MY GOD THIS EPISODE WAS A DOOZY.
THEY ACTUALLY REVEALED JIN AS LIGHTNING’S PARTNER!!!!!!! It definitely feels like they are holding his consciousness hostage. Lightning had a different approach to dealing with his partner than Windy, (who attempted to or actually did end up killing him). But if there’s one thing that’s really important to note, Lightning is really the cruelest one of them all.
He could have saved Windy much earlier, sparing him from the Hanoi Knight’s brutal execution process. Windy was begging for help, yet he just stood back and observed. It was a calculative move on his part in two ways. The first one forces Windy to reap the consequences. It served as cruel lesson of not to get ahead of himself and be cocky towards his opponents, regardless if they are Human. The second was to use this opportunity to demonstrate why Humans are their enemies.
Another fearsome point, is how it was revealed Haru and Bohman are his underlinings. Given the circumstances, it is hard to say whether or not Bohman is Windy’s true partner, whose consciousness has been stolen (much like Jin) and deleted his memories to make him into a proper puppet. If that is the case, then Haru is likely to be one of the other Lost Incident victims as well. And it could be, that they are both being held hostage in the same way Jin is. The only problem, Revolver didn’t exactly confirm this when they showed up (maybe he will next week, since he has uncovered the identities of the remaining victims). I mean, for all we know, they could be an AI using Human Avatars since Lightning has the capabilities to manipulate, fabricate and adjust memories accordingly. (Actually, with Lightning being the head of the party, it explains why he knows so much about the back-data archives containing the records of the victims.) Furthermore, this seems to point to Lightning to potentially being the traitor that led the attack on the Cyberse World, as a means to persuade the remaining Ignis to agree with his assessment that Humans are dangerous. It is also possible for Windy to have contributed to this as well.
Now with Jin’s consciousness having been revealed to be on the Ignis’ side, I am left to wonder how Kusanagi is going to react in this situation. With the war between Humanity and the Ignis about to unfold, it could be this event is what will cause him to leave Yuusaku’s side. With Jin’s consciousness held hostage, it wouldn’t surprise me if he felt co-existence is not an option. Kusanagi always struck me as the emotional type, so if he such character, this incident will certainly serve as the tipping point, where he choose to side with the Hanoi Knights (representing Humanity in this side of the war) as the means to protect the ones he loves.
If this were to happen, it’s going to be a tough blow for Yuusaku who has come around to trust him with his life. On top of that, it will also mean he will lose his hacker. Perhaps this is where Ghost Girl (if she’s still around after Blood Shepherd lashed out at her) can fill the void. And if it’s not her, it might end up being Akira or Aoi (both who have demonstrated to be capable hackers themselves). Actually, given how quickly things have escalated, it will be interesting to see how Akira, Aoi and SOL Technology will respond to the Ignis’ declaration of war against Humanity. Akira has been a dumbass with his head in the sand thinking it’s best to hunt the Ignis and capture them to have a ‘talk’. Aoi will be an interesting case considering she has witnessed the bond between Takeru and Flame. So as long as they maintain that bond between them and fight for co-existence, it would give her some grounds to have faith in such ideals. But we will have to wait and see, she has shown us she can be a bit too hasty with her judgment.
I do want to quickly note though, I briefly freaked out (and not in a good way) about the case of the car accident. Of course when we think about AI and car accidents, the first thing that comes to mind is Blood Shepherd’s backstory. So after I watched this episode, I went back to Episode 54, and to my relief, it doesn’t appear this is related to Blood Shepherd’s case, because he and his mom were were in a yellow taxi AI and crashed into a truck. The incident that Windy caused in attempt to murder his partner was a different car accident, that crashed into a building and combusted into flames. However what Revolver did not confirm, was whether or not the victim is still alive. Still, Windy… holy shit man. He caused the accident in attempt to get rid of his partner because he didn’t need him, what the hell man?! I was glad to see Ai absolutely horrified by his actions.
Speaking of the devil himself, next week Blood Shepherd will be back, so perhaps we will finally get some info on whatever happened to Ghost Girl after their previous hostile encounter.
