Ehhhh, talk about a serious disappointment. I was genuinely hoping the whole prison camp scenario to be a lot more serious. The only serious factor was the fact how the majority of the prisoners (mainly commoners) are dragged into this place under false-charges. Instead of undergoing the gruesome Criminal Mark tag the minute they arrive, we are dealing with the conflict of bribing with cards. The security allows the prisoners to keep their decks because it’s supposed to serve as their ‘Life Source’. They can use their cards to bribe their fellow inmates or security for better treatment. The Card Bribes conflict is okay, but I think they exaggerated its power far too much. It is weird for me to see Tokumatsu (the ‘unofficial’ boss of the prisoners) to have such a luxurious prison and steak dinners. While I get the point, it simply does not click with me. However in retrospect, it’s true I did raise my expectations a bit too high as the Prison Camp mini-arc in 5Ds was fun for me to watch.
Yuuya is in a bit of a pinch considering Tokumatsu’s Cardian deck inflicts a hefty punishment of chipping off 1500LP each time you draw. If that wasn’t a big enough problem, he already had a trick up his sleeve to shutdown Pendulum Summon before Yuuya even did it. The trap card makes all of Yuuya’s monsters disappear from the field, leaving him vulnerable for direct damage. While I am not digging the episode, I do like the fact Tokumatsu is giving Yuuya a hard time right off the bat- but you just wait- it’s going to have some cheesy resolution with hippos or some other monster dancing. On the extra note, Shinji and Crow recognizes him, but can’t pin-point where they have seen him before. I wonder if he was the champion before Jack came along…
Aside from the card bribes and the outcomes of it, this was a fairly uneventful episode. It wasn’t straight up boring, but it was certainly close to it. I also felt it was a missed opportunity. What I had hoped was for the group to actively talk about what they know about the Synchro Realm, and exchange knowledge with each other. Instead this episode revolved around small stuff where new prisoners, unless they give away their cards will be bullied and have a lesser treatment. Gongenzaka gave away two of his cards to help his inmates who lost their deck when they were brought in. Dennis did the same, so both of them have a bit of the upper-hand with treatment and uses that to take care of the others. Yuuya straight up was disgusted and refuses to give away his cards, he is completely against bribing and now since he won’t give any of his cards to Tokumatsu, he is now engaged int a duel where he could potentially lose his entire deck if he ends up defeated. Tokumatsu has a staggering amount of cards he has obtained over the past ten years.
In the mean time, right off the bat Selena was selected to be placed into a special confinement. We know that Jean wants to interrogate them to gain more information, but I wouldn’t put it past me if he questions her about Academia. Or, perhaps he knows of something about her we don’t, that would be pretty cool. Shun is also in a similar situation, but a solidarity confinement after breaking into a fight against ten or more people. Hahaha, what did I tell you? I knew this would happen! He probably doesn’t mind that much.
Since the duel will be draged out into next week’s episode, I more or less expect it to take up the entire episode so for the first time, I am neutral about it. Let’s just get this duel over-with and proceed with the plot. I want to see prison riots and a large scale prison break!
I heard that this and next episode are written by the same guy who did the 2-parter quiz duel which would probably make sense why it’s not that exciting.
*HEADESKS* Ughhhhhhhh…
What really? Well, I found this episode enjoyable enough. Then again, it would take a lot of effort to make an episode as (un)enjoyable as the quiz episodes.
I wouldn’t really say that Selena being separate from the guys in prison is all that special….considering she’s a girl.
Completely and utterly agree, I was really looking forward to this episode and it was super disappointing. Not only did it feel like it wasted time, but it felt very off tonally. It was too goofy, and the dojo Hanafuda style duel felt like it came from a different script entirely. I was kind of expecting a more prison style duel for this story that takes place in a prison. It’s like going to a mid-evil castle only to face an Australian guy with a Koala deck, or going to an old western town and playing Candy Land. Plus the episode just didn’t feel like it was taking itself seriously, I know this is a show about card games, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try.
Then there’s the other stuff that’s just kind of annoying, like why don’t the main characters have to wear uniforms, or why give them back their decks in the first place if you just want to take their cards away later? At the very least give us a small throw away line to explain these things. Also not for nothing but those are some pretty rare/valuable cards to just give away because you don’t feel like doing some extra cleaning.
I guess on a positive note Gongenzaka got a moment that was kinda cool, so at least that’s something.
i personally am enjoying every yugioh arc-v episode that is coming out… In all honesty i’m kind of glad their hiding out with Crow didn’t last longer than three episodes because it was starting to get boring. Security capturing them was a good way to break the mould.
This episode in particular was quite lackluster when you compare it to all the actiony stuff we got earlier. I was really hoping for Shun and Yuya to meet again! I just love seeing those two together because they’re such opposites. But oh well, Shun just couldn’t stay out of trouble could he?
Also i swear Yuya might as well have a sign on him that says ‘bully me’ almost everyone who is a twat trys and picks on him and he brushes it off, this happens to me so i can relate to Yuya quite a bit which is why he is my favourite yugioh protagonist at the moment.
I was a little disappointed with the lack of violence you would normally expect from a prison. It really just felt like they were being held in a military camp with all the other prisoners acting like stupid giggily teenage boys (the one who tripped Yuya and the other guy who threw water over the group’s lunch). The good things in this episode was Gongenzaka really, because i love how uncharacteristically kind he is despite being such a big guy that wouldn’t normally portray that role and i love how he becomes all affectionate towards Yuya (as a friend people! not in that way!)… this seems to be a trend in recent anime because before best friends pretty much wouldn’t even touch each other other than to give them a pat on the shoulder or back! I always wondered what the hell was wrong with them!? Now, you have Clemont and Ash from XY and this not afraid to hug one another!!
By the way, am i the only one drawing parallels to Yusei’s duel with Tanner from 5ds? because it seems vaguely around the same time that Yusei met Tanner and challenged him to a duel. If that’s the case, probably if Yuya wins they’ll head back to their cell until one of the security guards calls for one of them to be ‘interrogated’.