(10/18/2017) A/N: The server is acting up today, so while the images are there, they may not appear. I apologize for the inconvenience. We are currently working to resolve the problem.
Okay, that was a way more fun and exciting episode than I anticipated. The moment Dark Onizuka came out, I was sitting at the edge of my seat for the rest of the episode with much enthusiasm. (Looks like having rock bottom expectations helped a lot hahahaha!)
YES! THIS IS WHAT ONIZUKA NEEDED, THIS IS THE EDGE HE WAS MISSING!
It’s go big or go home, and Onizuka is not messing around anymore. Gone are the days of his pathetic character who liked to feign being the weak hero who comes stronger in the end! BEHOLD, DARK ONIZUKA! THE HARDCORE, SAVAGE HEEL DUELIST. HE SPAT SOME STUFF ON DR. GENOME’S FACE. HE DID THAT!
Oh and please, do keep that fabulous hair – preferably all the time. His character designs is SO MUCH COOLER LIKE THIS!
See, if this is how Onizuka had been first presented, damn straight it would have been a memorable one. But the silver-lining of his (let’s be real here) pathetic entrance made this transformation an epic one. Ever since he lost to Playmaker, Onizuka realized that his style was so yesterday and he needed to polish up and evolve as an entertainment duelist. He decided to use pro wrestling as his inspiration, embracing an epic alter alias for both himself and his ace monster. As soon as he and his monster puts on their mask, they are Dark Onizuka and Dark Thunder Ogre. Tacky? Perhaps, but I dig it. This is the edge I was looking for. Finally, Onizuka has a characteristic that defines him as an individual, his own unique signature. However there is a legitimate concern this personality will quickly grow old and he will lose his edge all over again. I suppose it would be ironic if it turns out he is the type of character who has to constantly change up his styles because they get boring so fast. One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.
But perhaps the thing that caught me off-guard the most, which was both hilarious and terrifying at the same time, was the unmistakable references to ARC-V. If you watched ARC-V, you may have reacted the same way as I did:
YEAHHH DARK ONIZUKA!!!!!
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONO! STOP!!!!! STOP IT RIGHT THERE. WE ALL SAW HOW ZARC WENT DOWN THAT HELL HOLE. OH MY F—ING GOD, ARC-V REFERENCES ARE SCARY YOU DON’T WANT TO END UP LIKE HIM. FOR SOMEONE WHO LOVES ENTERTAINMENT DUELS, HOW THE HELL HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF HIM!? THE GUY WAS OUT TO DESTROY THE WORLD!
Hopefully, he will not end up like Zarc… hopefully.
Funny enough that wasn’t the only thing that gave me flashbacks of ARC-V. This time is was more of a similar character trait creeping me out. That is of course Dr. Genome’s obsession with DNA. The first thing that crossed my mind was, “Shit, he reminds me of that f–king parasite guy.” I mean, I couldn’t have been the only one who thought of that. The dude wants to take talented duelists’ DNA and combine them to make the ULTIMATE DNA – which actually scares the shit out of me because he (of course) wants Playmaker’s too. So not only do we have Sol Technology developing intelligent A.I Duelists, but now we got this guy with the Hanoi Knights.
My god, Playmaker has his hands full.
Speaking of Yuusaku, he made clear that he is confident that Onizuka was bluffing about his identity, but most importantly, he was quite distressed watching him being beaten up. (Do note however, that Onizuka was smacking Dr. Genome pretty hard himself). Seeing how it appeared Onizuka was in deep trouble, he simply can not remain as a spectator, so he will be going into Link VRAINS to back him up, should Onizuka accept/need his help. But it’s fairly obvious that there’s no freaking way in hell Onizuka is going to let that happen, his pride as a duelist is on the line. Not to mention, he finally forged this new identity as a duelist, so the last thing he wants to do is appear as a damsel in distress. That’s not the type of character he wants to portray.
But the other thing to keep in mind in regards of Yuusaku’s distress, is that I am sure he was having flashbacks of the torment and pain he faced when captured and held in isolation. Every time he lost a duel, he was tortured, and seeing Onizuka now down to 200 LP, if he loses it’s not about his own fate, but Onizuka’s name will only be added to the list of victims.
On that note, remember how it was established in the early episodes how if you take too much damage in Link VRAINS, it could result fatality? I wonder if that’s still a thing because Onizuka is getting hit real hard, so I am curious to see what condition he will be in when he finally logs out of Link VRAINS.
