Thread: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal

Originally Posted by Rio Kamishiro

To me, I've never found Yuma annoying at all. He makes a good main character to me, starting out bad but making his way up to being a good duelist. And besides, he had to be different in some way from the other protagonists. It would be incredibly boring if all protagonists had the same dueling skills and personality.

I'm fine with Yuma being different from the other protagonists, but I still think that they could have done a much better with making his personality less annoying. I also never implied that all of the protagonists should have the same personality. Yugi, Judai and Yusei were all great duelists from the start, but they didn't have the same personalities by any means. I just find Yuma completely annoying and borderline unlikable because of his behavior. It's fine that other people like him since that's a matter of taste, although I do feel like the odd person out with apparently being the only one who does dislike Yuma. I still think that the idea behind Yuma's character is good, but it just suffers from poor execution, just like a lot of the good ideas in this show.

The only thing I could find potentially unlikable about Yuma is that he's stupid, but other than that, I think he's just fine. I mean, there's no right or wrong opinion to this, but I actually think Yuma is the best protagonist out of all the YGO series.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

Originally Posted by Rio Kamishiro

To me, I've never found Yuma annoying at all. He makes a good main character to me, starting out bad but making his way up to being a good duelist. And besides, he had to be different in some way from the other protagonists. It would be incredibly boring if all protagonists had the same dueling skills and personality.

I'm fine with Yuma being different from the other protagonists, but I still think that they could have done a much better with making his personality less annoying. I also never implied that all of the protagonists should have the same personality. Yugi, Judai and Yusei were all great duelists from the start, but they didn't have the same personalities by any means. I just find Yuma completely annoying and borderline unlikable because of his behavior. It's fine that other people like him since that's a matter of taste, although I do feel like the odd person out with apparently being the only one who does dislike Yuma. I still think that the idea behind Yuma's character is good, but it just suffers from poor execution, just like a lot of the good ideas in this show.

I like Yuma because his view on dueling and his drive like I said reminds me of another anime character. Everyone has their own opinion though of course. I can't say yuma annoys me because I'm used to the personality though I can say that when he goes and does things "Shark, Shark!" or the same with Kaito I get annoyed. I see it all the time, the cool guy friends with the idiot and the idiot chasing after him. It ruins the characters for me.

Yuma is my favourite protagonist and Zexal is my favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! saga. If I had to pick which one of the four I'd want to see as a child, I'd pick Zexal.

Oh and:

Aki and Asuka

There is no way that that's a coincidence.

Originally Posted by Human

Yuma is my favourite protagonist and Zexal is my favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! saga. If I had to pick which one of the four I'd want to see as a child, I'd pick Zexal.

Oh and:

Aki and Asuka

There is no way that that's a coincidence.

Easter eggs gotta love them. We should start looking for Tea as well as Yugi, Jaden, and Yusei

Originally Posted by Human

Yuma is my favourite protagonist and Zexal is my favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! saga. If I had to pick which one of the four I'd want to see as a child, I'd pick Zexal.

I guess I'm the only one here who really dislikes Zexal. The only reason that surprises me is because on other sites I've visited, the majority tends to dislike Yuma and Zexal in general, but this is a matter of tastes, so it's to be expected. Yuma is still my least favorite protagonists. I could at least tolerate the other characters and feel invested in their stories. I don't really get that feeling with Yuma and he's far too annoying for my tastes. I thought Judai could be annoying at times too, but he was still a likable goof and they didn't go to the extremes to make him look like a joke like they've done with Yuma. I'm not sure if I'd feel any different about Zexal if I was little. Some of the problems might not bother me as much as they do now, but I'd choose DM and 5D's over Zexal. Nothing about Zexal's storyline or characters makes me as excited as those two series did and even GX had much more likable characters that I could feel invested in than Zexal has. Not to mention that GX, despite its massive amount of flaws it had right from the start, was still fun for me to watch at the end of the day and Zexal has yet to give me a similar feeling. I don't think that I would feel that different about Zexal if I was little. At best, I'd probably be able to tolerate the series and/or the characters more than I do now.

Originally Posted by Human

Oh and:

Aki and Asuka

There is no way that that's a coincidence.

Yeah, those are kind of weird Easter Eggs. I don't know if I'd like to see something like that more often though.

Myself, Zexal is my absolute favorite YGO series, possibly my favorite anime in general.

