"Aahhh, now that you finish that Battle City review, I imagine you are done talking about that blasted anime-"
"YUGIOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
"Ah God damn it!"
After Battle City, YU-GI-OH faced an unfortunate reality many long running anime face, the concept of filler arcs. It's no secret YU-GI-OH is guilty of this trope already as shown in cases like the Noah arc and whatever the hell Dungeon Dice Monsters was. However, it wasn't until after Battle City where the filler material becomes a sight to behold as they bide a significant amount time before the final major arc. There are three arcs in total, and all three of them vary in quality. On their own, there isn't much to say about them, so I am dedicating this one blog to talking about all three individually. Because I can tell you right now, there is no way Capsule Monsters is interesting enough to warrant its own blog, but I am getting ahead of myself.
So without further ado, let's start off with the most substantial of the filler arcs. It's time to re-re-re-r-e-e-e-e-view!
YU-GI-OH: Waking the Dragons
Waking the Dragons opens to a lot of faffing about that's very similar to Battle City. I won't go into it again. You can just read my previous review. But in short, the same repetitive flashbacks and recap dialogue are back. Thankfully, my inclination to fast forward through these sections has also returned, so they weren't as bad. That said, I will reiterate what I said in that previous review. You will not miss a thing during the flashbacks.
It turns out a lot of things carried over from Battle City and even from Duelist Kingdom. I guess after a show that has been going on for this long, you can expect some retreads. The show opens up with Yugi losing his overpowered cards. In Duelist Kingdom, it is his Exodia. And in Waking the Dragons, it is his Egyptian God cards. However, it isn't as good as Weevil. The Egyptian God cards get stolen which opens up a bunch of plot questions. Since you can apparently use God cards by stealing them as demonstrated by the first duel, one wonders why Marik also didn't pull that dirty trick. And also, if it is possible to use the God cards, why didn't Dartz or his lackeys use them more often? I guess the Seal of Orichalcos has another special ability of being able to hand wave anything established by the previous seasons. So yeah, it's Weevil except less good and interesting.
Another carry over is how the first major duel involves the opponent using Yugi's strongest card as an easy way to raise the stakes. In Battle City, it is the Rare Hunter and his Exodia cards. In Waking the Dragons, it is Gurimo with Obelisk. However, this also falls apart since that Exodia duel has a large amount of build up. You get an entire season without seeing Exodia, so Exodia's return feels impactful. Meanwhile, the last time we see Obelisk used before this duel is three episodes. One episode if you don't count the clip shows. While theoretically, this duel works for raising the stakes. The fact Yugi loses his God cards and then is immediately thrusted into fighting one of them doesn't have any weight. In other words, this duel is the Exodia Rare Hunter duel except less good and interesting.
There are a few other things throughout the show that feel less good and interesting. Kaiba has a rematch duel with Pegasus. And aside from one twist, the duel is less good and interesting. The duel doesn't bring Kaiba into the plot more than it already has aside from arbitrarily giving Kaiba a titular Dragon card (which are the God cards except less good and interesting). And on top of that, the duel lacks the great story that Pegasus v. Kaiba had in Duelist Kingdom. Weevil and Rex are Bulk and Skull from Power Rangers except less good and interesting-wait Power Rangers isn't YU-GI-OH...
You might think overall that Waking the Dragons is a less good and interesting version of Battle City and Duelist Kingdom, and you are basically right. The writing is certainly a massive step down from the previous seasons. For starters, this season goes nuts with plot holes and asinine moments. Now usually, I am more forgiving of that sort of thing because you kind of have to be in order to enjoy YU-GI-OH. However, even this season tested my patience with how sloppy the plot progresses. Obviously, I won't dedicate time into listing all of them in this review. You can watch YU-GI-OH abridged for that. Just know that even the untrained eye will notice a few.
There are some good standouts in this season though. Ironically, the few moments that work in Waking the Dragons happen to also be retreads of YU-GI-OH moments and tropes except this time more good and interesting.
For example, the first duel between Yugi and Raphael seems like a retread of Yugi vs. Kaiba 2 where Yugi loses and has a crisis. If you have seen my Duelist Kingdom review, then you know I hated Yugi vs. Kaiba 2. It didn't feel earned. Yugi is having a crisis over nothing. The results of the episode were a lateral move for Yugi's character and was only designed to have Kaiba face Pegasus.
