By default it’s Alexis (Asuka). She’s the only girl besides maybe Yubel (good luck with that) with any relevance. She’s definitely better than Tea and has some edge like Ishizu from Duel monsters and the dueling prowess of Rebecca Hawkins. I think she’s a better fit for Jaden over Blair.
Camulla she wasn't in many episodes but man she prove that strong females exist( sure she have super powerful cheat card but she a villain so I don't care, on top of that she probably the last user in cannon to use Zombie cards)
I think the thing that kills me about wasted characters like Alexis and Blair is that unlike the og series gx explicitly had most of the cast basically be duelists that were constantly supposedly getting stronger. So having them almost always get captured or get controlled just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
@@lampad4549 Because then they break your immersion, characters who get sidelined make it hard to pay attention to the plot when you want to see that character. More sidelined characters, less immersion, less ability to enjoy the story
It may be a small thing, but my biggest problem with Asuka was that she wasn't the one to save her brother. She had her brother in front of her, in needed of saving by beating him up in a duel, something that Asuka is supposedly very good with, but the one that fought and beated him was Judai. That situation was a textook example of how to give a character their big fight of the season that would define them as a charater going forward, but instead they gave that fight to Judai. What a waste of potential...
@@jamesgazeley And there are tons of stories where the hero doesn't solve literally every fight. In the Shonen genre, it's pretty common that secondary characters have their own fights, and progress the story by beating their own enemies, instead of the protagonist beating all the enemies.
@@reikolupus136 Yeah, and they're better in that sense. I'm GX Jaden is like, the hero hero. He's the chosen one that does everything. It was pretty clear that was going to be the case since it began. Even characters who had their own journey like Cyrus and Chazz Jaden was pretty much half of it.
Yugioh has that problem in general. Mai is supposed to be a world class duelist, literally one of the best in the world and yet she gets her ass fucked in like every duel she plays on screen. Dunno much about GX because I tuned that series out hard but it seems like Alexis has that problem too, where she's supposed to be one of the best, but she gets destroyed whenever she plays. 5Ds with Aki is the same. Zexal I don't know about but the female characters of that series seem to be completely side characters. Same with the Arc-5 girls. Dunno about the linkverse series, but the female characters seem a tad more involved in that series.
I don't really have anything against Crow. He's a good idea for the cast, an excitable manlet with more than a little thug left in him and is tired of Jack's shit. And considering how future YGO series treats its female cast (with either Zexal or VRAINs being the worst) it seems wrong to blame Crow for how Aki turned out.
@@maltheopia Aki was the #3 protagonist and Crow took that role in the second half while Aki was the beachwarmer and Yusei's girlfriend. I like Crow. He is way more interesting than the original background friends of Yusei from episode 1. I prefer if they stuck with Leo being the 5th signer and made Crow the cool non signer of the group that become the 6th at the end.
90 of yugioh character problems is that 90% of the duals are done by the MC or rival. The other charters are lucky enough to get one dual before they are crub stomped by the villains.
Yeah, and a lot of side characters (male and female) have the unfortunate problem of coming down with the "only duel important characters" syndrome fairly early on. The best example imo is Aoi Zaizen from Vrains, her onscreen duels were: Aoi vs main character - LOSE Aoi vs minor antagonist that the show just introduced specifically for this duel - WIN Aoi vs right hand man of seasonal big bad - LOSE Aoi vs new best friend character who, like main character, has a bit of a mary sue streak - LOSE Aoi vs minor antagonist so minor that they're barely a character - WIN Aoi vs minor antagonist that explicitly sucks at card games - WIN Aoi vs seasonal big bad - LOSE Aoi vs seasonal big bad - LOSE Despite being one of the best duelists in the show in-universe, she only gets 3 on screen wins. And only 1 of them is actually competent. Every other duelist she duels is either absurdly strong OR required to defeat her so that the plot can happen (usually both). And thus she's required to lose most of her duels purely based on who her opponents are, even if she has the better deck and is completely owning their ass up until their final turn (IE her duel against Soulburner). Lorewise, she's supposed to be just a little worse at card games than the protagonist (who never loses in the entire series outside of flashbacks to off screen duels), but due to the plot it *really* doesn't feel like it.
@@KeeKage37 yeah, and a lot of her later losses they make a point that if she *just* milled one or two more monsters before that turn then she wouldn't have lost right then and there (both the damage reduction vs bohman and the chip burn damage vs Ai).
Worst part is for Blair/Rei: In Tag Force 2/3 (mainly 3) she actually is pretty useful and has a pretty interesting story. She even had some funny lines. That being said, she could've been written WAY better!
Also she uses one of the coolest, most unique, most powerful, fan-favorite decks of the GX era instead of the weird egg thing they gave her in the anime.
Plus if you play Duel Links the CPU of Blair uses the Light and Twilightsworns along with leveling her up you get Twilightsworn cards she can use and last I heard those are good decks for their time
@@jaernihiltheus7817 I mean yeah, but they could’ve expanded on it in the show itself. They’ve made tons of pretty much complete decks, before ever releasing them. No reason they couldn’t have done that here
Honestly I wish they did more with Blair. Like you said she was shafted for no reason. Honestly Blair had a lot of potential. She apparently scored the highest on entry test. So she apparently was a really good duelist. We don't really see her duel outside of her initial introduction.
The way they handled Alexis is honestly such a shame, since she had an interesting motivation due to wanting to find the truth of her brother’s disappearance and was strong and skilled enough as a duelist to become an Obelisk Blue. But it honestly feels like the series didn’t know what to do with her since after finding her brother, in later seasons she’s either brainwashed or captured and doesn’t really contribute much at all. Then again, you could say that for a good portion of GX’s cast, but Alexis suffers from it the most imo while Chazz is at least entertaining as hell and Cyrus has a solid character arc. The best girl in GX is definitely Tania though due to being a hot and buff Amazon warrior though, and I’m glad she showed up again in season 3.
Manjoume and Sho both have character arcs and pivotal duels though. As do Ryo and Edo. It’s really just the girls that suffer from this problem (and Misawa).
5:13 I can actually answer that reason: Because its FRICKING KAIBA. The same person who was adopted under Gozaburo (have no clue if i spelt that right), who by the way have military weapons on standby before Kaiba remodled it into a childrens card game. The same man who'd willingly BLOW UP HIS CONTESTANTS after he finished the battle city tournament JUST so that he can use his Blue Eyes Jet Plane and look like a badass doing so. The same man who WENT TO THE AFTERLIFE to get his salty runback against a pharaoh millions of years ago. There's no common sense to this man and he will literally find a way to use his money to either A. Get away with it, or B. Full on cause destruction because K A I B A
I was wondering when we’d get the next part. The 5Ds part is going to hurt. Maybe I’m biased as Aki was one of my first serious waifus but how she declined in relevance still pissed me off. Still hate Crow for taking her spot in the heirarchcy.
Yeah, I remember hearing an explanation on that but im not sure about its authenticity. Apparently, Carly's voice actress got in a scandal with some sort of cult, and since 5d's had a lot of storylines involving cults coming up they had to change things. Apparently, Aki was going to have to confront sayers cult and Luna was apparently connected to whatever cult her dark signer was a part of. But the controversy meant they couldn't do that. As for replacing her with crow well he actually replaced Leo.
@@mr.protagonist5639 That's misinformation. The Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal is often blamed for being the cause of Carly's recast and the show's shift away from fantasy, which is understandable due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. True, Carly was recasted, but only late in the series, long after the shift to sci-fi. She also kept appearing for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. I have no clue where you got that last part from. I don't think they even HAD anything planned for Ruka, frankly, and I've never seen anything to substantiate that the Arcadia Movement was ever going to show up again. Their HQ was destroyed and their leader got fucking eaten, I think that's enough to consider them defunct.
@@samgreenblatt7074 honestly I don't know where I heard it either. I heard it years ago so I didn't know whether to believe it or not. I just thought I'd mention it just in case someone could elaborate or debunk it.
I always felt that Rei was a victim of behind the scenes meddling. She has about half a duel at the end of season 2 with a unique deck theme, and her cards even specifically list support for monsters that we never actually see, all right before she joins the main cast. I wouldn't be surprised if s3 was originally meant to be more in the style of previous seasons, chilling on the school yard, and we were supposed to see Rei in a more central role having duels of her own. Then they went a different direction and now they suddenly had this new character on the cast that they didn't know what to do with
@@misterk6488 I wouldn't call that an important role. If anything Asuka had a very important role. Rei was fine in season 3, since season 3 was meant to take a darker turn, every yugioh series has a dark arc, or gritty small part in many arcs.
It was an important role though. At least for that specific subplot. Since it was the Tag Duel that got him happy again and it only happened after Rei used the partner switch card.
In regards to all the yugioh girls being mind controlled: This is somehow a trend not only in Yugioh but in lots of cartoons of the time GX came out. Disney did it practically everywhere at least once. Either there were a couple of weirdos in high executive positions or it is a fetish way more common than you would think. And yes, it had an impact on some kids watching it. Trust me on that.
To be fair Yugioh kinda does it to both genders. I just think it hits harder with the females since Tea was under for 2 whole seasons. And then Arc-V......
Still no where near as bad as how they treated the Bracelet Girls in Arc V. Yuzu and Selena started as really cool characters in season 1 but after the synchro arc they get brainwashed and they just disappeared until the end of the series. Rin and Ruri got it worse. We badly saw Rin interact with any other character. And the reunion between Shun and Ruri was done do poorly despite it being set up since season 1.
@@mikai4738 It's still meme that we haven't had any interactions between Ruri or Rin outside of their brainwashing. I know many brainwashed Yu-Gi-Oh female characters who have interacted more than Ruri and Rin.
@@stardustsynchro6102 I can't wait til he talks about Aoi, its pretty much a meme about how badly the writers treated her everytime she loses. Like how she falls and crushes her head on concrete after her duel with Specter. Or was knocked against some rocks after her loss against Soulburner. Seriously the writers hated Aoi who really could of been an interesting character. But instead chose to focus on Soulburner who was one of the blandest characters ever.
I always liked Alexis a lot and she deserved way better to at least come off as a strong duelist. She should have been the one to save Fubuki and duel bigger villains in general, its kinda insulting that her biggest threat was Titan who returned for a second time. I hoped they would do her better in Arc-V.... at least they improved her design.
3:20: WAIT, WHAT?!?!?!? I never knew that!!? Youre telling me that in a System where you have 3 Buildings youre meant to go to Judged by youre Grades in School, only one of the Buildings has a Woman-Bathroom, so all the Girls are just send there anyway?!?! That's the most insane thing i heard outside of anti-science and politics!!
Wait what? A doll came to life all because people treated weak cards like trash? I know stopped watching the series as a whole after season 2, but that's sounds very odd
Season 1 had a guy who became Tarzan because he couldn't get an egg sandwich, an academy where to enter you need to search a frozen wasteland to build a deck, a tiger shapeshifting into an amazoness to find a mate through dueling, people using occultism to summon the spirit of a cyborg card, and a literal dueling monkey. It was ALWAYS odd.
Imagine if Blaire went with the rest of the cast into the Hell Dimension. Not necessarily to find Johan or comfort Jaden (although those too in a lesser degree) - but specifically to try to take on Yubel for using her friend Martin as a meat puppet. She would definitely lose & die with most of the rest of the cast, but she might get a solo win (on screen, I mean) before then, as well as some actual character development before her death.
I have to say that Romin's treatment gets kinda worse with the start of season 2 but she's at least never a damsel in distress or mind controlled. Best girl of the show is probably Asana: One of the former main antags of an arc, a leader type of girl with a cool Wyrm deck, gets relevant duels, is allowed to get big wins and has a consistent character. And she's never treated as a joke even if Sevens is mainly a comedy series.
@Mister Perfection well unfortunately it looks like we're getting another rush spin off instead of another normal show but hopefully it'll be less cringey then Sevens. Definitely won't Yuga and the other characters one bit. I try getting Sevens another chance but I just couldn't get into it. The show just so childish and awkward to watch.
@Mister Perfection Do we count Manga? Because the female cast in Structures is pretty good so far, even if it's not the same structure (Haha) as normal YGO stories
It's a real shame that for so Long the female character in Yu-gi-oh were basically mind control fodder. It's really weird that unless the series was focused on said females they would either be cheerleaders, romantic rivals or just fodder cuz the person in charge of their direction didn't understand women enough. Really sad when you put into perspective how some generic harem animes have better written women than a series this long running.