My order is:
Zexal > 5D's > GX > DM

But yeah, the series does have a lot of people who dislike it. I never really see any of the hate, though, since I only really see the fanbase on tumblr, who loves the series. XD

Since it is quite different from the other series though, in aesthetics and just in general, I can understand the torn YGO fandom. But I know I've certainly been enjoying it, even though I thought it looked completely stupid from preview images. Once I finally forced myself to watch it, I fell in love with the series.

Originally Posted by FinalArcadia

Myself, Zexal is my absolute favorite YGO series, possibly my favorite anime in general.

My order is:
Zexal > 5D's > GX > DM

But yeah, the series does have a lot of people who dislike it. I never really see any of the hate, though, since I only really see the fanbase on tumblr, who loves the series. XD

I don't really go on tumblr, although I've seen a few images from the site to know that they do love the series, so that might be why seeing a lot of praise for the series is a bit surprising for me.

Originally Posted by FinalArcadia

Since it is quite different from the other series though, in aesthetics and just in general, I can understand the torn YGO fandom. But I know I've certainly been enjoying it, even though I thought it looked completely stupid from preview images. Once I finally forced myself to watch it, I fell in love with the series.

I don't know if being so different from the other series in aesthetics and in general is why the majority of people don't like it. It could be a factor, but one could make argument with GX and 5D's as well and both of those series have plenty of fans, although probably more so with 5D's than with GX. I think it's a combination of an annoying main character, a bunch of uninteresting side characters and poor pacing. Even with how one could make a decent argument of how the series has improved since it began, those first few episodes were probably a turn-off for a lot of people. While I actually liked the first match between Yuma and Shark and thought it made for a decent start to the series, pretty much all the duels until their rematch didn't really do much to advance the story aside from Astral maybe getting a new memory and almost all of those duels dragged on far too long. The series is more interesting to watch and there are more enjoyable episodes, although I still hesitate to say that it's better considering that most of the problems are still there, but it's probably too little, too late for a lot of people to see anything different in Zexal at this point.

I can say the first few did make it difficult to get into and they could have paced it slower and took their time with the revealing of things while of course shortening the duels. Zexal is the only one I've ever kept up with but I liked GX and the original though I couldn't get into 5Ds

I had the impression that the pacing was too slow, rather than too fast. That kind of pacing could have worked, but they didn't really make that much progression with the plot aside from Astral occasionally getting a new piece of his memory until Kaito showed up, although the episodes focused on Shark were important too, and the first few duels after the match against Shark easily could have been reduced to one episodes or not even happen at all with the case of Yuma's duel against Fuya. I kind of liked that duel, but it could have been skipped altogether, even with getting another piece of Astral's memories. I think that they could have used the first few episodes to flesh out the characters' personalities some more so that the audience could actually care more about what was going on. I still remember how they were pulling the whole save the city from a widespread virus in the third episode when there hadn't been nearly enough time spent with the characters to make me care about if the city's mainframe was going to get a virus.

I honestly don't think that the the start to the WDC arc helped either. Tournaments are usually a good arcs for this franchise and I was hoping that the series would start improving then, but this had just a terrible start. I still think that Yuma dueling against people who weren't involved with the plot at all for five episodes and not even having him meet some of the new villains until the second day of the tournament was a horrible decision. Most of those duels were boring, it showed how selfish Yuma was for caring more about getting heart pieces than helping Astral and some of them felt like a complete waste of time. If he only had one or two opponents that weren't connected to the plot, then it maybe it wouldn't have been as bad, but the tournament didn't really pick up for me until Yuma vs. III, although I thought that Shark vs. III was an overall better match since I like Shark and the match actually made sense. The arc did get much more tolerable and interesting once they finally decided to focus on the plot, but those ridiculous and comical duels did not help get people into the series. Watching the dubbed episodes of this arc reminds me of how much I disliked the first few episodes of the WDC tournament.

I couldn't get into 5Ds a few years ago. I've been watching it again recently and its flaws are really getting on my nerves again. Yusei was portrayed to be waaaaayyyyy too flawless. I raged when he was brought back to life with no explanation whatsoever other than "You're the main character. You need to be alive.". The plot of the Dark Signers was so overly exaggerated that any sense of realism that would make me care for the characters, other than the best character from 5Ds IMO, Carly, disappeared. Fuya's story about being a star that couldn't be himself entertained and compelled me waaayy more than Aki's. Heck, Cat-chan's character development and plot made more of an impact on me. Why did Aki's plot turn out to be as entertaining as watching paint dry to me? Because she turned out to be horribly bland and her plot was overly exaggerated.