Yugi vs. Raphael is a vast improvement across the entire board. First of all, Yugi doesn't lose on a technicality thereby preserving his seemingly perfect skill. He gets destroyed. Yugi doesn't lose because of kindness or doing the right thing like his other notable losses in the series. His lost came from his inner flaws. And finally, Yugi doesn't lose just a card game. Yugi loses his soul leaving Yami completely on his own for the rest of the season.
To me, this is where the season starts. Yami's guilt of losing Yugi's soul is the center of what makes this season not as horrible as the Noah arc. It isn't half-ass like a lot of character struggles seen on the show. The idea of feeling guilt of what is essentially a character death is brutal, and I feel Waking the Dragons handles it pretty well.
The duel afterwards, or rather duels, is also a welcome change in the series.
One of my biggest problems with the structure of most of these episodes is how they never have a second duel going during the B-Plot of the episode. It would easily fix the pacing if for example Yugi v. Arcana was going on at the same time as Joey vs. Weevil. And now, we have a case study of this working. The rematches of Yugi vs. Weevil and Joey vs. Rex is one of my favorite episodes from a writing perspective. It's paced well, and they even give both duels a parallel which is something they didn't even need to do to make the episode work. It confounds me that they don't really do this again to my knowledge. I can totally see this setup being used again for a higher stakes episode. Instead, they rather continue reusing flashbacks and characters spouting the same crappy dialogue.
Unfortunately, that is where my compliments end. Back to my complaints, let's talk about the villains.
Now while I praised Raphael earlier, his character is far from perfect. One thing that stands out that is important in any villain character is their backstory and motivation, and the motivations of Raphael and every antagonist in Waking the Dragons are wonky at best. Raphael wants to beat Yugi because he thinks he is evil because he thinks everyone is evil....what? He just presumes Yami is evil without taking into account moral ambiguity. Then there is Alister who wants to beat Kaiba because his dad supplied weapons to a war that killed his family. In other words, he is blaming Kaiba for something his father did and has already made reparations for by shifting the business from arms dealing to fucking children trading cards. Jesus, they have the moral compass of a SJW on Twitter.
Then there is Mai. After being traumatized from her duel with Marik, a neat carry over, Mai finds no fulfillment or happiness from dueling. If only she didn't ditch Joey or her other friends {AGAIN} or started taking therapy and anxiety medication. Maybe she wouldn't feel the need to join a cult! It's the same problem Kaiba has in all these seasons. When you think the character is starting to grow as a person, there will be a new season and all of that growth is thrown out the window. And while we are on the subject of Mai, I hate her new voice actor.
The only villain who kind of works is Valon since his character revolves around his infatuation with Mai and jealousy of Joey. That said, his backstory is practically needless and his cockney/Australian accent may be the worst voice acting performance in the entire series.
The backstories are bad enough until it is revealed Dartz, the main villain, played a hand into everyone's tragic backstory meaning any attempt at ambiguity between them and the protagonists are made completely pointless. Instead, the villains are all tied into a villain who has no personality, with random ass superpowers and resources that only serve whatever plot contrivance is needed for that episode, and an utter shit back story. I remember giving Marik's backstory a hard time, but that came from the frustration of its poor execution. Everything related to Dartz and his goons is bad in concept AND execution.
Don't even get me started on the incessant power creep. Now, power creep was somewhat of a problem in Battle City. The stakes went from grandpa's soul to the end of the world. The Egyptian God cards are clearly overpowered from an anime standpoint. However, they never got ridiculous the way Waking the Dragon does.
Waking the Dragons begins with establishing that both the Egyptian God Cards and any Millennium Item pail in comparison to the Orichalcos (except when it isn't for no reason). Yeah, even though the writers had to nerf Yugi by getting rid of his God cards, they also had to established they wouldn't work anyway by showing the God cards getting possessed by the Orichalcos. And before the season ends, the God cards become obsolete with how insane some of the cards used which feels off. After all, they're Gods after all.
Valon's cards are nuts. His armor cards can destroy any monster, deal high amounts of damage, redirect attacks, and can't be stopped by trap cards. He also has a card that allows him to draw ten fucking cards. These cards were clearly designed by anime writers rather than actual card game designers. The Orichalcos card itself allows monsters to be put in the backrow making them immune to attacks so long as there are monsters in the front row. And finally, the climatic duel with Dartz has to be one of the most pointlessly over the top duels in YU-GI-OH. I never thought I see a narrative equivalent of someone using an everything-proof shield, but Dartz managed to pull it off.
