Yu-Gi-Oh! The complete series [part two]

It was the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny

And here we are at one of the most controversial parts of the franchise.  Honestly the blame falls more on 4kids for this because of how goofy it gets, but we'll get to that eventually.  Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is strange and confusing when you think about it, but there is a certain charm to it.

Our new protagonist, Jaden Yuki, is a student at the illustrious Duel Academy.  A school who's main focus is teaching people how to play a card game . . . what?  I wanna' enroll.

We even get a little cameo in episode one where Yugi . . . or Atem . . . I don't know, he just gives Jaden a kuriboh card.

Okay, so the plot's goofy, but at least it gives us a reason why he's continually dueling.  It's part of the grade and you can technically write it off as studying.

I'm guessing that Kaiba opened this as a joke on the populous and so he'd be able to ID every dork around the world.

Kaiba, he cares about education

As much as I raged against the last series, I can't against this one because I just like the break in tone.  Nearly every arc involved either a character losing their life or saving the world . . . or both.  This series is pretty much about having fun and just playing the card game because . . . IT'S A CARD GAME!!!

Of course, the plot eventually leads to Jaden having to save the world.  WHY?  I know they have to do it to pander to the audience, but isn't it enough that he's going to duel the strongest duelest in the school?

Okay, so in spite of that, I honestly like the ending they gave for season one.  A final duel for the best student in the academy, Zane, and Jaden, ending in a tie.

The next season is . . . a tournament

My reaction, exactly

Okay, it's a tournament.  The driving force behind the plot in the last series, but I guess that they needed a good reason to . . . no, it's just stupid.

They introduce a new big bad this series.  This guy named Sartorius runs this thing called the Society of Light.  It's pretty much the cult from the previous series, but the guy running it is more like Dartz.  He also recruits people by beating them in duels.

Along with the cult, we get a rival for Jaden this series.  The rival's name is Aster Phoenix and he starts out working for Sartorius.  His introduction is better than any other rival, he beats Zane!! The guy was the BEST DUELEST in the academy, Jaden could only TIE at best!!!

So when Aster arrives he gets his ass handed to him by Jaden in a duel, but it's revealed he wasn't using his own deck.  Then a few episodes later he duels Jaden with a deck that uses a similar type of cards his does (said cards being superhero-themed).

So Aster beats Jaden and we get to the main flaw in the series.  Jaden's supposed to be this guy that only duels for fun . . . until the world's at risk, but still he's supposed to duel for fun.  Yeah, it's hard not to have fun when you ALWAYS WIN!!! I mean it, his w/d ratio is INCREDIBLE for someone that's just supposed to be "for the fun of it."  Of course, he lost to Zane the first time he dueled him.  He also tied him I guess, but still he needs to lose more to add SOME sense of realism.

His reaction to losing . . . he goes into a deep depression and begins wondering around aimlessly.  It takes SEVERAL episodes for him to regain himself & we're stuck with the side characters that he calls friends.  You'll notice I didn't really talk about them that much, that's because they aren't really interesting until this season.

Still not AS stupid as the character designs of last season

Okay, so from last season, we have:

• Chazz (2nd most to the left): The Rival
• Syrus (at the far right): The wimpy best friend & Zane's younger brother
• Alexis (2nd most to the right): The girl . . . that's it

And Joining us this season we have Hassleberry (far left), the army kid.  Yeah, that's pretty much all of the characterization we're given for them.  At least Joey had some complexity, but this series has to go a full season before really making the sidekicks interesting.

To sum it up, Chazz becomes the first member of the SoL, beats others in duels & they join, beats Alexis, then they get this other guy from season one who's only real characterization is that he's  British & smart.  Then Jaden finally re-joins the plot and kick's Aster's ass in a duel using the new cards he got while he was all emo, Neo-Spacians.

We even get a nice arc that involves going back to Domino city & seeing Yugi's grandpa.  Later Aster duels his legal guardian for a new card & wins, Jaden gets Chazz to leave the SoL by beating him in a duel, Jaden beats the brainwashing out of Alexis, and the British guy streaks or something.

Those of you who are fans probably noticed that I skipped a plot fragment, well here it is.  Zane goes evil-emo.  Why?  Because he's not popular anymore!!!  Alright that's not really it, but the real reason is still kinda' bs.

Join the dark side.  We have free cookies.

Okay, so final battle Jaden & Aster vs Sartorius.  It plays how you expect, he has the upper hand, they get the upper hand, he goes one-winged angel & gets the upper hand again, they win.

But the important question is . . . WHO WON THE TOURNAMENT?  Well the final match was between Chazz & this mysterious female character.  After Chazz wins the female is revealed to be this one-episode character from last season & she's allowed to join the Academy in the same dorm as Jaden (you know she wants to get into his pants).

Season three is really where I stopped watching it because it really doesn't start off that differently from the last one.  We have another tournament, but this time no big bad was really introduced.

How many rivals does that make?  I lost count

Okay, so we meet all of these new characters and you can tell that the new rival is the rival because . . . he's basically Jaden.  I mean EXACTLY the same, just with blue hair.

I pretty much stopped watching episodes after getting incredibly bored with the same plot I've seen several seasons before, but I keep catching glimpses of this strange force that's able to possess duelists.  I eventually started tuning back in more often and found out that the force was a card from Jaden's childhood named Yubel.  Yubel is pretty much trying to get Jaden & co. into a world where the cards' monsters are real & apparently they're all duelests too.  So Jaden duels this guy that's King of what's known as the Dark World & loses all of his friends except for Syrus . . . who ran away.  The King-guy was using his friends' souls to make a card of great power that is so awesomely powerful, without using all of the sacrafices the king gets killed or something.

Geez man, ya' think the shoulder pads are big enough?

Later Jaden becomes what's known as the Supreme King, making him a total jerk that's going to lead the card monsters to conquer earth or something.  It end  with what's left of the rivals they introduced this season giving their lives in duels against evil Jaden and bringing him back in control of his body.

We learn that the Supreme King is like Jaden's past life or something, and controls what's known as the Gentle Darkness.  This is honestly where I applaud the writing of this because it completely inverted the common thought of good and evil.

Most people think of light when they think of good and darkness for evil, but it's reversed here.  The Light of Destruction from last season is pretty much responsible for every evil that's happened so far in the series & the Gentle Darkness is what makes it unable to completely destroy us.  Yubel was even supposed to be Jaden's protector, but did it a little too well & he/she kept killing his friends.  In response to that Jaden sent him/her into space alongside Neos from last season and the Light of Destruction corrupted Yubel & that's why he/she is evil.

To make the long story short . . . shorter, Jaden and Yubel end up dueling.  Jaden using his Supreme King power to hold his own against him/her & eventually using the card that the King of the Dark World was trying to use against him, Super Polymerization.  The duel ends with Jaden telling Yubel he's sorry for turning him/her evil & uses the card to somehow FUSE HIS SOUL WITH YUBEL!!!

Season 4 of GX however was never dubbed because 4kids got sued & lost the right to it.  From what I heard it was a much darker season that involved one of the enemies from season 1 & destruction of the world or something, but I know it ends with a final duel between the protagonists of both series.

It's like a 4th grader trying to fight against a high schooler

Judge it as harshly as you want, but I like GX way more than I did duel monsters.  The main character didn't start off kill-happy, he didn't have a strange haircut, and he honestly just played for the love of the game.  He actually reminded me more of me than Yugi ever did.  He loves this game & wanted to try and be awesome at it without any end-of-the-world crap in mind.  Unfortunately, all of my love for both the anime and the game died in the next season.  Join us as Yu-Gi-Oh! goes into the 5dumbass