Maybe if I was a girl, I might have swooned over Yusei's looks and just forgot all of the horrible writing surrounding him and the series as a whole. I'd say 5Ds was just decent. It was waaayyyy too dark, I couldn't catch a proper break and most of the characters bored me.

As I rewatch 5Ds, I'm not getting the same excitement and drive to watch the next episode that Zexal gave me all the time. In just a week and a half, I watched up till episode 66 of Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. To reach 5Ds' episode 66 a few years ago, it took me a month. I even had more free time with 5Ds!

I haven't gotten past episode 7 I think of 5Ds and the way they jump into 5Ds with Jack already being in that place and whatever. I actually don't see a reason to fangirl over Yusei. I like that Zexal doesn't make all duels about numbers. It's nice to have some relaxing time to just enjoy the fun duels of it instead of Astral nearly dieing in every duel.

Originally Posted by Midorikawa

I haven't gotten past episode 7 I think of 5Ds and the way they jump into 5Ds with Jack already being in that place and whatever.

The pacing of 5Ds' start was just horrible IMO. I honestly hated how many of the questions I had about the Satellite could have been answered early in on the series, but instead were answered later on. The plot didn't unfold or start well. Too many stuff was happening in just a few amount of episodes. Zexal's suffered somehow from having its first 10 or so episodes be extremely formulaic, but I couldn't say that I didn't love it since it worked so well. Yusei's lack of energy to bring some spice to the show and his countless wins bothered me to no end. Heck, he become the King by the 26th episode! When his first duel against Kiryu ended badly with the duel stopping,(with him not officially losing!) I actually started to like Yusei. Then when his duel against Goodwin's brother pointed out that Dark Signer duels couldn't be stopped, despite the fact that in his duel against Kiryu, Kiryu stopped the duel, I turned back to finding his blandness to be annoying and boring again. Pfft, Goodwin's brother could have just beat Yusei and be done with him already instead of running away to give him another chance for no reason. Basically, Yusei had 3 chances to permanently die, but was saved through an inconsistency, lack of any plausible reason for any of the Dark Signers to spare him twice, and his father having the power to revive his own son.... with no explanation. Actually, he had another chance of dying in the Dark Signer arc. When Goodwin used his Earthbound God to make Yusei's life points drop to 1, he didn't fall like Crow and Jack, instead, he still managed to stay on ground. Why?

Yeah, I might have liked 5Ds more if Yusei and the plots were handled better.

Originally Posted by Human

I couldn't get into 5Ds a few years ago. I've been watching it again recently and its flaws are really getting on my nerves again. Yusei was portrayed to be waaaaayyyyy too flawless. I raged when he was brought back to life with no explanation whatsoever other than "You're the main character. You need to be alive.". The plot of the Dark Signers was so overly exaggerated that any sense of realism that would make me care for the characters, other than the best character from 5Ds IMO, Carly, disappeared. Fuya's story about being a star that couldn't be himself entertained and compelled me waaayy more than Aki's. Heck, Cat-chan's character development and plot made more of an impact on me. Why did Aki's plot turn out to be as entertaining as watching paint dry to me? Because she turned out to be horribly bland and her plot was overly exaggerated.

Yusei was shown to have flaws at least at the start of the series with taking such risks over getting his D-Wheel and Stardust Dragon card back, but as the series progressed, they did seem to make him look more flawless. That honestly didn't bother me that much since he was still pretty likeable. As for why he came back to life, I thought that there was an explanation with his father saving him so that he could undo the damage that he, in a sense at least, caused. I actually liked the plot for the Dark Signer arc. There wasn't as much realism as there was in the first arc, but there were signs in it and Yu-Gi-Oh! without some kind of magic/evil forces would be kind of weird at this point anyway. Carly was great in the Dark Signer arc and I really liked her. It was a shame that she basically turned into a Jack fangirl in the arcs afterwards, but she was still more fun than the other two girls in Jack's harem and I still love the JackxCarly pairing. Fuya's story was a lot better than the majority of the one-shot duelists in Zexal and I liked him, but I don't think I was more compelled with it than I was with Aki's story. Cathy's growth is arguable at best and I don't care for her at all, especially when she's been basically reduced to comical relief with scratching anyone who insults Yuma because she's that obsessed about him. While Aki's story wasn't handled as well as it could have been, it was still interesting to see a female lead so drastically different in demeanor and personality. Though, that did kind of disappear after the Dark Signer arc where she did become a bland benchwarmer and all of the conflicts that could have come up from her days as the Black Rose, like how she could have killed people without knowing it, were ignored. Kind of a shame really, but I'd take her over Cathy anytime. At least Aki had more personality from the start that she sadly lost over time, while I don't think Cathy had much to begin with.