Mind control or brainwashing seems to be a Yu-Gi-Oh trope (or fetish): along with the Protagonist winning or having all duels. The most affected by this trope must be Tea, Rio and the Bracelet Girls.
I think it's just a cliche that they like to use a lot. Guys in the franchise have been mind controlled to you know. It's a shonen anime series that used commen cliches and plots that have appeared in media in general. It also manly aimed at young boys to get into the card game so it's natural they'd have a male lead and in these shonen anime the main leads always do everything of importance or at least the majority of it.
It’s a shonen anime. The target audience are young boys. Girls aren’t going to have many roles in it. Other than being saved or some other cliche for Damsels in distress. Some will have some “girl power” moments, but not many. Shonen doesn’t have better written women because shonen doesn’t need it because women aren’t really the target audience. Saying the person in charge of direction didn’t understand women is very disingenuous. Also men are in the same stipulation of being “fodder”, or some generic male side roll when it comes to female centric/lead shows. It’s all about the target audience. Knowing your audience is quite important. One of the things why many reboots of series, new films, and new shows of today fail.
@@Mr.SteelinKeepIt I don't know if that's a valid excuse tho. Harem anime are like 75% shonen. It's the same general demographic as this series but like they said, many of those harem anime have better written females than Yu-Gi-Oh.
@@NRG-REC Well what you just said there, harem animes arent targeted towards kids to buy merchanidse/card games, and most card game anime/monster capturing anime were targeted towards young boys at least in the 00's. Harem is targeted towards older teenagers and typical plots have more room for character growth, since the focus is deliberately on the characters and the relationships between eachother. Some can still be shonen but their intent is still different from a show made to sell a game/toy.
It sucks so much because Alexis/Asuka is my favorite character in the entire franchise. I loved that she pioneered archetypes based around Ritual Summoning. But it's so cruel how much they seem to hate her given that she made a reappearance in Arc-V only to be completely dumpstered after doing nothing 10 years later lol
And that “only Jaden could save the day” problem is actually why I consider him more of a Gary Stu than Yusei, who gets accused of that more often. Why? Because 5Ds’ universe doesn’t seem to warp around Yusei, as if it only revolved around him. Whereas with Jaden, that is absolutely the case. Even though Jaden has a bunch of flaws, and probably a lot more personal shortcomings than Yusei, the main problem with a Gary Stu / Mary Sue is that the story is too centred around them. Which becomes especially apparent the blander the supporting cast is.
There are a FEW non obelisk girls, you just really have to look for them. In I believe episode 36, a female student goes up to talk with Banner and she’s wearing yellow.
Don’t pay too much attention to those who confuse feminism for man-hating “SJW” stereotypes. You make a lot of interesting points here and I can’t see any reasonable person taking issue with wanting good writing and fair treatment for female characters.
What really sucks is Alexis got screwed over, not once, but twice! In GX and then later in Arc-V! All because the plot had to happen! SHE DESERVES HER OWN SPIN-OFF AND MAKE IT EDGY! SHE'S GOT A FUCKING AXE TO GRIND AGAINST THE WRITERS!
I love Alexis, she is *everything* but whoever decided that the girls uniforms in that academy should look like that - tight tops and short skirts - should either get a raise or a background check, just saying
it's like Seto's pet project so no shit a rich incel hires a bunch of whackjobs like Crowley and the uniforms are objectifying. i suppose they're going for 60s air hostess/mod fashion
I wouldn't call Alexis a love interest she had a one sided crush on Jaden and that was about it. I don't like Tea and Yugi as a pairing but there is at least more foundation there
at least Tea isn't an active duelist to begin with, so she's not relevant in card game anime is justified and i think it's fine for protagonist to get romance to not relevant character once (tbh protagonist have gf who strong and related to main conflict is kinda cliche too)
@@ZaxFSO8083 I'm not completely sure about that Yubel was cured of most of its craziness at the end of season 3. Also with Yubel and Judai fused together they are now together til the end of time any earthly realtionship would just be a temporary fling
in many ways the women are a step up from Anzu (who got nerfed in the anime) but one step forward two steps back. V1 manga Anzu doesn't take shit from anyone, i hated how the boys sexually harass her and Yuugi is just 🤷♀️ about it. she's a tough cookie who punches out Jou and Honda and sasses everyone. she's not totally helpless and useless as in the show. i feel like they attempted to do the opposite with Asuka, making her more like manga Anzu
I honestly didn't really mind the Society of Light plot and how practically everyone, including Asuka and Manjome, were taken over by them, it was supposed to make them look like a massive, nearly unstoppable threat, something for which Judai actually needed the help of Neos and the Neo-Spatians, what with Edo defeating his Elemental Hero deck. I get that it can ultimately look like the writers putting their regular hypno-fetish into the series once again, but I think this time it actually made sense.
What’s wrong with fanfiction? I find better story arcs and pieces from random fans then I do from the source materials that inspired them. Go fanfiction writers!
I'm surprised people criticize Yugioh's writing, characters and plot as if the show wasn't crazy since the first episode. Seto Kaiba got away with kidnapping and destruction of property while being the CEO of a publicly traded company and a high school student at the same time. Then Yugi crushed his mind using ancient Egyptian magic after summoning Exodia without using a single Pot of Greed. At a certain point questioning it feels like asking "why does 2 + 2 = 4?"
As someone who still writes fanfiction and has no idea how to handle Yubel. I'm doing this in the hopes that any deep dive into her can help so..... #ComeplaywithmeJaden
By the way only the 4kids dub actually made Yubel a woman. There is even evidence that Yubel might have original been a guy before they become the dragon,Human, demon thing in the show
I’m going to say the weird thing again, I actually like Blair/Rei in terms of character progression. In her first duel we see she a decent duelist but isn’t nearly as good as other prominent duelist(still probably better than syrus). Second duel, while the tournament half way through became meaningless she still made it to the finals and gave Chazz a decent duel while also showing major improvement by making her deck have versatile strategies(better than most of gx cast because half of them just have one strategy and break down after that.). Season 3 she finally in the school as a slifer red but can compare to ra yellow student also we finally see how they wanted to properly display her character. She a determined young girl who does whatever she can for the goals she sets and to me that pretty aspiring. Then finally season 4 she is an obelisk blue and finally an obelisk blue student showed they earned their way to the rank in the dueling aside from Zane/Kaiser. Throughout the series we have seen her improving in her dueling and her determination, season 4 her final duel does exactly that showing once again how skilled she is as a duelist in a tag duel by basically dueling everyone with her switch card and proving to be a duelist that can play with the best without holding them back. So yeah Blair cool but deserved more screen time as she actually get development meanwhile Asuka is so bland that they really have nothing for her in season 2 or 3.
Blair/Rei should've been a main character. Replace her in the original main trio with Chumly, who was ultimately a pointless character in the grand scheme of things. She can fake being a guy like her intro episode and make a thing about wanting her to show her skill as a duelist to at first impress Zane but then for her own sake rather than just be dogpiled later with the Blue girls for token reasons. Jaden & Syrus can stick up for her when her gender is exposed allowing her to stick around. This would allow her development to get better focus and perhaps more screen time and more on screen wins to showcase herself. The outline of Blair/Rei is a really good character progression but it just didn't matter cause how little screen time or importance Blair/Rei's duels were given by the story.
Honestly, it did feel like a bit of a letdown when everything regarding Yubel ended so abruptly with Jaden finally agreeing to bond with her at a soul level. Not to mention the fact that when Jaden was a kid, despite knowing that he was the reincarnation of the Supreme King, she didn't try to help him grow, but actively drove away everyone that would have been his friend in a mistaken belief that she was protecting him.
GX was WEIRD when it came to handling the female characters. The one-offs like Camula and Alice were indeed actually pretty decent antagonists that served their purposes for what little time they had, as was the tiger, Alexis and especially Blair had far more potential to be good than the previous series, but they never get utilized all the much. Blair especially frustrates me because her appearance and her duel in the first season was one of my favorites in the entire series, if not for the hilariously surreal image of Avion and Sparkman simping over The Maiden In Love. I feel like those characters were meant to be more than they were, but because GX had such a massive cast, they ended up just being afterthoughts. On a side note, Alice definitely needs more fanart. Also, you better NOT be thinking what I THINK you're thinking! XP
Yubel, in their Original body, I argue we’re a male due to the fact the YGO art style tents to emphasize the female chest . Also most of the Dragon’s parts in their bodies are covered in black leather, meaning the body of the dragon was female. Also one of Yubel’s cart is also known as the sad knight in german (I believe it was one of the Japanese ones) which tents to be a male role, in most of fiction.
@@srslydoatm9251 They go out of their way to avoid gendered language iirc, at least in the subtitles. In present day though, Yubel sometimes uses male pronouns for himself (though some japanese girls use them too), and sometimes uses female pronouns for herself. But I generally use male pronouns for him because in the Japenese version he (and everyone else) uses male gendered language for Yubel wayyyyy more often.
3:20: WAIT, WHAT?!?!?!? I never knew that!!? Youre telling me that in a System where you have 3 Buildings youre meant to go to Judged by youre Grades in School, only one of the Buildings has a Woman-Bathroom, so all the Girls are just send there anyway?!?! That's the most insane thing i heard outside of anti-science and politics!!
Yubel was born a male human who got a surgery ( to gain power to support the Supreme king.) Where a female dragon heart was implanted to replace his. He is literally male and female and the pronouns yubel uses are who's aspect is currently expressing yubel's feelings. Essentially a mystical hermaphrodite, although Yubel can shape-shift to a degree.
Nope, all wrong. Yubel was and likely still female at her core. In Yu-Gi-Oh GX episode 115, Yubel's backstory is revealed. I still don't know why people still want to debate this despite it being explained in an episode of the same arc focusing on Yubel and Jaden. I guess people just want to project their interpretation (or desired headcanon) on the matter. But yeah, I'd rate Yubel as best girl because she has the best story arc for her introduction.
I mentioned it on the commentary post a while back but in short I think that the girls being in Obelisk Blue might have just been a cost-cutting measure because Kaiba didn't really care one way or the other. Both the Yellow and Red dorms are incredibly small (Red literally only has 8 rooms, even if they are bunking 3 to a room, logistically it doesn't make sense). It's not the best explanation, but it does cover as to why all the female students are Obelisk Blue. Really, Kaiba's house system was just weird by default since the "logical" way to do things would be to use a single dorm for ALL the students, even if you wanted them to be sorted in some way. I also believe that part of the issue is that the card game designers didn't give the girls fun and dynamic decks. It's not as obvious in GX because most of the characters ran weird, poorly constructed archetypes (archetypes really didn't start to get focus until late GX with stuff like Six Samurai, Gladiator Beast, and Lightsworn - and even then they had stuff like the Duel Terminal archetypes). Having a deck that the writers like to show off and that sells products is generally a good way to get more screentime (ahem crow), although in the case of GX they didn't have as many non-anime related cards releasing IRL until Season 2. As an aside, if you want the girls of Yugioh treated well from their start to finish, you gotta look to Tag Force. They actually had genuine Obelisk Blue girls, who have distinct personalities (getting more development and more unique designs as the games went on and they went from Obelisk Blue students to Neo Domino Duel Academy students), and used LEGITIMATELY good decks.
"Meritocracy is dead." In anything but the gx tag force game. Christ, those obelisk girls were absolutely freaking ruthless. "Useless ass Rei" Oof. Again, don't let the tag force games here you say that. Those lightsworns of hers are monsters.
@@amienabled6665 Tori is the apidamy of useless cheerleader love interest character Kat is in a similar boat but as a faunas and Rio is actually a pretty good character though she spends the first half in a coma and part of the second half as this oracle of sorts As for Arc V AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and I never watched vrains so I can’t share much on that front
@@skyslasher2297 while I haven't finish Vrains they started fine with the female characters and whatever Yugioh writers get with female duelist syndrome begins and you know is downhill from there also I'm going coin it the Alexis Izinski Syndrome because it really started with Alexis but it became really obvius with Akiza and onward
@@skyslasher2297 Vrains had barely relevant girls. Ema had like 3 duels and was mainly working in the background while Aoi (the main girl) never got a big win and some of her losses ended in her being thrown into a wall or getting faceplant into concrete. But tbf, she had to face many duelists who weren't allowed to lose thanks to plot.
judais personality change at the end of season 3 was actualy needed. when judai went after yubel to save his friend he told the rest of the group to stay behind because its his problem and he should deal with it alone. the others basically forced judai to take them along because theyre "friends" and he agreed only to have them turn around halve way by getting angry at him for dragging them along... if i was judai id keep emotional distance from people too after it turns out that the guys i thought were my friends acted like entitled assholes that blamed me for everything bad that happened to them.
