Before we begin, let’s address Episode 60 real quick: SKIP THE EPISODE, IT IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. If you want to know anything ‘important’ you are better off reading a summary. All you need to know is that Blood Shepherd set a clever trap to bait Yuusaku into investigating the emergence of a Gate, and since Takeru protected him, he will be facing him instead and we’ll hop into the past.
This is why I decided to skip writing an entry altogether. Seriously, I would have rather sat through another Recap Episode than watch Naoki waste Ghost Girl’s time. I had an inkling this was happening, so I did a quick jump and sure enough, he is so god damn stupid it the duel was entirely pointless.
Also Akira is annoying as hell. How stupid is this guy? For god sakes, if you want to contact Playmaker, you could, I don’t know know, maybe just send a god damn email to him that you want to talk?! IT’S NOT THAT HARD. GHOST GIRL DOES IT ALL THE TIME! Sheesh… What are the writers thinking?
MOVING ON TO THE EPISODE WE ACTUALLY SHOULD CARE ABOUT!
Episode 61
Oh noooooooo!!!! TAKERU! DON’T HURT THIS PRECIOUS BOY ANYMORE DAMNIT! The trap Blood Shepherd had prepared was a nasty one. The purpose of it was to identify Playmaker’s weakness, but since Soulburner was captured instead, he is the one will be forced to face his trauma in the cruelest way possible.
We can joke a lot about Flame and Takeru’s interactions with each other, but the truth is, Flame played an instrumental role in helping Takeru find the courage to face the past, and I imagine he will be doing everything in his power to stop Takeru from breaking. I look forward to seeing how Flame will respond in this situation.
Flame’s and Takeru’s first encounter couldn’t be more different than Ai’s and Playmaker, in fact it is more of the opposite. It is Flame who comes to Takeru’s rescue, playing the instrumental role in helping him find the courage to face his past and start moving forward to the future. But make no mistake, it is no easy task. Takeru has only begun his journey of climbing the mountain he must overcome, and now Blood Shepherd is threatening to send him spiralling back to where he started, a broken boy shackled down by his past.
One slightly brighter note, it was quite funny how much Flame freaked him out when he was trying to reach out to him. I mean, I don’t blame him. Of course I’d be scared if my devices were suddenly trying to communicate with him like a Ghost! But it was Flame’s only way of ‘discreetly’ communicating with him, trying to encourage him to look into Link VRAINS and Playmaker, the boy who was also a victim of the Lost Incident. The hilarious part about this was how he initially misheard Flame and thought he said, ‘Link Brains’ and ‘Playmater’! I got a good laugh out of that one.
Although this episode covered Takeru’s backstory, aside from his interactions with Flame, for most part, the episode was quite bland, especially the duel against Ryu. This was Takeru’s first time picking up the duel-disk since the incident, and yet… I don’t know, it just didn’t do it for me. Maybe it’s because Ryu’s character is so blah and I couldn’t care less about him. The last few moments when Takeru’s trauma was triggered was the only time I started caring…. but just barely.
Anyhow, I don’t know if Blood Shepherd is going to cut us off there, leaving us in the suspense of whether or not Takeru won that duel. Either way, since Blood Shepherd has identified his weakness, he fully intends to exploit it so that he could defeat him and finally capture Flame. Unfortunately for Takeru, he is in store for a world of pain and despair. Seriously leave these boys alone. It’s bad enough that they are suffering from post-traumatic stress.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of this duel, although I suspect the primary objective of this fight will not only to shed light on how the Lost Incident still haunts Takeru to this day, but potentially as a means to help him overcome it. Admittedly, for Takeru who has only been introduced recently, I do feel it’s a bit soon. But with Yuusaku having to deal with the bounty hunters and Kusanagi is going to need some time to crack Blood Shepherd’s complex code, it seems it will be up to Flame and Takeru to save themselves. Hopefully next week’s episode will have a stronger impact.