Originally Posted by Human

Maybe if I was a girl, I might have swooned over Yusei's looks and just forgot all of the horrible writing surrounding him and the series as a whole. I'd say 5Ds was just decent. It was waaayyyy too dark, I couldn't catch a proper break and most of the characters bored me.

I'm a girl and I don't do anything like that with either 5D's or any shows with lead characters that have appealing designs for girls. If I think something is written horrible, I mention it, regardless of the designs for the characters. I don't know if 5D's was way too dark. It had a darker tone than GX did for the most part, but it didn't feel that much darker than DM or even the Dark World arc in GX. Most of the characters started off well enough for me, although some of them like Aki and Ruka became boring later on unfortunately, it did have pacing problems after the Dark Signer arc, the WRGP was a good idea poorly executed, especially with Yusei winning nearly every match for Team 5D's, and until Aporia came up, the villains in the post-Dark Signer arc were pretty weak. Most of the characters in 5D's, including Yusei, are more interesting to me than the vast majority of the Zexal cast. Honestly, I think that 5D's could have been the best Yu-Gi-Oh! series if it hadn't had such huge problems in the later arcs, but it's still my favorite series thus far.

Originally Posted by Human

As I rewatch 5Ds, I'm not getting the same excitement and drive to watch the next episode that Zexal gave me all the time. In just a week and a half, I watched up till episode 66 of Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. To reach 5Ds' episode 66 a few years ago, it took me a month. I even had more free time with 5Ds!

I'm pretty much the exact opposite with how 5D's gets me much more excited than practically any episode for Zexal. Unfortunately, I don't have as much free time to rewatch 5D's and I've just gotten stuck in the routine of watching Zexal every week too, but given the choice, I'd much rather marathon through a ton of 5D's episodes over Zexal any day of the week.

Originally Posted by Midorikawa

I haven't gotten past episode 7 I think of 5Ds and the way they jump into 5Ds with Jack already being in that place and whatever. I actually don't see a reason to fangirl over Yusei. I like that Zexal doesn't make all duels about numbers. It's nice to have some relaxing time to just enjoy the fun duels of it instead of Astral nearly dieing in every duel.

They had no problem with Astral nearly dying in every match, except for against Cathy and that dueling robot, in the first arc. I wouldn't mind the idea of taking a breather from Number-related duels, but considering that none of those duels, except for maybe the match against Charlie, were fun, some of them were trying way too hard to be comical and other felt like a complete and utter waste of time, I think that they could have just gone right to the plot instead or that the very least only had one or two duels that didn't involve Numbers or connect to the plot. I'm watching Zexal to see the storyline of the Number cards developing, not Yuma's quest to become a Duel Champion in this tournament. It's not like they could have just combined those two elements for this tournament from the start instead of creating duels that were pretty much pointless outside of Yuma getting a heart piece and that showed how incredibly selfish he is.

Originally Posted by Human

The pacing of 5Ds' start was just horrible IMO. I honestly hated how many of the questions I had about the Satellite could have been answered early in on the series, but instead were answered later on. The plot didn't unfold or start well. Too many stuff was happening in just a few amount of episodes. Zexal's suffered somehow from having its first 10 or so episodes be extremely formulaic, but I couldn't say that I didn't love it since it worked so well. Yusei's lack of energy to bring some spice to the show and his countless wins bothered me to no end. Heck, he become the King by the 26th episode! When his first duel against Kiryu ended badly with the duel stopping,(with him not officially losing!) I actually started to like Yusei. Then when his duel against Goodwin's brother pointed out that Dark Signer duels couldn't be stopped, despite the fact that in his duel against Kiryu, Kiryu stopped the duel, I turned back to finding his blandness to be annoying and boring again. Pfft, Goodwin's brother could have just beat Yusei and be done with him already instead of running away to give him another chance for no reason. Basically, Yusei had 3 chances to permanently die, but was saved through an inconsistency, lack of any plausible reason for any of the Dark Signers to spare him twice, and his father having the power to revive his own son.... with no explanation. Actually, he had another chance of dying in the Dark Signer arc. When Goodwin used his Earthbound God to make Yusei's life points drop to 1, he didn't fall like Crow and Jack, instead, he still managed to stay on ground. Why?

