…Where do I even begin? Shit hit the fan this week, and it was straight up terrifying to watch. Hell I even thought to myself, “I TAKE EVERYTHING BACK, I AM ACTUALLY GLAD AOI IS NOT HERE BECAUSE THIS IS SCARY!”. It certainly didn’t help that they were dropping those lines that more often than not jinxes the characters, so I was seriously concerned about Takeru’s fate. The sheer intensity of the duel had me worrying whether or not Takeru was going to win this— and thank god he did! It’s an understatement to say I was freaking out. I swear to god, Robopoppi’s eyes are gonna give me nightmares. Not to mention, they made it extra creepy when Robopoppi’s voice was alternating between her two tones!
Robopoppi went into Yandere-Mode and beyond, to the point that even Ai was horrified of what the robot had become. At that moment, it was made clear that this dark development was never part of Ai’s plans, or rather: he never imagined his program would create this monster that became of Robopoppi. Everyone knew it was bad, but the worst part was when Robopoppi had gone haywire to the point he claimed he could defeat Ai himself— and that was when Robopoppi had crossed the line of no return. If he wasn’t stopped then and there, the situation could have turned into a very dangerous one. It makes me wonder had Robopoppi been able to withstand the program and defeat Takeru, would have Ai intervened? Or would he have left it to Yuusaku? Sure, Yuusaku might have been able to handle it himself, but I would like to believe that Ai would have taken responsibility in some way to prevent Robopoppi from going on a rampage. After-all, it was his program that caused this problem in the first place, and I doubt Ai intends to create an horde of monsters, much less A.I. that would turn against him!
However, while it was good to see that Ai recognize that Robopoppi was trekking on a dangerous path, (especially since many of us are concerned he might turn into a scarier version of Lightning), that moment was quickly overshadowed with yet another reason to be concerned about Ai’s mental state. Yes, what Ai did was cruel. He sent Robopoppi away, knowing he would likely be defeated, all to send a letter/invitation to Yuusaku. Yes, he acknowledged his actions and express remorse by grieving for Robopoppi (something we know someone like Lightning wouldn’t have done). But what makes this incident so troubling, is how it yet another failure added to the list that is already consuming him whole.
Aside from streaks of revenge particularly against SOL Technology, we don’t know what Ai intends to do with the corporations resources. But if he were hoping to recreate/revive his friends in some way through his own program, Robopoppi’s twisted development definitely threw a wedge in his plans. We witnessed the consequences of A.I. who develop too quickly with “bodies” that are unable to safely handle his program, as well as the potential chaos that will follow if they are able to handle it and are not kept in check. Since Robopoppi’s sole purpose was to clean, Ai’s program ended up bricking his system, which means and involuntarily having a hand in his destruction.
Despite how fucked up Yandere-Robopoppi was, his demise still broke my heart, for both Ai and Yuusaku. For Yuusaku, god his expression crushed me. Robopoppi was basically family to him, someone who would always sweetly greet him when he returned home and cared deeply about him. He knew that the robot was past saving and asked Takeru to end it quickly to put him out of his misery. For Ai, even though he took advantage of him, Robopoppi was still a friend, a fellow kin he had felt more comfortable interacting with than his Human comrades during this time of grief.
Next week, Takeru and Ryoken will be having their long awaited rematch. I’m glad it’s going to be done sooner than later, but I wonder how Ryoken is going to go about this whole thing…
RIP Robopoppi
If you noticed, there was a kit on Yusaku’s desk. This means that Roboppi was mass produced. Given Roboppi’s appearance and how different it looks to the Zaizens’s pink cleaning robot, it’s most likely an older, cheaper model. I think this is why Blood Shepherd and Ghost Girl know that Roboppi is a cleaning robot given their age. Since Yusaku is a genius hacker, he might have been the one who adjusted Roboppi’s program to the way it was before season 3.
I found Roboppi annoying but I can’t help to feel bad for their demise. This is a prime example of trying to upload an advanced program on an old machine and malfunctioning because of data issues.
