Episode 13 was entirely a RECAP, that’s all there was to it. Nothing to talk about and nobody cares about the Frog and Pigeon, so let’s jump right into Episode 14.
OKAY, BEFORE I EVEN START: Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the REVAMPED Link Summon Sequence. The original sequence progress ate so much time, so they desperately needed to make serious adjustments. The new sequence is swift and crisp, and looks absolutely amazing, especially with the characters’ personal touch– such as Ghost Girls’ pose of wielding the strings of her marionettes. It looks like this is how they will adapt it from this point on as the preview indicates the continuation of this particular style. This adjustment was honestly my favourite thing about the episode.
Of course there was more to the episode than that. Rather, I was quite surprised how this episode had virtually revolved around Ghost Girl. She was the one who stood in the spotlight and graced us with her presence. In fact she is an exceptional fun and exciting character that I can’t wait to see more of. But while she has her smarts of working out a strategy to try and deliberately disable Playmaker from being able to use his skill (as certain conditions must be met), she is definitely getting ahead of herself. Unlike AI, Yuusaku ain’t stupid. (Which is funny because you’d think an AI would be more intelligent!) He knew she was setting up a trap, but whether or not he has answer to it that’s the question…. Who are we kidding, of course he has an answer. There is no way he can afford to lose a duel at this stage, at least not with AI at stake. Frankly speaking if would probably be a lot smarter to just leave AI with Kusanagi. I don’t see how Yuusaku could not just create another container for him. But that would be too convenient now, wouldn’t it?
Ghost Girl decides to challenge Playmaker to a duel because being a cyber treasure hunter, she is quite curious about him as an individual and about the secrets behind the incident that took place 10 years ago. Should she win, she will obtain AI and sell him to SOL Technologies for a pretty penny. If he wins, she will give him the Backdoor Program to provide the path to SOL Technologies Data Bank.
Now this has something to do with what I neglected to mention in Episode 11 & 12. It has everything to do with how both Ghost Girl and Akira had knowledge of the Incident that took place 10 years ago.
It’s rather important to recognize how it seems the general public has been completely left in the dark about this incident. More than likely, there must have been a coverup story, fabricating the lies of what truly happened to the victims, like Yuusaku who were caught up in the event. Of course sine nobody knows Yuusaku’s true identity (with the possible exception of Revolver and Dr. Kogami), they can’t just simply track down the article and say, “Oh you’re that kid from that time.”
Another problem is the fact this incident is relatively dated. It happened ten years ago, so employees like Akira who has only worked for SOL Technologies for a couple years will have no knowledge of such incident. Rather, it would also be safe to say the employees whom posed as a problem were either fired, ordered absolute silence on the matter or relocated altogether.
Speaking of Akira, he has no problems about being demoted but he is frustrated with his lack of ability to investigate despite the fact the data bank is right within reach. He understands he cannot act recklessly. I am curious to see how he will proceed in the future as he itches for the truth. What is also particularly useful is the fact he is still employed, so should he and Playmaker form an alliance network, this could get really interesting…
We know SOL Technology has an untouched mine of scandals and secrets waiting to be uncovered. Given the security measures they have taken to protect this secret, it will be extremely difficult for just Yuusaku and Kusanagi to do it themselves. Like Kusanagi had said early on, in time they will need allies. However, I don’t think we will be seeing any group gatherings in the real world– at least not anytime soon. If it’s going to be an alliance, to be strictly online and encryption for sensitive information or plans will be essential. As result I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of the characters doing their parts separately in the real world. As of right now, when it comes down to looking for allies, Akira is probably one of the most reliable ones to take into consideration. For one he already has trust in Playmaker thanks to him saving his sister, and two he isn’t about to turn a blind eye to the incident- he fully intends to investigate it. Having someone within SOL Technologies to privately investigate within their jurisdictions is essential for the investigation. Of course having been now demoted to Chief, Akira doesn’t have nearly as much power as he used to, but knowing the nature of the folks in charge and how the jobs work will likely prove to be useful at some point or another. But for now, since Akira has not been established whatsoever as a genius hacker like Kusanagi and Ghost Girl, he really has no choice but to rely on Ghost Girl when it comes to somehow reaching out to Playmaker or obtaining secret information– that is until he uses Aoi’s connection as Blue Angel to reach him, or Playmaker chooses to reach out to him.
Then there’s Ghost Girl. She is hands down the trickiest one of all to work with. She is the type to form an alliance with the highest bidder, for either cash or information. After-all, she was the one who tipped Akira’s relation with Blue Angel off to his superiors because she was paid to. This is why Akira can’t rely on her. It certainly doesn’t help how she is notorious for setting up tricks and traps too, which is why Kusanagi was skeptical of her offer to Playmaker of the prized program to backdoor SOL Technology’s data bank.
Since Akira has been demoted, he has been replaced by Kitamura (with the most bizarre character design thus far), known for his extreme and ruthless ways to achieve his goals (that includes enslaving/abusing his workers). We heard how he created an AI Duelist Army to combat Playmaker. Gee, talk about Playmaker having to deal with even more problems. They haven’t quite debuted yet, but I am sure we can count on them being annoying– unless Ai actually ends up manipulating them against Kitamura (which is entirely possible since he has this thing going with Yuusaku’s cleaning robot. Don’t even get me started on that, they are so lewd). Speaking Ai, his knowledge to the strategy of the game itself is pretty sad. Both Ghost Girl and Yuusaku said he is dumb! Talk about bruising his ego!