Yeah, I might have liked 5Ds more if Yusei and the plots were handled better.

Aside from the second episode of the series, which just felt like an excuse to throw in a standing duel to show that they still exist, have more details on the Yusei and Jack rivalry, and add in a dash of plot development with showing how Yusei planed to get to the city, I thought that 5D's had a great start. The pacing was fine, the duels were engaging, the rivalry between Yusei and Jack was established quite nicely, the connection between Neo Domino City and the Satellite was interesting and Riding Duels added some much needed variety for the matches. I could have done with Yusei dueling against Ushio three times before the Fortune Cup though. The episodes after the first match against Shark were not handled that well at all in my opinion. The following two duels just dragged on and easily could have been fit into one episode long. That's a terrible sign in the first few episodes of the series. The match against Fuya, while much better than the other two, still felt kind of unnecessary in terms of the storyline.

I don't quite understand why you're upset that Yusei didn't officially lose that duel against Kiryu. If he had officially lost, then he would have died and the show would have ended. It's really no different from why Yuma couldn't officially lose to Kaito in their first match. Yeah, Yuma has more flaws than Yusei did, but that doesn't change that the reason for not officially losing are basically the same. To be perfectly honest, Yusei's reaction to his defeat was a lot more believable than Yuma's reaction to losing to Kaito, especially when he already showed how he didn't care about how often he lost a duel and the whole almost losing his soul thing didn't really come up. I also don't see the problem with Yusei becoming the King by episode 26. He had already shown enough skills before to make that believable and he knew that Jack's pride as a King would be his downfall, so it wasn't like it was unbelievable. And they don't really make a huge deal of Yusei being the King after that anyway. I think he's only referred to the winner of the Fortune Cup after the Dark Signer arc the few times it did come up. I don't know if Godwin's brother saying that the duels couldn't be stopped when the match against Kiryu was stopped is an inconsistency per say. If something happens to the duelist during the match or in the case of a Riding Duel, the D-Wheel is broken, then the duel can't really continue, even with magic involved. Jonouchi was physically unable to continue his duel with Marik in Battle City, although he didn't officially lose technically, even with the Game of Darkness going on and how those duels could never be stopped by outside forces either, so I don't think it's an inconsistency that Yusei's broken D-Wheel and injury he received as a result caused the duel to end. Though Godwin's brother giving Yusei another chance was kind of weird, but I thought he was just trying to mess with Yusei's mind at that point with forcing him to duel Rally and I thought that he was close to losing to Yusei anyway, although I could be mistaken there since I haven't seen that episode for awhile. I'm also not sure about why Yusei didn't fall like Jack and Crow did during the duel against Godwin, but I also haven't seen that episode in a long time, so my memory is a bit rusty on some of the details.

As much as I like 5D's and its characters, it definitely could have been handled better overall. Even so, I still take it over Zexal any time, flaws and all. I feel the same way about GX and before Zexal, that was my least favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! series. I still feel more invested in more characters in both of those series than I do with Zexal and at least with 5D's, the storyline was generally better for me.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

Yusei was shown to have flaws at least at the start of the series with taking such risks over getting his D-Wheel and Stardust Dragon card back, but as the series progressed, they did seem to make him look more flawless. That honestly didn't bother me that much since he was still pretty likeable. As for why he came back to life, I thought that there was an explanation with his father saving him so that he could undo the damage that he, in a sense at least, caused.

The only flaw he needed to correct was that his deck had no balance. That he had to improve and learn to balance his deck... which he did before the first episode. 4kids dub tried to make him afraid of bugs, to give him something that would make him troubled duelling, but that failed miserably because no story was backed up and he wasn't shown to be actually troubled. Regarding Yusei's death, that reason didn't explain his father's reviving powers. Sure Yusei had a good reason to stay alive, but that still doesn't explain how he came back to life. Were they only be able to be used once? Was it the power of the Crimson Dragon? We don't know... when a really, really needed explanation wasn't given. His death could have been cut out and nothing substantial would've been lost.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

I actually liked the plot for the Dark Signer arc. There wasn't as much realism as there was in the first arc, but there were signs in it and Yu-Gi-Oh! without some kind of magic/evil forces would be kind of weird at this point anyway. Carly was great in the Dark Signer arc and I really liked her. It was a shame that she basically turned into a Jack fangirl in the arcs afterwards, but she was still more fun than the other two girls in Jack's harem and I still love the JackxCarly pairing.