But since Yuusaku is entering the chaos, there’s no doubt in my mind that once Onizuka’s duel wraps up, Revolver will jump on the opportunity to challenge Playmaker. With the time crunch of Link VRAINS destruction or whatever the hell Dr. Kogami is trying to do, their fateful rematch is not something that can be put off any longer.
Finally, I would like to note is how this Speed Duel was far more exciting than the ones we have seen up to this point. Now, I am not referring to the duel itself, but the playing field. Until now, Speed Duels have been limited to surfing on the waves of Data Storm, but with Data Gale, they manipulate the Data Storm’s density, enabling them to route around Link VRAINS without limiting themselves (more often than not) to the the Data Storm’s current. This improves the experience because now we can see the players use the terrain to their advantage.
I’m going to be really honest here. I was not really a fan of this episode but I can’t say I wasn’t entertained by Dark Onizuka. But I think that might be just because of my own dislike for the wrestling aspect of it. I get all the refrences and paralles but it just doesn’t do anything for me. The whole double knock down bored me in the playmaker duel and it’s boring me now but at the same time, I appreciate the way that Onizuka is actually bouncing back off of them to hit harder.
I am SO DISSAPOINTED that Genome isn’t using chemicritters. They’re literally chemicals that have been made into animals which are then used to form chimeras.
GIVE GEMINI MONSTERS SUPPORT excuse me as I cry in a corner. as my favourite type of monsters get no type of boost
Other than that, I am incredibly glad that they made the data gale. This was an upgrade to a show mechanic done right. Now we can actually see the duelists shine and not be bored by the exact same background that changes for day and night (not to mention the riddance of the purple current that they’re riding).
All in all, I can see where this episode was exciting, it just didn’t exactly hit that cord for me the same way the blue angel duels did (but then again I can relate to her inferiority complex and her striving to improve while also making people happy more than I can with Go wanting to entertain because that’s what he does). But I must admit, Go spitting the dark mist in Genome’s face made me burst out laughing.
I agree, this duel hasn’t come up to par to Blue Angel’s duel, but at least it didn’t bore me to death. Truth to be told, I could care less about the wrestling aspect.(Especially the repetitive Double Knock-Out scenario, that needs to be scrapped altogether, no excitement in that). I find myself more amused by the fact he decided to fully embrace the role as “Dark Onizuka”. It’s hard to take him seriously, but that itself managed to entertain to me enough. However (forgot to mention this, added) there is a legitimate concern this personality will quickly grow old and he will lose his edge. I suppose it would be ironic if it turns out he is the type of character who has to constantly change up his styles because they get boring so fast.
Still lacking in the entertainment duelist department though. Ought to go to travel abroad to You Show Duel School 😉 to learn from the true entertainment duelists.
Now that you mentioned it, talk about about a missed opportunity with the chemicritters. They would’ve suited his character! I wonder why they didn’t go with that?
I feel like both of blue angel duels were more engaging to me, but again I just relate to her more as a character so that might play a factor in it. I continue to scratch my head when characters bother to even attack when both of them have monsters that can’t be destroyed by battle or effects, (you can’t even tell me that neither of them would know about the effects because the duel disks are confirmed to not only have ai that should know the effects but Yusaku’s old duel disk showed him the effects).
Go’s entertainment just lacks the charisma of Sawatari and Jack and those other duelists that aimed to entertain in arc V. Hell in 5ds and GX we had people who were entertaining to watch duel just because it was them. Go’s strategy is pretty decent in itself I’m just not that enthralled in the person performing it enough to care as much as I did about Blue angel.
They probably didn’t go with it because it would mean having a threatening character using gemini monsters. And we all know that the anime would never stoop that low.
This is it! This is what I want to see! You did spectacular job in this episode, Go! Looks like I made the right decision to give you a chance! Nice to know I’m not the only one who noticed the hint of reference to ARC-V. But if it’s Go, I’m sure he won’t be like Zarc and will stay as himself. And totally agree with you about the Speed Duel in this episode! I hope it’ll be like this from now on. From the preview, I don’t think Playmaker will interfere with the Duel. Most likely that Genome guy will corner Go and Playmaker will give some encouraging speech/words that stir Go’s fighting spirit.
