Where I rewatch Yugioh GX, Episode 139
Grumble grumble, accidentally clicked away halfway through and have to start all over, and Judai has become evil to destroy evil, which is just so inane on the face of it that I can't even be bothered to quip about it.
TITLE SCREEN! DARK FUSION! INFERNO WING! shitty writing! all over the place!
Jim and O'Brien are attacked by Supreme King Judai's minions, they get smacked around for a bit, Jim yells out to Judai and is smacked around some more, and Judai walks away, very bored. O'Brien does a barrel roll and summons up a big explosion to create an opportunity for an escape, and they succeed by virtue of the fact that Judai isn't interested in chasing after them, spouting some bullshit about how he doesn't go after fighters who don't fight back. Which is why he slaughters entire villages down to every last man, woman, and child. Not far off in the plains, O'Brien gives Jim some water and says that that isn't Judai, but Jim is insistent that it is, his magic right eye that whispers into his brain told him so, and for some reason O'Brien is still taking orders from Jim. UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS! Blah blah blah, O'Brien asks Jim about his magic right eye, and then asks Jim if he and Judai were an item. Seriously. The subtext, it is so goddamn thick. Repeat of the inane retcon flashback of friendship, and Jim blathers on about how some people are just "Soul Friends", who are just naturally drawn to one another. This is of course bullshit for several reasons; first of all, Judai and Jim weren't close friends. They weren't antagonistic, they got along well enough, but there has never been any focus on their relationship. All of that focus, went to Judai and Johan. Second, much like how Rei and Martin formed a significant bond outside of their proscribed roles in the story, Jim and Asuka also formed a minor connection that was highlighted at several points. But of course, acknowledging that would involve treating Judai like something other than the center of all existence, and we know how these writers feel about that, right?
And now back to that other flashback, where Little Jim lost his eye, but now there's an extension. Little Jim wakes up and sees a random old man who I will call P. Lot Device, since the writers couldn't be arsed to give him a proper name. He says that since Little Jim risked his life to save Karen without a second thought, he decided to give him the Eye of Orichalcum. Yes. Really. Honest. Cross my heart. Swear to God. Hope to die. He blathers on about how the Eye of Orichalcum was created back when humans and spirits were in contact with one another, and its power will let Jim perform a miracle to save his best friend. Then he directs Jim's attention to the sky, and there's that stupid ass comet again, you could do an entire drinking game from that little piece of twittery alone. P. Lot Device continues his personality free exposition, saying that when the comet's tail is gone and it's falling right for him, that's when he needs to call up the miracle to save his friend and thus prevent the destruction of the world. Really. And then the nameless old man disappears into sparkles. Seriously. Who the hell was he? Where the frick did he come from? Why did he choose Jim over countless other people who were nobly risking their lives to save those nearest and dearest to them? What was the point of using a magic comet as a cosmic egg timer? These questions, and many more like them, will never be answered, because this writing staff has tuna for brains. Back in the present, Jim is seeing the comet coming for him and says the time has come, takes off his bandages but it ends up being a non-reveal, since while O'Brien gets to see Jim's magical Eye of Orichalcum that is in no way an inane rip-off of the Millennium Eye so don't you even dare got there, we don't. I don't even know why the writers are bothering, we know it's there, it's not like we're waiting on baited breath to see it. Blah blah blah, Jim puts the bandages back on without taking off his hat, and I don't know he's bothering with that much, there's literally no point in him hiding the damn thing anymore...not that there ever was a point to him hiding it in the first place, but one inane stupidity at a time. Jim and O'Brien go back to the castle, Jim calls out Judai, his mooks come out, Jim rolls a natural 20 on his intimidate check, Judai comes out and tells his minions to stand aside, he has a stupid buzzsaw duel disc, cheesy special effects to try and convince us that Supreme King Judai is ZOMG so powerful, and the duel begins.
EYECATCH!