I liked the plot of the Dark Signer arc as well. Its lack of realism just really bugged me. Now I know that this is fiction, and so exaggerated plots are inevitable to see, but the arc was too exaggerated and flawed for me to make me feel compelled or really care at what the characters were facing through. Carly's writing was gorgeous and top-notch, though. She felt really relate able despite her overly exaggerated plot with Jack about being the King and Queen of future Hell. It was a shame that she didn't show up much after the arc, but since her character was over with it didn't bother me. Jack talking to her of about what happened would have been really nice.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

Fuya's story was a lot better than the majority of the one-shot duelists in Zexal and I liked him, but I don't think I was more compelled with it than I was with Aki's story. Cathy's growth is arguable at best and I don't care for her at all, especially when she's been basically reduced to comical relief with scratching anyone who insults Yuma because she's that obsessed about him. While Aki's story wasn't handled as well as it could have been, it was still interesting to see a female lead so drastically different in demeanor and personality. Though, that did kind of disappear after the Dark Signer arc where she did become a bland benchwarmer and all of the conflicts that could have come up from her days as the Black Rose, like how she could have killed people without knowing it, were ignored. Kind of a shame really, but I'd take her over Cathy anytime. At least Aki had more personality from the start that she sadly lost over time, while I don't think Cathy had much to begin with.

I found Fuya and Cat-chan's plots to be more compelling and entertaining due to their realism, despite having fewer episodes. I really can't see how Cat-chan's growth is arguable. She was an extremely shy girl who wanted attention, friends and Yuma to care about her. After Yuma opened her eyes, she started to hang around with him and be social with people through duelling. That made for an interesting and compelling plot. She showed her development and expressed it after her duel with Dog-chan. She made me care for her, she made me happy to see her grow, learn, not keep things and lessons from others so they could learn and grow as well. She felt real despite her ability to be able to talk to and understand cats. Being comic relief now doesn't really bother me since her plot has been over with like Carly's. With it, she brings a smile to my face, and so, I can't ask for anything more from her.

Aki's plot never really interested me. She had no personality to begin with(making her a female Yusei in my eyes, only worse), her plot was too exaggerated for me to make me care or be invested in her and was dragged on too much. Dragged plots(depending on how they're set up and how they progress) generally bore and bother me. I do agree on how it was still interesting to see a female main lead so drastically different in demeanour and personality. As I've said earlier in this thread, I like how some of the female characters on this show are shown to be very independent so seeing Aki being strong half of the time was nice to see. I honestly think that she's an interesting character, but she's just not one that interests me.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

I'm a girl and I don't do anything like that with either 5D's or any shows with lead characters that have appealing designs for girls. If I think something is written horrible, I mention it, regardless of the designs for the characters. I don't know if 5D's was way too dark. It had a darker tone than GX did for the most part, but it didn't feel that much darker than DM or even the Dark World arc in GX. Most of the characters started off well enough for me, although some of them like Aki and Ruka became boring later on unfortunately, it did have pacing problems after the Dark Signer arc, the WRGP was a good idea poorly executed, especially with Yusei winning nearly every match for Team 5D's, and until Aporia came up, the villains in the post-Dark Signer arc were pretty weak. Most of the characters in 5D's, including Yusei, are more interesting to me than the vast majority of the Zexal cast. Honestly, I think that 5D's could have been the best Yu-Gi-Oh! series if it hadn't had such huge problems in the later arcs, but it's still my favorite series thus far.

I already knew that you were the type of girl that wouldn't sink to such a low level. I remember the days of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, where I would read comments of girls on the internet that would whine and complain if other characters who weren't named Yusei appeared on-screen. It's fine to be displeased that your favourite characters aren't getting as much screen time as you want them to get, but insulting others(not kidding around, but actual personal attacks) who dare wish to like other characters more is a huge no. The designs of the characters are to help express and make the audience understand the personality of the characters more. The problem with 5Ds being too dark(especially in the Dark Signer arc) was because, unlike DM, GX and Zexal, it couldn't let the audience catch a break. There was always something thrown at you, always some new revelation, something new to think of and some tension filled duel thrown in. If the audience was allowed to catch a break with the pacing, I'd say more people would have liked it.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

They had no problem with Astral nearly dying in every match, except for against Cathy and that dueling robot, in the first arc. I wouldn't mind the idea of taking a breather from Number-related duels, but considering that none of those duels, except for maybe the match against Charlie, were fun, some of them were trying way too hard to be comical and other felt like a complete and utter waste of time, I think that they could have just gone right to the plot instead or that the very least only had one or two duels that didn't involve Numbers or connect to the plot. I'm watching Zexal to see the storyline of the Number cards developing, not Yuma's quest to become a Duel Champion in this tournament. It's not like they could have just combined those two elements for this tournament from the start instead of creating duels that were pretty much pointless outside of Yuma getting a heart piece and that showed how incredibly selfish he is.

