Much to my dismay, the Naoki ended up taking up an entire episode, but at least it was a lot more bearable than I thought it would be.
The execution of the humour was tastefully done (I lost it when Sparkly Bishonen Playmaker happened, with his long eyelashes, “Be one with the Cyberse”), one where we we could experience fodder Hanoi Knight’s perspective as well. Honestly, I think this touch was what made the duel so funny to watch (besides Naoki and Sparkly Bishonen Playmaker moments). It is a bummer the knight lost though… but despite Naoki’s victory (thanks to Cyberse Wizard), there were serious repercussions. It wasn’t even an hour after his first victory in Link VRAINS when he became full of himself and began bragging about being affiliated to Playmaker because of the Cyberse Card, changing his in-game name from Lonely Brave to Brave Max. Much to my surprise, it turns out this event was also Naoki’s first time in Link VRAINS, which baffles me, because my god, WHAT AN IDIOT! HE NEVER GONE INTO LINK VRAINS BEFORE AND NOW HE WANTS TO?
Oh yeah, I also hit the bullseye how Naoki approached Yuusaku to try and get him to join him, but Yuusaku called him out saying one he should and the only reason why he’s asking is because he is too scared to go alone – which was also right on the money.
While this episode revolved around Naoki, there is a much bigger picture we should be looking at: Starting with how he got ahold of Cyberse Wizard in the first place.
Initially I thought perhaps Faust did something to use him as a bait, but then it suddenly hit me when I realized it was most likely Ai responsible for this trick. As the episode went more, I increasingly became more and more suspicious of Ai as he points out details how the card in Yuusaku’s possession is missing its data, until Ai later reveals he had put a tracker on the data. At this time Yuusaku finally catches onto the fact that Ai is the mastermind of putting a target on Naoki’s back. Why he decided to do that, it’s hard to say. It’s bizarre as to why he is messing with Playmaker so much despite being protected by him, not to mention outright looking to pick a fight with the Hanoi Knights because he is confident Playmaker will never lose. In a sense, it appears this is Ai’s way of showing off his “strength” to mock his enemies, and it doesn’t help how he has always been cocky to begin with. 
However it is also worth to note in the beginning of the episode, there was a scene where Faust vows he will capture the Ignis, but right after that, we see Ai having his evil laughter moment with Robopoppi about how he will never be captured. This scene seems to potentially allude to the fact Ai may actually end up being captured by Faust one way or another, or two, Ai is someone who has the potential to be a villain himself. I mean… it should be alarming how he was able to get Robopoppi to tweak Yuusaku’s duel-disk into a freaking drone so he can run off and escape like he had today. It is a recipe for disaster.
Now that Yuusaku and Kusanagi need to rush off and rescue Naoki, they are in great danger of their real world identities being revealed. In fact they might need to change their truck after this and mess with the security and road cameras around the city because the last thing they need is someone to spot Yuusaku retrieving Ai as a drone and rushing into the back of the truck. The whole scene was anything but subtle.
Lastly, the preview declared Faust as final commander of the three knights. Gee, what a joke. These are the Hanoi Knights’s so-called Commanders? They didn’t even last one fight!!!!! I for one was shocked Genome is even out. I guess if they lose, nobody gets spared.Ugh, that’s not how you want to introduce your villains damnit. Hell, I don’t think either Genome or Baira qualify to be called such. I will scream is Faust simply rolls over and loses this duel. LIKE COME ON, IF YOU’RE GOING TO INTRODUCE THIS “SPLIT” WITHIN THE FRACTION OF THE ORGANIZATION, LETS SEE SOME ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT! So he needs to either WIN, or if he loses, break the code of conduct and do whatever it takes to get ahold of Ai, or something!
Well, as if Italy missing the World Cup for the first time in 60 years wasn’t bad enough, the bastard Germans even snatched a late draw against France. What a bad week for football and I’m in a foul mood right now.
Anyway, Naoki getting the spotlight made this most blood-boiling VRAINS episode I’ve seen so far! So Naoki randomly acquired a Cyberse monster and logged INTO ZA VRAINS with the silliest avatar and the most retarded persona (“Lonely Brave” > “Brave Max”) because he apparently “inherited Playmaker’s will” but was scared shitless when Faust was ready to use him to lure Playmaker out, and he actually took out a random Hanoi fodder despite bricking his starting hand?! Even thought they made the Hanoi fodder brick on purpose as well, at least he’s running Steelswarm & a bunch of classic cards, so his defeat was very infuriating to watch because I wanted Naoki to be buried there. But now Yusaku is forced to save this lard ass… WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK?!! >:(
And I guess Faust is gonna be another one-shot Knight as well given that he’s taking on Playmaker himself next episode, but hopefully he’ll give us important exposition before bowing out because SPECTER was nowhere to be seen for so long.
