Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V Episode 55

To put it mildly, I was kind of taken aback by how I felt about the episode. Maybe I was too hyped up for it, so the lack of suspense and action made it feel a bit flat to me. Not to say it was bad, it was good, but not the greatest nor most memorable episode to date. And it has its reasons. We learned a lot about the city last week, the conflicts, the consequences, the great divide between the social class, so when it just focuses primarily on the duel itself – where you were fairly confident they would win and manage to get away, there isn’t much to expect or look forward to. However it was not all in vain. There were a two particular things that had caught my attention.

The first was the focus on the security man’s stars. He was wearing two stars and was counting on winning this duel to obtain an promotion. It hasn’t been explained of what the stars and their numbers means level-wise in the system, but for now it sounded to me this officer was in the second level (lower class) and was hoping to make his way to the top for the sake of a better life. (Also, it was revealed the Head of the security force Jean-Michel Roger, seems to personally instruct his officers how to proceed in the duel. How often he does that, I’m not sure, but will find out eventually.)

The second was the reporter. Now Mellisa Claire is clearly not someone to overlook, because I smell a hidden agenda. This lady wants to keep her eyes on Yuugo. While she is identified as a Top Reporter, it doesn’t necessarily mean she is a Top citizen. If she is a Common who is working her way up in the media coverage field, it certainly opens a lot of unique opportunities: one of my speculations being she could be possibly be recruiting strong duels to participate in a revolt against the Tops. I wouldn’t put it past me to hear the commoners planning such a thing, especially how Jean-Michel, specifically order the forces prepare to suppress the Commoners if they end up acting up. I am not surprised to hear that considering regardless of the fact Yuugo had won his duel, Jean-Michel was still planning to have him and Yuzu arrested anyways. These Tops folks play dirty, and they will do whatever underhanded tactics they can in order to prevent the Commoners from rising up.

Needless to say, this is precisely why Yuugo and Yuzu are fugitives now (the Tops have no intention of letting them go), leading to the conflict which Yuuya and Selena find themselves quickly dragged into after they are mistaken for their respective counterparts. It was quite amusing though, especially Yuuya looks so done with the drama and fights. Sawatari on the other hand is grumpy from the travel across dimensions are is not putting up with the cops aggressive attitudes- along with Selena who used to the whole being a target on hot pursuit shenanigans, but then we have Reira who no part of this and ran for it the second the cops pulled out their duel-disks. Poor kid. Too young for this shit.

I am quite excited to next week’s episode because I am looking forward to seeing Yuuya support Reira. The poor kid may be a strong duelist, but he is scared out of his wits. If he had the option, he probably wouldn’t have come along. It looks like Yuuya will be in charge of taking care of him until he and the others regroup with Reiji, Gongenzaka, Kurosaki and Dennis (and god help us all if Dennis managed to separate himself from the group to spill all of the details regarding where Yuzu and Selena are).

On the extra note: I really like their new special effect for the Graveyard Animation, it looks super wicked. Yuugo’s theme song is also pretty awesome.