It’s been half a year since Arc V ended… Took my time to watch some Yugo-based episodes… I missed this precious banana. ;_;
“I’ll adopt a dark fighting style and do anything to win! The crowd yearns for overwhelming power!” STFU Go, you keep hyping yourself up, but meh, I STILL don’t find Go Onizuka’s “Entertainment” to be even decent, let alone “wowing the audience”. Despite him saying how he improved after his defeat to Playmaker, his dueling style was still too predictable (i.e. “Dump some Goukis, add some Goukis”, then smack yo face in this low-budget super slam!”) and atrociously dull, especially when compared to genuine entertainment duelists that indeed wowed the crowd like Sawatari & Jack. Another factor is that he still LACKED, or failed to showcase the “charisma” of a Charisma Duelist (Blue Angel did that on her first attempt), especially when he’s the “champion” (or “fallen” champion) of Link VRAINS! I also facepalmed when Yusaku had seen enough of Onizuka’s epic fail of a show and now he’s set to intervene… Oh god, PLEASE don’t intrude that duel, I want it to conclude without Konami shilling out more Cyberses to make Go Onizuka look even more full of shit.
Overall, two attempts and Go Onizuka is still such a subpar duelist… If Naoki didn’t exist he’d be my least favourite VRAINS character.
The pace was pretty good for the first half… i was convinced that this duel would be resolved this episode. But no, it’s another two-parter. sigh have we had one duel so far that hasn’t taken 2 episodes or more to complete?
It wasn’t completely boring like you say. Onizuka’s duel style was much more welcomed this time. Although I laughed when he put on that mask and became ‘Dark Onizuka’, it’s just hard to take him seriously when it’s an adult male wearing a dark yet colourful wrestling mask.
I definitely didn’t miss the Arc-v reference… my reaction was more “Too soon… I will always love you Yuya. Even if you got screwed in the middle of synchro”
When Genome kept prattling on I became bored tho and basically tuned half of it out. This really is a pointless duel and shouldn’t be dragged out this long!
Not to rain on your parade. But I really hope that revolver DOESNT meet Yusaku next episode, at least not in Vrains. While that is Yusaku’s worst fear I kind of want his identity to be discovered because then it would add more drama and maybe we can get more real world stuff. Because while Vrains has been updated and no longer looks like the set of blade runner and actually has setting drawn in the background (thank you animators, we know you have the toughest time from any shitty production schedule), it really gets boring very quickly.
The only real world stuff has been the hospital, his school, the hot dog van and his broken apartment (speaking of, is cracked walls not a sign of an unlivable home? Is it not illegal for anyone especially a minor to live in a building thats breaking apart?)
An interesting place to go in the real world for example, would be for Yusaku to go back to the place where he was kept, maybe to search for clues and it brings bad memories aw hell even PTSD attacks (no i dont like seeing Yusaku hurt but it’d be a growing moment to go back to where his trauma began)… actually come to think of it, why HASN’T he gone back there? Surely that would be a prime location to start logic wise?
Same, I was like, “Darn, two-part episode….” But they had me thinking for a second they were actually going to have Dr. Genome defeat him LMAO! That’s when I thought, “Playmaker can’t afford to lose…. but Onizuka can.” ROFL
Definitely thought too soon as well. XD
Wait…if we are talking about Arc-V references,how about ‘but you still take damage!’? That’s the true nightmare!
2.Glad that I’m not the only one who thinks that Go is thinking the same way as Zarc before he went apeshit. I thought I was crazy to even think about the similarities.
God Genomes deck is one of the worst i`v ever seen
the naming sloppy ,the theme is just animals from hell with losely related link monsters
and jesus christ the effects are pathetically generic,its just beatdown vs beatdown which should be awesome
what i would of preferred is animals based on animal testing with dark undertones
think a foxs head photoshopped onto jessica rabbits body with excessive lipstick,underneath however the places where applied have rotted away,the sort of things that haunt your nightmares
or hell ,animals that have mechanical equipment attached to them,the main deck monsters havinbg equipment they need to survive(IV Drip etc.. and the link monsters having Mechanical additions to make them stronger
the effects should of been Like Don thousands traps rewriting their genetic code
you could of had genome be a psycopath obsessed with perfection,losing his shit when his combos dont work perfectly
the sort of guy to scoop when losing,
which would work well with Go
s Wrestler theme forcing him to allow genome to keep his combo in order to stop him scooping and leaving his friend in a coma,damn that would work well for their second duel and make him more then just a villain of the day plus gos wrestling theme means the duel would basically be rigged,like most wrestling matches this could help go develop as a character as well