Overall this was another very strong episode, and the pacing was really well done. I was shocked by how slowly time seemed to have passed, making it so the episode felt longer than usual. They really packed a lot in this one. It gives me a lot of hope for this arc in general, as we waited so long for this and now it’s about to begin!
Although I was quite shocked to see Revolver win this duel, it did serve its purpose of proving the Hanoi Knights have the capabilities to eliminate the Ignis, in brutal fashion. When Windy cried out in pain, I gave me the chills. Another thing I really enjoyed was the savage exchanges between Windy and Revolver, but man, Windy is a piece of work when it comes to delivering low blows. Admittedly, I was a bit bummed with how Revolver wasn’t shaken by it, but it just goes to show how strong his convictions are of inheriting his father’s will, and fulfill the promise of protecting Humanity, and not in a good way. Actually, now that I really think about it, it feel like it shows us how Revolver seems to be clinging to his father’s ghost. Inheriting his will could be interpreted as the only way (in his mind) to stay connected with his father who is no longer with him. In a way, perhaps what Windy said about Dr. Kogami not choosing Revolver to be one of the test subjects may point to a complex of his father neglecting him as a child. So while he witnessed all of these horrible things his father has done, and ultimately blew the whistle on him, it could be this drive stems from wanting to be able to fulfill his father’s expectations.
As for Flame and Takeru, man what a shitstorm they just walked into, haha! I’m looking forward to the next episode!
Bloody hell I’d say. It’s a freaking party in the castle now. We have Playmaker, AI, Soulburner, Lightning, Windy, Flame, Revolver, Specter, Vyra, Faust, Genome, Bowman, Haru, and (most importantly) JIN himself in the castle with Kusanagi watching from the real world in horror.
Phew, and with that the first half of season 2 is completed. However, as much as the show’s quality had improved considerably for the past few episodes, I must be brutally honest that I REALLY didn’t enjoy season 2 so far. Namely because the story and plot kept getting stalled and resolved in a manner that derailed the overall direction of season 1 (& it’s depressing that it’s still a thing going on) and I’m incredibly upset about how they had to accommodate the main new characters (NONE of them I liked at worst) thus shafting the ones in the previous season. Akira’s motivation often shifted between him owing Playmaker a gratitude to immediately hunt for the Ignies; Go’s character was reduced to tatters (as if his season 1 self wasn’t pathetic enough already) and he ditched the meta-tier Goukis for his subordinates (both whom didn’t even know how to play properly) just to play the slow-paced Dinowrestlers which was a direct slap to the Yugioh community as a whole; I didn’t even need to elaborate on how MINIMAL Aoi & Emma’s roles were because Shin Yoshida has always been a notorious woman hater and he gave SoulFucker a pseudo-Super Poly to flatten Blue Girl in one move and giving Ghost Girl a pointless & irrelevant win against Brave Max.
It’s even more insulting when you realized that Trickstars (champion), Altergeists (runner-up) and Goukis (third-place) are top 3 decks of the world right now as proven in the recently concluded 2018 World Championship and yet the characters that played them in the VRAINS didn’t do ANYTHING significant (because the directors didn’t want them to curbstomp everyone else in the show) which became another source of discontent & displeasure among Yugioh community as a whole because VRAINS is delivering a WRONG message saying how competent Cyberses (Yusaku), Rokkets (Ryoken) and Salaman”grates” (Takeru) can be when in reality they accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the game and were only made to look formidable due to plot armor (for Yusaku & Takeru’s case) and the privilege status of being the show’s hypeman (Ryoken) which still didn’t do much to cement his threat despite him using the classics Traps (Mirror Force & Magic Cylinder).