I thought that the duels were fun and comical without trying too hard and that the faux seriousness being thrown in some of the episodes was thoroughly more enjoyable. A change of focus is always nice. An utter waste of time? I don't see that because they helped Yuma get more heart pieces, advertise other monsters, be entertaining, and show some compelling and fun one time characters. Seeing Astral almost dying in his Numbers duels never really bothered me since it wasn't happening too frequently. It did help raise the tension in the duels. When Astral died, I felt really sad for Yuma. When he did come back to life, I was glad that a plausible reason was given unlike when Yusei died and got revived. Yuma being selfish? If he's being selfish to you, then it's because he's just a kid. I really liked the episode of when he didn't tell his sister and grandmother about his Parents day because of how busy they were. He actually felt human, relate-able, compelling, interesting and... real. It was sweet, touching, and proof that the family themes in Zexal were superior, more interesting, compelling, relate-able and exciting to see.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

Aside from the second episode of the series, which just felt like an excuse to throw in a standing duel to show that they still exist, have more details on the Yusei and Jack rivalry, and add in a dash of plot development with showing how Yusei planed to get to the city, I thought that 5D's had a great start.

I don't think that the standing duel in the second episode was to show that they still existed. I'm pretty sure the audience is smart enough to know that just because they made card games be played on motorcycles, it doesn't mean that standing duels have stopped existing. If that was what the writers intended with the duel, I'd say that it's an insult to the intelligence of the audience. The duel was odd. Card games on motorcycles was a new concept, why not flesh it out? For me to think that it had a great start, I'd say I needed to know more of the setting with an extra episode being spent in the Satellite to flesh out the area and its history more. Heck, I don't think that the massive hole that the explosion of Momentum caused even appeared or was mentioned. It was information that was needed to be known.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

The pacing was fine, the duels were engaging, the rivalry between Yusei and Jack was established quite nicely, the connection between Neo Domino City and the Satellite was interesting and Riding Duels added some much needed variety for the matches. I could have done with Yusei dueling against Ushio three times before the Fortune Cup though. The episodes after the first match against Shark were not handled that well at all in my opinion.

The duels were meh. Junk Warrior became like Hope, only it was a less interesting monster. Ushio being the buttmonkey got old the second time he lost. Actually, why didn't he summon that 3000 Defence points monster that was used by Security in the double duel against Crow and Yusei in his second duel as Yusei tried to flee from the Satellite? It was easy to summon too. He only needed to discard the 2000 Defence points version to special summon the 3000 Defence points one. He got a better deck to take Yusei down. Yusei was being a huge threat, why not give him such a strong card? Ehh. We'll never know.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

The following two duels just dragged on and easily could have been fit into one episode long. That's a terrible sign in the first few episodes of the series. The match against Fuya, while much better than the other two, still felt kind of unnecessary in terms of the storyline.

I don't think that they dragged down. The power of Xyz monsters still interested me. Tokunosuke taking hold of Hope and Shark Drake was pretty exciting. It added to Tokunosuke's creepiness and made the duel more enjoyable for me.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

I don't quite understand why you're upset that Yusei didn't officially lose that duel against Kiryu. If he had officially lost, then he would have died and the show would have ended.

Nope. He would have just been revived by his father anyway. That would have actually helped build and lead Yusei to have something compelling happen to him. When he was revived, it wasn't mentioned afterwards or lead to anything when it needed to be. Being revived "just because" doesn't work for me.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

It's really no different from why Yuma couldn't officially lose to Kaito in their first match. Yeah, Yuma has more flaws than Yusei did, but that doesn't change that the reason for not officially losing are basically the same. To be perfectly honest, Yusei's reaction to his defeat was a lot more believable than Yuma's reaction to losing to Kaito, especially when he already showed how he didn't care about how often he lost a duel and the whole almost losing his soul thing didn't really come up.