Standing around, and Jim goes first, summoning Shell Knight in defense with 2000 defense points, and when it is summoned, it does 500 damage to the opponent. Jim sets a card to end his turn, Supreme King Judai's minions talk trash, and then he takes his turn. He plays DARK FUSION, which is like regular fusion, but Dark! He uses it to fuse Featherman and Burst Lady into Evil Hero Inferno Wing! Not only is this an inane oxymoron, but it's also the entire reason why this entire alternate world plotline is here in the first place. That's right, the writers contrived to have Judai's friends to be killed, so that he would go evil, so that he would use new cards that they could sell. Really. It's that transparently obvious. Also, is it just me, or is there some subtext to the fact that the evil version of one of Judai's favorite monsters is female, while the good one is male? Judai declares his attack, Jim activates his trap card Reactive Armor, which destroys one monster when it attacks, but oh noes, on the turn that a monster is summoned with Dark Fusion, it can't be targeted by spells or traps, so Jim's trap was wasted. And now for Inferno Wing's effects; it's attack penetrates defense, and when it destroys a monster by battle, it does damage to the opponent equal to the greater of that monster's attack or defense power. So, it's Flame Wingman, but better. Come on, don't you want to go to Target or Toys'R'Us right now so you can buy your Evil Hero pack today? You don't? Well, don't worry, we've got lots more Evil Hero cards you're bound to love! More trash talk from Judai's minions, Jim is down to 1900 life points, but now the bandages are burning away, revealing at long last Jim's Eye of Orichalcum. It is really stupid looking, and I've no idea how those bandages were supposed to conceal it, it would have stood out pretty badly. Jim blathers on about his all important friendship with Judai that doesn't care if Judai killed almost every friend he had, he looks up at that inane comet that's coming right for him, the Eye of Orichalcum starts glowing red, and Jim says the time has come for him to see into Judai's heart.
These writers, they're just making this shit up as they go along, aren't they? Bright flash of light, and now we're in the vacuous void that is Judai's heart, and O'Brien got to come too, for some reason. Blah blah blah, and there's Judai on his knees, his eyes gold, whining and moaning and wallowing in his manpain. Hey, Judai, you really want to know why things turned out this way? IT'S BECAUSE RAN AROUND LIKE A CHICKEN WITH ITS HEAD CUT OFF AND REFUSED TO LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS! SERIOUSLY! EVEN AT THE END, IF YOU'D LISTENED TO JIM AND O'BRIEN AND WAITED FOR THEM TO COME BACK WITH NEWS OF WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR OTHER FRIENDS, THIS STILL COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, YOU TWIT! Honestly...and now Professor Satou randomly appears on the mirrors. This is honestly surprising, since this is inside Judai's head, and we all know empty and vacant that place is. He goes on about great power and great responsibility, and flashback to their duel. No, Judai's was not that he didn't have darkness of the heart, it was his refusal to stop, think, and listen to his friends. But really, who can blame him? After all, for over 104 episodes, Judai's reckless, thoughtless lazy asshat behavior has been rewarded by the narrative, repeatedly. How was he supposed to know that the writers were going to arbitrarily change the rules on him? And as I've said before, this is why the prolific bullshit about GX "Deconstructing" shit doesn't work, you can't just change the rules halfway through and expect people to buy it...well, if your fanbase is comprised of a bunch of pseudo-cynical nits who think that manpain is the height of literary prowess, than you can expect them to buy it. Anyway, that flashback is over, and now it's time for PROFESSOR COBRA. Blah blah blah, more flashback bullshit to pad the episode out, and seriously, if the writers were to have bothered to develop Judai from the beginning as opposed to waiting until episode 114 before even beginning on it, we wouldn't have to be in this place. You see? The only way in which this inane "deconstruction" is even merited is if the lead-up to it is terrible writing that no one could possibly be expected to stomach.