I think it was kinda implied their emotions were manipulated (I think that's what those orbs on them meant?) but it did kinda annoy me how everyone was like, "You've changed! You're avoiding us!" when... Ya know, supreme king kinda went on a genocidal rampage because he thought he killed his friends. I feel like anyone going through that (ESPECIALLY as a teen) would absolutely mess you up no matter how much your therapist costs.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the insect chick that Syrus dueled to get into the next dorm. While being a one off, she was pretty cool. She even was a competent duelist and only lost for being a one off character.
I feel like half of the problems with GX could be solved by just excising Tyranno from the story entirely. He has no greater importance to the plot, an entirely unnecessary arc that goes nowhere, one of the stupidest backstories in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! and the most boring deck in the entire show. We've got HEROs, Vehicroids, Ojamas, Crystal Beasts, and... Dinosaurs. Just regular Dinosaurs. Woo. His only purpose in the show is to steal away time from other, potentially better characters. The manga had the right idea leaving him out.
Pretty sure the manga would had included him if the manga had any time to make what it wanted instead of having to start rushing things in the later chapters.
One thing I would love for you to talk about with Sevens ending how they handled there female character and side character, which I will argue is the best out of any Yugioh series
Aw, but I like Crow. He reminded me of my sister. The convos he has with Jack about getting a job and "moving up" were straight-up us. I too spend more money on hair care and food than I do on rent.
Well considering his back story it makes perfect sense why he would have issues i mean its heavily impilled he had no friends before duel academy and that's why he is so awkward and childish.
It's gonna be fun seeing the next video about 5DS Ill be honest my favorite girl from 5DS was Carly putting Aki aside Carly was very interesting in the first two seasons of 5DS (haven't watched the other seasons of 5ds) she was funny and had some flaws but she also helped Jack more as a character and as for 5DS being dark of a series from the start I find it to be the better series out of the first three and maybe the rest when it comes down to characters
Yeah I noticed that too that the girls in yugioh are not that important to the plot or just being mind controlled or something. That is why I like sevens so much. Despite being a show for kids the girls are actually doing something and are not just a cheer squad. They are dueling on their own and all of them have unique and interesting decks.
Also, am I the only one who never got the idea of Jaden and Alexis being together? It felt like there were very few scenes between the two after a good few seasons. I never got the hype.
It's the power of the MC, regardless of how asexual and naive they are, some people will still ship them together regardless of how much(little) they interact.
You're not the only one. I was personally fangirling over the screenshot with two Rareshipping fanfics in it during the beginning of the video. XD I feel like Judai and Asuka didn't really get enough development with more one-on-one conversations, especially since she's gone too long from being brainwashed or "dead" for the good part of two seasons and she pretty much knew by season 4 that there wasn't enough time for them to properly go in any other kind of direction what with him not being interested and them having to go separate ways and start different lives eventually after graduation.
I’m so happy this series exists. I love the Yugioh girls and they need so much more love and the writers need to be called out for their mistreatment. #ComePlayWithMeJaden
Also worth pointing out that a lot of his opponents in the first season, at least, were absolutely creeped out by how Jaden would get more excited and fired up the more dire his situation looked. ...5Ds episode when?
I'm pretty sure Yubel has male and female physical attributes, because of a very likely inspiration of Yubel by the alchemist idol named Baphomet. I'm aware Yubel is just a fantasy character, but as a heads-up if you don't know know weather someone is male, female or nonbinary in terms of gender, you can use the gender neutral pronouns they/them instead of he/him or she/her. Also, there's an actually not so rare condition called intersex, where a person is born with both male and female organs. I don't think Baphomet is referencing intersex people considering the time of it's first reporting during the end of the crusades and the limited medical knowledge at that time, but it is still interesting nontheless. I also want to thank you for making so many awesome videos. I really enjoy your content. Keep it up! 😁👍
Okay, I will explain it! This show is an example of why Konami never had a creative staff before and just let everyone run free and do whatever they wanted. The staff who was in charge of GX was mainly composed of Junki Tategami and Shin Yoshida, who hardly ever wanted to care for this cast. There is a reason why this season doesn't get any more respect. Its because it was wasted by the bad tone between filler and having a plot out of nowhere. The two main writers Shin Yoshida and Junki Tategami would butt heads like the case in point the staff who worked on Digimon Zero Two had the same problem. Yoshida while trying to move the plot, Junki started to feel out of place and decide to go into war by making the episode ''slice of life'' to the point the show became polarizing. One part was ''sub-stance'', while the other was ''style'' lead to weird stuff like people to this day defending this series because it was like decent, but otherwise badly executed. Junki Tategami, before being a YGO writer he was a Toei writer in the past. Series he wrote such as Megaranger, Gaoranger, and Go-Onger are examples of his style and more than enough to consider him the main man of the series, but when he was given this anime we all knew Junki had his work cut out. Yoshida at that point became YGO's main writer often would use story troupe elements to make you like him or hate him. Which is the case for Yoshida as pretentious as he gets doesn't often screws up while writers under him tend to do something worst. Cast in point why VRAINS imo has one of the worst writing staff. And don't get me started on why he left ARC-V to be worked on by a writer who doesn't have ''experience'' or ''source'' to work on. To make it more clear my way, the theme of the show is about ''trial and error'' which looks good, but completely is overmined out the window. The main reason GX is overrated IMO is simply to put it clear bad writing is being used for excuses to make you think its ''good'' but when in reality it was just a messy season with no story. The story has no clue what it can be needed no style of serialization but just to stay on track - That always is a problem with the YGO series in the middle like ARC-V is another example of why having story and filler at the same time doesn't make the show grow on to you. Another reason i can rant on be why a school setting. Why did the show in Season 3 and 4 sucks or did Judai really grow as a character or he get character assassination. Just to make it clear and simple. No amount of production was the fault, but its own being out of place when the series was originally in development. To conclude: The show had a hard time trying to find the story of the characters to fit and conclude it, which is why GX failed that bad in ratings and even viewers dropped it quickly.
Considering yugioh GX has the second most amount of episodes for a yugioh series and is still insanely popular in japan and somewhat popular here I have a hard time believing its ratings were bad. Maybe by the end it wasn't as popular but most shows rarely run for 50+ episodes let alone 180+ episodes.
Well the reason why GX has these issues is because they were supposed to have a complete 4th season(24 episodes) and 5th season, but these were sadly cut because Kenn, the Japanese Va for Jaden, didn't renew his contract, so they basically condensed both season into one, which in turn caused so many characters to not have a conclusion to their stories. So, this why Alexis, and blair didn't get much development. :(
I remember being a little girl who was really into Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, I even played the DS game Spirit Caller which came with three specific cards (I still have the shiny foil Hunter Owl that was one of the three cards). I liked the show, but they really did the female characters dirty. I didn't even know they canonically had female versions of the Red and Yellow dorms until I unlocked them on the map in the aforementioned game. The only two girls I could remember from GX is Alexis/Asuka and Blair/Rei, and I actually didn't know about Blair until I was older and watched some episodes with my brother because I watched mostly late season one and early season 2 and it was mostly out of order. I didn't even like Alexis very much, little kid me thought she was a little bland personality-wise (although I came around to her when playing the DS game). The original series had more interesting and active female characters than GX. I really agree with your criticisms of Alexis and Blair. Alexis has interesting character that isn't played into in any strong way, although honestly I feel like she is mostly treated as fanservice, and Blair could have been handled better overall since her character was interesting but... she's very forgettable IMO. If I had seen her in my initial watching of the series I completely forgot about her. To be honest GX's writing was kind of trashy all around but I still have a soft spot in my heart for GX since it was the dub that got me into Yu-Gi-Oh! and it's the series with my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! character, Cyrus.
Okay, hear me out. Yubel reimagined as being reincarnated into two people, Asuka and the blue haired dude. They're already a hermaphrodite and it would fuel both ships.
I guess all the Yu-Gi-Oh girls get brainwashed/manipulated/mind controlled at some point. Anzu-by Yami Marik Asuka-by Saiou Aki-by Divine Kotori-by Barian's Force Bracelet Girls-by parasite Aoi Zaizen-by Spectre (adding a Trickstar card with a virus to her deck)
@@buccaneerguy8197 As we see, the topic of brainwashing or mind control is always for the main girl. In Sevens, Romin is manipulated by her cousin, Roa, at the beginning of the series (later, she beats him up). The thing is that Roa's manipulation would not enter as mind control: the only thing he did was not feed Romin well for a few days to activate her "Berserk Mode": a mode that Romin acquires when she is super angry or has not eaten in days. Supposedly, "Berserk Mode" improves your dueling skills as it gives you adrenaline. However, it ends up being a lie from Roa as Romin ends up losing a duel in that mode. Since that defeat, Romin doesn't go into Bersek Mode for dueling (but she does go into that mode when she's super angry or hungry) Now, there was only one brainwashing in Sevens, but it was with a secondary character that is relevant and has her participation in the plot: Mimi. The thing is, her Controller told her that the job was dangerous and risky. A competent person is needed since the Controller and the Host must work as one and have synergy with each other. Mimi agrees, but things don't go too well as the Controller and the Host have different points of view. There comes a time when the Controller gets tired of Mimi's attitude and decides to take control of her. However, at one point in the story, the Controller is defeated in a duel, but at the same time, Mimi also comes out with harmless injuries. From there, the Controller decides to see what Mimi does since he does not want her to do mischief, but neither does the Controller want to suffer physical damage.
@@Magna_Dragon But unlike the other girls, Mimi should have seen it coming. Like she saw the former host of President Drone on the ground unconscious and the Drone even warned her but she didn't listen since she wanted to be President of Goha so badly. So her getting mind controlled was a matter of time. At least Romin was save from it.
Favorite gx girl is asuka easily, 5d,s is my favorite of the yugioh series and aki has such a good character however apparently due to a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes aki,s final arc with the arcadia was shelved, it would have been awesome seeing her have a final confrontation with divine who survived being eaten by an earthbound immortal, in Luca,s case it seemed like the writers had absolutly no clue what to do with her and her signer mark saved her from being completly sidelined
I actually watched this whole video.. that says a lot.(nerd I know).. Thanks for this thou, I agree with All your points. I mean seriously I like Asuka but.. daaayym they wrote her and Rei like WTH.? Give her great deck, skills and personality jeez and match her with Judai better. The Manga story is superior I believe. And Judai didn't need a more serious character change, in the Manga he was lighthearted and brave enough to fight in shadow games and Tragodia with the help of his friends so bonding to yubel to me is needless. I mean.. Winged Kuriboh is his real partner it matches him well.
They just stand there. Some get 2% of dialogue. But atleast some get 5% duels. But 1% percents of wins sadly. But hey atleast jaden gets 95% of duel times and wins
From what I remember when it comes to alchemy there is a symbol that's meant to be a hermaphrodite. So maybe Yubel is based of that symbol and is therefore both.
I think the problem with GX is that they introduced a metric ton worth of characters and almost nobody got the time to breathe and develop apart from the main 4-5 guys. Jaden, Chazz, Zane, Cyrus and Aster were okay, but everyone else just got shafted. Everything was built too heavily around Jaden and nobody else got to save the day in a meaningful way, just living off scraps. Alexis, Bastion, Hassleberry, the exchange students, Atticus did not get the treatment I would have liked. But, hey we are being way too critical here of a show that was never meant to be a dark or gray depression fiesta of mixed-motivated characters traversing the line between good and evil. This ain't batman man, enjoy it for what it was.
idc Yubel is still my fav. yugioh card till this day - but yeah GX characters all start strong and then fall out and instead of doing something with them - nope they get cast aside to introduce even more new ones... its just a lazy way of writing, thats it for boys and girls a like
The only GX girl that wears a Slifer Red uniform if Blair Flannigan. Every other GX girl mostly wear Obelisk Blue uniforms. Only few GX girls wear Ra Yellow uniform.
