I was honestly unsure if I would write up an entry this week just because 95% of the episode was entirely recap – which amazes me that they would actually do that, unless they are tight with getting the production ready and needed an extra week to prepare. If that’s the case, then by all means, throw us your most creative recaps! I am more than willing to wait patiently for a good quality episode!
But there are a couple of things we can talk about, so let’s work with that.
If there’s one thing they do well with these recaps, it is how they integrate humor. If you are to skip the flashbacks and focus on the new content, you will find that there is enough to entertain and pipe your curiosity. Ai’s narcissistic self and his relationship with Roboppi will always guarantee a good laugh. I completely lost it when he said Yuusaku must be making out with the hotdog dude (Kusanagi)!
I JUST CAN’T WITH THIS GUY! I MEAN SERIOUSLY, DOES ANYONE REMEMBER A TIME CHARACTERS EVEN TALKED ABOUT CHARACTERS MAKING OUT? Maybe in Duel Monsters, but that was so long ago.
Honestly I don’t know if I should be concerned or not how kinky Ai is. How the hell did he become this way?! Even Roboppi! She was like, “Ooooh your Evil Version!” – something I don’t think we should completely ignore, especially since the Hanoi Knights are actively trying to destroy Cyverse.
But while it was a recap episode, there was one crucial thing that is not to be ignored, and that is the discussion on how they can move forward with their investigation.
They have found that all records of the employees from ten years ago have been removed, making it impossible to trace them down. With Dr. Kogami declared ‘dead’, Kusanagi can’t help but feel they lost all their leads, but luckily, Yuusaku still has one, and that is Revolver. (Not to mention, it was funny how they are investigating right beside his property. Kusanagi claims a customer who lives there came by, and without a doubt that has to be Revolver – and it makes me wonder if he noticed Yuusaku or even recognized him.)
However it appears the seed that was planted in last week’s episode is going to bloom a lot faster then I anticipated. In the preview, the Hanoi Knight are seen running rampant as an Ominous Ring appears above LINK VRAINS. There is talk by bringing up the subject how Ancient people thought eclipses were offerings from God”, which raises my concern just what Dr. Kogami is up to, especially when Revolver claims it will be the ‘final battle’ for Humanity’s Future. Are they going to attempt to destroy LINK VRAINS, and end up killing or trapping those who are still logged in the system resulting the players in the real world to fall into a coma? We have seen what they can do with their viruses as they had with Blue Angel, so whatever it is, it can’t be good.
In turn of this event, this will probably force Yuusaku to put his investigation on hold, to address the present and more pressing matters that will likely affect many people’s lives. At the same time, I wonder how SOL Technologies will respond to this incident as the Hanoi Knights attack Link VRAINS.
But what’s the most surprising to see in the preview is the re-emergence of Onizuka. Honestly, I forgot about him. His debut was so lackluster that I had very little interest on his eventual return. Now he has a second chance, so let’s see if he can show he show us more layers to his character than the King of Hearts, and if he by any chance knew Yuusaku as a child!
I don’t like recap episodes myself, but I think it was a better recap episode than the episode 13 recap episode because there was more new content in this episode. I also enjoyed the humor with Ai and Roboppy, even if I thought Ai did stretch the story quite a bit to make him seem more like a hero. First off, when he said his acting is excellent, I’m thinking, “Yeah, right”. Playmaker and Ghost Girl did specifically mention that Ai’s acting was horrible. At least Ai is nice enough to get Roboppy up to speed about what happens when Yusaku is out of the house, although maybe it’s just to brag about his “heroics”.
I really think Roboppy has really been corrupted by Ai now, especially when she enjoys hearing his “evil version” of the story. At first, I just thought it was a joke back in episode 3 when she agreed to become his minion, but it looks like she’s gotten smarter and might possibly be in love in Ai now. Seems like Ai has gotten fully adjusted to living with Yusaku as he doesn’t really seem to mind being left at home now compared to back in episode 3. I speak a little Japanese, but I noticed that Ai doesn’t address Yusaku as Yusaku-sama like he does with Playmaker as Playmaker-sama. Instead, he addresses Yusaku with no honorifics or as Yusaku-chan, which is actually quite impolite for that kind of situation. Also, Ai doesn’t seem to mind the name he was given back in episode 3 now, as he refers to himself as Ai. Or maybe that’s just because he doesn’t have a name because Ignis is just the name for all AIs with free will. I enjoyed how Roboppy refers to Yusaku as the master of the household. Seriously, Ai, show some respect to Yusaku like Roboppy does. Overall, for a recap episode, I think it was a pretty creative recap episode.
