Hmmm, how should I put this? This episode was fun to watch, but at the same time – it was quite disappointing. The pacing of the duels were terribly rushed, especially Playmaker’s. They way the wrapped up his duel was incredibly lazy and gave off the sort of impression they were thinking along the lines of: “Oh well he has to win anyways, so it doesn’t really matter how he does it.” They pretty much provided him the conditions needed to “win” on a silver platter and then it was over, just like that.
In fact, it felt as if the conflict of the deck destruction never happened. Such a shame…
Blue Angel’s duel too had a similar treatment. She followed the same strategy of poking her opponent to death, and because we have seen this before, her duel was rushed as well. The only thing we got out of it was the confirmation that AID Prototype-2 does not use the same strategy as AID Prototype-1.
That being said, the silver-lining of this episode was the fact it was it was still fun to see her successfully bait the AID2 into her trap and play the role as the trickster she actually is AKA: more like The Blue Trickster. The one we did get out of her duel however was how we were able to see different sides of her we haven’t quite seen before. We knew Blue Angel is a skilled duelist, but her mindset was something we didn’t get a chance to get to know due to the Virus. Here were able to see just how calculative she can be, how she sneers at her opponent when they think they have her, the inner trickster who likes to bait her opponents, and the badass side who is overflowing with confidence. There are many sides to Blue Angel, and I look forward to getting to know them all.
Ghost Girl made the slip of mentioning how Blue Angel is participating in the mission to shadow Playmaker and Akira was NOT happy about that. While she did come to Blue Angel’s defense by telling Akira, Aoi isn’t a little girl anymore, I seriously can’t put anything past this woman when it comes down to her intentions. I simply cannot trust her, and I can’t help but question everything she says or does.
And speaking of Akira: Remember how we were all scratching our heads in confusion as to why the hell would Akira do this mission without a cover? Well surely enough, it looks like he is not entirely stupid. It appears he actually went into this with a plan of deliberately showing himself in order to prove to his superiors that he will do whatever it takes to protect the Data Bank. Making it so he looks as though he had anticipated Playmaker to arrive and will now challenge him to a duel to stop him from getting what he wants.
Nonetheless, Akira is still stupid and I am still suspicious the writers might turn him into a sacrificial lamb.
The only way he is going to get out of this unscathed if he beats the kid, which I have a hard time believing unless PLOT-TWIST: AKIRA IS ACTUALLY A SUPER STRONG DUELIST. I mean, he could be – but frankly speaking I am not holding my breath for it. In fact, before all that shit happened, I actually thought he and Ghost Girl were actually going to walk into a trap instead – which I gotta say, is seriously disappointing to see how easily they were able to get in. Talk about shitty security… This is supposed to be SOL Technologies for crying out loud. I get Ghost Girl, Kusanagi and Playmaker are all madly talent Hackers, but again, they just walked into the Data Bank through the door.
Regardless, Playmaker is furious. He is so done with people obstructing his missions. In fact with Akira preventing him from stepping further, it will only make him less inclined to form any sort of alliance with him. His eye was on the prize, he didn’t care for Blue Angel’s arrival, even told her there was no debt to be repaired (though we all know that’s a lie). And if we learned anything about Playmaker up to this point, when there’s critical clues within his reach, he will do everything in his power to obtain them. At times like this, patience is not one of his strong suits.
Also, I’m just going to get this off my chest so I won’t bring this up again but: How many monsters have Yuusaku obtained now through the Data Storm? Four… Five now? Honestly… I guess in order to be the very best he gotta catch them all, I guess?
But in all seriousness how long is this going to go on for? How many new Link monsters will he obtain? Does he really have to get a new one for each Link VRAINS duel?
And finally, I would like to point out how I am loving the duel’s new art direction this series. I appreciate how they are showing us the field so we can see the cards positions more clearly, and the animation of the combats have shown some improvements as well. I actually feel as though it’s meshing a bit of the classic format of the duels’ animation with a modern twist.
Next week, Playmaker is livid. Can’t blame him, everyone keeps on getting in the way. Ironically he isn’t having a spat with Blue Angel, but rather with her brother. So I guess I wasn’t completely off the mark.
Let’s think of it as this way regarding the new Link monster every duel: he’s reviving the Cyberse.
Plot wise, there should be a connection between the Cyberse deck and the world itself. The world disappeared, like it died out, so Yusaku is reviving the cyberse through the actual plot and hopeful symbolized by his growing collection of cyberse monsters.
//Let’s think of it as this way regarding the new Link monster every duel: he’s reviving the Cyberse. //
Okay now THAT is certainly a way to look at it. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner! I think you’re onto something!!! :O
In this case, we can change it to: Gotta Revive them all 😛
I do think everything was rushed, especially Playmaker’s duel with AI Prototype A. It was just a OTK. But I’m sure glad to see Blue Angel back as it has been 2 months since episodes 6-7. I really liked her combos because it gives me an idea on how to use my Trickstar cards and what kind of combos to use. Trickstar Black Catbat(Trickstar Sweet Devil in Japanese) was so cool.
