Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s Episode 40 & 41

Not gonna lie, this is a REALLLLLLL cheesy get-together set-up. Maybe it wasn’t so much when I watched it the first time, but now there were definitely a few cringe lines that were too much for me.

With Aki admitted to the hospital, her parents finally decided to show up to show they actually care. I don’t know about you, but I was sure rolling my eyes super hard when we got the backstory. We see how Aki’s father shoulders the brunt of the blame, but I mean… I think her mother needs to be called out on this too. Sure her dad was busy with work and broke promises a bazillion times with her, but while all of that was happening, what the heck was her mom doing? Like what the heck has she done to try and improve the situation? Because from what we’ve seen, absolutely nothing. In fact we don’t even get to see any sort of relationship between her and her mother, just her dad-which begs the question of why did they even bother making her character a part of this in the first place?

Anyways, her parents messed up spectacularly by not helping her when she was crying for help, instead they called her a monster, shunned her by enrolling her into Duel Academy to get her away from them, hell her father even hit her once- seriously ‘WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU’!? And for the love of God, what were they expecting to happen by sending her away to the academy? To magically get control of her powers? Be welcomed by her peers? As if that was going to happen in that environment.

So frankly, I think it would only be fair to say they are equally both to blame, and now (thanks to Jack’s referral) they are shoving the responsibility onto Yusei to save her. And we all know that’s really not fair to Yusei, especially since has a lot on his own plate right now. We saw how he wasn’t emotionally ready to help anyone when he had stopped believing in himself. But Martha saw this as an opportunity for Yusei to get his head out of the sand of fear dominating his heart and to go out and help Aki.

…Except here’s the kicker: Unless Martha had actually watched the Fortune Cup and seen what Yusei had gone through, I get the feeling she wasn’t quite aware of what Aki is truly capable of. Her father’s story really doesn’t sum up the extent of her powers apart from the fact it scared him enough to call her a monster for it. But if she was aware, man poor Yusei, nobody’s cutting him some slack. So now he had go get beaten up yet again….

But of course someone gotta save the girl, and if it’s if not Yusei, then who will?

As expected, having lost Divine, Aki had a mental breakdown and feels like she lost the only place she felt she could call home so now she wants to destroy the world. At this point even though Yusei has helped her in the past, she still didn’t trust him and considered him an enemy. Can’t really blame her when he shows up alongside her parents, but at least he has a whole lot more courage than her parents. It took Yusei taking several hits before her father decided to stop being a bloody coward and do what he should have done when Aki used her powers for the first time: Hug her and tell her everything is going to be okay. This is why Divine was able to exploit her so easily. He did what her parents failed to do, tell her he will accept her, she has a home, she’s safe there, and embraced her for who she is. And worst of all, when he did that, Aki fell into the mentality that it’d be easier for him to think for her as her guide, instead of thinking for herself.

But for the first time, we actually saw Aki think for herself, and that contributed to helping her take back control of her powers that had gone haywire. You’d think this is something they would be learning at the Arcadia Movement, but Divine wants his soldiers to be driven by grief and anger in order to weaponize malice, so learning to control one’s powers was not part of his playbook. And this was incredibly important because not only was she able to protect her father from being hit from flying debris that could’ve done a number on him, but it also provided her a sense of hope and relief that she’s going to be okay.

With the misunderstanding and tension between Aki and her parents have been resolved and now she is officially part of the Crimson Signers group, which is good news for Yusei because that means one less person out for blood against him. But now he must face his fear of battling Kiryuu and resolve the misunderstanding that has unfolded between them.

Last but not least, I must say, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how absurdly large Aki’s hospital room was. I also burst out laughing when Luca was like “How could we open Aki’s Heart?” and Jack just flatly responded with, “I don’t want to get to know her, but I know who can.” That’s typical Jack for you. Unless Carly is involved.

The next entry will be released on *February 23, 2022.
Since this month’s entry was released early, we’re resuming the usual schedule of the fourth week of the month in February again.