Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Episode 131

Yuugo lost.
Is anyone surprised by this outcome?
Not me, that’s for sure.

It pains me how the main characters (or at least the ones who are supposed to be) have been terribly neglected throughout this arc. As result I haven’t been able to feel anything. When I watch the events unfold, I feel detached, indifferent, and worst off, bored out of my mind. The increasing predictable outcomes and mediocre writing is truly ruining the experience, along with being spoiled by the unnecessary additions (I’m looking at you Jack, Crow, Edo, Kaito) and how these characters from the series of the past are hogging precious screen-time that should be devoted to ramping up the tragedy that is about to take place. All I can think of is how Yuugo and Yuuri deserved a better duel. They deserved a duel without any interruptions, they deserved to have a full episode or two solely dedicated to their fight. But the writers didn’t do that. They cut it short, to the extent it’s not something that be appreciated for contributing to the story progression, but to be criticized for neglecting what is supposed to be a dramatic, and emotional duel that literally means life or death as the one who loses is expected to be absorbed into the other. How can we possible feel for Yuugo and his struggle, if we don’t even get to properly experience that ordeal? We are virtually at the climax of the series, yet this arc has been incredibly Anti-Climatic.

And don’t even get me started on the girls’ situation. It is clear as night and day that there is no saving them, we already lost Yuzu and the rest will soon follow. The girls are goner, and I should be feeling incredibly emotional about it as they are my QUEENS, but I can’t. I can’t find it in me, anywhere to feel sad. This should be depressing, but it’s not. And believe me when I tell you I am an emotional person, I cry at just about anything that tugs or breaks my heart. It is actually frustrating how feel nothing. Because I loved this show- yes, past tense in regards of how passionate I was about it. But now we are drifting apart. I am not connecting to the story anymore. The writers need to go back to the early days, and bring back that hook, that charm… that spark that got me so invested in the first place, that fire that made me such a passionate fan. The story is all over the place and they desperately need to determine who should be the focus (aka: justified time dedicated to them) and stick to it. Hopefully once all the cameos from the past finally disappear and be done with, the story will be able to find its stride again. However my faith has been shaken, so I not nearly as optimistic as I did a year ago about how they will ultimately wrap up this series.
Which leads me to my next concern.

As of right now, we can probably all agree the girls are goners and Ray will revive. (I know I haven’t mentioned about her ghost possessing Reira, and I will address that.) We also know that Zarc will definitely revive as well, there’s no stopping it. It’s going to happen. The question however is what the hell is going to happen after that. Will the Professor succeed in merging all four worlds? If he does so, what will happen to Yuuya, Yuzu, Yuuto, Ruri, Yuugo, Rin, Yuuri and Selena? Will they lose their memories all over again? What about Reira, Yuushou, Sora and the Professor himself? Will they lose their memories too once Ray and Zarc undergo that battle to once again split up? This is really the biggest question that is plaguing my mind right now. I will be incredibly frustrated if nobody has any memories of each other after all of this. It’s a restart all over again. I don’t think they will go down that path, but at this point I have pretty low expectations and I have no idea what kind of curve-balls they are going to throw our way.

Then we have Ghost-Ray who is basically being the devil’s advocate and appears to be possessing Reira or at least trying to manipulate him by having him fight Reiji. This annoyed me for several reasons, and one of them was because Ray’s mindset was, “I must revive to stop Zarc from awakening.” Actually it made me want to throw something at her. Maybe a book to get her to read how the f#!% they all got in this position in the first place. Because guess what? It appears she too is diagnosed with the condition called Tunnel Vision, failing to acknowledge that in order to revive her, they have to sacrifice hundreds and thousands of people. Sheesh! The apple sure doesn’t fall far from the tree!
And then she is trying to guilt-trip Reiji through Reira, going on how like, “Don’t you want to revive your sister?” Uh… No. Not really. Reiji never had a relationship with her, ever. He didn’t even know she freaking existed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, then there’s the whole mess with Reira VS Reiji. Throughout the series Reira has been undergoing a journey of self-discovery. He was in a sense soulless, and was disconnected from others. Reiji trained him to ‘use’ him. (Frankly speaking I don’t even know what to think of their relationship anymore. One minute he’s brotherly, the next he’s just like Leo, using people as his pawns). And then we have Reiji think to himself how he turned Reira into a monster.

…
I’m sorry. You said what?
Reira, a monster?
Give me a freaking break. The kid is no monster. Also it just show how ignorant Reiji can be when it comes to his ego. Like seriously? He didn’t expect him to want to surpass him? God, we the audience saw that coming miles and miles away.
It also looks like Reiji will be defeated as well, which means he may be taken out of the picture entirely- who knows, but his loss will only seal just how badly of an epic fail this whole “Lancers” (still a stupid and baseless name) Squad is. What a hot mess. The group is a joke, they couldn’t and didn’t do shit (or rather the writers didn’t give them the chance to), nor could their leader because he didn’t step up and act like one when they needed him the most. Definitely not your go-to group of heroes you would call to save your world, that’s for sure.

Next week, Yuushou VS Yuuri. Well gee I wonder how this is going to turn out. I will be surprised if Yuugo doesn’t get absorbed into Yuuri already- unless his soul magically flies over to Yuuya because he’s the core host or something like that, I don’t know- you never know at this point. Let’s just hope this series can find its groove again sooner than later, because I really wanted to feel for this show again. I invested three years of my heart and time into this, so I am in it till the very end, but I just want to see that the writers can get their shit together.