Yugioh GX ain't half bad, either

Color me surprised

When I was growing up, the only Yugioh anime I really watched was Duel Monsters, as you could tell from my last post. I only ever caught a few isolated episodes of Yugioh GX, Card Games on Motorcycles, and Yugioh ZEXAL, and I had distanced myself from the franchise by the time ARC-V and everything after it happened.

But I want to rectify that, which is why I stated at the end of my last post that I'm going to watch the whole franchise. The difference is that from here on out, I don't have nostalgia to color my opinion. I can look at these series with fresh eyes, and I won't experience whiplash from the voices, either. I'm watching 'em all in Japanese, since I can't find the dubs.

Yugioh GX centers around Yuuki Juudai, a duel-loving teen who spends the first episode taking the practical exam for enrollment into Kaiba Corp's Duel Academy. Each season covers one of his three years there, and each time, there's some world-ending plot he needs to thwart.

Now, right away we see a major difference from the original Duel Monsters series: the pacing, which is one of the very few criticisms it's possible to make about Duel Monsters. After all, the Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, and Virtual World arcs put together make up well over half of the runtime of the entire series, but they take place over the course of maybe a week total. Sure, a little more time passes during the Domino City Duels arc between them, but even then, it's heavily implied that the entire series spans just a couple of months, tops. Once you notice that, it kinda cheapens the emotional impact of the big goodbye at the end.

This can be attributed in large part to the story being so tournament-centric. A tournament for anything is only going to last a day or two because of logistical concerns, so the only way to make a tournament arc long is to show each individual competition in a lot of detail while cutting away to other stuff that happens concurrently. And indeed, Duel Monsters took its time on everything, letting duels unfold slowly while the characters trash-talked each other, built up the stakes, or whatever.

Plus, it was adapted from a manga, where each individual mini-arc can be as long as the author wants, and the anime just has to adapt around it. GX and all future Yugioh series were anime-original, so the writers could plan stuff out from the get-go. They cranked up the pace on the duels so most fit into just one episode, and even the long ones only hovered around two. They created a setting where they can regularly have duels outside a tournament, so they didn't have to cram a bunch of duels into one day, and could just let time pass naturally.

Season 1: The Seven Stars (episodes 1-52)

In fact, they seemed so intent on showing the passage of time that they didn't give enough consideration to anything else. It's pretty clear that they had general plotlines they wanted to do, but they didn't know how to get to them or how to fill out the extra time. Let me explain what I mean.

The first episode does a concise job of introducing all the key characters: Juudai, the protagonist; Marufuji Shou, the wimpy friend; Misawa Daichi, the brainiac; Tenjouin Asuka, the token girl (but who can actually duel this time); Manjoume Jun, the cocky, Kaiba-esque rival; Professor Cronos de Medici, the evil comic relief teacher who constantly schemes to get Juudai expelled; and Marufuji Ryou, the stoic but honorable Kaiser whose skills reign supreme over the entire school.

However, it quickly becomes clear that they didn't know what to do with some of these characters. Asuka barely duels at all in this season, for example, and Misawa is so neglected that it becomes a running gag, and later even a plot point, as the series goes on. Cronos even gets genuine character development that's wholly incongruous with his patently ridiculous aesthetic. Much of the first half of this season is spent on aimless filler as the series struggles to find its identity. Sure, a few one-off characters and concepts come back for minor roles in the plot in later seasons, but it doesn't feel planned. It feels like they were just sowing some seeds they could come back and harvest at their leisure.

To be honest, these early days of the series would've bored me to tears if it weren't for a man by the name of Manjoume Thunder. I said above that Manjoume is introduced as a Kaiba-esque rival for Juudai, but when you keep losing to the guy who got stuck in the shittiest dorm, you tend not to be able to call yourself the strongest anymore. He goes through an arc where he gets expelled, then picked up by a branch school, where he has to claw his way back up from rock bottom. Up until now, he was so arrogant that whenever anyone referred to him without an honorific, he'd angrily reply, "That's Manjoume-san to you." Or, in Japanese, "Manjoume-san da."

