The best way to describe this episode is that it felt as if someone had just slammed their foot on the break. It was more or less a breather for Yuusaku, with not a single duel taking place, this episode focused on the casts more or less adapting to the new situation. (Needless to say there were quite a bit of funny moments). Yuusaku spent pretty much the entire episode working on obtaining data from Ignis (who he decided to name ‘Ai’, but I’m just going to stick with Ignis), while his enemies attempt to gather background information on Playmaker and discuss how they intend to deal with him. After his duel with the Hanoi Knight, Playmaker and Speed Duels went viral. Tons of players either wants to copy Playmaker’s avatar and claim themselves to be the real deal, or are pumped up to learn Speed Duels. Interestingly enough Speed Duels is something that was banned in LINK VRAINS, and they moderator bots actually suspended players’ accounts because of it. However Zaizen, Head of Security for SOL Technologies suggested they loosen up the rules so they could set up a battlefield for Playmaker, and attempt to capture him then. In order to do that, Zaizen sought out Gou Onizuka (self proclaimed King), and ‘offered’ a proposal to have him eliminate Playmaker, and retrieve the so-called ‘stolen’ AI (said to have been developed by SOL Technologies). Should he succeed, SOL Techonologies will officially sponsor him. Gou declined, it looks like he will one way or another do the job, be it by his own terms or Zaizen’s. Most importantly however, is that Gou’s manager actually saw right through Zaizen, and straight up told Gou the man came to them intending to threaten them. Damn right he is. One hell of a shady manipulator.
And if that’s not bad enough, he got a lady called Ema to do investigate and attempt to get a hold of Playmaker’s identity.
We did learn however one surprising factor about Ignis: As result of his body being eaten by the Cracking Dragon (the Hanoi Knight’s monster), he had lost most of his memories. These memories however are not lost for all eternity, but are in fact in the Hanoi Knights’ possession. It was through that Revolver was almost able to track down Yuusaku while he was studying Ignis’ memories, where there he saw Ignis’ last encounter with the Hanoi Knights before he had barely escaped. With it being such a close call, Yuusaku had witnessed Revolver flying right over him – luckily for him however, Revolver did not pay any mind to him. However if he is as sharp as I suspect him to be, there is a possibility he may put the pieces together sooner and later and realize Yuusaku is Playmaker. Another important note to mention is that we learned three two little tidbits. One: he has a weird red mark on his hand, (I am itching to find out if Yuusaku has one of his own that we haven’t seen yet.) Two: His mission is related to his father’s wish. At this time, it looks like his father is in a coma of a sort – worse case scenario: in a vegetative state. And three: Real-World Revolver has Yusei’s hair.
Although this episode was a uneventful, next week should be… interesting to say the least. Yuusaku made the decision to leave his dueldisk (that’s hold Ignis) at home, locked up in a box….
However, pffth… Ignis is up to his own shenanigans again, this time looking for a way to break out. How he intends to do this? Well with the help of a robot of course! He tells the (cute) robot to become his follower, and in return he will make it into a better AI. And it gets better: THE ROBOT SAID IT WILL BE HIS FOLLOWER!!!!! Of course we don’t know how reliable the robot is though, so we will have to wait and see what happens when Yuusaku gets home – because he went flying out of the classroom like superman when he heard the news that the Hanoi Knights are searching for him in VRAINS. While Yuusaku would rather stay low for the time being, he really wants to find out how Ignis’ Exstitence, Data Storms and the Knights of Hanoi all tie together. He is hoping if he can meet Revolver (as anticipated by Revolver himself), everything will come together and become clear. He is dead set on getting answers about the truth about the incident that happened to Kusanagi’s little brother.
Lastly, we received a confirmation that yes, the card data a player can obtain from the Data Storm can be manifested into a physical card, and from its output alone! This is a pretty critical secret because should this information of the conditions required to obtain one go viral, there are going to be a lot reckless players diving into Data Storms in attempt to draw a card… And it won’t end well.
Oh and one more hing: Ignis consuming the Hanoi Knight was freaking HILARIOUS!!!!!
AND YUUSAKU LOOKED SO UNIMPRESSED AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If you look closely, Revolver’s human self looks eerily similar to a person seen in a flashback in episode 2.
Also, Revolver mentions 3 reasons why it won’t take long to figure out Playmaker’s identity (first: he hates Hanoi; second, very few have Cyverse-type monsters; third, he’ll come to Revolver of his own free because he wants to fight him). I repeat: “3 REASONS!” Next thing you know, Yusaku, Revolver, and maybe others (like Go and Aoi) will all be childhood friends and the “3 reasons” was their group catchphrase!
P.S. For those that care, the frog and pigeon are both voiced by another well-known VA on par with Takahiro Sakurai (Ignis): Tomokazu Seki.
//. I repeat: “3 REASONS!”//
Omfg I missed that. NICE CATCH! They definitely know each other!