P.S. The Playmaker snowman was so cute. I can’t believe that’s what Roboppy imagines when she thinks of Yusaku as coldhearted, quite literally. I guess she’s become smarter to notice that about her master. Go’s finally back after 17 episodes of being gone. I really wonder what’s going to happen in what appears to be the next arc.
Roboppi is ABSOLUTELY corrupted by Ai, kind of scares me what kind of influence he can have on all AIs 😱
And yes, Snowman Playmaker was SO CUTE! <3 <3 <3
I think the beginning was my favourite part. When Kusanagi and Yusaku just have a chat right next to the beach. It was quite peaceful. And with Ai corrupting Robbopy! I never thought of it like that. I just thought they were a kinky robot couple of AIs whose relationship only exists for subtle adult humour for if any kids heard some of the stuff they were doing, I’m not sure they would get the same idea some older viewers get.
I can’t be the only one who loves Roboppy’s voice by the way! It’s SOOO cute!
I spat out my drink in laughter twice at the beginning as well! Once for when Ai suggested that Kusanagi and Yusaku were making out! Hilarious!! XD And that has no doubt given rise to the imaginings of many KusangixYusaku shippers now.
The second time was when he did this little flirtacious dance to roboppy, Blushing and swaying his hips saying she’s doing ‘many sercret things’ for him! That was where i lost it even more! XDD Seriously!! What is their relationship!?
and then the opening happens and the rest of the episode is recap. And… i honestly just skipped past it. I didn’t realise that there was parts in between with roboppy and Ai speaking until you pointed it out. And yeah, it’s fun. However… it’s still, well, boring however creative and kind of funny it is.
Even the ending was kind of dull with the revelation of Revolver being their only lead.
My question is, how would they get revolver to give them information? I mean, he doesn’t seem that interested in being involved in Vrains.
I wonder if he’ll offer Yusaku the information in exchange for Ai? That would be an interesting dilemma considering that Yusaku claims to have no attachment to him, and we could see whether his words are true at all.
Is Onizuka (i forgot about him as well) older than Yusaku? It would be interesting if he visited the orphanage Yusaku was at and had met him before. Although Yusaku didn’t seem to mention anything about knowing Onizuka prior to his debut episode… in fairness, Yusaku doesn’t reveal a lot about himself since he’s a very private person.
That was absolutely the most hilarious part of the episode. I still can’t believe we’re seeing kinky jokes being made in YGO!!!!
And there is a ton of fanart Kusangi x Yusaku, it’s pretty amusing to have the writers acknowledge it!
Well I don’t always ship robots, but when I do, it gotta be Ai x Roboppi! 😛
It would be interesting to see if Yuusaku is willing to trade Ai for information from Revolver. I would in fact like to see how he would respond to it. Just how much can Ai contribute to his investigation, so far all he has done to help them is consume data and give some insight on some weird activity regarding the “Ignis”, AI’s with free will. Getting ahold of information that would enable him to actually move forward would seem to be a fair bargain, but it’s a matter of whether or not Yuusaku is willing to take that risk.
It could also be that Onizuka and Yuusaku didn’t know each other, but Onizuka may actually seen him at some point when he was younger, which would allow him to recognize Yuusaku in the real world.
It’s been confirmed by official material (trailers before the series started) that Go is 19 years old while Yusaku and Aoi are 16.
I wonder if they are going to make recap a new routine. Like, they’ll explain everything for every after “sub story arc”. But I have to agree that this recap is much better than before. Ai and Roboppy are hilarious to watch! I particularly like seeing the snowman Playmaker! Now that the only lead for Yusaku and Kusanagi is Revolver, no doubt Yusaku’s main target will be him from now on.