Judai whines about how he kept winning for everyone's expectations, and starts screaming his head off. Hey guys, remember how Manjoume, Asuka, Fubuki, and Kenzan all died? Yes? Well too bad, we're going to show it to you again! And remember, if you feel bad for them and not for Judai, than you're doing it wrong. Oh, and also, the part about how Brron said that Johan was dead all along, making Judai's baseless belief that he would find Johan in this place...utterly baseless! Oh noes, the mirrors are all cracking and shit, Judai whines about what is he supposed to do, and then Supreme King appears to make his spiel. He repeats it word for word, so I'm not going to bother with going over it again. Jim now starts yelling at Judai to not listen to the Supreme King, and now we're back in the real world. Well, that entire scene was completely pointless. I mean, we already knew everything that was just said, going over it all again was a complete waste of time. Really, you could cut it out, and the whole episode would be much improved for it. Mind you, you could cut out the entire episode altogether and that would be an improvement, but hey, what are you going to do? Jim goes on about how the Supreme King's words are clouding Judai's heart, so he'll pull him out by force, blah blah blah, and Jim takes his turn. Also, can whoever's doing those really weak roars for Karen knock it off? Jim plays Fossil Fusion, because a duel where he didn't topdeck would be like a day without sunshine. Or something. In any event, he removes Shell Knight in his grave from play, along with Burst Lady in Judai's grave, to get Skullpawn. Then he pays half his life points for Time Stream, switching out Skullpawn for Skullknight, which attacks and destroys Inferno Wing for 300 points of damage. But Jim's not done yet, he plays the Quick Spell Half Life; when a monster is destroyed by battle, it gets special summoned with half its attack points and its effect negated. Oh, and Skullknight can attack every monster on Judai's side of the field, so Inferno Wing goes kaboom again, leaving Supreme King Judai with...1950 life points?
What? No, that's not right. Judai had 3200 life points, Skullknight had 2400 attack points, Inferno Wing had 1050. Thus, Judai should have taken 1350 points of damage, leaving him at 1850 life points. Even I don't think that basic math is beyond these twits, which would mean they did it on purpose. Gee, I wonder why? Jim now yells to Judai to return to normal, and for a moment Judai's eyes are their regular brown. And if you didn't see them going back to gold, you're an idiot. Supreme King Judai spouts some drivel about how power is everything and you need darkness of the heart to rule the world, and how any of that followed from what's been happening to Judai this season, I've no idea. Blah blah blah, can Judai ever be rescued from his darkness, that stupid comet has no point, end episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel continues, Shou picked up one of those stupid cloaks so that he can just stand around and watch like all the cool kids do, Jim pulls a DBZ stunt that looks completely absurd, EPISODE TITLE, FIRST AND LAST, SUPER FUSION. card of the week is inferno wing.
All this time, Jim had a magic McGuffin eye. What a crock. And yes, it will get worse.
TITLE SCREEN! DARK FUSION! INFERNO WING! shitty writing! all over the place!
Jim and O'Brien are attacked by Supreme King Judai's minions, they get smacked around for a bit, Jim yells out to Judai and is smacked around some more, and Judai walks away, very bored. O'Brien does a barrel roll and summons up a big explosion to create an opportunity for an escape, and they succeed by virtue of the fact that Judai isn't interested in chasing after them, spouting some bullshit about how he doesn't go after fighters who don't fight back. Which is why he slaughters entire villages down to every last man, woman, and child. Not far off in the plains, O'Brien gives Jim some water and says that that isn't Judai, but Jim is insistent that it is, his magic right eye that whispers into his brain told him so, and for some reason O'Brien is still taking orders from Jim. UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS! Blah blah blah, O'Brien asks Jim about his magic right eye, and then asks Jim if he and Judai were an item. Seriously. The subtext, it is so goddamn thick. Repeat of the inane retcon flashback of friendship, and Jim blathers on about how some people are just "Soul Friends", who are just naturally drawn to one another. This is of course bullshit for several reasons; first of all, Judai and Jim weren't close friends. They weren't antagonistic, they got along well enough, but there has never been any focus on their relationship. All of that focus, went to Judai and Johan. Second, much like how Rei and Martin formed a significant bond outside of their proscribed roles in the story, Jim and Asuka also formed a minor connection that was highlighted at several points. But of course, acknowledging that would involve treating Judai like something other than the center of all existence, and we know how these writers feel about that, right?
