor Chronos shows us more character development while standing between Napoleon and tearing down the Red dorm, and takes some… damage for it.  70 kicks the Society of Light plot we’ve been lowkey building up since 61 into gear, as Manjoume White Thunder suddenly becomes a threat and single-handedly bleaches his former Blue dorm white while everyone else was focused on the Red mess;  Asuka steps in to try and snap him out of it, her “we forge our own fates” philosophy clashing with Manjoume’s “we can’t stop fate” one, but Manjoume’s able to get Asuka overthinking her strategies (causing her to break YGO’s “don’t think about your endgame” rule) and that ultimately leads to her fated defeat as she joins Manjoume in the SoL.  She does share a good character moment with Fubuki, though, as he tells her how proud of her he is for being so determined to find him–a message that he luckily doesn’t feel a need to sing–while the moment where Judai and the others question Manjoume’s sanity is great.

Animation-fix-wise, there were several card-related fixes I worked on, mostly in 69 as 70 was pretty good about that; both also got one or two quality-of-watching fixes.  Details below the cut, as usual, along with a quick Translation Note for one of Napoleon’s lines in 69.  I also chose to remove quite a bit of the extra Italian/French words I put into Chronos’s and Napoleon’s dialogue in my original run-through of 69, since I thought it might’ve been… a bit overkill. 😅 And since at this point I’ve been consistently handling Chronos’s “[na] no ne”s with “[now,] won’t [I/it/etc]?/no?” and Napoleon’s “de aru” through having him speak more elegantly/pompously, so it’s their general speaking styles that they take issue with about each other here.

Enjoy, folks; these are now up on NAC~ Our next double-release’ll cover 71 and 72, as Judai faces the Academia’s resident game champ and a deck-destruction strategy–both are interesting episodes (and ones I haven’t revisited in a while).  Stay tuned!

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Looking for a little help on an animation edit I’d like to work on for my finalized episode 65 subs–I’m trying to correct an error where they showed Mad Dog Inukai’s Multiple Slime in Defense Mode despite it being in Attack Mode, entailing a few frames’ worth of editing to remove the Slime (as I’ve already masked it out to slap onto the fixed frames), so you’d just need to replicate the floor and cage bars over it.

I was in talks with someone who I hoped would be able to help, but unfortunately between their work schedule and maintaining their YouTube channel, that’s fallen through.

Details here; if you’re good at Photoshop/etc and might be able to help with this, it would be much appreciated–I’d credit you in the episode’s end credits, but can also commission the help if need be.  Shoot me a DM if interested; would be great to make this fix happen if possible.  There wouldn’t be a huge rush, though if you’d be able to work on it within the month or sooner, that’d be great, as the wait trying to work with my contact has delayed this episode for over three months now, lol. (The wait hasn’t been too bad, since I’ve been able to get a jump on giving my finalized episodes thus far a final revision [and I’m up to the Seven Stars episodes now], but yeah)

Thanks in advance! 🙏🏽

(Reblogs for visibility would be appreciated~)

Asuka VS Fubuki! The Path to a Sibling Idolatry

Judai was dealt a defeat by Ed, becoming unable to see his cards as anything more than blank paper.  Elsewhere, with Chronos’s plot at stake, Fubuki duels his sister Asuka.  Fubuki wants to persuade Asuka into a debut in show business through forming a sibling duo together.  Fubuki activates his Ultimate Stage Costume Field Magic, raising his Monster’s ATK to 3000, as Asuka uses her Cyber Angel series of Ritual Monsters to face him.

And episode 60′s now finalized! After we see the effects of Saiou’s powers on Judai after his loss to Ed (in a scene that was cut from the dub, by the way), it ends up being a fun episode with more of Fubuki, who we haven’t seen since the end of the Seven Stars arc by now, in his first duel as himself while Chronos’s whole Idol Training Course thing comes back into play, trying to rope Asuka into his plan to take out the Red dorm.  I do love the part where Fubuki’s Stage Costume Field Magic backfires, haha.

In terms of animation fixes, there were some–mainly QOL ones, along with a few card-related ones–that I worked into the episode, and for the hardsub, I translated both the banner that appears as Shou visualizes Fubuki at a concert and Manjoume’s pink robe with Asuka’s name on the back (which he apparently only wears here); list below the cut, as usual.  I also have to go back to 47 and revise the script a bit to fix the name of Asuka’s Chapel of Blessings - Ritual Church/Ritual Sanctuary Field Magic, which I named “Church of Blessings” then (redundancy!), so if you’ve downloaded that from NAC, keep an eye out for the revision. (EDIT, 2021: Came back to apply one more fix, which I’ve included in bold under the cut!)

Enjoy, folks! With this done, I’ll start working on my last 5D’s Dub-Uncut mini-project episode in 5D’s 29, which should be interesting; I’ll sprinkle in some work on GX 61 as I do, as it’s Saiou’s duel with Manjoume which is a really interesting episode.  Stay tuned!

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