Well, at that branch school, people misunderstand him, thinking he's saying, "Manjoume sandaa." That is, calling himself Manjoume Thunder. So that's what they start calling him, and you know what he does? He doesn't even bat an eye and just rolls with it, proudly adopting the moniker when he comes crawling back to Duel Academy proper. From that point on, he cements himself as a comic relief member of the main cast while still being a semi-competent duelist. You know, despite losing to Juudai left and right.

I love this dumbass.

Manjoume Thunder's arc of "I've failed to meet my family's high expectations, but maybe I don't have to be the best, and I can just be me" really struck a chord with me. He becomes a much more lively person once he gets that stick out of his ass, living his best life. It's thanks to this knucklehead that I decided to stick with the series.

And I didn't have to wait long for shit to start happening, because start happening it does. Suddenly there's an evil plot to make off with three not-God Cards that are so powerful they were sealed away under the school, and the only way to protect them is for the seven most important characters to win duels against the challengers - but if they lose, they forfeit not only their keys, but their souls, too.

So yeah, those stakes came basically out of nowhere, but personally, I was just thankful there was actually a plot now. That said, the existence of a plot didn't change the more-or-less episodic nature of the series, so it continued to plod along at the same pace. It was clear that even the plot would ultimately be a framing device for the passage of time in this series, and by now, I didn't mind it too much.

Plus, it was clear that the writers were hitting their groove and able to have fun with it at this point. Remember what I said about Dark Magician Girl in my last post? Well, there's an episode where a few of the characters gush about the cards they're horny for, and Shou says he likes DMG. Lo and behold, fast forward to a filler episode about the school festival, and a DMG cosplayer shows up for an exhibition match against Juudai. Despite our intrepid protagonist's popularity among the student body, the crowd goes wild for the girl with the thighs and the boobies.

She gives Shou a kiss on the cheek near the end of the episode. No, really.

But yeah, the Seven Stars plot goes on more or less how you'd expect it to, with each side shaving away at each other's forces until it's just Juudai versus the big bad. Of special note is that Cronos goes through some impressive development during this time, showing off how upstanding a teacher he actually is, as well as finally acknowledging Juudai's skill. I'll still never get tired of the way he pronounces "dropout boy," though.

Season 2: The Society of Light (episodes 53-104)

Juudai's second year in Duel Academy starts off with the introduction of a new main cast member: Edo Phoenix. While Juudai uses an Elemental HERO deck, Edo uses Destiny HEROes.

And yeah, I suppose now's about as good a time as any to talk about the duels in this series. They're considerably more sophisticated than the duels in Duel Monsters, since now they presumably have a team of writers choreographing them instead of just some dude making things up as he goes along. Additionally, the main cast of Duel Monsters had some degree of individuality and strategy to their decks, but still mostly filled them with random nonsense that might hopefully be useful at some point. Not so in GX. Each of the main characters here has a clear game plan to their deck. Juudai takes advantage of the wide variety of E-HERO Fusions to hit each opponent with exactly what'll ruin their day. Asuka uses gimmicky monsters that are hard to kill and punish the opponent with effect damage. Manjoume Thunder overpowers his opponents with Armed Dragon, falling back on the Ojama Trio if they manage to keep his ace off the field. Shou runs Vehicroids, Cronos runs Ancient Gears, Ryou runs a Cyber Dragon deck, and so on.

This makes each duel much more exciting. In Duel Monsters, duels mostly consisted of the heroes trying to weather the opponent's assault until they drew something that could turn the game around, but since GX's heroes' decks have something resembling thought put into them, the tides of battle can ebb and flow in interesting ways, just like in real life. Juudai might start a game off strong, only for his opponent to pull out something that messes up his plans, after which he needs to regroup and look for a new avenue to victory. Asuka might have her ace out, but still prepare contingencies that prove to be necessary.