-I seriously lost my shit at every single Playmaker and Naoki moments.It really inappropriately suggest a loving relationship they have together.God,if there is a fanfic that ships both of them,I will read it just to humor myself.
-In the starting after Faust scene,I thought it was another of their shenanigans (yes,that thing that they have done in the previous episodes.That was what I was referring to.) Turns out to be Ignis genius idea.
-If it wasn’t for the topdeck during the duel,Naoki would have lost. That knight made a good play considering how bad his hand is.
This was actually a funny episode. Looks like Naoki finally got the hint that he’s scared out of his wits whenever he duels. There was definitely signs of that when he was dueling. Naoki only won by a lucky draw with Cyberse Wizard because that archetype of his isn’t very competitive. I seriously thought Lonely Brave was gonna lose. I had a feeling that Ai was the one who gave the data for Cyberse Wizard to Naoki like you said. I wonder why though. It personally doesn’t sound like evil intents to me. Although there were definitely hints that Ai’s the culprit such as when he tells Yusaku that the data has gone missing for the Cyberse Wizard card and when he went off on his own on the modified drone duel disk. I couldn’t believe that Ai and Roboppy were up to some serious shenanigans this time. Roboppy is now smart enough to turn Yusaku’s duel disk into a drone and once again, it’s scary how she’s getting smarter and smarter each time she appears. By the way, I actually laughed when Ai and Roboppy were evilly laughing and Ai tells her not to laugh harder than him. Oh boy, after this, I wonder if Yusaku’s gonna have to think twice if he leaves Ai and Roboppy alone in the house again. After all, Ai did mention that he persuaded Roboppy to turn the duel disk into a drone. Although Yusaku still doesn’t know that Roboppy is Ai’s minion and that those two have some kind of “romantic” relationship.
OK, now that we know about Naoki’s dueling skills, we know he at least has some skills and knows how to use Cyberse Wizard from Playmaker. Although he’s gonna need to memorize the card effects and combos to duel on the same level as Playmaker, Blue Angel, and Go. It took me a while to master the Trickstar combos, but I finally did it with some practice. I wonder if Yusaku and Naoki will finally become friends after this because it seems to me that Yusaku does care about Naoki to some extent if he actually goes out of his way to rescue him from Faust. Then again, it might be Yusaku’s sense of justice coming into play.
P.S. Now that Ai has proven he loves his name given to him, he actually openly embraces it. Yeah, I have to agree with Kusanagi, but Lonely Brave is kind of a strange name. I was somewhat disturbed by the bishonen sparkle scenes but it was also funny at the same time like you said.
I seriously am starting to suspect that Naoki is secretly gay… Or at least the writers are maybe hinting at it and cant say it because it’s a kids show. I only think this because of Bishi Yusaku (I lost it as well! LOL). Since as far as I am aware, whenever anime guys imagine their idol praising them they’re drawn in a ‘cool’ manner with sparkles not pretty but cool ones around them and that. Also the guy keeps bugging Yusaku even when he has made it clear he has no interest to interact with Naoki… I dont know, maybe I’m looking too deeply at it…
yeah, I thought originally that Faust sent the cyberse wizard to Naoki. But then when we saw that he had no clue the next suspect is Ai… I really dont know what to make of him now.
I mean if he became a villain at this stage I highly doubt that Yusaku is going to be all sappy and try to bring him back to being good. He’s not a frienshipholic like the previous protagonists.
Finally though, some real world stuff is happening! Even if it’s less than i would’ve liked, it’s still better than the mediocre stuff we got before.
Also love the fact that they show the players getting bad hands. That almost never happens in Yugioh even though in actual duels that is a very real possibility especially if you stack.
I only watched the parts with Yusaku and Ai, not even watchig the Duel because I totally have no interest and only read the summary for the rest. Reading this makes me feel wanting them to just jump to Shima finally finding out that Yusaku is Playmaker. I would love to see his shocked face.
By the way, I know you don’t like spoiler, but I think you meed to know this now as this is most likely a bad news. I heard that Episode 29 or 30 will be another recap episode. Looks like it’s official that recaps will be a routine in Vrains…
Oh I can just imagine what will happen next based on the “flow” of this series.
The duel between Playmaker and Faust. Faust puts on the pressure with some weird deck and he appears to have Playmaker in his grasp as Playmaker only has something like 100LP left. But then we go to the next episode where Playmaker makes a “miracle play” and gets out of situation beats Faust within the first 5-10 minutes.
But then as a major twist, Revolver will beat Playmaker and take Ignis. Then the evil plan will “go into the next stage” as despite all the jobbing of the basic knights and the more elite knights, they made progress anyway.
Then Playmaker will have to start learning not to be such a loner and that he doesn’t have to carry the world on his shoulders. Blue Angel and Onizuka help give him strength to keep going on.