Rewatching this video after some time made me remember.... in the bonds beyond time movie... Yubel actually got a voice chance, a more feminine one actually
I hate GX with a passion, but I do see your point about how certain things were improved from before... And I am willing to admit that in GX it sometimes felt less like a problem with female characters specifically and more a problem with everyone who wasn't Jaden.
Hmmmm, let’s see. 1. Asuka: wasted potential, especially in later arcs where Yu Gi Oh would begin its ‘let’s brainwash the main girl for fun’ fetish. 2. Rei: relegated to just being Judai’s cheerleader 3. Professor Emi: just your stereotypical school nurse 4. Tania: Lovestruck fool 5. Pretty much every temporary/guest female character is some obsessive fangirl with barely any personality.
Nice video, it was a lot of fun. I'd like to give my thoughts on the girls too (also pardon me for using the English names) I love Alexis soooo much, she's honestly my favorite Yugioh girl. I did hate what happened to her in season 2 with the light, but it was good when she got freed from it. Like most characters from GX, she deserved better and I would have loved to see more of her. Still she didn't have it as bad as later yugioh girls........ Blair is just Rebecca but slightly less annoying and somehow more pointless. I actually saw some videos about rewriting GX and it ended up replacing the koala guy with her and actually did stuff with her. I can't really add much to what you said about the leftover girls. Though their was some weird ones you left out, like the messy bug girl or the princess that thought her frog cards were princes..................... I see why you didn't mention them..... Goodness I have complicated feelings about Yubel. I want to hate her, him, it?! But that's Yubel wants, because she thinks that it's love, gaahhhhh! I'd like to see you do a video on Yubel, so as much as it pains me to say, #ComePlayWithMeJaden Also I noticed you mentioned the GX manga. I'd like it if you could do a video on that, it sounds rather interesting with the planet cards and how Chazz was a lot cooler. What ever you do next, your still doing awesome so keep up the good work :)
#COMEPLAYWITHMEJADEN! On that note, it's highly likely that Yubel is female since I heard that she uses the female voice when she's talking to or about Judai. Though then again, what do I know?
Well if Yubell is supposed to be an alchemical creation then them being highly androgynous with both male and female anatomy makes perfect sense, in some circles the “hernaphrodite” was the alchemical perfect being, if you watch Castlevania, the goal of alchemists was the creation of a Rebus, a being both male and female with a male and female soul both in it, and while I don’t know much about alchemy beyond some media myself, I do know that this is an idea present in real world alchemy, or at least connected to it
Pretty good video for the most part. For the girls only being in Obelisk, I just think it was a thing where they didn't have enough girls applying to the school, so they didn't have enough people to fill up three separate buildings. Maybe they could have still found a way to not disregard ranks for girls though if they had done something like putting Slifer, Ra, and Obelisk all on different floors of the building or something. Imo, Asuka was made with the mindset of creating a main heroine who was actually a serious duelist, as opposed to Anzu. The problem was that ended up not really going anywhere after a point. Season 2 wasted way too much time on her brainwashed in the Society of Light. And then in season 3, she is just sort of there in the background in the beginning and in desert world. And I love that you brought up her nice sibling bond with Fubuki, because this part right here was a big missed opportunity for us to see more of that. Just where WAS Fubuki when they were all in the desert world!? He was certainly still a student then and immediately reappears when they get back, yet he didn't get sucked in with the rest of the school. And then the rest of season 3 when they are traveling together gets cut way too short when they "die" for a huge chunk of time. And season 4 is really...not that much better for Asuka. I agree with you about how her being put off by Judai not having with duels after all he went through didn't really make sense. I'm not saying she was a bad or anything for it, just that it was pretty sloppily thrown together along the whole thing about her suddenly wanting to be a teacher out of nowhere with no development behind it just so they could throw together some feeble "romance" side plot for her and Judai. However, her Trueman nightmare was kind of interesting in a way if you look at it that it might be related to how she might be afraid that she wasn't even being admired so much for being a good duelist so much as just a pretty idol, so then maybe she's worried that with younger students she's teaching not even seeing her as that, they won't see her as a duelist for anything. idk, but there was some good psychological stuff to pick apart in the Trueman nightmares. Yubel was probably the only villain in GX I actually liked. But the problem was they didn't spend enough time on her backstory and just tried to cram it in a big info more instead of pacing it and adding more little by little. And in season 4, it irks me that she and Judai barely have any dialogue with each other.
At least from how I interpret their portrayal, Yubel is supposed to be both. This is the reason for Yubel representing both sides of the gender binary. The dub makes Yubel into a female character, but we're going to ignore that. In any case, I would love to see a video about Yubel. I don't know how hash tags work on this site and it feels like playing with fire, but alright. #COMEPLAYWITHMEJADEN! Well, that's what the video said to comment.
I'm sorry, who's getting upset at criticizing the female characters in yugioh? "yugioh anime do not give much credit or any form of character for their female characters" is such an easy criticism to make. or how prominent female characters can still be given stupid roles that diminish their agency or what little character they have. I hate this apparent assumption people make when you criticize some media. they get all hurt and wounded like your criticism means you hate them, the franchise, and want to see the creator suffer. no, it's just a bit of critical thinking bro. looking slightly past the initial layer of the media you love, and thinking a bit more about how it's structured, is not going to prevent you from continuing to like it shit. I forgot to mention. I really have been losing patience with yt dudes that make these overly memey edits where regardless of their discussion, every other line or point is interrupted by farting sounds. screams. other meme sound effects. stupid character lines said in slow-mo, or distorted, or negative colors. all three combined. it's not funny, it's a waste of time, and it keeps breaking up the flow of your script. I really don't think this video warranted the multiple sections either. but whatever. you're assessment of gx was pretty good despite those edits. I'm sure I'm in a minority who are tired of those meme edits. you can carry on with them if you want
2:24 seeing slifer in a tie like this now genuinely makes me so sad they were just mascots and not something like the leader of each dorm themselves. I mean who wouldn’t want to go to a school where Egyptian gods dress up all handsome and professional like while teaching you stuff. Hecc I’m sure at that point even the PROTAG would be paying more attention to class even if it’s just a sliver more than usual
Yubel... um... I think WAS a guy (at least in the original Japanese), but the... dragon? Demon? whatever, that they were merged with and then became their main body/soul/whatever was female, so... both? Also due to similar appearance, I headcanon Jesse/Johan is the reincarnation of Yubel's human half and card Yubel is the incarnation of... whatever Yubel was merged with, but with Yubel's living memories intact. EDIT: Also Jaden/Judai is canonically the reincarnation of the Supreme king, not decendent, which is another reason for my Yubel's human half reincarnating into Johan headcanon
They were a Rebus in the original (male and female) with the female half being very much accentuated. But that is too complicated for American Children, so Yubel became a flat chested woman.
Don't forget to smash that like button and be sure to leave a comment - That always helps out the channel :)
Who's your favorite GX girl?
#COMEPLAYWITHMEJADEN
By default it’s Alexis (Asuka). She’s the only girl besides maybe Yubel (good luck with that) with any relevance. She’s definitely better than Tea and has some edge like Ishizu from Duel monsters and the dueling prowess of Rebecca Hawkins. I think she’s a better fit for Jaden over Blair.
Yubel
Asuska obviously
Camulla she wasn't in many episodes but man she prove that strong females exist( sure she have super powerful cheat card but she a villain so I don't care, on top of that she probably the last user in cannon to use Zombie cards)
I think the thing that kills me about wasted characters like Alexis and Blair is that unlike the og series gx explicitly had most of the cast basically be duelists that were constantly supposedly getting stronger. So having them almost always get captured or get controlled just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Plus most chances for them to develop or get any feats, just ended up being taken by others.
Too bad the series didn't give you what you want.
@@jamesriemer6160 why would you develop if you don't need to for the story to move forward in the given direction.
@@lampad4549 If they were not needed to move the story forward they shouldn't have been in it to begin with or at least not be major characters.
@@lampad4549 Because then they break your immersion, characters who get sidelined make it hard to pay attention to the plot when you want to see that character. More sidelined characters, less immersion, less ability to enjoy the story
It may be a small thing, but my biggest problem with Asuka was that she wasn't the one to save her brother.
She had her brother in front of her, in needed of saving by beating him up in a duel, something that Asuka is supposedly very good with, but the one that fought and beated him was Judai.
That situation was a textook example of how to give a character their big fight of the season that would define them as a charater going forward, but instead they gave that fight to Judai.
What a waste of potential...
Too many duels were given to Judai sadly. like why not have Chronos or at least Ryo beat Camula? Why does it have to be Judai again?
Jaden is the hero.
@@jamesgazeley And there are tons of stories where the hero doesn't solve literally every fight.
In the Shonen genre, it's pretty common that secondary characters have their own fights, and progress the story by beating their own enemies, instead of the protagonist beating all the enemies.
@@reikolupus136 Yeah, and they're better in that sense. I'm GX Jaden is like, the hero hero. He's the chosen one that does everything. It was pretty clear that was going to be the case since it began. Even characters who had their own journey like Cyrus and Chazz Jaden was pretty much half of it.
Yugioh has that problem in general. Mai is supposed to be a world class duelist, literally one of the best in the world and yet she gets her ass fucked in like every duel she plays on screen. Dunno much about GX because I tuned that series out hard but it seems like Alexis has that problem too, where she's supposed to be one of the best, but she gets destroyed whenever she plays. 5Ds with Aki is the same. Zexal I don't know about but the female characters of that series seem to be completely side characters. Same with the Arc-5 girls. Dunno about the linkverse series, but the female characters seem a tad more involved in that series.
Yusei: Crow, why do Akiza and the twins hate you?
Crow: You don't get it Yusei. Konami gave me the power to use blackwings.
BUY BLACKWINGS!
I don't get it, that sounds exclusively benefitial...
@@QruisS Crow: No Yusei, you don't understand. I run a Blackwing deck!
I don't really have anything against Crow. He's a good idea for the cast, an excitable manlet with more than a little thug left in him and is tired of Jack's shit. And considering how future YGO series treats its female cast (with either Zexal or VRAINs being the worst) it seems wrong to blame Crow for how Aki turned out.
@@maltheopia Aki was the #3 protagonist and Crow took that role in the second half while Aki was the beachwarmer and Yusei's girlfriend.
I like Crow. He is way more interesting than the original background friends of Yusei from episode 1. I prefer if they stuck with Leo being the 5th signer and made Crow the cool non signer of the group that become the 6th at the end.
The problem of GX girls is simple: They are not Judai
Solution
Make Jaden a girl
Dont ask me how
Think Konami think if you didn't want him to be a girl you should have let the girls win now I ship female judai with jesse
@@WillTheGreatest I mean regardless of Judai being dude or a girl he still went insane for that Johan D..
@@WillTheGreatest I mean they kinda did that in Zexal with Anna
@@Just_B0red I thought it was the other way around
Come play with me, Jaden....forever and ever and ever. XD
Part of the start of Cassandra Lee Morris voicing.. passionate characters
I don't even know if thats pg
@@firepuppies4086 cultured
Lloyd, You need to stay focuced
90 of yugioh character problems is that 90% of the duals are done by the MC or rival. The other charters are lucky enough to get one dual before they are crub stomped by the villains.
Yeah, and a lot of side characters (male and female) have the unfortunate problem of coming down with the "only duel important characters" syndrome fairly early on. The best example imo is Aoi Zaizen from Vrains, her onscreen duels were:
Aoi vs main character - LOSE
Aoi vs minor antagonist that the show just introduced specifically for this duel - WIN
Aoi vs right hand man of seasonal big bad - LOSE
Aoi vs new best friend character who, like main character, has a bit of a mary sue streak - LOSE
Aoi vs minor antagonist so minor that they're barely a character - WIN
Aoi vs minor antagonist that explicitly sucks at card games - WIN
Aoi vs seasonal big bad - LOSE
Aoi vs seasonal big bad - LOSE
Despite being one of the best duelists in the show in-universe, she only gets 3 on screen wins. And only 1 of them is actually competent. Every other duelist she duels is either absurdly strong OR required to defeat her so that the plot can happen (usually both). And thus she's required to lose most of her duels purely based on who her opponents are, even if she has the better deck and is completely owning their ass up until their final turn (IE her duel against Soulburner). Lorewise, she's supposed to be just a little worse at card games than the protagonist (who never loses in the entire series outside of flashbacks to off screen duels), but due to the plot it *really* doesn't feel like it.