Incidentally, there's a bit of a meme among at least the English-speaking Yugioh fandom regarding the card Pot of Greed. Its effect couldn't be simpler: you play it, and you draw two cards. That's it. It's absolutely busted, which is why it got banned while GX was airing and is still banned to this day, and the writers knew it. Even in the later stages of Duel Monsters, characters used this card all the time - and every single time, they explained what it did. That tradition continued in GX: in every duel, you could count on each player using it an average of once, and every single time, they explained its effect. Keep in mind that almost every duel in the series is either one or two episodes long, and that means you're hearing Pot of Greed's effect an average of once or twice an episode. I actually paid attention, and there was exactly one time where someone played it and drew two without saying anything. Because of this, there's a bit of a tradition among Yugioh anime fans, or at least the ones I know: whenever you duel someone and they play Pot of Greed, you always ask them what it does.

Honestly, Pot of Greed must've been a godsend to the writers trying to choreograph these duels. They want the duelists to look cool, so they're incentivized to make the characters play lots of cards every turn. But since Yugioh doesn't have much draw power, the characters' hands are liable to run dry. Enter Pot of Greed for a quick booster! Now duels can remain fast-paced and exciting.

However, at one point, Pot of Greed just completely vanishes from everyone's decks without a trace. While they've never said anything to this effect, the writers actually seem to make sure the duels in the anime abide by the real-life ban lists. And as I said above, Pot of Greed got banned during GX's initial run, so the writers stopped using it.

What did they do, then? The same thing as duelists in real life: they got smarter about their deck building. They gave the characters new ways to maintain field presence so they don't have to keep playing so much stuff from their hands. Alternatively, they came up with different ways of maintaining hand size. It was done so seamlessly that it took me a while to even notice that Pot of Greed was gone.

On top of all this, they even showed the characters changing up their decks. In the Seven Stars arc, it was Manjoume Thunder adding the Ojama Trio to his strategy. Here in the Society of Light arc - hell yeah, nice segue back into the plot - it was Juudai modifying his deck into a Neos deck. See, the arc starts with him losing pretty hard to Edo, who's actually already gone pro, and getting severely traumatized to it due to the powers of the season's main villain. It gets so bad that all his cards start looking blank to him, and he even leaves the island for a while. An accident at sea leads to him learning of the season's bonkers plot about saving "Neo-Space" from the Light of Destruction, and suddenly he has a brand-new core in his deck consisting of Elemental HERO Neos and a bunch of kooky aliens.

Mere minutes before this, Juudai was adrift at sea, wallowing in depression.

Juudai then returns to the island and spends a whole lot of time getting lost on his way back to the Slifer Red dorm. Meanwhile, the Light of Destruction, possessing the body of Edo's friend and manager Saiou Takuma, is beginning its invasion of the academy. By defeating students in duels, it brainwashes them into calling themselves the Society of Light, eventually taking over the Obelisk Blue dorm. It even gets to the main cast: Manjoume Thunder gets bleached early in the season and later converts Asuka, much to everyone else's confusion and later dismay.

They balance this out by introducing a new student named Tyranno Kenzan to join the gang, and he's a perfect foil for the other subplot of the season: the headmaster is away, leaving the vice principal and Cronos in charge. The vice principal wants to abolish the Slifer Red dorm and expel its students, believing them to be a blight on the school's reputation, and Cronos is torn between the vice principal's promises of making him headmaster and his own acknowledgment of Slifer Red's worth. Early in the season, many a filler episode revolves around their latest harebrained scheme and how it gets thwarted by Kenzan, Shou, Asuka, and oh yeah Misawa's a character too, isn't he?