I do agree with what you said about Ghost Girl defending Blue Angel. Just let Blue Angel be independent so she can forge her own identity away from her brother. I like Ema’s character for this story, but I still don’t feel comfortable with her intentions either. Regardless, next week’s episode is shaping up pretty well. Akira was the last person I expected to duel Playmaker. I’m excited to see what deck he runs and whether or not he’s a strong duelist and has been hiding that fact. Not to mention the fact this will be the second Master duel in VRAINS. And yeah, Playmaker looks rather impatient. He’ll stomp on anyone if they get in his way when the goal is very close by.
my theory about what happend 10 years ago and why akira want to dual him is this: Akira knows the person who is involved with the missing appearance becouse he might been looking at the data bank before playmaker arrived However, what if he knows something thats up with Playmaker and is trying to save him from the pain that Sol has caused to Playmaker. Possibly repaying the debt that he owes playmaker but helping him and stopping him from receiving even more pain.
i agree with eva this episode has it good and bad moments. by the preview i guess we might find out about the truth 10 years ago
I’m looking forward to next episode since Playmaker is going to be confronted with, as you say, an obstacle to his path in finding out the truth. If there is one thing Yusaku cares passionately about it’s the truth of what happened in his past. It’s clearly affected him in a way where we acually get EMOTION from him! Be it anger or sadness.
I was so happy that Ghost girl told Akira that Aoi wasn’t a ‘little girl’ and i was like ‘YESSS! finally someone tells him to stop being an overprotective asshat’. I dont hate akira but his overprotectiveness of Aoi even before she got into the coma annoys me.
Blue angel winning and seeing her personality was GREAT!
In terms of the cards… well, they have to advertise them somehow and this is the easiest way for them. Doesn’t mean its good.
And yes! The art direction is stunning compared to before. Spectacular even!
When Akira came out though intending to duel Playmaker i just went ‘Oh come on! REALLY!?’, but maybe he’s going to pretend like he went into the databank to stop Playmaker in order to keep his job. Although, thats an incredible stretch considering that the plan was originally to be unseen and he was undetected until he walked out into the open…
But seriously? Akira just randomly duels Playmaker just to be an annoyance… *sighs* gotta advertise those cards somehow i suppose… can’t forget this is a TCG anime. If we didnt have dueling at every corner it would just be a good (or bad depending on your take) anime and we can’t have that without advertising.
Yeah I don’t mind Product Placement when it seamlessly meshes into the scene, but when they put it out there for the sake of it… More cringe-worthy tbh. Not to mention, I am more likely to buy a card if I find it cool and having a meaningful debut/impact rather than coming out of nowhere/randomly.
but this burn vs burn was amusing . he saying abyss something all the time
“It’s clearly affected him in a way where we actually get EMOTION from him!”
This NEEDS to happen sooner than later for the sake of the viewers’ sanity because Yusaku is easily the most deadpan protagonist we’ve ever seen. As serious as Yusei’s personality may be, he’s never as deadpan as Yusaku because he does express emotions varied from time to time.
“Blue angel winning and seeing her personality was GREAT!”
Uggh, Trickstars’ looping burning damage effects… Those were supposed to be Windwitches’ specialty, but again, fuck you Arc V for giving Rin only ONE episode to shine (and she’s under mind-control at the time instead of being herself).
“gotta advertise those cards somehow i suppose… can’t forget this is a TCG anime.”
Nonetheless, at this point I hate Storm Accesses more than Shining Draws & Action Cards because they’re now the ultimate plot device to help Playmaker collect various “-code Talker” Links from Data Storms to bail him out of every critical situation. As much as I can never stand Yuma, he and Astral only performed Shining Draws to create Zexal Weapons TWICE for the first FIFTY episodes! How many times did Yusaku perform Storm Access already (and we haven’t even reached 20 episodes yet)? In fact it only make him look inept in dealing with the Knights of Hanoi BEFORE the show started.
abyss can be a loop for dark room of nightmare
“Storm Accesses more than Shining Draws & Action Cards because they’re now the ultimate plot device ”
Haha! I honestly call it the deus ex machina storm. I mean replace the lyrics in the opening ‘*something in japanese* deus ex machina’ it still makes sense!
I will defend action cards a bit because at least there is effort you have to put in to snatch the card before your opponent. You’re still against them. SO the plot device has to be earned rather than taken like with shining draws or storm access. I mean i sort of get why people didn’t like them as it seemed to hinder Yuya’s growth, but i think they were overhated as they really weren’t that bad in terms of gameplay and speeding it along to use it in strategy. Although in that aspect i DO wish they had the balls to keep the action traps.
I always thought Speed cards were the worst. Not because they were bad but because I thought they were a bit complicated and i couldnt remember a single one.
But i suppose storm access can be defended a little as well, since you have to be able to ride your board very well in order to stay upright. But other than that, it really is the deus ex machina storm.
I wish Aoi lost in her duel.
Am I the only one that thought archfiend looked like a gurren lagann he even did an attack that looked like a spinning drill lol