Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Arc-V

After the fall of western yugioh comunity caused by Zexal (which is a good show by the way), Arc V is known as the generation that united everyone one more time for a ride into a massive adventure. Rather, it tried, and failed miserably.
I will try my best not to spoil too much here but there are some things I cannot review without spoiling so you'll be warned. I doubt anyone reading this haven't been spoiled already, but just in case.

I believe Arc V is a series that should be rated in two times. One for how it looked at the beginning, and one ... at the end.because the show really just sank while on its way to greatness. Let us now begin.

╰──➤⊱Story: 10/10 (beginning) - literally 2/10 (end)


Oh boy where do I start. Arc V probably had the best introduction to the series of any yugioh shows. This is entirely due to its incredible mastery of mystery. I believe what makes a show entertaining resides in three aspects : it's sense of mystery making us invested in the story, it's build up making us invested and interested in what was going to happen next, and it's pay-off, also known as the actual story itself. Arc V did the first two elements better than you could imagine, in fact, probably even too good. Because in truth, it lacked the essential: an actually good story at all.
What we slowly learned of it in the beginning was completely captivating. A world separated into four dimensions : one for each summoning method, with different versions of both Yuya and Yuzu in each that slowly seemed to attract one another in an almost Lovecraftian fate horror type of way. The xyz dimension had been entirely decimated by the fusion dimension lead by Leo Akaba, the father of Reiji Akaba aka the rival, for we don't what reason, and the latter was about to invade every other in a similar fashion. Why did Leo do this, why was the world separated into four, what would happen if the four yu boys truly did reunite with one another, and what was their connection to the Yuzu counterparts? And what even is pendulum summoning, this mystical summoning mechanic we have been introduced to in this series? And later on, we are introduced to what is known as legacy characters, characters that originated in different series before this one. This was hype, and we were all excited to know what their link with the original series were (that's something that never was revealed though).
And when all of this finally got revealed, I think we all regretted asking ourselves in the first place. The problem with arc v is that it tried to do too much out of something that wasn't even that good to begin with, and thus lead to the worst feeling anyone could experience while watching or reading something : disappointment. Had the series not made a whole lot about all of this, surely we wouldn't have been that interested in the story, but at least we wouldn't have been disappointed because we didn't expect much to begin with, and as such could have seen the good in this otherwise mediocre story. I will spoil everything from this point on, so skip to the next part if you don't want to know the answer to all these questions.

Basically, the world once was whole, with every summoning methods in one place. Its link to previous generations in unknown and there probably isn't even any. An important aspect of this world however is real solid vision, a device that allowed duel monsters to appear physically in the world and interact with people. Zarc, a random boy who was good at dueling, got pushed to act brutal with his opponents by the crowd, and thus began to act violent. And one day he tried destroying the universe, blaming on the crowd for pushing him this far (I'll get to zarc when talking about the characters, don't worry...). The daughter of Leo Akaba, the inventor of real solid vision, takes on four cards invented specifically to defeat Zarc and goes to face him, and beats him, and separates the world into four. How, we don't know, why, we don't know. Thus Zarc is split into the four yu boys ans Ray is split into the four yu girls because why not. Leo Akaba is the only one who remembers the world as it once was (we dunno why) and thus invents real solid vison ONCE Again, as a pretext to save the world. Well that's a smart move, now we can be sure Zarc will kill us all once he gets reunited. Leo Akaba then gets convinced that to prevent the imminent end of the world, he must bring his daughter back to life, as if she was the only one capable of defeating Zarc, and then goes to kidnap all four yu girls, causing the four yu boys to chase after them and thus meet each other, and he also kills an entire dimension as sacrifice for his machine, thus causing the yu boys there to act to defeat him and thus, meet each other. Man if only you hadn't done all of this to prevent the revival of Zarc, Zarc would have never been reborned. And that's prettyuch the story of arc V, just a mix of lazy to bad writing, dumb characters and poorly used elements that could have been great. The story isn't even well reparted, because the writers tried to infuse too much of what is known as "nostalgia" in the main plot. Legacy characters didn't even need to be there, in my humble opinion they shouldn't even have been there, I'll get to that, but they were to make nostalgic fans scream in hype. This also meant the story was going to be spent 50 episodes in the Synchro dimension, an arc that was almost filler seeing how little it brought to the story, but only to only be spent 10ish episodes in the xyz dimension, the arc that was built up since episode 8 of this show, because 5D's was more popular than Zexal.
Arc V tried to do too much out of nothing really interesting or even worth developing this far, and it ended up as anyone could imagine : a disaster. The end of this show is the worst end I have ever witnessed in fiction. Zarc and Leo Akaba are forgiven without a single consequence to their war-crimes, half the cast is dead but nobody seems to care and everybody is happy in the horrifying drug that has become "smiles" at this point, and nothing even makes sense. Frankly this isn't even worth mentioning. Everything would have been better than this.


