Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V Episode 1 [First Impression]

Eva’s First Impression
What the fuck did I just watch?
Never in my life have I ever been so confused while watching an episode of Yu Gi Oh, so congratulations YGO Arc-V for that…
First off all, this show started off on the weirdest note because the OP itself was the wackiest YGO OP I have ever seen. In fact, show it to someone who doesn’t know of the YGO Franchise and they would think it’s something else entirely, I’m sure.
Where do I even begin? There was so many strange things happening so I am quite lost to be honest. Perhaps I should have came into this show a bit more cautiously since I have seen a bit of ZEXAL’s share of insanity. But it is strange really because I don’t know how I feel about it at all. It has a very different approach to dueling and at first I thought this show is going to be something like YGO GX as I heard about the Action School Dueling thing, but now I think it might not be the case since it hasn’t exactly been touched up on in this episode- but nevertheless, it’s too soon to say.
We have our main character Yuuya who I will at least say is a million times better than annoying Yuuma who I couldn’t stand back in ZEXAL (which I dropped pretty early on). He actually is a pretty decent duelist as he was able to stand his ground against the Champion whom he had been invited to duel against. He has a different kind of battle strategy from what we have seen from the other series’ leads, but I actually kind of like it because it’s different. I don’t think I am ever going to get over the hippo duel monster- I just can’t. It is so silly! But it fits Yuuya’s character because he is kind of like a joker. He is spontaneous, goofy and full of tricks. His personality seems nice so I am looking forward to learning more about what kind of character he is and what other sides of him we haven’t seen yet.
Yuuya aspires to be like his father, who was a famous Action Dueler (also the champion at the time). But sadly, his father has mysteriously vanished three years ago and never showed up to duel Ishijima who Yuuya competes against today as a special guest. Due to his father’s tarnished reputation, Yuuya puts on his goof facade whenever someone speaks ill of him.
Yu Gi Oh Arc-V has it’s own new form of dueling which is known as: Dueling Entertainment aka Action Duels. It is very different from what I have seen in a long time and frankly speaking, I don’t know how good that is. I had actually found the more action/entertainment aspect of the duel where you see Yuuya and the other guy running about on the field incredibly distracting because they weren’t focusing as much on the technical aspect of the game play as they usually do. And no thanks to that, I found it difficult to keep track of what was going on and wounded up lost and confused. It almost feels like the technical part of the duel isn’t as important anymore, it’s entertaining the crowd that is the priority- or so that’s how it is in Yuuya’s mind. But even so, at the LDS’s stadium, they use field magic to set the battle stage.Usually we only see a change in the battle environment during the fight because of whichever card the players uses or due to special circumstances that often during a fight against a villain.
I certainly wasn’t expecting the pendulum to be used the way it did this episode. The second Yuuya said, “Pendulum Summon!” I literally choked on my drink. At first glance it’s crazy seems over the top, but looking back it really wasn’t compared to the things I have seen. I think over time it will grow on me as I get used to the whole Action Dueling concept.
For most part, I do like the character designs, especially Yuuya’s, but I am expecting a lot of strange ones along the way because of the whole entertainment focus on the duels. The animation quality was great and the CG was actually bearable when it showed up.
Now that I actually managed to collect my thoughts by writing this, I have to say Yu Gi Oh Arc-V is interesting, but is neither good or bad. Despite it’s wackiness, I am curious to see how good the plot will be and what is will revolve around, and what kind of opponents Yuuya and his friends will be facing. I am hoping this won’t be too much like YGO GX as I never liked that series to begin with. As for the possibility of blogging, man I really don’t know. I am cool with giving this three episodes for starters just to get a better grasp of the direction of the show, and if I am up to it, I will follow through with my ten episode rule which I use for series that I know will be at least forty episodes long.
Possibility of Blogging: Moderate (Giving three episodes for starters, if I like it I will give it up to Ep 10)
Possibility of Watching: Moderate