This duel sucks. The supernatural twist of the final battle is just a less good and interesting version of Yami Marik holding regular Marik hostage. The ending moment that saves the day is just arbitrary deus ex machina magic that's neither clever or gives the characters any dramatic pay off. It seems Waking the Dragons was more about making Dartz as overpowered as possible to give the impression that he is intimidating. Instead, he is less good and interesting than any YU-GI-OH villain in the series thus far.
It's like a little brother trying to top his older sibling. Anything brother can do, the little brother is going to try to one up him only in a less good and interesting way. He is going to try to be cooler too by adding motorcycles, more edgelords, and monsters wearing duel discs-wait WHAT!
All of this is rather cringe. You can almost say that it is less good and interesting than any cool thing YU-GI-OH has done. Although, in fairness, it is hard to top Gaia being catapulted into a flying castle.
That's Waking the Dragons. A less good and interesting season that's all over the place. Any good ideas are generally overshadowed by how boring and needless this season felt. However, at least it isn't as boring and needless as the Noah arc, so I will give it that.
YU-GI-OH: Grand Championship
It's fun because of what it doesn't do compared to other arcs. There aren't uninteresting world ending stakes. There aren't constant flashbacks breaking up the pace. Dialogue, while still bad, doesn't have to have to recap everything since the season is shorter and episodes are more self-contained. The season is just a nice and laid back season where one can enjoy a handful of children card games.
Most of the duels are great. There is always a back and forth. They're creatively written. The duels don't go on for too long taking only one to two episodes to resolve. This is thanks in part to the aforementioned better pacing. We don't have to be reminded of the world ending stakes or the character's backstory. It is just these great duelists and Joey duking it out.
It is very similar to the Pokémon league in the Pokémon anime where the filler is nonexistent and it is just battles! The only difference is the one off competitors are not as interesting as the ones in the Pokémon league. I suppose you can say they are an acquired taste, but I wish the show put in a little more effort than Abe the Monkey Boy. Pokémon did a fabulous job making the one-off characters work like Jeanette Fisher or Mandi.
It's a missed opportunity more than a problem. YU-GI-OH doesn't do a great job showing the pantheon of great duelists around the world that aren't the main characters. If this season was longer, they could have totally explore these one off characters. If you want, they could even have incorporate them more into the plot. One idea would be to hide the identity of the main villain instead of outright saying it is Ziegfried. The season could have had a nice who-dun-it scenario. Instead, they basically pull another Odion is Marik deal where the idea could have worked if the audience actually wasn't told the twist beforehand.
But oh yeah, I just mentioned Ziegfried. The new villain who is totally not Pegasus with a hilarious German accent. I can't help it. I love this character. His one liners and puns are hilarious. The voice actor gives such a hammy performance. It's all great. And unlike Dartz, he actually has a personality.
Grand Championship as a whole is just refreshing because it isn't so full of itself. It can almost be described as self-aware. There is a sequence where Vivian, a minor villain, kidnaps Grandpa Muto, and it may be the first time I genuinely laughed at something that wasn't unintentionally funny. It's great, and Vivian is a perfect example of a one-off character that works well. I wish they applied that to the other characters. She is at least better than Johnny Steps, ugh.
But yeah, the show is corny. The dialogue is just as repetitive and cringe as ever. One thing I neglected in my Waking the Dragons review was how many times someone says "LOOK OUT" when drawing a card. I also imagine the writers started a running bet to see how many times they could get Tea to say "I need some female friends!" Because Lord knows, they have to give Tea something to do on top of her just being there giving unneeded emotional support. I suppose they also give her this love triangle thing with Rebecca and Yugi, but that literally goes no where to the point where I am wondering why I am bothering mentioning it in this review. It's not like YU-GI-OH was ever compelled to have romantic payoffs, but I digress.
Overall, Grand Championship is great. A few nitpicks and missed opportunities here and there as well the same ol YU-GI-OH cringe that we're used too, but nothing that is a major detriment to the show. That is until the last few episodes.