@@jaernihiltheus7817
Don’t forget that when she does loose, she looses hard and gets seriously Ragdolled.
@@KeeKage37 yeah, and a lot of her later losses they make a point that if she *just* milled one or two more monsters before that turn then she wouldn't have lost right then and there (both the damage reduction vs bohman and the chip burn damage vs Ai).
@@jaernihiltheus7817 Fucking Kajiki had more effect on the plot than Aoi, and he dueled onscreen a grand total of twice.
So damn true
Worst part is for Blair/Rei: In Tag Force 2/3 (mainly 3) she actually is pretty useful and has a pretty interesting story. She even had some funny lines.
That being said, she could've been written WAY better!
Also she uses one of the coolest, most unique, most powerful, fan-favorite decks of the GX era instead of the weird egg thing they gave her in the anime.
@@Zetact_ With more focus and interaction, I actually feel like the egg deck could be kind of cool. They just never expanded on it
@@animeegotists7527 Tbf, they'd need to actually print the egg deck before they could expand on it.
Plus if you play Duel Links the CPU of Blair uses the Light and Twilightsworns along with leveling her up you get Twilightsworn cards she can use and last I heard those are good decks for their time
@@jaernihiltheus7817 I mean yeah, but they could’ve expanded on it in the show itself. They’ve made tons of pretty much complete decks, before ever releasing them. No reason they couldn’t have done that here
"Where are all the funds to duel academy going to?"
You know the answer
Space! Kaiba is using all his money to send cards into space
That and making blue-eyes themed jets
Oh and don't forget the time machine.
@@mr.protagonist5639
It wasn't a time machine it was a machine that allowed him to go to the after life
@@ImmaLittlePip ok thats actually somehow even an better example.
@@mr.protagonist5639
Kaiba made all these advancements in science just because he lost a children's card game against Yugi
Honestly I wish they did more with Blair. Like you said she was shafted for no reason. Honestly Blair had a lot of potential. She apparently scored the highest on entry test. So she apparently was a really good duelist. We don't really see her duel outside of her initial introduction.
yeah
The way they handled Alexis is honestly such a shame, since she had an interesting motivation due to wanting to find the truth of her brother’s disappearance and was strong and skilled enough as a duelist to become an Obelisk Blue. But it honestly feels like the series didn’t know what to do with her since after finding her brother, in later seasons she’s either brainwashed or captured and doesn’t really contribute much at all. Then again, you could say that for a good portion of GX’s cast, but Alexis suffers from it the most imo while Chazz is at least entertaining as hell and Cyrus has a solid character arc.
The best girl in GX is definitely Tania though due to being a hot and buff Amazon warrior though, and I’m glad she showed up again in season 3.
Manjoume and Sho both have character arcs and pivotal duels though. As do Ryo and Edo. It’s really just the girls that suffer from this problem (and Misawa).
5:13
I can actually answer that reason:
Because its FRICKING KAIBA.
The same person who was adopted under Gozaburo (have no clue if i spelt that right), who by the way have military weapons on standby before Kaiba remodled it into a childrens card game.
The same man who'd willingly BLOW UP HIS CONTESTANTS after he finished the battle city tournament JUST so that he can use his Blue Eyes Jet Plane and look like a badass doing so.
The same man who WENT TO THE AFTERLIFE to get his salty runback against a pharaoh millions of years ago.
There's no common sense to this man and he will literally find a way to use his money to either A. Get away with it, or B. Full on cause destruction because K A I B A
I was wondering when we’d get the next part. The 5Ds part is going to hurt. Maybe I’m biased as Aki was one of my first serious waifus but how she declined in relevance still pissed me off. Still hate Crow for taking her spot in the heirarchcy.
I look forward to the video bc yugioh wasn’t a huge part of my nostalgia, but hearing about everyone’s impassioned takes on characters is great.
Yeah, I remember hearing an explanation on that but im not sure about its authenticity. Apparently, Carly's voice actress got in a scandal with some sort of cult, and since 5d's had a lot of storylines involving cults coming up they had to change things. Apparently, Aki was going to have to confront sayers cult and Luna was apparently connected to whatever cult her dark signer was a part of. But the controversy meant they couldn't do that. As for replacing her with crow well he actually replaced Leo.
@@mr.protagonist5639 That's misinformation. The Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal is often blamed for being the cause of Carly's recast and the show's shift away from fantasy, which is understandable due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. True, Carly was recasted, but only late in the series, long after the shift to sci-fi. She also kept appearing for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. I have no clue where you got that last part from. I don't think they even HAD anything planned for Ruka, frankly, and I've never seen anything to substantiate that the Arcadia Movement was ever going to show up again. Their HQ was destroyed and their leader got fucking eaten, I think that's enough to consider them defunct.
@@samgreenblatt7074 honestly I don't know where I heard it either. I heard it years ago so I didn't know whether to believe it or not. I just thought I'd mention it just in case someone could elaborate or debunk it.
Crow took Aki’s place because Black Wing Cards where selling like hot cakes.
I always felt that Rei was a victim of behind the scenes meddling. She has about half a duel at the end of season 2 with a unique deck theme, and her cards even specifically list support for monsters that we never actually see, all right before she joins the main cast. I wouldn't be surprised if s3 was originally meant to be more in the style of previous seasons, chilling on the school yard, and we were supposed to see Rei in a more central role having duels of her own. Then they went a different direction and now they suddenly had this new character on the cast that they didn't know what to do with
I mean in season 4 she does pay a very important role in starting the "Let's make Judai happy again because him being sad is sad" theme of the season
@@misterk6488 I wouldn't call that an important role. If anything Asuka had a very important role. Rei was fine in season 3, since season 3 was meant to take a darker turn, every yugioh series has a dark arc, or gritty small part in many arcs.
It was an important role though. At least for that specific subplot. Since it was the Tag Duel that got him happy again and it only happened after Rei used the partner switch card.
In regards to all the yugioh girls being mind controlled: This is somehow a trend not only in Yugioh but in lots of cartoons of the time GX came out. Disney did it practically everywhere at least once. Either there were a couple of weirdos in high executive positions or it is a fetish way more common than you would think. And yes, it had an impact on some kids watching it. Trust me on that.
To be fair Yugioh kinda does it to both genders. I just think it hits harder with the females since Tea was under for 2 whole seasons. And then Arc-V......
Still no where near as bad as how they treated the Bracelet Girls in Arc V. Yuzu and Selena started as really cool characters in season 1 but after the synchro arc they get brainwashed and they just disappeared until the end of the series. Rin and Ruri got it worse. We badly saw Rin interact with any other character. And the reunion between Shun and Ruri was done do poorly despite it being set up since season 1.
Ruri and Rin were basically just plot devices and that hurts since they were nice characters (from what we saw of them before getting brainwashed)
@@mikai4738 It's still meme that we haven't had any interactions between Ruri or Rin outside of their brainwashing. I know many brainwashed Yu-Gi-Oh female characters who have interacted more than Ruri and Rin.
The Arc V video for this series is going to be super long when we get to it. I wish the bracelet girls were cooler...
@@logicaltips4107 Zexal imo was more sexist, but ARC-V took it way to far.
@@stardustsynchro6102 I can't wait til he talks about Aoi, its pretty much a meme about how badly the writers treated her everytime she loses. Like how she falls and crushes her head on concrete after her duel with Specter. Or was knocked against some rocks after her loss against Soulburner. Seriously the writers hated Aoi who really could of been an interesting character. But instead chose to focus on Soulburner who was one of the blandest characters ever.
I always liked Alexis a lot and she deserved way better to at least come off as a strong duelist. She should have been the one to save Fubuki and duel bigger villains in general, its kinda insulting that her biggest threat was Titan who returned for a second time. I hoped they would do her better in Arc-V.... at least they improved her design.
3:20: WAIT, WHAT?!?!?!?
I never knew that!!?
Youre telling me that in a System where you have 3 Buildings youre meant to go to Judged
by youre Grades in School, only one of the Buildings has a Woman-Bathroom,
so all the Girls are just send there anyway?!?!
That's the most insane thing i heard outside of anti-science and politics!!
You know things are bad when you loose just to promote a new structure deck.
Wait what? A doll came to life all because people treated weak cards like trash? I know stopped watching the series as a whole after season 2, but that's sounds very odd
Season 1 had a guy who became Tarzan because he couldn't get an egg sandwich, an academy where to enter you need to search a frozen wasteland to build a deck, a tiger shapeshifting into an amazoness to find a mate through dueling, people using occultism to summon the spirit of a cyborg card, and a literal dueling monkey. It was ALWAYS odd.
GX was a mysterious jojo
Bro this was Yugioh, in season 1 it’s confirmed the island has military testing facility’s where they train monkeys to duel.
Most of the stuff is based on Japanese folklore so that stuff does happen as treat any object poorly and it would come to life and seek revenge
I mean, that's just a yokai from japanese folklore.
Imagine if Blaire went with the rest of the cast into the Hell Dimension. Not necessarily to find Johan or comfort Jaden (although those too in a lesser degree) - but specifically to try to take on Yubel for using her friend Martin as a meat puppet. She would definitely lose & die with most of the rest of the cast, but she might get a solo win (on screen, I mean) before then, as well as some actual character development before her death.
It took until SEVENS for them to give Female characters the respect they deserved. I will never not be salty about this.
I have to say that Romin's treatment gets kinda worse with the start of season 2 but she's at least never a damsel in distress or mind controlled. Best girl of the show is probably Asana: One of the former main antags of an arc, a leader type of girl with a cool Wyrm deck, gets relevant duels, is allowed to get big wins and has a consistent character. And she's never treated as a joke even if Sevens is mainly a comedy series.
To bad they made the series a joke with lousy spinoff format no one gives a shit about
They were fine in season 1 of 5D's.
@Mister Perfection well unfortunately it looks like we're getting another rush spin off instead of another normal show but hopefully it'll be less cringey then Sevens. Definitely won't Yuga and the other characters one bit. I try getting Sevens another chance but I just couldn't get into it. The show just so childish and awkward to watch.
@Mister Perfection Do we count Manga? Because the female cast in Structures is pretty good so far, even if it's not the same structure (Haha) as normal YGO stories
It's a real shame that for so Long the female character in Yu-gi-oh were basically mind control fodder. It's really weird that unless the series was focused on said females they would either be cheerleaders, romantic rivals or just fodder cuz the person in charge of their direction didn't understand women enough. Really sad when you put into perspective how some generic harem animes have better written women than a series this long running.
Mind control or brainwashing seems to be a Yu-Gi-Oh trope (or fetish): along with the Protagonist winning or having all duels.
The most affected by this trope must be Tea, Rio and the Bracelet Girls.
I think it's just a cliche that they like to use a lot. Guys in the franchise have been mind controlled to you know. It's a shonen anime series that used commen cliches and plots that have appeared in media in general. It also manly aimed at young boys to get into the card game so it's natural they'd have a male lead and in these shonen anime the main leads always do everything of importance or at least the majority of it.
It’s a shonen anime. The target audience are young boys. Girls aren’t going to have many roles in it. Other than being saved or some other cliche for Damsels in distress. Some will have some “girl power” moments, but not many. Shonen doesn’t have better written women because shonen doesn’t need it because women aren’t really the target audience. Saying the person in charge of direction didn’t understand women is very disingenuous. Also men are in the same stipulation of being “fodder”, or some generic male side roll when it comes to female centric/lead shows. It’s all about the target audience. Knowing your audience is quite important. One of the things why many reboots of series, new films, and new shows of today fail.
@@Mr.SteelinKeepIt I don't know if that's a valid excuse tho. Harem anime are like 75% shonen. It's the same general demographic as this series but like they said, many of those harem anime have better written females than Yu-Gi-Oh.
@@NRG-REC Well what you just said there, harem animes arent targeted towards kids to buy merchanidse/card games, and most card game anime/monster capturing anime were targeted towards young boys at least in the 00's. Harem is targeted towards older teenagers and typical plots have more room for character growth, since the focus is deliberately on the characters and the relationships between eachother. Some can still be shonen but their intent is still different from a show made to sell a game/toy.