PSA: For future reference, if for whatever reason I have to or choose to post-pone an entry, I always make a notice on Tumblr and Twitter, and leave a comment about the delay in the latest episode’s comment section! ^ v ^ /
How many continuous BAD episodes did VRAINS deliver during and after the outrageous SoulFucker vs Blue Girl duel (which she could’ve stomped him in more ways than one)? Yes, it’s STILL rolling on. First let’s get started with:
Episode 60: EVERY Naoki-centric episode was destined to be the worst of VRAINS (even worse than Go Onizuka’s) and this one was NO exception. His presence affected everyone’s intelligence and sanity he encountered like a plague. For instance, Aoi’s judgment was SO clouded to the extent she hosted an “emergency” event just to lure Brave Max out and as much as it’s good to see Ghost Girl FINALLY earning a vital victory for the sidelined female casts of VRAINS (given that Altergeists and (especially) Trickstars are THE strongest decks in the show) we had to endure Brave Max’s creepy obsession about being Playmaker’s “soulmate” and I’d love to jump INTO ZA VRAINS and roast that lump of lard right away if I’m able to. And moving to Yusaku and Takeru as well, they also encountered Naoki that day and guess what? While they’ve always been wary and cautious of what their next step will be before jumping into Link VRAINS to confront their enemies, this time they simply hooped in without thinking about the consequences thus leading to the most obvious trap ever currently entrapping SoulFucker.
Episode 61: So SoulFucker’s backstory was all about him being a jerk for skipping school for months, being a delinquent, and afraid of Despair from the Dark, blah blah blah, mumble, drone, witter… (Not gonna lie, I’m SO bored throughout the episode I almost fell asleep.)
Seriously, I couldn’t care less about such a terribly written and executed backstory for a Gary Stu. And if the writers have any sense of remorse & are attempting to save VRAINS from spiraling towards hell in an alarming pace, LET BLOOD SHEPHERD WIN and give the new villains of season 2 some justification of their threats instead of being pummeled down every time they duel. Any other outcome is unacceptable.
daaaamnxD
Yeah, I can agree that the episode last week was a waste of time. I mean, how can Baboons beat Altergeists? Adding onto that, Ghost Girl wasn’t even trying and was actually going easy on Brave Max. I was pretty much facepalming for that entire episode. Naoki really took things too far and even called Playmaker his “soulmate”, which really disgusted me. I mean, seriously, that idiot needs to read the dueling handbook again!
Alright, for this week’s episode, it was pretty interesting. Poor Soulburner has been knocked unconscious like I suspected. I can’t believe Takeru almost destroyed his duel disk thinking Flame was a ghost. I was trying to suppress my laughter. That initial reaction was the complete opposite of Yusaku when he first met Ai. Flame looked incredibly panicked but stayed far calmer than Ai would have in that situation. Although like you said, I’d be scared too. Unless you’re a techno path, there shouldn’t be machines trying to talk to you. It seemed like Flame was pretty much watching and following Takeru through different digital screens, strangely including on a screen on the water pump. Did you notice that?
I was really happy to see the first IRL duel without any Link VRAINS. So duels can happen outside the virtual world. By the way, “Link Brains” is what most people say when I mention this show to them until I have to correct them. Anyway, can’t wait for next week’s episode. I think Emma and Akira are gonna help Playmaker as it seems like those two and Aoi are loyal to him despite being the enemy technically.
=____= Yeah it was super creepy with how Naoki referred to PM as his soulmate. Like NO. GTFO. This guy is delusional! Why do they even bother creating stupid characters like him? They don’t add anything to the story at all!
Not gonna lie, when I first started this show all I kept on hearing “Link Brains” too! 😂 And yes I did catch flame there! That being said, I am really looking forward to see how Flame will help Takeru through this. I just hope the execution will be good.
I have a feeling Akira’s team may step in as well, especially because they know how dirty BS can play.
“Why do they even bother creating stupid characters like him?”
Saying Naoki is “stupid” is WAY too nice, he’s a cancerous existence that dragged down everyone’s minds and pissed us off every time he opened his big mouth. Even Go Onizuka is miles better than this lump of lard.
I couldn’t agree with you more about Episode 60 Eva, I’m all for giving Ghost Girl her first onscreen victory, and I just wish it was in an episode that wasn’t this childishly stupid. It almost felt like an early episode of Zexal at some points, that’s how annoying it was. I usually reserve my judgement on what I think could have been done “better” on a series until near the series finale, but in this case I think it would have been better if the trap that Blood Shephard sprung at the end of Episode 60 was the main focus of the episode and have it be a duel between him and Soulburner which Blood Shepard would win then have him search through Soulburner’s memories which would lead into the next episode. It would certainly give Soulburner an extra incentive to beat Blood Shepard next time around.