As horrifying as this episode was, what prevented me from enjoying it as much as I should have was the fact that for some reason the writers made Soulburner suddenly forget how his own cards work. Some people have already pointed out that Soulburner could have defeated Roboppi if he had used the reincarnated Heatleo’s effect to lower the ATK of Laundry Dragon by the ATK of Sunlight Wolf in his Graveyard, so that it would have zero ATK, and that way, whenever he attacked with the 4100 ATK Blaze Dragon, Laundry Dragon would only have 1000 ATK from the co-linked effect of Celtopus. Even if Roboppi halved the damage he would still take 1550 damage when he only had 1000 Life Points remaining. Another misplay was from Roboppi; who used the effect of Vacculephant to try and destroy Blaze Dragon, when that effect can only destroy monsters in the Main Monster Zone and Blaze Dragon was in the Extra Monster Zone, that way Soulburner wouldn’t have had to waste an overlay unit to defend it and it would have had enough ATK to prevent Dryer Dragon from destroying it by battle, causing Roboppi’s entire strategy to fall apart.
It just irks me when the writers cause the protagonists to make such amateurish mistakes just to make the antagonists look more threatening, especially a duellist of Soulburner’s calibre who should know better. I feel like if they intended to make Soulburner win all along, then he should have survived Roboppi’s turn on his own strength, which I feel would have made more sense for Roboppi to start malfunctioning, making it much more tragic for Soulburner to have to put him down.
For me the best scene of this episode was when Roboppi returns to his original self and we get that beautifully touching scene of Yusaku remembering that Roboppi always made sure his house was clean when he came home, causing me to wonder if Yusaku took Roboppi’s help for granted and is just now realising how much he meant to him. Hindsight is such a beautiful thing isn’t it?
Next week we finally get the long awaited Soulburner VS Revolver duel which has been one of my most anticipated duels this season, and if it’s done right, it has the potential to be one of the best duels in the entire series of Vrains. I look forward to seeing you all next week.
You have to be thankful that Roboppy mulfuntioned because if he didn’t, he would have won. Roboppy cornered Soulburner because he all he needed to do before ending his turn was to declare an Attack(his monsters gained extra Attack from the effect from his new link Monster) but the mulfunction made Roboppy end his turn instead. The mulfunction was Soulburner’s plot armour.
Damn…this is even worse than I thought. I wanted Soulburner to beat Roboppi, but not like this. This is just too painful to watch. And seeing the flashback and how Yusaku and Ai grieving for him made it even more painful. The cute Roboppi is now gone…at least he felt happy in the last moment…(TT_TT)
The fact that Ai addressed the letter only to Yusaku seems to mean that he specifically wants Yusaku to come alone. That message is clearly a letter of challenge. So the only person that Ai wishes to understand his feeling maybe really is Yusaku. The problem is Revolver. He wants to take out Ai alone. I wonder who’ll win between him and Soulburner. As much as I love Revolver, I kinda want to see him lose against someone else other than Yusaku. I’m not counting his duel against Lightning because he cheated at the last second.
With Roboppi gone, Ai is alone now to carry out his plan. Unless he created copies of himself. I wonder if this means that the battle against Ai is nearing the end already. If it is, it’a faster than I expected…
So Roboppi’s dream about him becoming one with the universe was his software trying to warn him that his brain was overloading. Shame he didn’t understand what was happening.
When he reverted back to his original form, did he just get rebooted back to his original level or was he still malfunctioning? It was kind of unclear to me. If it’s the first one, then I don’t think Soulburner really needed to kill Roboppi?
I’m pretty sure he started to malfunction, but I also think the program was about to brick Robopoppi’s system regardless. Yuusaku couldn’t bear to watch him suffer between the two personalities so he had. To make matters worse, they simply couldn’t take any chances either. 🙁
Notice: YGO VRAINS Ep 115 Entry will be released as a double-post with Episode 116 next week. – Eva
it seems according to the magazine cover yugioh vrains will end much earlier then we were thinking