It sucks so much because Alexis/Asuka is my favorite character in the entire franchise. I loved that she pioneered archetypes based around Ritual Summoning. But it's so cruel how much they seem to hate her given that she made a reappearance in Arc-V only to be completely dumpstered after doing nothing 10 years later lol
And that “only Jaden could save the day” problem is actually why I consider him more of a Gary Stu than Yusei, who gets accused of that more often. Why? Because 5Ds’ universe doesn’t seem to warp around Yusei, as if it only revolved around him. Whereas with Jaden, that is absolutely the case. Even though Jaden has a bunch of flaws, and probably a lot more personal shortcomings than Yusei, the main problem with a Gary Stu / Mary Sue is that the story is too centred around them. Which becomes especially apparent the blander the supporting cast is.
There are a FEW non obelisk girls, you just really have to look for them. In I believe episode 36, a female student goes up to talk with Banner and she’s wearing yellow.
Yu Gi Og GX Fans: “he better not be dissing the CHAZZ in this” 😡
CHAZZ IT UP!!!!! CHAZZ IT UP!!!!!!
Chazz it up!
Don’t pay too much attention to those who confuse feminism for man-hating “SJW” stereotypes. You make a lot of interesting points here and I can’t see any reasonable person taking issue with wanting good writing and fair treatment for female characters.
What really sucks is Alexis got screwed over, not once, but twice! In GX and then later in Arc-V! All because the plot had to happen! SHE DESERVES HER OWN SPIN-OFF AND MAKE IT EDGY! SHE'S GOT A FUCKING AXE TO GRIND AGAINST THE WRITERS!
I love Alexis, she is *everything* but whoever decided that the girls uniforms in that academy should look like that - tight tops and short skirts - should either get a raise or a background check, just saying
Best uniform
me too
it's like Seto's pet project so no shit a rich incel hires a bunch of whackjobs like Crowley and the uniforms are objectifying. i suppose they're going for 60s air hostess/mod fashion
I still love Alexis regardless, she is an improvement over Tea as the love interest of the main character.
I wouldn't call Alexis a love interest she had a one sided crush on Jaden and that was about it.
I don't like Tea and Yugi as a pairing but there is at least more foundation there
at least Tea isn't an active duelist to begin with, so she's not relevant in card game anime is justified and i think it's fine for protagonist to get romance to not relevant character once (tbh protagonist have gf who strong and related to main conflict is kinda cliche too)
But then Yubel came along and anything Judai/Jaden does with another girl could lead Yubel to try to kill everything again.👀🤷♂️
@@ZaxFSO8083 I'm not completely sure about that Yubel was cured of most of its craziness at the end of season 3.
Also with Yubel and Judai fused together they are now together til the end of time any earthly realtionship would just be a temporary fling
Tea at least wasn't supposed to be a duelist so her not doing much is understable.
The same cannot be said about Alexis.
Realizing after all these years that the main girls in the show were named Rei and Asuka, hurts my soul
Glad to see I’m not the only one still Salty that Crow replaced Best Girl Aki as the 3rd most important main character of 5Ds 😅
God Damn It Crow! 😡
in many ways the women are a step up from Anzu (who got nerfed in the anime) but one step forward two steps back. V1 manga Anzu doesn't take shit from anyone, i hated how the boys sexually harass her and Yuugi is just 🤷♀️ about it. she's a tough cookie who punches out Jou and Honda and sasses everyone. she's not totally helpless and useless as in the show. i feel like they attempted to do the opposite with Asuka, making her more like manga Anzu
I honestly didn't really mind the Society of Light plot and how practically everyone, including Asuka and Manjome, were taken over by them, it was supposed to make them look like a massive, nearly unstoppable threat, something for which Judai actually needed the help of Neos and the Neo-Spatians, what with Edo defeating his Elemental Hero deck. I get that it can ultimately look like the writers putting their regular hypno-fetish into the series once again, but I think this time it actually made sense.
What’s wrong with fanfiction? I find better story arcs and pieces from random fans then I do from the source materials that inspired them. Go fanfiction writers!
Sadly there's alot of garbage fanfiction then good fanfiction
@@pingaspearce9403 But the good ones are honestly gems, even if the descriptions of the bad ones make me want to bleach my eyes.
@@pingaspearce9403 And the bad one get more known through movies or official books….
From what I've heard that's just RWBY
I'm surprised people criticize Yugioh's writing, characters and plot as if the show wasn't crazy since the first episode. Seto Kaiba got away with kidnapping and destruction of property while being the CEO of a publicly traded company and a high school student at the same time. Then Yugi crushed his mind using ancient Egyptian magic after summoning Exodia without using a single Pot of Greed.
At a certain point questioning it feels like asking "why does 2 + 2 = 4?"
As someone who still writes fanfiction and has no idea how to handle Yubel. I'm doing this in the hopes that any deep dive into her can help so.....
#ComeplaywithmeJaden
Things really went down hill in season 3. Jaden took too much of Dark Yugi orgin and the previous cast was pushed aside for the transfer students.
@@nicholase82 #ComeplaywithmeJaden
#comeplaywithmejudai
By the way only the 4kids dub actually made Yubel a woman.
There is even evidence that Yubel might have original been a guy before they become the dragon,Human, demon thing in the show
@@nicholase82 Syrus etc were pretty useless- also
I’m going to say the weird thing again, I actually like Blair/Rei in terms of character progression. In her first duel we see she a decent duelist but isn’t nearly as good as other prominent duelist(still probably better than syrus). Second duel, while the tournament half way through became meaningless she still made it to the finals and gave Chazz a decent duel while also showing major improvement by making her deck have versatile strategies(better than most of gx cast because half of them just have one strategy and break down after that.). Season 3 she finally in the school as a slifer red but can compare to ra yellow student also we finally see how they wanted to properly display her character. She a determined young girl who does whatever she can for the goals she sets and to me that pretty aspiring. Then finally season 4 she is an obelisk blue and finally an obelisk blue student showed they earned their way to the rank in the dueling aside from Zane/Kaiser. Throughout the series we have seen her improving in her dueling and her determination, season 4 her final duel does exactly that showing once again how skilled she is as a duelist in a tag duel by basically dueling everyone with her switch card and proving to be a duelist that can play with the best without holding them back. So yeah Blair cool but deserved more screen time as she actually get development meanwhile Asuka is so bland that they really have nothing for her in season 2 or 3.
Blair/Rei should've been a main character. Replace her in the original main trio with Chumly, who was ultimately a pointless character in the grand scheme of things. She can fake being a guy like her intro episode and make a thing about wanting her to show her skill as a duelist to at first impress Zane but then for her own sake rather than just be dogpiled later with the Blue girls for token reasons. Jaden & Syrus can stick up for her when her gender is exposed allowing her to stick around. This would allow her development to get better focus and perhaps more screen time and more on screen wins to showcase herself.
The outline of Blair/Rei is a really good character progression but it just didn't matter cause how little screen time or importance Blair/Rei's duels were given by the story.
Honestly, it did feel like a bit of a letdown when everything regarding Yubel ended so abruptly with Jaden finally agreeing to bond with her at a soul level. Not to mention the fact that when Jaden was a kid, despite knowing that he was the reincarnation of the Supreme King, she didn't try to help him grow, but actively drove away everyone that would have been his friend in a mistaken belief that she was protecting him.
GX was WEIRD when it came to handling the female characters. The one-offs like Camula and Alice were indeed actually pretty decent antagonists that served their purposes for what little time they had, as was the tiger, Alexis and especially Blair had far more potential to be good than the previous series, but they never get utilized all the much. Blair especially frustrates me because her appearance and her duel in the first season was one of my favorites in the entire series, if not for the hilariously surreal image of Avion and Sparkman simping over The Maiden In Love. I feel like those characters were meant to be more than they were, but because GX had such a massive cast, they ended up just being afterthoughts.
On a side note, Alice definitely needs more fanart. Also, you better NOT be thinking what I THINK you're thinking! XP
Yubel, in their Original body, I argue we’re a male due to the fact the YGO art style tents to emphasize the female chest . Also most of the Dragon’s parts in their bodies are covered in black leather, meaning the body of the dragon was female. Also one of Yubel’s cart is also known as the sad knight in german (I believe it was one of the Japanese ones) which tents to be a male role, in most of fiction.
But didn't her lore reveal Yubel to be a girl when they were human?
@@srslydoatm9251 They go out of their way to avoid gendered language iirc, at least in the subtitles. In present day though, Yubel sometimes uses male pronouns for himself (though some japanese girls use them too), and sometimes uses female pronouns for herself. But I generally use male pronouns for him because in the Japenese version he (and everyone else) uses male gendered language for Yubel wayyyyy more often.
3:20: WAIT, WHAT?!?!?!?
I never knew that!!?
Youre telling me that in a System where you have 3 Buildings youre meant to go to Judged
by youre Grades in School, only one of the Buildings has a Woman-Bathroom,
so all the Girls are just send there anyway?!?!
That's the most insane thing i heard outside of anti-science and politics!!
Yubel was born a male human who got a surgery ( to gain power to support the Supreme king.) Where a female dragon heart was implanted to replace his. He is literally male and female and the pronouns yubel uses are who's aspect is currently expressing yubel's feelings. Essentially a mystical hermaphrodite, although Yubel can shape-shift to a degree.
Nope, all wrong. Yubel was and likely still female at her core. In Yu-Gi-Oh GX episode 115, Yubel's backstory is revealed. I still don't know why people still want to debate this despite it being explained in an episode of the same arc focusing on Yubel and Jaden. I guess people just want to project their interpretation (or desired headcanon) on the matter. But yeah, I'd rate Yubel as best girl because she has the best story arc for her introduction.
I mentioned it on the commentary post a while back but in short I think that the girls being in Obelisk Blue might have just been a cost-cutting measure because Kaiba didn't really care one way or the other. Both the Yellow and Red dorms are incredibly small (Red literally only has 8 rooms, even if they are bunking 3 to a room, logistically it doesn't make sense).
It's not the best explanation, but it does cover as to why all the female students are Obelisk Blue. Really, Kaiba's house system was just weird by default since the "logical" way to do things would be to use a single dorm for ALL the students, even if you wanted them to be sorted in some way.
I also believe that part of the issue is that the card game designers didn't give the girls fun and dynamic decks. It's not as obvious in GX because most of the characters ran weird, poorly constructed archetypes (archetypes really didn't start to get focus until late GX with stuff like Six Samurai, Gladiator Beast, and Lightsworn - and even then they had stuff like the Duel Terminal archetypes). Having a deck that the writers like to show off and that sells products is generally a good way to get more screentime (ahem crow), although in the case of GX they didn't have as many non-anime related cards releasing IRL until Season 2.
As an aside, if you want the girls of Yugioh treated well from their start to finish, you gotta look to Tag Force. They actually had genuine Obelisk Blue girls, who have distinct personalities (getting more development and more unique designs as the games went on and they went from Obelisk Blue students to Neo Domino Duel Academy students), and used LEGITIMATELY good decks.
Kaiba didn't actually create Duel academy it was Kagemaru 4kids just claimed it Kaiba to better tie the series together.
No, it was Kaiba who created Duel Academy...
Too be honest Alexis was basically the main reason i got back into Yugioh in High School.
"Meritocracy is dead."
In anything but the gx tag force game. Christ, those obelisk girls were absolutely freaking ruthless.
"Useless ass Rei"
Oof. Again, don't let the tag force games here you say that. Those lightsworns of hers are monsters.
Without the plot armor field effect, even scrubs are terrifying
Worst part is GX and 5ds are still the shows that treat their female leads the best
Haven't watched yugioh pasted 5d season 1. How bad are females in zexal,arc V and Vrains?
@@amienabled6665 Tori is the apidamy of useless cheerleader love interest character Kat is in a similar boat but as a faunas and Rio is actually a pretty good character though she spends the first half in a coma and part of the second half as this oracle of sorts
As for Arc V AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
and I never watched vrains so I can’t share much on that front
@@skyslasher2297 while I haven't finish Vrains they started fine with the female characters and whatever Yugioh writers get with female duelist syndrome begins and you know is downhill from there also I'm going coin it the Alexis Izinski Syndrome because it really started with Alexis but it became really obvius with Akiza and onward
@@skyslasher2297 Vrains had barely relevant girls. Ema had like 3 duels and was mainly working in the background while Aoi (the main girl) never got a big win and some of her losses ended in her being thrown into a wall or getting faceplant into concrete. But tbf, she had to face many duelists who weren't allowed to lose thanks to plot.