It's actually different from Yuma not officially losing to Kaito, even though it bothered me the first time. But unlike Kiryu, Kaito had a plausible reason to stop the duel. Kaito had to go to Haruto to see and take care of. Kiryu's reason was to scare Yusei and make him suffer... which he did in the duel itself. I'm pretty sure that crushing him with his Earthbound God would have done more than enough harm. I didn't find Yusei's reaction be a lot more believable. Martha told him that he was scared of what happen, and that was it. Yuma was scared too, but didn't become desperate because his personality and bonds with his friends and family helped him power up his Kattobingu to do better to help Astral. That made the moment when III used magic(giving a good reason) to remove his Kattobingu the more tragic. I was so used to see Yuma being happy. Seeing him sad was a huge emotional upheaval for me because I looked up to him as a character that would try to smile and spread joy to those around him. Yusei, who despite being a calm and collected character, should have been broken with the Earthbound GOD almost crushing him. Instead he woke up, said he was scared at that moment, and went back to his calm and collected self instead of expressing his fears properly like Yuma properly did.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

I also don't see the problem with Yusei becoming the King by episode 26. He had already shown enough skills before to make that believable and he knew that Jack's pride as a King would be his downfall, so it wasn't like it was unbelievable. And they don't really make a huge deal of Yusei being the King after that anyway. I think he's only referred to the winner of the Fortune Cup after the Dark Signer arc the few times it did come up.

It was believable, but bothersome because I wasn't really looking forward to see him beating his enemies. He was still treated as being right and superior than everybody else by the characters themselves, despite not getting called the King. Now I know that like the other protagonists, they were treated the same way, but unlike Yusei, we weren't constantly reminded that he could stand up more than his friends and was somebody that everybody needed his help. Him coming back to life was jarring and his sudden ability to go back in time thanks to the Crimson Dragon was even more annoying(which wasn't even mentioned or established to be able in doing so prior to the movie). As things stand, I feel that Yusei was treated to have far more superior powers than the other protagonists.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

I don't know if Godwin's brother saying that the duels couldn't be stopped when the match against Kiryu was stopped is an inconsistency per say. If something happens to the duelist during the match or in the case of a Riding Duel, the D-Wheel is broken, then the duel can't really continue, even with magic involved. Jonouchi was physically unable to continue his duel with Marik in Battle City, although he didn't officially lose technically, even with the Game of Darkness going on and how those duels could never be stopped by outside forces either, so I don't think it's an inconsistency that Yusei's broken D-Wheel and injury he received as a result caused the duel to end.

If a duellist is unable to duel due to some means, then they have lost already. I don't know how a little technicality has the power to surpass magic that should kill somebody. It doesn't even make sense. The magic sealed them. If he couldn't fight then he lost and should have died.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

Though Godwin's brother giving Yusei another chance was kind of weird, but I thought he was just trying to mess with Yusei's mind at that point with forcing him to duel Rally and I thought that he was close to losing to Yusei anyway, although I could be mistaken there since I haven't seen that episode for awhile. I'm also not sure about why Yusei didn't fall like Jack and Crow did during the duel against Godwin, but I also haven't seen that episode in a long time, so my memory is a bit rusty on some of the details.

There was no need to mess with Yusei's mind. Goodwin's brother did say that it was a welcoming duel, but that's not a justifiable reason. Yusei didn't look like he had the upper hand. He surely had a card in his deck that would have saved him, but he didn't mention or say that he even stood a chance. The purple blast Yusei got from Godwin's Earthbound God did appear to last less and be less stronger, but even so, that makes little sense because when it attacked Jack and Crow, the attack looked stronger and more powerful. Yusei was given a less powerful looking blast to make his ability to still be able to ride and duel "more realistic". In reality, Yusei would have fell down and Goodwin would have won and succeeded in his plan, but due to 5Ds' writing, that didn't happen.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

As much as I like 5D's and its characters, it definitely could have been handled better overall. Even so, I still take it over Zexal any time, flaws and all. I feel the same way about GX and before Zexal, that was my least favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! series. I still feel more invested in more characters in both of those series than I do with Zexal and at least with 5D's, the storyline was generally better for me.

I could say that to every TV series in the world. 5Ds flaws just bother me more. I do respect your opinion and thoughts. As you've said countless times here already, it's just a matter of taste. What I really like about the Yu-Gi-Oh! sagas are the different settings, stories and characters that helps to make each saga have a different and unique feel to it. That's why I think the fandom is sort of "torn". It isn't a problem unless it starts some silly war, so differing opinions on each saga isn't the problem some people are making it out to be.

EDIT: Pfft tl;dr I'm sorry if I took up too much of your time reading. I hope that you at least enjoyed it.