Tomokazu Seki is one of my favourite seiyuus. 😀
Yet another episode with no duel, but nonetheless it begins to set up the eventual conflict of Yusaku and Revolver (who has a comatose father); Ignis is certainly a greedy gobbler for eating that Knight alive (yum, yum); GO ONIZUKA, though, I laughed hard at him being salty for losing his fans and now disguises himself as the “‘Knight” to lure the Playmaker out (whether through his will or the orders of SOL Tech), and I guess it won’t be long before everyone figures out Playmaker’s true identity (as Yusaku immediately left the class to pursue the “Knight”); EMA BESSHO is going to be Rouge The Bat of VRAINS, isn’t she? 😉
Anyway, let’s await Yusaku/Playmaker vs Go next week!
LMAO! Onizuka was so salty, I wasn’t expecting him to have that kind of childish nature! But then again, he is a self-proclaimed King, BWAHAHAHAHA! And omg, now that you pointed it out, Ema is probably gonna be the Rouge The Bat! XDDDD
Not much happened in this episode, but Yusaku and Ignis’ interaction is the best point of this episode to me! It will take a while until they officially accept each other as partners. From the looks of it, Revolver’s real life is a teenager. Maybe the same age or a bit older than Yusaku. That makes him very young when he attacked Cyverse 5 years ago. Or 5 years ago maybe his father was the one who used the Revolver account? So many questions!
And another interesting thing to note, Revolver also saying the “three reasons” like Yusaku. First this, second this, third this. I wonder if this will be the catchphrase or such in this series like Yuma’s “Kattobingu!” and Yuya’s “The fun starts now!”. Or maybe Yusaku starts to have habit saying that because he and Revolver met each other in the past before the memory loss.
By the way, Ignis’ nickname given by Yusaku is written as Ai in Romaji like A.I: http://68.media.tumblr.com/6394ebcfcf7bca8c4932f241b44032dd/tumblr_oqgapajInV1st0p9qo7_1280.jpg
And another interesting thing to note, Revolver also saying the “three reasons” like Yusaku. //
I seem to be the only one who let that little crucial detail slip right past me! You and Starquo – and I’m sure many others caught it!
Thanks for for the tip~ 😀 This is when Japanese CC certainly comes in handy! I’ll make the adjustment.
Revolver is really interesting. I don’t know if it’s really connected to Yusaku, but I notice he had the same “three” thing Yusaku always does, listing three reasons for something when explaining. That seems like it could be unrelated but it’s also a pretty specific trait. That combined with the other scene really seem to indicate Revolver is involved with Yusaku, and theory-wise I’m starting to wonder if maybe Revolver is “the one who gave Yusaku courage”, only gone totally corrupt or lost his memories like Yusaku himself did.
(possible spoilers) As a side-note, the new OCG pack seems to have Revolver’s cards in it, which MIGHT mean we’ll see him duel Yusaku sooner rather than later, though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything since Go’s, Blue Angel’s, and several other decks are already released.
As for Go, I’m glad that he seems to be sharp enough to turn down Akira and SOL by finding them shady, but since the preview shows us he’ll be dueling Yusaku next episode anyway, he might end up either blackmailed into it or hunting down Playmaker himself anyway. I hope we’ll see some more out of him.
I’m also curious who the three giant chess piece people are, clearly they’re the avatars of some big bosses involved with SOL, but I’m sure they’re more than that. And there’s also Ema, who we know is a duelist, and wants to eventually fight Playmaker.
As one last note, the fake Playmakers running around was funny, but it also makes me wonder if that might become relevant later. I got flashbacks to the “Fake Jack Atlas” episodes of 5Ds, and I wonder if someone might impersonate Playmaker to try to do something illegal or draw him out.
I have to agree that this was a slow episode. But at the same time, it’s also unique to the Yugioh predecessors in the fact that there’s a duel for every episode. I like how the writers have taken their time to introduce new characters and develop them and the plot. BTW, did you notice a couple of small details throughout this episode? First of all, Playmaker is gaining a huge fanbase, including some fangirls who are attracted to his good looks and dueling skills. I couldn’t believe the older woman on the TV said that Playmaker was probably ugly in real life, although the insult was truly directed towards that fangirl. Now in my opinion, that’s not true. Yusaku is good-looking in both his civilian and VR forms.
Second, even though Naoki Shima and Yusaku didn’t have a good first interaction, Naoki seems to have forgiven Yusaku as their conversation in this episode was fairly friendly. Yusaku also seems a little nicer this time as he doesn’t make any sarcastic comments even though he still seems uninterested until Naoki mentions the Knights of Hanoi in Link VRAINS.
Finally, I was laughing when Ignis calls Roboppy an idiot. Ignis truly is a manipulative AI. I won’t be surprised if Ignis gets busted by Yusaku for trying to escape and manipulating Roboppy when he rushes home in next week’s episode.
How is Yusaku is good-looking in both his civilian and VR forms? Are the forms identical except for hair color and clothing?
Is it just me or does Yusaku looks pretty much the same as his either of his two forms except the clothing and hair color? Where is the difference? Unlike Go Onizuka, who uses identical forms, and Aoi Zaizen looks very different from Blue Angel?
Hm…. I would say the main difference are his hairstyle and eye color. It’s wild, flashy and uh… poofy (for the lack of a better word). Although Yuusaku likes to stay low and under the radar when it comes to attention, when he is Playmaker, he tends to not care as much about being in the spotlight because he is so focused on the mission. Basically what goes through his head is get the shit done, and get the out ASAP.