And now back to that other flashback, where Little Jim lost his eye, but now there's an extension. Little Jim wakes up and sees a random old man who I will call P. Lot Device, since the writers couldn't be arsed to give him a proper name. He says that since Little Jim risked his life to save Karen without a second thought, he decided to give him the Eye of Orichalcum. Yes. Really. Honest. Cross my heart. Swear to God. Hope to die. He blathers on about how the Eye of Orichalcum was created back when humans and spirits were in contact with one another, and its power will let Jim perform a miracle to save his best friend. Then he directs Jim's attention to the sky, and there's that stupid ass comet again, you could do an entire drinking game from that little piece of twittery alone. P. Lot Device continues his personality free exposition, saying that when the comet's tail is gone and it's falling right for him, that's when he needs to call up the miracle to save his friend and thus prevent the destruction of the world. Really. And then the nameless old man disappears into sparkles. Seriously. Who the hell was he? Where the frick did he come from? Why did he choose Jim over countless other people who were nobly risking their lives to save those nearest and dearest to them? What was the point of using a magic comet as a cosmic egg timer? These questions, and many more like them, will never be answered, because this writing staff has tuna for brains. Back in the present, Jim is seeing the comet coming for him and says the time has come, takes off his bandages but it ends up being a non-reveal, since while O'Brien gets to see Jim's magical Eye of Orichalcum that is in no way an inane rip-off of the Millennium Eye so don't you even dare got there, we don't. I don't even know why the writers are bothering, we know it's there, it's not like we're waiting on baited breath to see it. Blah blah blah, Jim puts the bandages back on without taking off his hat, and I don't know he's bothering with that much, there's literally no point in him hiding the damn thing anymore...not that there ever was a point to him hiding it in the first place, but one inane stupidity at a time. Jim and O'Brien go back to the castle, Jim calls out Judai, his mooks come out, Jim rolls a natural 20 on his intimidate check, Judai comes out and tells his minions to stand aside, he has a stupid buzzsaw duel disc, cheesy special effects to try and convince us that Supreme King Judai is ZOMG so powerful, and the duel begins.
EYECATCH!
Standing around, and Jim goes first, summoning Shell Knight in defense with 2000 defense points, and when it is summoned, it does 500 damage to the opponent. Jim sets a card to end his turn, Supreme King Judai's minions talk trash, and then he takes his turn. He plays DARK FUSION, which is like regular fusion, but Dark! He uses it to fuse Featherman and Burst Lady into Evil Hero Inferno Wing! Not only is this an inane oxymoron, but it's also the entire reason why this entire alternate world plotline is here in the first place. That's right, the writers contrived to have Judai's friends to be killed, so that he would go evil, so that he would use new cards that they could sell. Really. It's that transparently obvious. Also, is it just me, or is there some subtext to the fact that the evil version of one of Judai's favorite monsters is female, while the good one is male? Judai declares his attack, Jim activates his trap card Reactive Armor, which destroys one monster when it attacks, but oh noes, on the turn that a monster is summoned with Dark Fusion, it can't be targeted by spells or traps, so Jim's trap was wasted. And now for Inferno Wing's effects; it's attack penetrates defense, and when it destroys a monster by battle, it does damage to the opponent equal to the greater of that monster's attack or defense power. So, it's Flame Wingman, but better. Come on, don't you want to go to Target or Toys'R'Us right now so you can buy your Evil Hero pack today? You don't? Well, don't worry, we've got lots more Evil Hero cards you're bound to love! More trash talk from Judai's minions, Jim is down to 1900 life points, but now the bandages are burning away, revealing at long last Jim's Eye of Orichalcum. It is really stupid looking, and I've no idea how those bandages were supposed to conceal it, it would have stood out pretty badly. Jim blathers on about his all important friendship with Judai that doesn't care if Judai killed almost every friend he had, he looks up at that inane comet that's coming right for him, the Eye of Orichalcum starts glowing red, and Jim says the time has come for him to see into Judai's heart.
