Episode 36
After undergoing a successful surgery, Yusei is in recovery mode so we finally get to see some development with the twins and Aki. For better or worse, Luca managed to get into contact with Aki after Lua successfully persuades Yanagi and Himuro that they should contact the Acardia Movement to reach Aki. Except… it came with a price: Yanagi and Himuro are cast into a cell somewhere, Luca was captured by the Arcadia Movement, and Lua was forced into a test against Divine to see if he had any powers.
The whole plan was stupid from the start considering Himuro and Yanagi were well aware of the unsavory rumors surrounding the Arcadia Movement, and in the end, against their better interests (namely Himuro who has shown to express the need to be cautious) ended up agreeing to go along with a naive kid’s plan. I would say the biggest blunder was not to think Luca wouldn’t be a target of interest. But I suppose they didn’t actually think the Arcadia Movement had any information on her.
Lua found himself in a world of pain and trouble when he naively thought he could just ask Divine if they could get into contact with Aki and receive the Arcadia Movement’s support for fighting against the Dark Signers. Divine already had his eyes set on Luca since he knows she has unique powers, but intended to test Lua to see if he had any of his own. To do so, he challenged him to a duel since the best way to draw out one’s power is to corner them to the point to forcefully awaken it. Unfortunately for Lua’s case, as much as he’d like to have special powers of his own, nothing of the sort happened and he ended up losing. But if there was one thing we did see, was that Power Tool Dragon does have a very special connection to Lua, as we can see it was truly concerned about his condition, and kept his eyes on him until he disappeared.
Divine further elaborated on the Arcadia Movement’s true objective, which is to recruit Psychic Duelists to train into soldiers, and then wage a war against the society that have made them outcasts. Aki is among the many who have been unknowingly exploited for being treated like a monster and with no place to go. But ever since her duel with Yusei, Aki’s closely guarded heart is now wavering. Now that she has met someone who had truly responded to the cries in her heart, and willing to embrace her pain and grief, the need to lash out has calmed down a bit. Divine revealed to us today that for Aki’s case, the strength of her are drawn from the violence in her heart. Without it, her powers will steadily weaken/decrease. So in order to keep her in “shape”, Divine wants to make sure she is still motivated for revenge. And he does this by re-enforces his manipulation when he reminds her how he is the only one who understands her, he is the one who gave her shelter and a place to belong, and that she owes him a debt of gratitude. It’s pretty disgusting really.
And we can see just how much she has been conditioned by him by the fact she doesn’t even blink when she sees the sort of tests people, even young children like Lua is put through. The poor kid was chained down and unable to run, and even when he gets hit by Divine’s powers, while the chain prevents him from going flying, it’s a sure way to just break his ankle (not that we actually see that play out).
As for Luca, she can’t really do much right now but wait. However if there was anything she can do right now, it would be to capitalize on communicating with Aki, but obviously (and understandably), Lua is her first and foremost concern at the moment.
Episode 37
Himuro and Yanagi wake up to find themselves in a cell, to which Himuro basically says “I told you so, and they are probably after Luca”. Well gee, it’s a little late for that don’t you think?
We continue to see the horrors of the Arcadia Movement when Carly decides to pursue investigating it at her own peril. She has been warned by many to steer clear of them, but her desire to find a way to be helpful and stay connected to Jack won against her better interests. Jack had parted ways with her because he didn’t want to drag her into the conflict. Unfortunately for him, she is a bit blinded by love at the moment (she is already freaking imagined the two married with a baby! CARLY PLEASE!), so she was being rather reckless today.
And Carly certainly dug her own grave with how impatient she was. It would have been better just to get the hell out of there after she accidentally encountered Divine and Aki while snooping around for clues. But the temptation to investigate after locating Divine’s office won her over, and she ended up being caught red-handed and then killed after being thrown out the window. As an inexperienced duelist, Carly stood no chance against Divine, and even if she did somehow win, I highly doubt Divine would have allowed her to live anyways. The only reason he didn’t kill Lua was because he is using him as a card to persuade Luca into joining them.
Unfortunately since Carly got herself killed, she will not be able to share any of the dirt she found on the Acadia Movement, as well as Godwin’s secret they are using as their leverage to keep Public Security at their mercy with the others, but at least we got to learn about some things. Turns out Godwin is actually originally from Satellite, (is anyone really surprised though?), and the truth of his origins is why the Public Security have not been able to crack down and investigate the people that have gone missing. As far as the public is concerned, they believe that he is the one who created Satellite. Frankly the truth doesn’t make Godwin look any better considering the unjust discrimination the residents of Satellite are subjected to. Just as Yusei has said, Godwin has the power to change things, and he hasn’t and isn’t doing shit.
We also learned that Misty, who had foretold of Carly’s impending doom is someone who wants revenge against Aki for supposedly being responsible for killing her brother. All we know is that her brother had went missing after he went to watch a duel in the Daimon Area. He was found a few days later, but was not the same. Word has it that it was the work of the witch, however the investigation was never properly carried out because of the leverage the have against Godwin. It is a bit unclear whether he is actually “dead” or whatever he had gone had simply messed him up to the point he can’t live normally anymore.
Interestingly in contrast to this report, we do get to see Aki show a subtly softer side to others when she expresses she doesn’t wish for Luca to suffer the way she has growing up, and had asked Divine not to hurt Lua any further (not that the guy intends to keep his word the moment he decides Lua is useless to him). She probably wouldn’t have done this in the past considering there would be no purpose of doing so, and not to mention, she was repeating Divine’s mantra to a T. After-all, he has spent a lot of time grooming her to serve as their organization’s poster child, and that’s exactly the reason why he allowed her to participate in the Fortune Cup.
In the meantime, Yusei is grasping with the fear that Kiryuu has instilled into him. The duel left him a bit traumatized (NO WONDER, WHO WOULDN’T BE SCARED AFTER A GIANT HAND ALMOST CRUSHES YOU?!) and he knows he’s not ready to go up against him just yet. So for the mean time, he is just chilling and continuing his recovery until his D-Wheel gets repaired and sorted out.
As for Jack, oof… he parted ways with Carly because he wanted to keep her safe, but oh boy, how is he going to handle the news when he learns she was killed? The two haven’t been living together for too long, but while Carly fell for him hard, it seems more along the lines that Jack has developed a soft spot for her. Whether he truly fallen for her as much as she has is yet to be seen.
Next Entry Release: Wednesday, December 22, 2021