Perhaps the most interesting character development of the season comes from Shou's brother, Kaiser Ryou. He was a third-year in the Seven Stars arc, so he's now graduated and gone pro. But once he loses to Edo, he goes on one hell of a losing streak until he loses his sponsors and gets laughed out of every tournament he tries to join. He starts making a living in underground deathmatch duels, rebuilding his personality into the cold, ruthless, victory-obsessed Hell Kaiser. He even challenges the academy's headmaster, his old dueling instructor, and swipes the Cyber Dragon Style's secret, forbidden Cyberdark deck.

What's interesting about this is that he never really reforms. When Shou sees Hell Kaiser Ryou's comeback into mainstream tournaments on TV, he's shaken pretty bad by his brother's new, darker personality, even resolving to duel some sense into him, but he ultimately fails. Shit happens in life, and this is just how Ryou is now, and you just have to accept that.

At any rate, the plot does eventually move forward. When Edo learns what Saiou is doing, he's horrified and ends up forming a sort of enemy-of-my-enemy relationship with Juudai as he pursues his own goals. The headmaster comes back to start an honest-to-god tournament arc, which subverts your expectations by ending up as mere framing for Shou to duel Ryou and a season 1 character to come back. By the time it's in its final stages, most of the gang is busy dealing with Saiou, and it's become so irrelevant that Manjoume Thunder of all people (who's been un-brainwashed by now) takes home the gold.

On the whole, this season did a much better job of juggling the main plot, sub-plots, and slice-of-life filler than the first season did. Everything gets tied into a neat little bow just in time to round out the season by thwarting the Light of Destruction's evil plot and purging it from Saiou's body.

Season 3: Dimension World (episodes 105-156)

The third season, though, is almost nothing but main plot.

It opens by introducing quirky new main cast members: upstanding friend Johan Anderson, suave cowboy Jim Crocodile Cook, hardboiled mercenary Austin O'Brien, and highborn spy Amon Garam. They're here from sister schools on an exchange program, and guest teacher Professor Cobra instates a new duelist ranking system that seems to sap duelists' energy. Once the gang realizes something's seriously wrong, they move to stop him, but even though Juudai beats him in a duel, they're too late to prevent him from reviving the main villain of the season, and the outpouring energy transports the entire academy to another dimension.

In this dimension, Duel Monsters are very real and very dangerous. The stranded students and faculty have to Lord of the Flies it until they get help from their home world. Even then, they face opposition from a student possessed by the season's villain, and Johan doesn't make it back. Distraught by this, Juudai is determined to jump back into the dimensional rift to go searching for him, but his friends don't let him go alone. For the rest of the season, they travel the Duel Monsters dimensions, but the stakes are high: lose a duel in these worlds, and you lose your life.

This season does quite a bit with Juudai's character. Until now, he's been more or less one-note. He's always cheerful and excitable, overflowing with love for every duel he finds himself in. He had that brief depressive spell when Edo beat him, but other than that, he's been an upbeat inspiration to anyone who aspires to be a duelist, ending almost all of his duels with his catchphrase: "Gotcha! That was a fun duel."

But this third season makes the case that he could only be like that because he hadn't faced true hardship. An early antagonist, Professor Satou, says he doesn't know true strength because he hasn't faced the darkness of his own heart, and once his friends get cruelly sacrificed early in their adventures in the Duel Monsters world, you start to see what Professor Satou meant. Juudai was the one who resolved to save Johan; from his point of view, he's forced his friends to put themselves in danger. That's why he doesn't let them duel in this world, remaining tense and focused on victory. But when he's powerless to save them anyway - and sees how his singleminded obsession with saving Johan only put his friends in more danger - he comes to grips with the notion that the only way to achieve his goals is to trample everyone who stands in his way underfoot.

He soon becomes the Supreme King of the world and seeks to unite it through violent conquest, thus turning into a villain for the surviving main cast to desperately resist. After much struggling, Jim and O'Brien manage to give their lives to open Juudai's eyes to the suffering he's caused, and he grows terrified of his own brutal Supreme King persona.