@@mikai4738 About that i wonder why nobody thought to make a female MC. They could propose a pilot to test the waters.
Blair went from the most useless in the anime to the most useful in Tag Force 3; she's easily top 3 if not the strongest duelist in the game lmao
judais personality change at the end of season 3 was actualy needed.
when judai went after yubel to save his friend he told the rest of the group to stay behind because its his problem and he should deal with it alone.
the others basically forced judai to take them along because theyre "friends" and he agreed only to have them turn around halve way by getting angry at him for dragging them along...
if i was judai id keep emotional distance from people too after it turns out that the guys i thought were my friends acted like entitled assholes that blamed me for everything bad that happened to them.
I think it was kinda implied their emotions were manipulated (I think that's what those orbs on them meant?) but it did kinda annoy me how everyone was like, "You've changed! You're avoiding us!" when... Ya know, supreme king kinda went on a genocidal rampage because he thought he killed his friends. I feel like anyone going through that (ESPECIALLY as a teen) would absolutely mess you up no matter how much your therapist costs.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the insect chick that Syrus dueled to get into the next dorm. While being a one off, she was pretty cool. She even was a competent duelist and only lost for being a one off character.
I feel like half of the problems with GX could be solved by just excising Tyranno from the story entirely. He has no greater importance to the plot, an entirely unnecessary arc that goes nowhere, one of the stupidest backstories in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! and the most boring deck in the entire show. We've got HEROs, Vehicroids, Ojamas, Crystal Beasts, and... Dinosaurs. Just regular Dinosaurs. Woo. His only purpose in the show is to steal away time from other, potentially better characters. The manga had the right idea leaving him out.
Pretty sure the manga would had included him if the manga had any time to make what it wanted instead of having to start rushing things in the later chapters.
Pretty sure he’s also the reason Bastion got turned from a potential rival, to a running joke.
Let's accept the fact that the most interesting part of Asuka/Alexis really is her brother, Fubuki/Atticus.
One thing I would love for you to talk about with Sevens ending how they handled there female character and side character, which I will argue is the best out of any Yugioh series
Aw, but I like Crow. He reminded me of my sister. The convos he has with Jack about getting a job and "moving up" were straight-up us. I too spend more money on hair care and food than I do on rent.
Pretty sure Jaden ALWAYS had some serious issues. He tried to hide his trauma but... well. Kaibaman episode was the first major hint.
Well considering his back story it makes perfect sense why he would have issues i mean its heavily impilled he had no friends before duel academy and that's why he is so awkward and childish.
I’m going take notes on being a way better girl now
It's gonna be fun seeing the next video about 5DS Ill be honest my favorite girl from 5DS was Carly putting Aki aside Carly was very interesting in the first two seasons of 5DS (haven't watched the other seasons of 5ds) she was funny and had some flaws but she also helped Jack more as a character and as for 5DS being dark of a series from the start I find it to be the better series out of the first three and maybe the rest when it comes down to characters
@Lil Smurfy so i take you are a real fan if you haven't seen it because you sound like some generic commenter
Yeah I noticed that too that the girls in yugioh are not that important to the plot or just being mind controlled or something. That is why I like sevens so much. Despite being a show for kids the girls are actually doing something and are not just a cheer squad. They are dueling on their own and all of them have unique and interesting decks.
Also, am I the only one who never got the idea of Jaden and Alexis being together? It felt like there were very few scenes between the two after a good few seasons. I never got the hype.
It's the power of the MC, regardless of how asexual and naive they are, some people will still ship them together regardless of how much(little) they interact.
@@kishensukhu2292 Anime MC are often dense. Particularly in Isekai.
You're not the only one. I was personally fangirling over the screenshot with two Rareshipping fanfics in it during the beginning of the video. XD I feel like Judai and Asuka didn't really get enough development with more one-on-one conversations, especially since she's gone too long from being brainwashed or "dead" for the good part of two seasons and she pretty much knew by season 4 that there wasn't enough time for them to properly go in any other kind of direction what with him not being interested and them having to go separate ways and start different lives eventually after graduation.
🏳️🌈
He is more into European guys
I’m so happy this series exists. I love the Yugioh girls and they need so much more love and the writers need to be called out for their mistreatment. #ComePlayWithMeJaden
Also worth pointing out that a lot of his opponents in the first season, at least, were absolutely creeped out by how Jaden would get more excited and fired up the more dire his situation looked.
...5Ds episode when?
I'm pretty sure Yubel has male and female physical attributes, because of a very likely inspiration of Yubel by the alchemist idol named Baphomet.
I'm aware Yubel is just a fantasy character, but as a heads-up if you don't know know weather someone is male, female or nonbinary in terms of gender, you can use the gender neutral pronouns they/them instead of he/him or she/her.
Also, there's an actually not so rare condition called intersex, where a person is born with both male and female organs. I don't think Baphomet is referencing intersex people considering the time of it's first reporting during the end of the crusades and the limited medical knowledge at that time, but it is still interesting nontheless.
I also want to thank you for making so many awesome videos. I really enjoy your content. Keep it up! 😁👍
I'd definitely be interested to hear your take on Yubel.
5:33 there’s nothing wrong with reading fan-fiction some is creepy and weird but a lot can actually be really creative and fun.
Okay, I will explain it! This show is an example of why Konami never had a creative staff before and just let everyone run free and do whatever they wanted.
The staff who was in charge of GX was mainly composed of Junki Tategami and Shin Yoshida, who hardly ever wanted to care for this cast. There is a reason why this season doesn't get any more respect. Its because it was wasted by the bad tone between filler and having a plot out of nowhere.
The two main writers Shin Yoshida and Junki Tategami would butt heads like the case in point the staff who worked on Digimon Zero Two had the same problem.
Yoshida while trying to move the plot, Junki started to feel out of place and decide to go into war by making the episode ''slice of life'' to the point the show became polarizing. One part was ''sub-stance'', while the other was ''style'' lead to weird stuff like people to this day defending this series because it was like decent, but otherwise badly executed.
Junki Tategami, before being a YGO writer he was a Toei writer in the past. Series he wrote such as Megaranger, Gaoranger, and Go-Onger are examples of his style and more than enough to consider him the main man of the series, but when he was given this anime we all knew Junki had his work cut out.
Yoshida at that point became YGO's main writer often would use story troupe elements to make you like him or hate him. Which is the case for Yoshida as pretentious as he gets doesn't often screws up while writers under him tend to do something worst. Cast in point why VRAINS imo has one of the worst writing staff. And don't get me started on why he left ARC-V to be worked on by a writer who doesn't have ''experience'' or ''source'' to work on.
To make it more clear my way, the theme of the show is about ''trial and error'' which looks good, but completely is overmined out the window. The main reason GX is overrated IMO is simply to put it clear bad writing is being used for excuses to make you think its ''good'' but when in reality it was just a messy season with no story. The story has no clue what it can be needed no style of serialization but just to stay on track - That always is a problem with the YGO series in the middle like ARC-V is another example of why having story and filler at the same time doesn't make the show grow on to you.
Another reason i can rant on be why a school setting. Why did the show in Season 3 and 4 sucks or did Judai really grow as a character or he get character assassination. Just to make it clear and simple. No amount of production was the fault, but its own being out of place when the series was originally in development.
To conclude: The show had a hard time trying to find the story of the characters to fit and conclude it, which is why GX failed that bad in ratings and even viewers dropped it quickly.
Considering yugioh GX has the second most amount of episodes for a yugioh series and is still insanely popular in japan and somewhat popular here I have a hard time believing its ratings were bad. Maybe by the end it wasn't as popular but most shows rarely run for 50+ episodes let alone 180+ episodes.
Well the reason why GX has these issues is because they were supposed to have a complete 4th season(24 episodes) and 5th season, but these were sadly cut because Kenn, the Japanese Va for Jaden, didn't renew his contract, so they basically condensed both season into one, which in turn caused so many characters to not have a conclusion to their stories.
So, this why Alexis, and blair didn't get much development. :(
@@amienabled6665 So I take it you like GX and Zexal because of false ratings that don't make sense bruh
@Depression is Our Savior That can be logical and somewhat true.
It's obvious why there is just one dorm for girls. Seto Kaiba built Duel Academia, he doesn't even know what a girl is
I remember being a little girl who was really into Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, I even played the DS game Spirit Caller which came with three specific cards (I still have the shiny foil Hunter Owl that was one of the three cards). I liked the show, but they really did the female characters dirty. I didn't even know they canonically had female versions of the Red and Yellow dorms until I unlocked them on the map in the aforementioned game. The only two girls I could remember from GX is Alexis/Asuka and Blair/Rei, and I actually didn't know about Blair until I was older and watched some episodes with my brother because I watched mostly late season one and early season 2 and it was mostly out of order. I didn't even like Alexis very much, little kid me thought she was a little bland personality-wise (although I came around to her when playing the DS game).
The original series had more interesting and active female characters than GX. I really agree with your criticisms of Alexis and Blair. Alexis has interesting character that isn't played into in any strong way, although honestly I feel like she is mostly treated as fanservice, and Blair could have been handled better overall since her character was interesting but... she's very forgettable IMO. If I had seen her in my initial watching of the series I completely forgot about her.
To be honest GX's writing was kind of trashy all around but I still have a soft spot in my heart for GX since it was the dub that got me into Yu-Gi-Oh! and it's the series with my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! character, Cyrus.
GX’s writing in the dub is trashy. But it’s absolutely phenomenal in the sub. 4Kids does that a lot.
Okay, hear me out.
Yubel reimagined as being reincarnated into two people, Asuka and the blue haired dude.
They're already a hermaphrodite and it would fuel both ships.
I guess all the Yu-Gi-Oh girls get brainwashed/manipulated/mind controlled at some point.
Anzu-by Yami Marik
Asuka-by Saiou
Aki-by Divine
Kotori-by Barian's Force
Bracelet Girls-by parasite
Aoi Zaizen-by Spectre (adding a Trickstar card with a virus to her deck)
Does anyone know if they did the same thing in Sevens yet if not already because if they did what the heck
@@buccaneerguy8197 As we see, the topic of brainwashing or mind control is always for the main girl.
In Sevens, Romin is manipulated by her cousin, Roa, at the beginning of the series (later, she beats him up). The thing is that Roa's manipulation would not enter as mind control: the only thing he did was not feed Romin well for a few days to activate her "Berserk Mode": a mode that Romin acquires when she is super angry or has not eaten in days. Supposedly, "Berserk Mode" improves your dueling skills as it gives you adrenaline. However, it ends up being a lie from Roa as Romin ends up losing a duel in that mode. Since that defeat, Romin doesn't go into Bersek Mode for dueling (but she does go into that mode when she's super angry or hungry)
Now, there was only one brainwashing in Sevens, but it was with a secondary character that is relevant and has her participation in the plot: Mimi. The thing is, her Controller told her that the job was dangerous and risky. A competent person is needed since the Controller and the Host must work as one and have synergy with each other. Mimi agrees, but things don't go too well as the Controller and the Host have different points of view. There comes a time when the Controller gets tired of Mimi's attitude and decides to take control of her. However, at one point in the story, the Controller is defeated in a duel, but at the same time, Mimi also comes out with harmless injuries. From there, the Controller decides to see what Mimi does since he does not want her to do mischief, but neither does the Controller want to suffer physical damage.
@@buccaneerguy8197 That forever loli girl got Mind controlled by a helmet 1 time
@@Magna_Dragon ok why is this a still a tradition in yugioh
@@Magna_Dragon But unlike the other girls, Mimi should have seen it coming. Like she saw the former host of President Drone on the ground unconscious and the Drone even warned her but she didn't listen since she wanted to be President of Goha so badly. So her getting mind controlled was a matter of time.
At least Romin was save from it.
You can’t deny that some of the girls in the older Yu-Gi-Oh series are kinda cute.
You know something is wrong when Pokemon Anime MC females are more well written than yours...