This leads to my final caveat of Grand Championship which is that the final duel doesn't land the plane smoothly. The final duel involves Yugi going against a character named Leon who is revealed to be Ziegfried's brother. It's an admittedly easy twist to see coming. After all, both characters have pink hair and they give Leon more screen time which signals that is he going to be important later on. To be honest, I didn't see it coming when I was a kid. But then again, I was a kid who watched YU-GI-OH, I wouldn't exactly be the demographic to see these things coming.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with the twist. My problem is that the final duel leaves a lot to be desired. There aren't really stakes involved in the final duel despite the show trying to incorporate stakes. Ziegfried announces to the world that he hacked in the Kaibacorp database and implemented a virus, except the virus is not a problem since Kaiba implies that the data is backed up. Also, why would Ziegfried announce something that is clearly illegal on international television? Are there any cops in YU-GI-OH? Wouldn't Leon cheating completely invalidate his win regardless of the outcome of the duel because it is obvious to an international audience that he's cheating? If Ziegfried was simply out of the picture and not running his mouth, this set up might potentially work, but his villain monologuing leaves the viewer with more questions than excitement.
There's questions even up to this point. There is a scene where Ziegfried accuses Kaiba of stealing a patent to which Kaiba states that he hasn't stolen a thing in his life. I guess forcing a frail old man into a duel that will ultimately guarantee you the rare card you wanted or threatening to commit suicide in order to snatch a W isn't technically stealing. Granted, continuity is absolutely fucked in the YU-GI-OH world. Kaiba was also a high school student until he wasn't for some reason. The rest of the cast is still in the school even as it becomes increasingly irrelevant as the series goes on.
"It's not like Yugi to skip school," says Tea during Waking the Dragons. "That's right Tea," says me. "Usually you guys will skip whole semesters or however length of time each arc lasts, but a few days is weird."
It's rough. It's about as rough as the animation which is downright awful. Again, I am pretty forgiving because it's YU-GI-OH. But even when I was kid, I noticed the stilted character animations and horrible backgrounds.
Grand Championship, like any arc in YU-GI-OH, has its warts. However, Grand Championship sticks to the fundamentals at what makes YU-GI-OH work better than any arc in the original series. It lacks padding, the characters are endearing & straightforward, and there is a lot of creativity. But most importantly, Grand Championship focuses on what makes us likes watching YU-GI-OH, and that is we like watching people play YU-GI-OH. I only hope the next season follows the precedent Grand Championship set-oh never mind.
YU-GI-OH: Capsule Monsters
To the show's credit, it isn't a slog. There are only 12 episodes, so it doesn't drag on like Waking the Dragons or parts of Battle City. Another quality is that the premise which while iterative is something I welcome. I wouldn't mind a Digimon rip off. And if Duelist Kingdom taught me anything, YU-GI-OH could do an excellent job with this premise if they put in some of their creativity.
However, that's sort of the critical miss with Capsule Monsters. There isn't that creative touch that was seen in Duelist Kingdom. There isn't Gaia getting catapulted into a castle. There isn't a Giant Soldier of Stone stabbing the moon or Kunai with Chain fishing out a shadow monster. There is only one clever idea in the entire season and it was made by Tea, fucking Tea. Beyond that, nothing goes past the idea of {insert thing} is weak to {insert other thing}. It's like Pokémon except very surface level because at least Pokémon got creative too such as the Surge battle where Pikachu used his tail to avoid electricity.
It leaves Capsule Monsters without any bite. The animation is not good, so the spectacle of YU-GI-OH monsters fighting isn't that good to look at. And since there are no magic or trap cards to supplement the monsters used, we are really left with just the characters and the story to try to engage us. And honestly, there is not much in that category either.
The inciting incident is convoluted when you consider that they could have simply done another simulation premise like Legendary Heroes or the Noah arc except more streamlined. A lot of the conflict is characters fighting a series of creatures in the YU-GI-OH bestiary. This premise would have been fine without a villain or narrative intrigue. It could have a been a low stakes thing like Grand Championship. Instead, they contrived an arbitrary thing where they flew the characters to a foreign country where they then find another ancient temple that teleports them to a fantasy world. There's a villain that has no relevancy to the plot until literally last few episodes of the season. Oh and also Grandpa is coincidentally there as well, but it is best not to overthink that. Then most episodes progress by characters just meandering into the next section of the plot. It's about an unexciting as you can imagine.
The only real draw is when a character discovers a new capsule which doesn't happen often enough. With how short this season is, you would expect they would cram as many monsters as they can.
To finish my piece, Capsule Monsters is very skippable. It's only saving grace is that it isn't a 40-episode waste of time.
So those are the filler arcs. You got a bloated filler arc trying to be a main arc, an really solid filler arc that should have been a main arc, and an arc that could have greatly benefited by better animation, better writing, and just about better everything. But hey, 1 in 3 isn't so bad for filler arcs as far as I am concern. But with that, I am glad I am done. Now that we got those out of the way, the real fun can begin, or so I hope.