Finally, I am absolutely obsessed over Ghost Girl’s Altergeist Deck, their designs are super cool, I just love the fact it’s not girly by the slightest (in fact, definitely more on the creepy side since they are marionettes based).
Random Note of the Week: Hayami dear, he’s just not that into you. (LOL) Poor girl, she’s so clumsy. Meanwhile.. The chemistry and sexual tension is there between Akira and Ghost Girl. I SHIP IT SO MUCH! Crap, I can’t choose between Ghost Girl x Akira and Ghost Girl x Kusanagi ship! 😂
Update: I would like to thank elior1 for bringing it to my attention about the change of directors.
As of Episode 14: Hosoda, Masahiro is no longer the Director and Asano Katsuya will be taking over. For more information you can check here:
All I can say is, don’t freak out, give the new guy a chance, it’s way too early to judge him yet. Better yet, since he has not worked on previous YGO Series, this could bring about new opportunities and something fresh! 😀
The animation really shocked me this time. It was so fluid and the animation for logging into VRAINS was also shortened in addition to Link summoning. I guess it’s a fresh start now that the old director of VRAINS has stepped down and a new director has come in. I actually kinda found the scenes with Ai and Roboppy funny. When they’re about to be caught by Yusaku, I saw that Roboppy just threw Ai back into the case. Again, the animation was great.
For someone in real life, I really don’t like people like Ema. But for VRAINS, she’s actually great for the plot. Although I was disgusted how she disregarded Akira just because he was demoted and stated she wasn’t interested in men who don’t have power or money, something that she wants both of. She also mentions when she’s about to possibly OTK Playmaker that her dreams were about to get bigger. I’m thinking to myself, “Don’t get ahead of yourself. That usually leads to a bad downfall and humiliation.” On the other hand, I do have to agree with what you said about Ema being an exceptional character. She’s pretty good with those Altergeists and that combo was amazing. That archetype is not really my thing personally. I use the Trickstars which are more of my dueling style.
i am a bit worried since this new director in all of his previouse shows he was animator and have very little expirience in directing
The animation was definitely wonky this week, but I wouldn’t fret about it too much. All animes have their dips in terms of quality at some point or another. The only time we really need to be worried if it doesn’t improve and gets worse from here.
importand thing to note eva there is new director to vrains instead of the one who has been so far to yugioh. that why episode 14 felt a bit diffrent. but there is also somthing to worry here becouse most of the shows he worked as animator and never as director and he never been in yugioh staff
Thank you for informing me. I added that to the article.
I would say we should have some faith the new director, it’s way too early to judge him yet. Besides everyone has to start somewhere and having someone who hasn’t worked in previous YGO series can bring about new opportunities! 😀
i think the animation was not bad. a bit wonky at times but good at soem scences. but i think if we consider who is the animator for next episode i would not worry since he do good job
Although they solved some inconsistencies, my main gripe was Yusaku being involved in EVERY duel so far. Yes, VRAINS had the benefit on working with a small cast right now, but why every duel has to involve Yusaku? It’s no different to early ZEXAL times where Yuma was always in the duels. At least the Altergeists are great. Speaking of which… WHERE THE HELL IS GO ONIZUKA THIS ENTIRE TIME??
BTW, haven’t seen you blog Fate/Apocrypha episode 7 yet…
Yeah where is Onizuka????? Well not that I particularly care for his character anyways… hardly made a lasting impression on me.
Fate/Apocrypha has been dropped. I came to the conclusion it’s a show I’d prefer to watch than to blog, so I felt the best decision was to let it go.
I’m starting to think that the recap episode was to give a gap for the change in directors. It honestly wasn’t the worst shameless recap I’ve seen. I mean the beginning and ending were funny as hell especially with Ai and Roboppy’s relationshion… whatever it is! My sides seriously keep splitting at that!
I absolutely agree with you about Ghost girl! In this show, she is honestly one of my favourites despite her shallowness. Her design is also pretty great!
the new link summoning animation is also so much better! The focus is where it should point rather than be a permanent mid-range shot. I think the original was good in terms of creating a surprise, but where it was constantly overused so the effect kind of went away. If they had saved it for truly magnificant link summonings then it could’ve been great.
I am so going to cosplay Ghost girl! She is kind of my best girl in this show. I mean Aoi is nice but she hasn’t done a lot yet. I await the day Aoi is utilised as a good fleshed out character.
Me too, it appears it may have been last minute, but like you said it wasn’t absolutely horrible – it had its moments.
…Just nothing to talk about LMAO.
I agree, Ghost Girl is my best girl too atm and awesome! Rock that cosplay!:D
I wonder if it’s too weird for me to think that Playmaker and Ghost Girl will be a good pair (Putting aside their age difference). Ghost Girl really won over me in this episode. A top-notch hacker, cyber treasure hunter, and Duelist! One of my favorite parts is when she used card effect from hand instead of the Set trap like Playmaker and Ai thought her would do! The next chapter will be a fierce battle of wit! I hope to see more of Ema’s backstory.
By the way Eva, I think you should change writing Ignis’ nickname from “AI” to “Ai”. Because I think it’ll make it easier to differentiate it from the AI (Artificial Intelligent).
LMAO, I assure you you aren’t the only one who thought the same. Ghost Girl really has good chemistry with all the characters!!!
And good point, I will make the adjustment immediately.