Yeah Pokèmon always had good female characters yugioh can't compare well aside from yugioh sevens xd
Is it just me or is Asuka just a female Joe Wheeler?
I've heard it said that she looks like the love child of Joey and Kaiba.
Favorite gx girl is asuka easily, 5d,s is my favorite of the yugioh series and aki has such a good character however apparently due to a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes aki,s final arc with the arcadia was shelved, it would have been awesome seeing her have a final confrontation with divine who survived being eaten by an earthbound immortal, in Luca,s case it seemed like the writers had absolutly no clue what to do with her and her signer mark saved her from being completly sidelined
I actually watched this whole video.. that says a lot.(nerd I know).. Thanks for this thou, I agree with All your points. I mean seriously I like Asuka but.. daaayym they wrote her and Rei like WTH.? Give her great deck, skills and personality jeez and match her with Judai better. The Manga story is superior I believe. And Judai didn't need a more serious character change, in the Manga he was lighthearted and brave enough to fight in shadow games and Tragodia with the help of his friends so bonding to yubel to me is needless. I mean.. Winged Kuriboh is his real partner it matches him well.
They just stand there. Some get 2% of dialogue. But atleast some get 5% duels. But 1% percents of wins sadly. But hey atleast jaden gets 95% of duel times and wins
When Yubel comes on screen I think of the Pokemon professor from the games "Are you a boy or a girl"
The girls have some potential it's just a shame it's wasted since they all have unique ideas.
From what I remember when it comes to alchemy there is a symbol that's meant to be a hermaphrodite. So maybe Yubel is based of that symbol and is therefore both.
Im loving this new content type over the drama stuff you used to do. Keep it up!
Glad you enjoy it
YuGiOh GX is like a fan fiction that was animated and dubbed by an abridged series team.
I think the problem with GX is that they introduced a metric ton worth of characters and almost nobody got the time to breathe and develop apart from the main 4-5 guys. Jaden, Chazz, Zane, Cyrus and Aster were okay, but everyone else just got shafted. Everything was built too heavily around Jaden and nobody else got to save the day in a meaningful way, just living off scraps. Alexis, Bastion, Hassleberry, the exchange students, Atticus did not get the treatment I would have liked. But, hey we are being way too critical here of a show that was never meant to be a dark or gray depression fiesta of mixed-motivated characters traversing the line between good and evil. This ain't batman man, enjoy it for what it was.
I didnt know Japanese teenagers were so.... mature. They go from a usual 10 year old; to a super model over night. 💀
6:41 *Alexis Rhodes **6:55** * Alexis **7:19** *Alexis **7:30** *Alexis **7:48** *Alexis **7:55** *Alexis **8:03** *Atticus **8:17** *Zane and Syrus **8:27** *Alexis **8:42** *Chazz **8:50** *Alexis **8:59** *Alexis **9:07** *Alexis **9:20** *Alexis **9:45** Tea **9:47** *Alexis **9:50** *Akiza **9:52** *Sayer **9:53** *Tori **10:32** *Alexis **10:39** *Alexis **10:55** *Jaden **10:59** *Jaden **11:14** *Alexis **11:17** *Jaden **11:20** *Jaden **11:29** *Alexis **11:31** *Jaden **11:58** *Alexis **11:59** *Jaden **13:08** *blair **13:14** *blair **13:52** *Zane Truesdale **14:16** *Marcel **14:31** *Blair **14:39** *Blair **14:49** *Mindy and Jasmine **14:53** *Alexis **15:21** *Blair **16:26** *Jaden **16:33** *Jaden **17:21** *Alexis **17:24** *Jaden **17:31** *Sarina **17:33** *Sartorius **17:47** *Jaden and Aster **18:19** *Sarin **18:24** *Sartorius **18:25** *Jaden **19:37** * Jaden **19:57** *Jesse and Jaden **20:02** *Jaden **20:24** *Jaden **20:45** *Jaden **20:47** *Jaden **20:55* Jaden 20:58 *Jaden 21:06 *Jaden 21:30 *Jaden 21:47 *Jaden 21:52 *Jaden 21:58 *Jaden 22:06 *Jaden 22:30 *Jaden 22:59 *Jaden 23:02 *Jaden 24:27 *Alexis 24:34 *Blair 24:42 *Jaden
For the longest time Alexis was the only playable female duelist in the GX world in Duel Links until Blair was added. Not counting Yubel
Fuck that noise, I still read fanfiction and I’m in my 30’s. No shame here.
idc Yubel is still my fav. yugioh card till this day - but yeah GX characters all start strong and then fall out and instead of doing something with them - nope they get cast aside to introduce even more new ones... its just a lazy way of writing, thats it for boys and girls a like
The only GX girl that wears a Slifer Red uniform if Blair Flannigan.
Every other GX girl mostly wear Obelisk Blue uniforms. Only few GX girls wear Ra Yellow uniform.
Cause to put women in the Slifer Dorm is sexist.
Actually, I got a question for you Kamen, what’s your favorite deck in Yugioh? Anime or not. Would be really interesting to see
Rewatching this video after some time made me remember.... in the bonds beyond time movie... Yubel actually got a voice chance, a more feminine one actually
I hate GX with a passion, but I do see your point about how certain things were improved from before... And I am willing to admit that in GX it sometimes felt less like a problem with female characters specifically and more a problem with everyone who wasn't Jaden.
Hmmmm, let’s see.
1. Asuka: wasted potential, especially in later arcs where Yu Gi Oh would begin its ‘let’s brainwash the main girl for fun’ fetish.
2. Rei: relegated to just being Judai’s cheerleader
3. Professor Emi: just your stereotypical school nurse
4. Tania: Lovestruck fool
5. Pretty much every temporary/guest female character is some obsessive fangirl with barely any personality.
I feel like out of all the one off female characters Alice had the most potential to become an interesting long term character.
Nice video, it was a lot of fun. I'd like to give my thoughts on the girls too (also pardon me for using the English names)
I love Alexis soooo much, she's honestly my favorite Yugioh girl. I did hate what happened to her in season 2 with the light, but it was good when she got freed from it. Like most characters from GX, she deserved better and I would have loved to see more of her. Still she didn't have it as bad as later yugioh girls........
Blair is just Rebecca but slightly less annoying and somehow more pointless. I actually saw some videos about rewriting GX and it ended up replacing the koala guy with her and actually did stuff with her.
I can't really add much to what you said about the leftover girls. Though their was some weird ones you left out, like the messy bug girl or the princess that thought her frog cards were princes..................... I see why you didn't mention them.....
Goodness I have complicated feelings about Yubel. I want to hate her, him, it?! But that's Yubel wants, because she thinks that it's love, gaahhhhh! I'd like to see you do a video on Yubel, so as much as it pains me to say, #ComePlayWithMeJaden
Also I noticed you mentioned the GX manga. I'd like it if you could do a video on that, it sounds rather interesting with the planet cards and how Chazz was a lot cooler. What ever you do next, your still doing awesome so keep up the good work :)
#COMEPLAYWITHMEJADEN!
On that note, it's highly likely that Yubel is female since I heard that she uses the female voice when she's talking to or about Judai. Though then again, what do I know?
Well if Yubell is supposed to be an alchemical creation then them being highly androgynous with both male and female anatomy makes perfect sense, in some circles the “hernaphrodite” was the alchemical perfect being, if you watch Castlevania, the goal of alchemists was the creation of a Rebus, a being both male and female with a male and female soul both in it, and while I don’t know much about alchemy beyond some media myself, I do know that this is an idea present in real world alchemy, or at least connected to it
If the eloquent, well argumented video didn't convince me already to like the video then that quick mention of Akiza > Crow definitely did. great job
lol
OH THANK YOU! Finally a yugioh youtuber addressing how all the girls always get brainwashed!
Pretty good video for the most part. For the girls only being in Obelisk, I just think it was a thing where they didn't have enough girls applying to the school, so they didn't have enough people to fill up three separate buildings. Maybe they could have still found a way to not disregard ranks for girls though if they had done something like putting Slifer, Ra, and Obelisk all on different floors of the building or something.
Imo, Asuka was made with the mindset of creating a main heroine who was actually a serious duelist, as opposed to Anzu. The problem was that ended up not really going anywhere after a point. Season 2 wasted way too much time on her brainwashed in the Society of Light. And then in season 3, she is just sort of there in the background in the beginning and in desert world. And I love that you brought up her nice sibling bond with Fubuki, because this part right here was a big missed opportunity for us to see more of that. Just where WAS Fubuki when they were all in the desert world!? He was certainly still a student then and immediately reappears when they get back, yet he didn't get sucked in with the rest of the school. And then the rest of season 3 when they are traveling together gets cut way too short when they "die" for a huge chunk of time. And season 4 is really...not that much better for Asuka. I agree with you about how her being put off by Judai not having with duels after all he went through didn't really make sense. I'm not saying she was a bad or anything for it, just that it was pretty sloppily thrown together along the whole thing about her suddenly wanting to be a teacher out of nowhere with no development behind it just so they could throw together some feeble "romance" side plot for her and Judai. However, her Trueman nightmare was kind of interesting in a way if you look at it that it might be related to how she might be afraid that she wasn't even being admired so much for being a good duelist so much as just a pretty idol, so then maybe she's worried that with younger students she's teaching not even seeing her as that, they won't see her as a duelist for anything. idk, but there was some good psychological stuff to pick apart in the Trueman nightmares.
Yubel was probably the only villain in GX I actually liked. But the problem was they didn't spend enough time on her backstory and just tried to cram it in a big info more instead of pacing it and adding more little by little. And in season 4, it irks me that she and Judai barely have any dialogue with each other.
At least from how I interpret their portrayal, Yubel is supposed to be both. This is the reason for Yubel representing both sides of the gender binary. The dub makes Yubel into a female character, but we're going to ignore that. In any case, I would love to see a video about Yubel.
I don't know how hash tags work on this site and it feels like playing with fire, but alright. #COMEPLAYWITHMEJADEN!
Well, that's what the video said to comment.
I'm sorry, who's getting upset at criticizing the female characters in yugioh? "yugioh anime do not give much credit or any form of character for their female characters" is such an easy criticism to make. or how prominent female characters can still be given stupid roles that diminish their agency or what little character they have. I hate this apparent assumption people make when you criticize some media. they get all hurt and wounded like your criticism means you hate them, the franchise, and want to see the creator suffer. no, it's just a bit of critical thinking bro. looking slightly past the initial layer of the media you love, and thinking a bit more about how it's structured, is not going to prevent you from continuing to like it
shit. I forgot to mention. I really have been losing patience with yt dudes that make these overly memey edits where regardless of their discussion, every other line or point is interrupted by farting sounds. screams. other meme sound effects. stupid character lines said in slow-mo, or distorted, or negative colors. all three combined. it's not funny, it's a waste of time, and it keeps breaking up the flow of your script. I really don't think this video warranted the multiple sections either. but whatever. you're assessment of gx was pretty good despite those edits. I'm sure I'm in a minority who are tired of those meme edits. you can carry on with them if you want
2:24 seeing slifer in a tie like this now genuinely makes me so sad they were just mascots and not something like the leader of each dorm themselves. I mean who wouldn’t want to go to a school where Egyptian gods dress up all handsome and professional like while teaching you stuff. Hecc I’m sure at that point even the PROTAG would be paying more attention to class even if it’s just a sliver more than usual
Personally I feel like akiza was the first well written yugioh female character
Yubel... um... I think WAS a guy (at least in the original Japanese), but the... dragon? Demon? whatever, that they were merged with and then became their main body/soul/whatever was female, so... both? Also due to similar appearance, I headcanon Jesse/Johan is the reincarnation of Yubel's human half and card Yubel is the incarnation of... whatever Yubel was merged with, but with Yubel's living memories intact.
EDIT: Also Jaden/Judai is canonically the reincarnation of the Supreme king, not decendent, which is another reason for my Yubel's human half reincarnating into Johan headcanon
They were a Rebus in the original (male and female) with the female half being very much accentuated. But that is too complicated for American Children, so Yubel became a flat chested woman.
@@shadowofhawk55 ah, I guess that makes sense
@@TheWowza48 I wish it didn't.
Kaiba is the owner of Duel Academy, it doesn't make any sense that they would have any sort of funding problem.