The Punished Juudai arc goes unexpectedly hard.

I don't think it's any accident that this is when Hell Kaiser Ryou inserts himself into the story, considering Juudai's newfound similarities to him. By watching the Hell Kaiser duel, Juudai learns the lesson the early-season villains were trying to teach him: he can't just stick his head in the sand and try to bury the darkness of his heart. If he wants to mature and achieve his goals, he needs to embrace some of the ferocity and ruthlessness of the Supreme King.

And he learns this lesson just in time to duel the season's main villain, who is revealed to be Yubel. I'll spare you the infodump on what she's about, since I mostly just wanted to illustrate Juudai's character throughout this season, but long story short, Juudai saves the day, fuses his soul to Yubel's, and brings everyone back to life because of course they weren't really dead. Everyone goes home happily ever after, except for Juudai, who fucks off into outer space with Yubel to go on a journey of self-discovery.

Season 4: Darkness (episodes 157-180)

And that's where the dub ended, apparently! They never bothered with the final season of the anime. Quite funny that it leaves off on such a bittersweet ending, especially since Juudai comes back in the very next episode.

Anyway, the third season didn't cover their entire third year. This shorter season depicts the main cast gearing up for graduation and looking back on how far they've come over their time at Duel Academy.

It's quite interesting to see how these characters' arcs resolve. Juudai has grown much more distant since returning from the Duel Monsters dimensions. He can't even remember how he used to innocently enjoy duels. After all, he was dueling for life-and-death stakes for basically all of the third season, as well as the endgames of the first two seasons. Lately, he hasn't had the luxury of getting passionate about the game itself. The way this season goes about reminding him of that sensation provides a nice capstone to his development.

Then, of course, you have the heartwarming episode where Cronos has grown too attached to this cohort of students, and thus refuses to conduct the classes they need to graduate. And naturally, he manages to make his peace with the situation when Juudai shows up for a rematch of the duel they'd had during his entrance exam three years ago. Hell Kaiser Ryou, meanwhile, has to come to terms with his early retirement: his sadistic underground dueling had given him a heart condition that his tribulations in the Duel Monsters dimensions had only exacerbated. Ultimately accepting the consequences of his decisions, he resolves to set up his own dueling league - together with Shou, who he's now made up with.

Asuka and Manjoume Thunder didn't even really need wrap-ups, since they'd finished their development quite a while ago, but they got some anyway. Really goes to show how much love and care the writers had for their characters three years into the series. I had gotten attached to them at some point, too. I've derided the series a bit for its frequent filler episodes over the course of this post, and there were times where it was just too dense, but at the end of the day, it served a valuable purpose: letting you see a day in the life of these people so they could endear themselves to you as ordinary teens. In Duel Monsters, you grew to love the main cast for the great feats they accomplished and the larger-than-life growth they went through, but GX's characters feel much more grounded and human, despite the zany save-the-world plots they had to contend with.

Speaking of which, this season had one of those too, involving a minor antagonist from way back in the Seven Stars arc, but honestly, it felt superfluous and unnecessary. I would've been perfectly okay if this season had been half the length and focused solely on the lead-up to graduation.

Still, the series ends on a high note, and I was able to bid this lovable cast goodbye feeling fulfilled. Yugioh GX had its ups and its downs, but overall, it was a very competent addition to the franchise. Different from Duel Monsters? Absolutely. But it was good in a whole new way. I'd had my doubts about it at first, but I'm very glad I stuck with it to the end.

And that's all for this one, folks!

I'd actually long since finished watching GX by the time I started writing my last post, which is why I was able to write this one so soon afterward. I'm still working through Card Games on Motorcycles, though, so it'll be a second before I ramble about that one. But I won't keep you waiting for more inane nonsense: I have another story queued up that I can tell you.

But not right now. Right now, it's 11PM and I am tired after a very long and hectic day at work. With that said, let it be known that I am still terrible at writing conclusions.