Episode 16
It is time for my best girl Aki to make her debut on the tournament state, and goodness it couldn’t be a more dreadful start. There was a lot of symbolism involved with having a Knight (of all people) be the notorious Black Rose Witch’s first opponent. In fact it’s quite disgusting how Godwin had deliberately arranged this match-up, and to Aki’s credit, she was able she maintained a tough exterior, unflinching in face of the onslaught of attacks and scorns from both her opponent and the audience when her psychic powers created mayhem.
Bearing that in mind, it comes as no surprise why she would deliberately limit her verbal exchange with her opponent. But because she didn’t have that, the way they helped us get to know her character a bit more was through her deck and the way she duels. This is also why I love her deck so much. Besides the deck’s haunting yet beautiful design (Black Rose Dragon is amazing, I am obsessed with its eerie design), the aspect I appreciate the most is how the way it is presented to us. Her deck embodies the struggles and insecurities she is hiding behind the mask of her pain. A good example of this was when Bommer claims her strategy is to hide among the trees to protect herself. He isn’t too far off the mark with the way both Black Garden and the Rose Tokens helped shield her from the crowd’s animosity.
Although she did not cause the Moment reactor to respond as Jack and Yusei had one, all her fellow Signers in the arena experienced discomfort from their respective marks when Black Rose Dragon was called onto the field. While this is in part of the Dragons making their presence known, since Luca had mentioned she sensed Aki’s deck was suffering, one could interpreted it as a cry for help to her fellow Signers.
As for the Knight, (seriously Godwin has some of the weirdest agents), as silly as he looked, let’s be real here: Of all the participants, he is undoubtedly one of the more suitable opponents to face her just because he is wearing a freaking armor to complete the image of his knighthood. I mean when you think about it, most opponents who face her aren’t wearing protective gear because there isn’t supposed to be physical impact, so while he still got hurt from the final blow, I think it’s fair to say it probably helped him at least a little bit. Unless his whole outfit was actually fake, haha, whelp.
Overall this was very straight-forward episode that really didn’t have much going on outside of demonstrating what Aki is capable of and getting to know her character a bit more after her incredibly brief introduction.
Episode 17
This episode made me laugh about because it involved both Yusei and his opponent Mukuro shitting all over Godwin’s plans. First Yusei has no plans of using Stardust Dragon until he goes up against Jack. (After-all, since he was able to get this far with the help of Junk Warrior, Nitro Warrior, Turbo Warrior.) Then Mukuro Enjo hijacked the match after beating up Shira (Yusei’s original opponent and one of Godwin’s Assassins) and stealing his clothes until the match itself started. I very much welcomed Enjo crashing the party because Godwin had plans of putting Yusei through yet another torture session with a dreadful opponent who Himuro warned him of his notorious reputation. For Gods’ sakes, that creepy clown even said, “You must hurt him as much as possible during the duel to collect data”!
That being said, despite the crowd being against Yusei due to his Marker, he was able to enjoy the duel thanks to having Mukuro as his opponent. And I gotta say, Mukuro Enjo is a cool guy and ought to be respected for his unwavering resolve to defeat Jack. Heck even though he had lost, he wasn’t a sore loser about it and was even laughing about it afterwards. I’ll have him fight Yusei any day over Godwin’s agents.
Speaking of the devil, although things didn’t go according to plan, Godwin remain unfazed by the lack of results due to his belief that Mukuro was too weak. However it seems he has more terrible plans in store for him, and Jack finally caught on that Godwin is puling some dirty tricks in this tournamen — not that he is going to get any real answers or is really able to do anything about it. (Sucks to be him).
Next time, Godwin finds a way to drag Luca onto the stage.
Ohohoho OH my…you are NOT going to like what comes in the next few duels on behalf of Godwin…egads he is vile…
Notice: Episode 18 & 19 will be released as a doublepost next week.
Notice: There will be no new entries this week. A situation has come up where we needed to take my grandmother into our care and she requires supervision until things are sorted out. Thank you for understanding.