But moving onto the worst aspect of season 2 and that’s how NONE of the new main characters appealed to the audience, starting with:
Takeru/SoulFucker: Seriously, I just want him to get lost and fuck off everytime he appears. I’m already infuriated enough at how Yusaku is written to be a Mary Sue that NEVER loses, but instead the director decided to give the show another Gary Stu. His backstory was trash as a delinquent who could pick up fights & skip school as many times as he wished (his parents must be feeling shameful in the heavens about how horrid their son turned out to be); his “trauma” was tossed aside because his Ignis partner (whom he only met about 30 minutes ago) gave him some words of encouragement; and he went on to go on a season 1 cast slaughter (especially for Aoi’s case, she COULD’VE wrecked him in more ways than one) while entering Yusaku’s “friendship” circle just to shove a middle finger at the girl who cared about him all the time (Kiku). His character was already so badly written, but I’m left jaw-dropped upon realizing how Salaman”grates” were just a pile of hot trash that could be recycled forever and still ended up having a weak glass field presence that could be shattered in one move by any decent player.
Bowman: Is he even a character? Nah he’s just a motivational plot device who attempted mind games at Playmaker twice only to get stung back TWICE. I don’t even bother about him being a Lost Incident victim or not, his presence and intimidation factor wasn’t even present to justify his supposed status as a villain. Worse, his Hydradrives were also a bunch of unplayable mess with terrible synergy (even with Link Magic-Judgment Arrows to circumvent Extra Link lockdown) among themselves that even a toddler can break with basic backrow removal such as MST and Twin Twisters. Granted, there’s still time to elaborate about what his role will be, but until then, he’s an auto-minus in my books.
Blood “Jobber” Shepherd: Muhahahaha…. Where do I even start? The one who’s billed to be an intimidating adversary for both parties didn’t even do his job properly. Every time when someone said “His intellect rivaled Dr.Kogami’s for being able to decipher Ignis’s algorithm thus he’s terrifying” I’m immediately braced for disappointment and cringe. His backstory was even dumber than Takeru’s where he developed everlasting hatred towards AIs due to a road accident disabling his mother (after he gloated about how safe it was to ride on an AI-automated vehicle without putting on safety belts), and he’s being a jerk towards Akira and Emma all the time even when they’re doing various missions in the past. And again, you can’t convince me that he’s even remotely decent enough to be a villain when he’s playing such a mediocre machine “peashooter” deck and boasted like he’s playing full-powered SPYRALs at their primes; but the WORST scenario to cement him as a total joke was how he exploited Takeru’s past and was instantly convinced that Despair from the Dark will make SoulFucker tremble in fear, that initially worked but WHY putting such a cardboard beatstick just to troll your opponent? And it backfired SO hard when SoulFucker turned the tide and nearly landed the finishing blow to this pathetic excuse of a “villain” who had the tag “disappointment” slapped onto his face.
All these season 2 characters had 4 traits in common: Lackluster backstories, ZERO hypes, unlikable personalities and garbage decks. Like honestly, how am I supposed to take any of them seriously when they’re only here to give VRAINS more minus points? Not even Zexal had this momentum of constant negativity checking their progress and it’s only worse when we’re already halfway done but issues are STILL arising. (Do I need to dive in further and say how I absolutely hated the recaps constantly stalling the show’s progress?)
I’m done ranting, hopefully with the show’s first half officially concluded, the second half will be more intriguing with six Ignises & their owners entering the show’s primary plot for once and resolve many of the unfinished mysteries. “Declaration of War” better live up to its hype.
At one moment, i thought Lightning is going to just let Windy die at the hands of Hanoi.
The synchro summoning of Borroload savage Dragon is cool but i don’t understand the animation itself. Did the number of rings represent the level of the monster from the (total) level of the tuner monster(s)?
At first, lightning’s partner being Jin was stupid because in previous episodes, the figure does not look like Jin at all. The reveal just blows my mind off.
Pretty expected that Haru and Bowman is working under Lightning. But why is Haru working with the Light Ignis?
So Windy has the ability to cheat in a master duel by using a skill. If konami was a god in this show, they would be disqualified and their opponents would win too easily.
Oh boy, oh boy, this episode is so…! I don’t know how to put it into words! Yeah, Lightning really is the cruelest when seeing him like this. And Windy doesn’t seem to be dead yet…honestly, part of me feels it’s kinda waste because I try just want him to go die after learning everything that the had done, especially to his own partner! Flame, you better forget about trusting Windy (and Lightning) as your comrade! He is NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD AT ALL!
