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greymagick711
03-15-2010, 01:03 PM
Yu-gi-oh! 5d's
"Would you like some cards with that HAM?" is off of what YGO pretty much lives--the ridiculous drama must be instilled upon each and every duel. Fingers must be pointed, characters must shout disbelievingly at each other, and players must announce their turn and card effects with a pose. They have to take the game seriously for our entertainment.

DM took every duel absolutely seriously, even if the game didn’t involve wagering your soul. GX was more like—let’s turn this into a school drama.
But after finishing GX and thinking that the last season must have been written by someone on drugs (seriously), I felt that it wasn't THAT bad--just kinda different. I mean—they actually attend school.

But the truth is Judai(Jaden) didn't take things seriously until halfway through the 3rd season. Though wonderfully strange, the epic-ness of the GX’s fourth and final season came too little too late: we viewers don't want to watch a not-serious duelist play (what we know as) a not-seriously-taken card game.
And then the announcement for 5d's came out and it was kinda like: Are you KIDDING me? They have now officially run out of ideas.

But wait! It's better than it sounds. 101 episodes later, I find it more entertaining than GX. I just thank the writing staff that 75% of the duels AREN'T on motorcycles--that would just be too much.

Though DM will always remain my personal favorite, it has its flaws that can be attributed specifically because it was the first of the series. The rules of the games weren’t as developed, the animation was iffy at times, and HOLY CRAP 80+ FILLER EPISODES.

With 5D’s we have card games at its finest—it really doesn’t get more confusing than Synchro Summons now does it? The animation is high quality and smooth and there are more action sequences as well. The characters have more dimensions than GX’s, and there’s more myth to boot.

What baffled me the most was that the entire society in 5D’s has to do with this game—it’s literally become part of their lives. Case in point: Neo Domino City taxpayers created specialized lanes that appear along the highways just for riding duels. Players can randomly summon monsters to do real damage to objects (Clarke’s Third Law, anyone?).

So, now for some of the potential problems with this series.

Motorcycles—duh. But a fan of YGO can get over that pretty quickly.

Incans. Their golden age was around the 1400’s—the Nazca Lines said to be developed around those times. Stop saying “5000” years ago, 4kids. South America at that time might have had maybe, like, two different tribes at that time.

Shadow Duels—wait, you mean “games” right? WRONG. But they’re essentially the same. Of course, the Dark Signers say things like “I’m going to send you to Hell!” (‘Netherworld’ in 4kids, but it the Japanese ‘Hell’ has a more mystical meaning as well as opposed to normal ‘Hell’.) So, hm. Apparently—it’s not the Shadow Realm. They have different ‘divine’ cards as well.

No tribute to the original. I’ll give that they mention the name ‘Kaiba’ once, and have one episode in which they use a duel RING. BUT! They don’t explain how players build their deck and barely mention the concept of ‘rarity.’

That, and the ‘luck of the draw’/’heart of the card’ is virtually nonexistent. Players always have the hand they need and are always able to make some sort of move. The duel itself basically comes down to who can build a better deck, who has the better combos, and who can predict the other’s moves better.

Little influence from Takahashi. So there’s technically not really any fillers. Fine. But you know what? Even though DM had all that filler, the original story that he made up compensated for all those episodes, and then some. 5D’s needs a huge staff to make up a storyline to be entertaining. The best they could come up with? Motorcycles.

Despite these obvious flaws, I still thoroughly enjoy it, and am looking forward to more episodes. By the hour and day of this post, I have to say: can you believe we must be around the half way point of the series? I’m kinda sad!

So, here’s to the re-inventing of the franchise!

ChouToshio
03-15-2010, 06:27 PM
Not making this up:

"Team Satisfaction," the legendary Children's Card Game/Motorcycle Gang. The gang's catch phrase: "We'll make you satisfied!" *face palm*

This is some kind of bizarre alternative universe where nerds bully other nerds. Enough said.


Some of my older posts on the subject:

Ok, I've only watched the Japanese, and I have to say that I found the first season entertaining enough. Again, a little bit cliche but I can work with it.

As soon as the boys started their card-game street gang "Team Satisfaction" (Manzoku saseruze!) . . .

*step back* *turn off* *scarred for life*

"This must be some bizarre alternative universe where nerds bully other nerds."

I speak Japanese, and I can honestly say that the original is every bit as cheesy as the dub (if not more). If you don't feel that, bone up on your Japanese.

Here's what I got out of each one:

GX:
Ryou (Zane) is a bad ass
Asuka (Alexis) has nice boobs
. . . I'm done here.

Comment from one of my fangirl friends: I took one look at Judai's (Jaden's) hair, and then put the comic book down.

5Ds:
Yu-gi-oh trying to go emo-matrix? Yeah, not feeling it . . . plus all the main characters are trying way too hard to be cool to the point where none of them have any personality. Yuusei somehow manages to create a protagonist even more lacking in personality than Yami. Jack bores me because he does not have the guts to be as much of an ass as Kaiba. At least in GX, all the other characters were clowns so that we could highlight Ryou's bad-ass-ness.

On another note, Aki has to be the single hottest female character in all of yu-gi-oh (not saying much), and perhaps from any main-stream anime I've seen in the last 5 years or so (that's saying much). I love her character design too. While she does fall into the same sad "I'm so cliche bad-ass I'm boring" pit that the rest of the 5Ds characters, she's the only one that really makes it work for me.


Also here's how I summarize the 10th movie special:

*Aki's Boobs*
Yugi: Who the fuck are all you people?
Yusei: If we try to explain that, we won't have time for the card game-- just oggle his time traveling motorcycle.

END

CHEERS TO 10 YEARS OF YU-GI-OH!! PLEASE CONTINUE TO BUY CHILDREN'S CARD GAMES FROM NOW ON! THANK YOU!!

Elliot Gale
03-16-2010, 11:06 AM
I feel 5Ds is trying to juggle too many characters and is really going overboard with the Yusei dick riding, but... it tends to be enjoyable.

Seriously, though, Luka has played maybe 2 cards games in the entire series. Aki and Jack started being terrible players when they became protagonists.

wtf d00ds

yamiangie
03-17-2010, 01:50 PM
I have to say that's a good argument I've seen made to watch the series. Most children's shows fail at history anyway. Or they have the stargate theroy going on and no one has thougth to put it into the plot of the dub over the decade this show seems to have been on