God damn it, I am super annoyed! This episode felt like a waste of time! It frustrates the hell out of me how they ruined the mood but constantly shifting away from the duel between Blood Shepherd and Takeru to check in with Yuusaku facing off the bounty hunters fodders. Honestly had they stayed at the scene from the start of the match till the end of the episode and pushed it a bit further, I probably would have been crying for Takeru. I mean this is hardly the darkest thing Yu-Gi-Oh! has ever done, so their “breaks” by cutting away from the duel has nothing to do with it. Instead by doing so, they pointlessly dragged it out for another episode.
This is the only thing that happened: Takeru walks into Blood Shepherd’s trap of not realizing he uses his AI to fool his opponents by exploiting the fact they tend to be so dependent on them. Having identified Takeru’s weakness, he brought out several of very same monster (Despair from the Dark) to trigger his trauma. Seriously though, what a dirty move. Is he trying to kill the kid? It’s ridiculous when you think about it how he’s tormenting players like Takeru because they depend/like AI.
Of course one of the practical ways to work around Blood Shepherd’s bullshit is is for the players to stop being lazy and read the damn effects themselves, unless Blood Shepard had been able to disable that feature. (Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if that were to be the case since he created this trap in the first place). It’s not like we haven’t seen anyone for that matter read a card effects during the duel, both Yuusaku and other characters have demonstrated doing exactly that on various occasions.
Although I hated the way they executed it, my heart was breaking into a million pieces as Blood Shepherd triggered Takeru’s trauma. Frankly, this has to be the more villainous move we have seen in the entire series since they attacked Aoi with the virus. This isn’t something Takeru can face alone, we saw just how vulnerable he is, and now more than ever he needs someone to support him. And that someone will be Flame. However it is still up in the air of whether or not this is a duel that will end with someone emerging victorious, or will be interrupted once Kusanagi figures out a way to crack the code and help Takeru escape. To be honest, I would like it if the duel were to be merely interrupted, and makes Blood Shepherd Takeru’s nemesis. Although Blood Shepherd certainly has the potential to become an excellent villain due to his cold and ruthless nature, I feel it establishing a rivalry of a sorts between to the two would add value to the story. And honestly they couldn’t be a better match. We have a man who despises AI, and a boy who he has an AI partner he can depend on. Not to mention, Yuusaku already has enough enemies on his plate, so it would be nice to see things be spread out, especially since we are now 1/3 through the story. But regardless of what I think, it’s more than likely they intend to have Takeru defeat Blood Shepherd as the first step of overcoming his trauma.
I don’t have anything else to add since pretty much nothing else happened this episode. I will say it was really cute to see Flame trying to shake Takeru awake. Had it been Ai, he probably would have slapped him. Haha!
PS: Was it just me, or did it look like they improved Heatleo’s CGI? It looks more polished up than I remember…
Are we watching a different episode because the Playmaker vs fodder duel was actually pretty hilarious. Well, seeing Go Onizuka’s (Goukis) being relegated to being used by a fodder and got rekted in the next turn was golden… along with AI blowing away one fodder via Data Storm and engaging him later (because in the current rulings it’s impossible to have a 1 vs 2 tag duel, damn the Extra Monster Zones).
HOWEVER! The Blood Shepherd vs SoulFucker duel was absolutely atrocious and grating to watch. Not only because both played trash-tier decks (Drones and Salamangreats were close to early DM-levels of garbage), but it’s also because Blood Shepherd’s tactic to dig up SoulFucker’s past was just poor and lame without any “intimidation” factor in it, because his backstory of being scared of Despair from the Dark was an unacceptable justification of him being a Gary Stu that could never lose.
… Which is why the next episode’s title pissed me off to no end knowing that SoulFucker’s comeback is all but certain. At this point I’d rather have ANYONE not named “Go Onizuka” or “Naoki” to bury him for good. My bet’s on Revolver.
This episode was interesting but boring to me at the same time.
And yes, I didn’t like how it shifted back and forth from Takeru to Yusaku here….like I didn’t give a shit about how the latter was doing, cause I knew he’s gonna win his bouts, anyway.
As for Takeru…I can sorta relate to him a little bit in terms of facing a past nightmare…in this case, it became a trauma he has failed to overcome up til now.
So….incoming Ultimate Despair From The Dark, maybe? xD
This episode shows that Takeru was traumatized just as much as Yusaku during the Lost Incident. I didn’t find the episode to be as intriguing as some other episodes. Although that would be really cool for Blood Shepherd to be Soulburner’s personal rival/enemy. I was actually pretty disgusted to see how Blood Shepherd took advantage of Soulburner’s fear to turn the duel in his favor. You could see how frightened Soulburner was. His eyes were widened in fear and his face was dripping with sweat. That’s how scared he is. I hope that he overcomes his fear and wins against Blood Shepherd. I’m sure Flame will be the one to help him out since Playmaker is busy dueling and it’s up to Soulburner and Flame to save themselves.
Besides Dr. Kogami, Blood Shepherd is probably one of the nastiest characters of the series so far. For god sakes, I don’t care how much he hates AI under no circumstances does that give him the excuse to trigger anyone’s trauma. PROTECT TAKERU Q A Q
=3= Still this episode could have been so much stronger. Such a shame they wasted so much time just dragging it out when it didn’t need to.
If not for his loyalty for Revolver, I would have included Spectre to the list of the nastiest characters. This would have been a strong episode if only they just skip the Duel against Kenmochi and Yoroizaka. Really, it’s a waste of time. Is this the studio’s attempt to make them appear once at least since they’re part of Go’s team?
Damn you, Blood Sheperd! You’d willing to go that far for the sake of, I don’t know, money and hate?! Just because one accident, it doesn’t give you the right to do that to Takeru! Plus, Ignis is different from normal AIs, they have free will! They’re alive! You’re willing to do anything for the sake of your mission, huh? Then if there’s a scenario your mother is taken hostage, are you willing to abandon her (she’s still alive if I remember it right)? Oh yeah, I think Blood Sheperd needs to become Soulburner’s rival because I would love to see him his butt being kicked repeatedly!
True enough, Spectre is pretty bad himself. And yes, Kenmochi and Yoroizaka shouldn’t have even been part of the episode. They contributed nothing but a waste of air time. They didn’t even need to show PM duelling them, just show them starting the duel in the beginning, and then simply ending the duel once all of this is wrapped up. Nobody cares about them!
And yeah it’s not like his mother is dead. Like come on! Really, their backstory for him was super weak. I think I would be able to take his hatred towards AI a lot more seriously had it been a more serious accident. It just feels like lazy writing, which seems to be a major problem in this series so far. :\ It’s worrisome to say the least.