╰──➤⊱Art: 9/10⊰

If there is something Arc V did right though, it's artistic direction. Both in music, designs and animations. It went back to the "yugioh" style people missed in zexal, it had very pretty color schemes and character designs worth talking about, and perhaps the best animated series alongside the best animated 5D's and Zexal episodes. Maybe there was one or two questionable episodes, like every series has, but it was mostly consistent.
But again, its color scheme is what made all it's charm. A colorful, well utilized and eye candy visualled Anime like we all like to see.


╰──➤⊱sound: 10/10⊰

Same here, nothing to say about the sound duels. While I prefer the type of soundtracks found in 5D's and Zexal, one just cannot deny the music in this series was phenomenal and perfectly utilized. Just for my zexal review, I will link a few tracks worth the listen, so hope YouTube doesn't strike them down.

https://youtu.be/9RaztTuTKs8
https://youtu.be/DlGcoV6rvJA
https://youtu.be/OWRLNmCy-Yg
https://youtu.be/Re033lZPVFE
https://youtu.be/KwIW8dlP8yA
https://youtu.be/VFBCZlcjIDA
https://youtu.be/3E97qxUGJ6U (especially this one... Chills)
https://youtu.be/qdikLQTyDpc
https://youtu.be/zdjEu7Ab5m0
It had an electronic, almost alternative way to it that fit, I think.

╰──➤⊱dueling action: 10/10 (beginning) - 7/10 (end) ⊰


The dueling is an aspect of Arc V done right too, or at least it was in the beginning. The fact they constantly use all four summoning methods helps to make largely diverse duels, and the action dueling on itself might have been the best addition to the dueling side of things in yugioh. But as most things, this kind of got scrapped. As time went on, everything that made it interesting kind of got lost. Action traps were lost, the action fields were always the same, and "evade" and "miracle" were the only action cards there seemed to exist. I don't mind Yuya basing his dueling style solely on action cards, because it's what his entire duel philosophy revolves around, but at least make it good. There wasn't any tension anymore.
And the dueling quality on itself even worsened as time went on. One just looks at the infinite final duel against the vilain to realize how poor it was in the end. Now this doesn't mean there wasn't any good fights in the end, far from that, but the quality definitely went downhill after the Synchro dimension arc.
And Yuya's smile ideology being forced stuff-fed to his opponents each duel was not only redundant, but also not very morally right, I feel.


╰──➤⊱characters: 9/10 (beginning) - 2 or 3/10(end) ⊰


⚠️End of spoiler free zone. You have been warned. ⚠️

Oh boy where do I start... There was WAY too many characters. With Zexal, I could only concentrate on a few to illustrate the themes and overall idea, here, I can't, cause the themes aren't really well illustrated. So let's go bit by bit, and this will be long.

o͟r͟i͟g͟i͟n͟a͟l͟ s͟u͟p͟p͟o͟r͟t͟i͟n͟g͟ c͟a͟s͟t͟:

