The duel fires off between enraged Aki and Yusei. With Aki already on the roll and had summoned her Black Rose Dragon with a bonus of equiping it with ‘Thorns of Hatred‘, Yusei finds himself getting whipped even with having Stardust Dragon on the field. Due to ‘Thorns of Hatred’, Stardust Dragon continuously to lose six hundred of its attack points, and be brutally beaten by Black Rose Dragon’s thorns and is unable to be destroyed, leaving him forcefully stuck on the field. As the battle progresses, Yusei desperately tries to communicate with Aki, but only to add fuel to the fire as she continues to deny any hope of being accepted and loved by anyone like Divine had done for her. Only later as Aki’s father decides to step in and interfere with the duel by attempting to not only shield Yusei, but make his way over to Aki, begging for her to stop and somehow forgive him. Once more, as rage consumes her, Yusei realizes that she cannot control her powers. As her father tries to explain to her how he really feels, she continues to deny it, Yusei in response tries to explain what she has been looking for is right there in front of her. As he draws his next card, and much to his relief was the one he was waiting for, ‘Silver Wings‘. He immediately equips it to Stardust and then finally activates the magic card, Restraint Release Wave. By destroying an equipment magic on his field, it destroys all magic and traps cards on his opponent’s field. With that done, Stardust’s attack is restored back to normal. With a hundred attack points more than Black Rose Dragon, Stardust attacks destroying it only to have Aki activated Guard Hedge‘s effect by sending it to the cemetery to negate Black Rose’s destruction, however as a price Black Rose Dragon’s attack decreases significantly. Only after that she realizes that her powers aren’t in her control. She wishes for it to stop when she honestly doesn’t want to hurt anyone, she then sees her father facing danger as a debris comes flying towards him, desperately not wanting him to get hurt she somehow, but manages to successfully take control of her powers. After checking to make sure her father was alright, she then asks Yusei to end the duel.
Impression:
That was a really cool battle. Major development on Aki’s part and it’s great that her father finally took her into his arms in order to convey his feelings – I MEAN GOD ABOUT TIME! THIS IS WHAT HE SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE RATHER THAN SHUN HER AWAY!!!!!!!! It was also interesting how for the first time, she was able to control her powers.
Now gosh, Yusei got to get hurt just as much and managed to prevent so damage from happening to Aki’s father since it was only in the end when he finally jumped in the way to protect Yusei. Just how long did that take? One and a half episodes? Years in Aki’s case? That’s pretty sad. Oh yes and before I forget, Aki’s mother did not do anything beneficial. In fact, I wonder how Aki specifically doesn’t hate her mother as well. I mean, we were shown that she didn’t even try to interact and save Aki from her despair and support her when her father called her a monster when she was a child, and so on. Is it because despite her father always being busy with work, he was the one who gave her more attention then her mother? Honestly I don’t know because we weren’t shown anything involving her relationship with her mother, but either way both of them have failed the parenting exam. I don’t care that they – more specifically, her father ‘redeemed‘ himself by showing Aki that he still cared for her deeply, he pisses me of and I don’t like him one bit.
As for the duel itself, Aki had the upper-hand until her father interfered. I think she could have won the duel if it had continued, depending whether she were to be able to beat Yusei before he was able to draw ‘Silver Wings‘, which was the key for the victory – but by the look of it, probably not considering that was the next card he drew, but then again she might had another strategy to prevent Black Rose Dragon from being destroyed for good like she had done so earlier. Also their duel again had so much metaphor, it’s really amazing how those two dragons interact and battle each other! Aki’s Black Rose Dragon, equipped with ‘Thorns of Hatred‘, and Yusei’s Stardust Dragon equipped with ‘Silver Wings‘, as I like to refer as ‘angelic’ because it’s so pretty *SHOT*. At this point I think it’s pretty awesome to not only ship Yusei x Aki, but Stardust x Black Rose Dragon. *SHOT* What? Face it, those dragons are totally a pair. Not to mention they look gorgeous together. aside from the fact they are constantly lashing out at each other, that will change though since Aki seems to have agreed to join their ‘Signers’ group.
The track from the OST for this duel was very heartwarming. It was really able to convey that soft emotions, much like a lullaby. Then there were several horrible animation sequences that looked like an absolute mess, by far the worst I seen throughout the series. It was really bad. The good news is that was the only major flaw of the episode and that was specifically the afar shots, otherwise everything else had excellent quality.
Last but not least, I found Rua really cute here. <3 I love his reaction, very adorable!
