Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS Episode 7: Well that escalated quickly.

Well that escalated quickly. I’m just, stunned by how horrifying the Hanoi Knights are. Like man, they literally broke Blue Angel, she lost her wings, herself and everything. With the corrupted card, she was forced to submit to Revolver, who proceed to possess her in attempt to kill Playmaker –  and my god, she was in so much pain too, she was crying. The Hanoi Knights are freaking monsters, and this Revolver dude, well uhhhhh yeah, he has turned out to be a pretty messed up guy. Kind of worrying to think he and Yuusaku may have known each other in the past. Hell, it would only end up to be tragic if it turns out that creepy dude is actually the one pulling all the things and is actually controller Revolver. Yeah that… that would be pretty messed up.

Personally, I expected this to happen. By that I mean, the way the battle was playing out, yes I came to realize and accept that Aoi was likely to be in a coma for while. However, I expect her to be back up on her feet again in the near future because we all know that Yuusaku won’t be able to fight Hanoi Knights alone. He is going to need all the help he can get.

And there’s more, when Aoi wakes up, you can bet your damn dollar that Akira is going to be fierce over-protective bear. He will absolutely do everything in his power to prevent her from ever stepping back into VRAINS, let alone, potentially duel. This can definitely offer an interesting opportunity for Aoi, should she be determined to resume dueling, I can see Aoi potentially picking up the classic physical deck, because I can’t imagine her being able to use the AI Duel Disk that SOL Technologies produce, because she’ll probably be locked out or banned from accessing it altogether. I also feel this event will trigger the desire to seek revenge against Hanoi Knights, which may later result her seeking out Playmaker to form an alliance. However the other thing that sticks in my mind is whether or not the Hanoi Knight continue to reign control over her even in her coma state, or simply used her for this one occasion and have already cast her aside.

This event set the heavy tone of the series that I have been craving for. We have an enemy that is downright terrifying. Just thinking of them going around, exploiting people like they did with Blue Angel, and how they can mess them up and potentially kill them while doing so, like – what the actual f*!&@? These guys are psychos. This also sheds some light on SOL Technologies as presently the… lesser evil. I say that because while we now know that Akira only had good intentions in mind for protecting his dear sister Aoi, the folks he is working with are pretty darn shady themselves. I mean they only appear as chess pieces for crying out loud. So Sol Technologies could also be problematic, but there is one thing for certain for a start: It looks like we won’t have an evil security head, which has been so over-used throughout the past series. I’m so done with that trope. Zaizen Akira, head of SOL Technologies is a guy who worked hard for the sake of his sister Aoi, after they had lost their parents to a car accident. He all he wants is to ensure her safety and a happy life.

And boy the Hanoi Knights sure shattered that dream. Akira was rendered powerless because even though he had tried to forcefully end the duel, they encountered a system error preventing them from doing so. I felt sad for Akira because he was willing to take all responsibility for intervening all for the sake of his sister. This shows us how if he sees Aoi in danger, regardless of her being Blue Angel on the field, he will do anything to save her. And that, is reassuring in itself to know he is not a heartless asshole, but just has a shitty way of expressing himself.

Needless to say, despite the grim outcome of this hyped up battle, it was very fun to watch. Aoi’s Trickstar deck is epic, I love it. The endless poke, personally I love that style. I also felt they may have sped up the process of the Link Summon procedures, I am going to have to go back to run a timer in comparison. I am curious to find out if the pace of the duel combined with the entertainment value is really what made time seem to flow faster. I also really liked seeing the little things, like Aoi taking the time to read her opponent’s card effect, because a lot of the times we don’t see characters do that, and it just shows how Aoi is a smart duelist. If she isn’t familiar or doesn’t know something, she is going to double-check it (also proves how this must be a feature in th AI Dueldisks, so it’s nice to see them utilize it.)

Also, this is probably a little underrated, but can we can a moment to appreciate Yuusaku not pulling a Heroic attempt of trying to dissuade or keep Aoi conscious/succumbing to Hanoi Knights corruption? He didn’t do anything. No motivation speech, nothing- and maybe even if he had, it would’ve been futile. He just focused on defeating her. But it was interesting how like Ignis, he could even sense the Hanoi Card in her hand.

Yuusaku also pulled out a new monster that kind of threw me off. I am still trying to process it because of the way it was executed because I don’t know. Something about the way they went about it just confuses me. Okay, so we know that the DATA STORM can either summon a monster (via Skill) that already exists in his deck, such as Decode Talker (which can be summoned under normal conditions as seen in the beginning of the duel), or a brand new one entirely. Now I guess it was because I was not expecting a new monster (Encode Talker), it had me confused for a second thinking. “Wait, what, is this an upgrade?”, but I went back to double-check and I realized “Ooh, new monster.” ahahaha! I find it amusing though how Encode Talker has carries a shield and Decode Talker cares a Sword. Just a design perk that catches my attention.

The preview for the next episode is fairly vague, we see Aoi is hospitalize, at this point I’m convinced she’s probably in a coma since that’s the common theme they sure like to pull with the girls in Yu-Gi-Oh!, but like I said, because this is happening so early on, I expect her to be up and running again in the near future. The episode ended with Blue Angel falling, but I’m pretty sure Yuusaku swept in to ensure she doesn’t have a fatal landing. Otherwise she would really be dead. Needless to say, I am curious to find out how this will change things, if anything in the VRAINS network, and with people having watched what happened LIVE, it makes you wonder how SOL Technologies and Akira is going to respond to this event as whole.

Random Note of the Week: WHOA, THAT’S COOL YOU CAN TELEPORT ONTO YOUR BOARD?!