These writers, they're just making this shit up as they go along, aren't they? Bright flash of light, and now we're in the vacuous void that is Judai's heart, and O'Brien got to come too, for some reason. Blah blah blah, and there's Judai on his knees, his eyes gold, whining and moaning and wallowing in his manpain. Hey, Judai, you really want to know why things turned out this way? IT'S BECAUSE RAN AROUND LIKE A CHICKEN WITH ITS HEAD CUT OFF AND REFUSED TO LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS! SERIOUSLY! EVEN AT THE END, IF YOU'D LISTENED TO JIM AND O'BRIEN AND WAITED FOR THEM TO COME BACK WITH NEWS OF WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR OTHER FRIENDS, THIS STILL COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, YOU TWIT! Honestly...and now Professor Satou randomly appears on the mirrors. This is honestly surprising, since this is inside Judai's head, and we all know empty and vacant that place is. He goes on about great power and great responsibility, and flashback to their duel. No, Judai's was not that he didn't have darkness of the heart, it was his refusal to stop, think, and listen to his friends. But really, who can blame him? After all, for over 104 episodes, Judai's reckless, thoughtless lazy asshat behavior has been rewarded by the narrative, repeatedly. How was he supposed to know that the writers were going to arbitrarily change the rules on him? And as I've said before, this is why the prolific bullshit about GX "Deconstructing" shit doesn't work, you can't just change the rules halfway through and expect people to buy it...well, if your fanbase is comprised of a bunch of pseudo-cynical nits who think that manpain is the height of literary prowess, than you can expect them to buy it. Anyway, that flashback is over, and now it's time for PROFESSOR COBRA. Blah blah blah, more flashback bullshit to pad the episode out, and seriously, if the writers were to have bothered to develop Judai from the beginning as opposed to waiting until episode 114 before even beginning on it, we wouldn't have to be in this place. You see? The only way in which this inane "deconstruction" is even merited is if the lead-up to it is terrible writing that no one could possibly be expected to stomach.
Judai whines about how he kept winning for everyone's expectations, and starts screaming his head off. Hey guys, remember how Manjoume, Asuka, Fubuki, and Kenzan all died? Yes? Well too bad, we're going to show it to you again! And remember, if you feel bad for them and not for Judai, than you're doing it wrong. Oh, and also, the part about how Brron said that Johan was dead all along, making Judai's baseless belief that he would find Johan in this place...utterly baseless! Oh noes, the mirrors are all cracking and shit, Judai whines about what is he supposed to do, and then Supreme King appears to make his spiel. He repeats it word for word, so I'm not going to bother with going over it again. Jim now starts yelling at Judai to not listen to the Supreme King, and now we're back in the real world. Well, that entire scene was completely pointless. I mean, we already knew everything that was just said, going over it all again was a complete waste of time. Really, you could cut it out, and the whole episode would be much improved for it. Mind you, you could cut out the entire episode altogether and that would be an improvement, but hey, what are you going to do? Jim goes on about how the Supreme King's words are clouding Judai's heart, so he'll pull him out by force, blah blah blah, and Jim takes his turn. Also, can whoever's doing those really weak roars for Karen knock it off? Jim plays Fossil Fusion, because a duel where he didn't topdeck would be like a day without sunshine. Or something. In any event, he removes Shell Knight in his grave from play, along with Burst Lady in Judai's grave, to get Skullpawn. Then he pays half his life points for Time Stream, switching out Skullpawn for Skullknight, which attacks and destroys Inferno Wing for 300 points of damage. But Jim's not done yet, he plays the Quick Spell Half Life; when a monster is destroyed by battle, it gets special summoned with half its attack points and its effect negated. Oh, and Skullknight can attack every monster on Judai's side of the field, so Inferno Wing goes kaboom again, leaving Supreme King Judai with...1950 life points?
What? No, that's not right. Judai had 3200 life points, Skullknight had 2400 attack points, Inferno Wing had 1050. Thus, Judai should have taken 1350 points of damage, leaving him at 1850 life points. Even I don't think that basic math is beyond these twits, which would mean they did it on purpose. Gee, I wonder why? Jim now yells to Judai to return to normal, and for a moment Judai's eyes are their regular brown. And if you didn't see them going back to gold, you're an idiot. Supreme King Judai spouts some drivel about how power is everything and you need darkness of the heart to rule the world, and how any of that followed from what's been happening to Judai this season, I've no idea. Blah blah blah, can Judai ever be rescued from his darkness, that stupid comet has no point, end episode.
NEXT TIME! The duel continues, Shou picked up one of those stupid cloaks so that he can just stand around and watch like all the cool kids do, Jim pulls a DBZ stunt that looks completely absurd, EPISODE TITLE, FIRST AND LAST, SUPER FUSION. card of the week is inferno wing.
All this time, Jim had a magic McGuffin eye. What a crock. And yes, it will get worse.