And while the highlights of the episode were Windy, Lightning, and Revolver here, I also like to point out about Ai’s reaction after the Duel. Even though Windy and Lightning just tried to destroy and absorb him, Ai still couldn’t help but be horrified when his fellow Ignis is brutally attacked like that and shouted at Lightning to help him when the latter just be silent. For someone in Season 1 so easily said something like abandoning hostage (Akira) and deceiving his own partner, he is actually kind, which is something he and Yusaku has in common (maybe something that he also inherited since he is based on Yusaku?). This is especially evident when he couldn’t agree with how Windy views his human partner. I think that Ai will have a dilemma about this. While it’s clear that he has grown attached to humans, or to Yusaku to be precise, Ai still cares for his fellow Ignis and just couldn’t bring himself to let them be killed. This can be opportunity for Yusaku and Ai to become closer.
Now that the war cannot be avoided, what will Yusaku-Ai and Takeru-Flame will do? Will they still try to find a way for coexistence?
Honestly speaking, Yusaku, Takeru, Ai, Flame, just erase Lightning and Windy. After they’re out of the picture, finally find a way to coexist. I know enough that Ai and Flame would never view humans as enemies like Windy and Lightning are.
Yeah I don’t know how they are going to persuade the likes of Windy and Lightning, those guys are serious about eliminating humanity. Windy already attempted to murder his partner!!!!!!!!!! THAT’S INSANE.
About the car incident, I think blood sherperd was result of a domino effect. If you remember, Aoi’s fathers and Soulburner’s fathers dies in a car accident and that could be the same incident. Windy could have created a large-scale accident by disrupting the AI of nearby cars.-
Well… this is not an accident anymore, but a cold blood murder.
Windy’s almost death scene was cruel to watch. I am usually soft-hearted, but you know what I felt during that scene? Nothing. Windy deserves it for being so evil. I can’t believe he tried or did kill his human partner just because he did not need him. That’s…so amoral. Though, I wonder if Windy’s tampering with his human partner’s car caused other vehicle AI to go out of control, thus the constant car accidents from ten years ago kept happening due to Windy.
I agree with your thoughts on Jin being used as a hostage of sorts (poor boy keeps being plot device). I feel like he’s only using Jin because he’s the human that he has the fastest access to. I feel like his ultimate goal is to resurrect Dr. Kogami since he’s the one who followed his ideals to the fullest. Now, I wonder how Kusanagi will fare for the next half of this season. If you looked closely at episode 66 when Kusanagi was scoffing at Earth’s message and deeming it a hoax, Yusaku was convincing him that there could be a clue to Jin’s location which caused Kusanagi to ease up and trust Yusaku’s judgement. Even if Kusanagi is skeptical, Jin is and always will be his first priority. I do agree that Kusanagi is the emotional type judging from how poorly he reacted towards Akira’s backstory back in episode 18 and his actions during episode 64 with how he kept going inside Link Vrains despite not being a duelist.
I feel like Ghost Girl will be an ally for this season despite her revolving loyalty. She owes Playmaker a debt for saving her, so I’m sure if Kusanagi were to betray or leave Yusaku and Takeru to find his own way to save Jin, Ghost Girl will step in. Though, I’m not sure if she knows Yusaku is Playmaker. I think she knows Kusanagi is Playmaker’s partner, so she’ll help Playmaker from her little warehouse.
I feel like if Lightning and Windy are to be killed in the end, I want them to have the most karmic death possible. Like, Jin regaining control of his consciousness and deleting Lightning (and/or Windy with his own hands) or Kusanagi doing the honors of the deletion as payback for kidnapping his brother.
Now, I kind of wonder if Kusanagi’s love for Jin will be Lightning’s downfall since Lightning seems to lack love and affection or does not seem to comprehend them due to his disdain and superiority over humans. Even if Jin’s consciousness is being controlled, it’s still a human mind at the end.
I’m seeing some Arc-V parallels. Jin is Ruri. Kusanagi is Shun (albeit a nicer NPC version of him). I have this feeling that Kusanagi will join the Yu-Gi-Oh brothers’ legion of screaming their younger siblings’ name at the top of their lungs to show how much they love and care for them.
