Yuma a junior high student who is an idiot always keeping himself pumped up and aiming to be the World’s Dueling Champion (except here’s the joke, he’s a total noob and has no idea how to duel). In his era, the new dueling technique is Exceed Summoning and duelists now wear their goggles (eyepatch? Call it what you want), that allows them to see duel monsters influencing the virtual world where they actually can be hit by real impact. At the end of the day after school, Yuma goes out with his friend Kotori in hopes to duel someone and win for an exchange. They see their friend Tesuo dueling a powerful opponent named Shark, the boss of bullies at his school. His friend as result, loses both the match and his deck. Yuma decides to challenge him in order to get the deck back, however instead Shark tells him to give him something just as valuable to him in exchange. Before Yuma even gets the chance to make the choice, Shark sees what his most precious possession is and snaps the key off his neck and snaps it by smashing her foot down on it. The bully only then proposes a duel to take place next sunday, and if he loses then he too will lose his deck.
First Impression:
Right off the bat, the first thing that surprised me was how deep Yuma’s voice sounded like. I thought it was going to sound a bit more err… pre-mature, so this is a pleasant surprised. However his character design honestly isn’t impressive whatever when you compare him to the other lead characters, Yugi, Atem, Judai and Yusei. In fact it’s not just him, it’s every character! While they are… lets face it, in fact much different to what we’re all used to seeing – but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s really ugly to me. Maybe this isn’t supposed to be their ‘top notch’ quality episode – and I’m going to hope that it isn’t, because well that would be a bummer for everyone. So far, it feels like there’s a little bit of the previous three series in this show. It has the artifact that was found by Yuma’s parents, much like Yugi and his millennium puzzle that he received from his grandfather back in Duel Monsters, then you got the school setting (though we aren’t told how often the plots will take place at that setting) which in this case a little bit of both Duel Monsters and DX, and then there’s the futuristic technology and new technique called, “Exceed Summoning” that was probably inspired by 5Ds technology focus with the influence and dependence on the momentum. Last but not least, we now got another main character who dreams to become the world’s dueling champion, which we didn’t have in 5Ds since in that series Jack Atlas was the one who desired to claim the ‘King’ title.
Now to focus about episode overall! For a start, it’s cool – it doesn’t exactly have me hooked, but I do have enough interest to see where it goes. I suppose it comes in handy not holding my breath about what to expect. Yuma’s character, he’s interesting, and his personality seems cool which will make him into a likable characters. despite his hideous character design that I will have to get used to =3=; Ugh and I’m NOT looking forward to his stupid catchline, “Kattobingu”!!!! What really caught my off guard was just how much of a NOOB he was. We’re not used to a main character who can’t even tell the different between a spell and trap card and randomly attacks with the strongest monster in his deck. *FACEPALM*
Oh and by the way, the only badass character we’ve been this episode was Yuma’s grandmother.
While I’m on the subject, this is also the first time that any YGO Main Character have any siblings! Yuma has a sister who is a journalist, by the look of it – like Carly from 5Ds. Then we got Yuma’s friends, one of them is an ass Tesuo (seriously why is he friends with this guy?) and a girl named Kotori who (god already?!) seems to be the girl who has love interest towards his. Then there’s Shark, who by far the most RIDICULOUS RIVAL I’VE EVER SEEN who is an ass. WTF ARE THEY TRYING TO PULL HERE!?
The way the duel goes, it’s very different, in fact if I were to describe it best, it’s like standing in an RPG game. Duelist now wear thing glasses thing called D-Gazer, (LOL so first it’s D-Wheels, now it’s D-Gazers?) which allows them to witness their duel monsters actually fight beyond the dueling field and actually create destruction within the hologram aka solid vision. The next thing is it actually delivers impact. Also they layout like this shot here: It reminds me (though I don’t have the game, but from I’ve seen in screenshots) of how the duels in Tag Force looks like.
Last but not least, the episode ended on a very sweet note – and when I say sweet, I mean wicked! Yuma decides to go, “SCREW IT ALL I’M UNLOCKING THE DOOR TO OBTAIN NEW POWAAAAAA!!!” despite its warning and his key suddenly restores itself (I don’t know how to describe it). Moreover there’s a spirit who appears, we don’t know who the hell this spirit is, or WHAT it is yet. In this case it reminds me of the Pharaoh and Yugi but despite this spirit PROBABLY by the looks of it, comes from that spirit, the only difference would be they can’t merge bodies or whatever… or so I hope not. : Well either way its (he or she?) wants to win.
Also apparently, by opening that door – that voice of whatever had come to possess Shark and start babbling about ‘releasing numbers’ and suddenly summon basically, you know what I’m going to quote this: “I constract (contract? construct? I think it’s a typo so I’m guessing its one of these two words) the overland Network with two Monsters! Come, Number 17: REVISED DRAGON”. We quickly learn that this isn’t normal and no one has ever really heard about this kind of summoning.
The OP and ED, I’m going to tell you right now I find that the ED was more impressive to watch not to mention the song is totally badass and addicting. The OP on the otherhand felt very, rushed – not very well coordinated and the song was mehhhh. I mean i get the whole electronic tune since it’s like virtual world and all, like I said – RPG Duels. XD
Possiblitiy of Blogging: 50/50 Unsure, I’m going to give this another few episodes before judging whether I’ll continue blogging this. This show after all, we don’t know how long this will go on for. 5Ds went on for three years unlike GX and the original series: Duel Monsters, that went on for four years, so I am curious about how long this series will be.
*LOOKS AT THE ABOVE WALL OF TEXT*