But enough about last week’s episode, I thought this one was a much needed improvement. It gave us some wonderful insight into Takeru’s backstory and how The Lost Incident affected him. I particularly loved how the episodes title, ‘Despair from Darkness’, was actually in reference to the Monster Card: Despair from the Dark (2800/3000), and how it seemed to be the monster that always defeated Takeru during The Lost Incident, it’s a small wonder his PTSD flared up when he saw it again.
Aside from that I loved the interactions between Takeru and Flame and can’t wait to see how where Takeru goes from here in the next episode.
Yeah this episode could have been so much better, I felt like it was lazily written. The backstory is important, so I really hope next week’s will be stronger. What I am looking forward to the most is how Flame and Takeru will work together to get through this. Takeru isn’t alone anymore, he has Flame by his side. Q v Q Not gonna lie, I wanna see protective!Flame.
I think they’re rushing Takeru’s development at this point and time, because they have to do the same thing for the remaining victims (including Jin if he ever recovers) as to confront the past and move on. Yusaku, like I said, as the main protagonist will undergo his slowly but that probably also has to do with the mystery of his missing memories.
Honestly from what I saw, Takeru before this episode was partially running away, but partially confronting his past. I hope this encounter with Blood Shepard will finally get Takeru to fully confront and overcome his past, on his own, with less help from Flame.
And I foresee that this trap incident will tie the Knights of Hanoi in much closer regarding the current state of affairs.
If this turns into a rant, I’m sorry, due to being new to the blog (though I do promote this blog site on my YouTube when I do review-only videos because the screenshots are always helpful to use as references)…but I’ve grown quite frustrated with this show so far.
Seriously, I really wanted to invest interest and be excited for this show in particular, but as of right now….the way this series has played out so far….it makes Arc-V and Zexal’s blunders look completely innocent…those two series (enjoyed both, but liked the former WAY more than the latter) at least had their enjoyment value as well as colorful characters (in both cases should’ve gotten more depth in their own stories, especially with Arc V).
However, with this show, I feel like the character development is either being wasted or hastened, depending on the individual. I really felt like Aoi’s development was for naught so far, and probably will never be fulfilled. Go Onizuka as a character just kinda went down the drain for the time being, Emma and Akira are just on standby popping in to say hi every now and then, and as of Yusaku himself…he has yet to make himself a more compelling and relatable MC. If characters don’t make themselves likable and/or relatable, and/or lack fulfilled maturation, the show has not tapped into any of its potential, and at this rate, it’s no better than Arc V or Zexal. (P.S. Don’t even want to mention the all-too-familiar cringe characters that make even Yuma and Futoshi look perfectly fine)
As for the story, it’s a good setup, but it hasn’t been one that I can find as compelling as it could’ve been so far. Granted, this show has a long way to go, so I’ll try giving it more time, but if things don’t drastically improve by the next 10-20 episodes, then I dunno what to say anymore.
Yes, my frustration level is over 9000….#feelsbadman
I share the same frustrations. VRAINS started off really slow, followed by the detours of recaps, it certainly feels like it’s messing with the overall pacing of the series. (I mean, we have had 5 recaps!) But when they waste time like they did with Ep 60, it certainly concerns me. I also don’t like how they are either sabotaging characters, or dismantling them and leaving them on the curb. Akira’s character is certainly giving me a headache with one minute he wants to “capture the Ignis to talk to them” and then the next he’s like, “Oh I owe PM big time”. It’s too inconsistent.
Despite it’s weaker and slower early game, I am hoping VRAINS will finally be able to make some strides, sooner than later. Hopefully next week’s episode will do just that. It would be a shame to see another YGO series with so much potential be neglected all over again.
It’s crazy to think by in about twenty episodes, we’ll be half-way through the series. So they really need to pick up the pace!
Yeah, did anyone but me scream when we saw the eyes of the friend who told Takeru that his friend had been kidnapped!?
I mean, those eyes were scarier than ghosts haunting technology that’s for sure!