In the preview, there is someone who seems to be in coma and in Onizuka’s flashback a kid that looks like him is shown. My guess that person in coma(?) is a friend or old acquaintance of Onizuka and after hearing what happened to him Onizuka maybe is trying to investigate…which I have no doubt will end up with him crossing paths with a Knight of Hanoi. It would be ridiculous that after being absent for so long and finally will appear he didn’t do anything.
Dear god I hope they don’t make it into a routine. If they have to do it for production reasons, then by all means do it, but why bother wasting resources on that when you don’t need it? I would say though this “recap” episode may have been potentially scheduled before they made the switch with the directors, so perhaps that’s why we’re seeing it despite the earlier “filler”.
I was wondering about the dude in the coma as well. I’m trying to decipher whether or not it’s during or after the Hanoi Knights strike Link VRAINS and people are getting trapped like Blue Angel had, or something else is up. The flashbacks are making me curious though.
One has to wonder what kind of role Onizuka will be playing. If they seriously want to integrate him into the main “group”, then I will be left to wonder they hadn’t done it sooner. Frankly, I hope he doesn’t have that big of a role just because I don’t care for him. Nothing more annoying than to have useless characters part of the “group”. They have some serious redeeming to do for his character next week.
The episode’s earlier minutes had a Yusei reference in “Stardust Road”, and I love how Ai called Emma “Goki Girl”… But the rest were just recap. I’ll just say this straight: I’m more hooked into Arc V’s early 21 episodes (minus the dreadful Quiz Duel) more than VRAINS because while working on a limited cast (so far) is a safety measure due to Arc V’s second half collapse, I just couldn’t bring myself to be fully hooked INTO ZA VRAINS despite Yusaku’s background & his actions, especially when almost every duel MUST involve him & this shuts the room for other characters to roam to establish their characters properly. 5D’s was very flexible in this regard; even Zexal didn’t have this issue because Shark & Kaito were already firmly established when the show entered its 20-ish episodes.
Oh and the “champion” Go Onizuka is back, been so long… Now they better not reenact the clusterfuck of episodes 4-5…
P.S. We haven’t even reached 25 episodes & yet we got TWO recap episodes already… Honestly this tick me off.
I agree, both 5Ds and ARC-V had a really strong first 20 episodes in terms of both characters and plot.
VRAINS’ plot progression has been noticeably sluggish in terms of pacing, but they have been doing a pretty good job laying down the groundwork for what’s to come and dropping bits of information and backstory without it turning into an info dump. It’s been 21 episodes, but at least it looks like they will be kicking into high gear with the Hanoi Knights now putting their plans into action
I don’t mind too much about how few characters have been properly established, but it definitely does makes one wonder for characters like Onizuka, about what kind of role they would have when he has been a no-show since he dueled Playmaker. I would say among all the characters that have been introduced so far, Ghost Girl and Akira solidified what kind of roles they will be playing. Blue Angel’s Role is up in the air until she decides how she wants to proceed, and Onizuka has been virtually forgotten. Revolver’s role as the villain is also too ambiguous at this time, so we will have to wait until we get the chance to learn more about him.
i dont have problems with recaps as long as they only after every arc end
I read in a forum that Vrains is having problems with its animators, since Arc-V had many script delays so the animation had delays and some animators even complained that they had to keep redrawing a lot of stuff. So I suppose some of them might have left, also the number of outsource studios in Arc-V was 6 and with Vrains there are just 3. So they’re probably doing these recap episodes because of that.
Oh boy, that doesn’t sound good. Who the hell is overseeing the management? It is seriously concerning…. While VRAINS started a month later than usual, I’m starting to wonder if they should have just waited until Summer or Fall to give them more breathing room to sort things out. I imagine a lot of things had to be changed when they switched director.
I am curious however as how much content animators have to redo, especially after seeing the changes made for LINK Summoning Sequences (which NEEDED to happen) – and how many of the episodes’ scenes ended up being scrapped altogether.
And I can’t really blame the animators either, they don’t get paid as well as other positions in the industry, (rather, it’s not even close).