If there’s one thing I do like about the show, it’s fucking Revolver. Nearly everything he does is pretty cool and/or epic. I just wished the writers made a better script for him overall, though, but hopefully it’ll improve.
Also, new Synchro Summon animation is pretty lit, but I still personally like the old ones from Arc V and 5Ds better.
You’re absolutely right Eva, this episode was a doozy. I’ve suspected for a long time that the Light Ignis, Lightning, was Jin’s partner. It provides a nice contrast to Yusaku whose partner is the Dark Ignis, and I can’t wait to see where they go with this.
I couldn’t believe it when I found out what Windy did to his human partner. It was absolutely sickening and his condescending attitude towards Revolver throughout the duel didn’t help endear him to me at all. I was so satisfied when Revolver finally ground that smug demeanour of his into the dirt with his awesome new Synchro Monster, made even better by how he begged Lightning to save him after the Knights started to delete him, and for a moment I actually thought that Lightning was going to let Windy get deleted for his failure (shame he didn’t in my opinion).
It looks like Playmaker and Bohman are going to duel again in the next episode, I can’t wait to see where this war between Humans and Ignis goes down and who is going to side with whom?
This was one of the most intense episodes ever. I know I keep saying that, but the plot is getting thicker now. War has been declared by Lightning and all kinds of parties are getting caught in this mess, even Blood Shepherd and Akira. I do hope Emma and Aoi make a return soon. Although I do wonder what happened to Ghost Girl after the cliffhanger when she was about to shot by Blood Shepherd.
I do agree with you, Lightning is truly the cruelest Ignis of all. He didn’t even answer Windy’s cries for help after being brutally defeated and it wasn’t until Ai shouted Lightning’s name that Lightning took action and saved what was left of Windy. That shows that Lightning will dispose of even Ignis that agree with his views if they get too cocky and underestimate even humans like you said. I think of myself as very empathetic, but in this case, I do believe Windy deserved it for his crimes against humanity. Although I still was horrified by Windy’s screams after the Hanoi lieutenants impaled him. I mean, it seemed like he was trying to kill his human partner by staging that car accident. Windy, how could you!? It’s no wonder he didn’t go and look for his human partner because his partner may be dead now. You saying you didn’t need him is no excuse for trying to commit murder or serious injury in cold blood. That’s extremely sadistic. I’m absolutely disgusted! While I was watching the episode, I wanted to wipe those smug looks off Windy’s face. He was basically taunting Revolver throughout the entire duel. Making fun of Revolver’s bond with his father was a big mistake. By the way, when Ai and Playmaker were questioning Windy about what he did to his human partner, did you see him grooming the curl on his head? It makes me think of him as vain in addition to being malicious.
As for Flame, I knew he would not be happy with Windy and Lightning for trapping Ai and Playmaker in those blue orbs. I had a feeling those two would also want to reprogram Flame as well as Ai to their side as they had no problem of trapping Soulburner and Flame in orbs too.
OK, onto the Knights of Hanoi. Revolver was actually not as cold towards Playmaker as I thought. It’s implied he doesn’t think of Playmaker as an enemy now, but will if he supports any Ignis. It actually seemed like Revolver was trying to persuade Playmaker to join his side to fight against the Ignis. I’m not sure what to say about Ai shouting Lightning’s name before Windy completely disappeared. It was instinctive, but I believe Ai still cares about his fellow Ignis if he actually was horrified to see Windy’s execution like that. Soulburner didn’t seem happy to see Spectre. I’ll never forgive him for killing Blue Angel so brutally last season. Spectre is still as twisted as ever, even trying to convert Soulburner to the the Knights of Hanoi’s side and threatening to eliminate him if he doesn’t see the same views as Hanoi. That politeness still makes me so uncomfortable. I’d be suspicious too.
I was shocked that Jin is Lightning’s human partner. And they dressed him in the same outfit as Bowman and Haru. I do wonder how that’s gonna work. Does this mean Kusanagi’s betrayal is nearing us more than ever? Maybe Lightning will try to persuade Kusanagi into working for him and his team. It’s giving me the creeps just thinking about it.
I’m thinking Windy is the one who caused all the car accidents trying to get rid of his human partner.