– Gongenzaka was a fun character in his beginning, and I liked his dueling style using defense for attacks kind of like a sumo. Whereas Sawatari was the "rival" of the first half, kind of like Manjoume but not as good. And their relationship with Yuya was a wholesome, entertaining one. However as the show progressed and became darker and darker, and more and more characters got introduced, they quickly found struggling to appear relevant. Gongenzaka was never supposed to react to drama, and he got Shafter for Crow in the friend archetype. Whereas Sawatari kept a small leading role, but didn't have any meaning, and never even won once onscreen. He could and should have been respected better in order to appear as relevant.
– Sora was fantastic in the first 50 episodes. He was introduced as a cute, likable little boy who admired Yuya for his way of dueling, bug there... Something off about him, and, we could feel it. Alnd for once, the building up payed off like a train reck. His duel against Shin was the best in arc v, without a doubt. In it, his friendly person slowly falls off to reveal the insane and blood thirsty psychopath that he really was, trained by academia to invade and kill everyone in the xyz dimension. The animation, emotions passed, and characters here were... Beyond genius not only by yugioh standards, but by Anime standards in general. However he kinda faltered after that. Soon after his loss, he duels Yuya and starts to reconsider his ideals. Slowly he turns nice and that's it. His arc wasn't really emotional nor was it relaly focused on and appeared more bland than anything, as we didn't even got to see it in its entirety. After his flip in persona, he doesn't get much screentime either and sometimes gets replaced by Edo as the fusion user of the gang.
– Shun was the best character in arc V, no question. He was badass ever since his introduction until the end, and played a big role until the end. As member of the resistence of the xyz dimension, he first held a grudge against every fusion summoner, even trying to attack Yuzu for it once. But soon he grows bonds with everyone and opens up more, ready to take down academia alongside his companions in a more reasonable way. He was even the only one to see through the absurdity that was the ending of this show, staying the most realistic until the end. However even he was a bit mistreated. He quickly became fodder to lose to show how strong a new character was, like against Crow, against Kaito, against Zarc, even against Sora in their rematch. And I think it toned his cool attitude a bit. But still, let's give credit where credit is due, he was amazing.

Next up is
T͟h͟e͟ Y͟u͟ g͟i͟r͟l͟s͟:

– Yuzu was part of the main group at first,and even played the role of a secondary protagonist during the first arc. She had an arc to get better at dueling where she faced against Masumi to show how much she had improved, and had a lot of personal story with Yuya and Yuto. She was promising, and represented the chance of a finally well treated female lead. And then she got screwed. She lost to Dennis, got ridiculed acting as a damsel in distress againts Yuri, lost to Sergey and got captured, and became a damsel in distress until the end. That's right, she did not duel once, nor did she really appear much of the last 70 or so episodes of this show. She became a MacGuffin for the characters to rescue, nothing more than an object to make the plot advance. I'm sorry, but this was the most disappointing aspect of this story.
– Serena was perhaps the better utilized one, however she, like Yuzu, didn't appear after the 70 episode mark as herself. The only relevance she had later on was by being controlled, which is a Gimmick I absolutely hate in fiction. As for Ruri and Rin? They are, and I weight my words, non existent. Okay, Rin was heavily characterized thanks to Yugo, and even though she did so while being possessed, she still managed to beat Yugo in the endgame... So fair enough, she didn't appear once before that but still. But Ruri didn't even have a character design until the 100 episode mark, after which she only appeared while being possessed, and that's it. The girl treatment in this show is terrible. They are the key to defeating Zarc, so you'd think they'd be at least a little bit respected at least, but the show preferred to use them as driving forces and ideas (being damsels in distress) than as actual characters, and I hate it deeply.

But before we continue, a quick thought for all those characters forgotten by the show itself.
– The LDS trio was one of the major moving forces to the main characters of the first arc. Yaiba learning Synchro summoning to Gongenzaka, Masumi being a rival and eventually good friend to Yuzu in the first arc of the series, and Hokuto being a kind of Rival to Yuya, and was a great comic relief with an incredible deck. Moreover, they all had great chemistry with the characters we knew and had an ever lasting conflict with shun for cruelly carding members of their school. And you know how they got treated? Hokuto got killed by Serena offscreen, And the two others got forgotten never to make a single appearance ever again. Man, this was. Really. Disappointing.
– a lot of characters introduced in the Synchro arc were, like, Shinji was a cool character introduced that served as an ideological conflict to Yuya, preferring to care about the problems in his own dimension than of what was happening outside. But he and others from the Synchro dimensions like Chojiro are left behind, and same goes for the vilain. Jean-Michel Roget was the antagonist of the Synchro dimension, and he wasn't anything deep or even likable, in fact he was deeply hatable, and intentionally so. Most people will agree on the fact they hated this character, but that he played a great antagonistic force overall and were glad he was the vilain of this part. At the end of the arc, he is absorbed by a random dimension and is said to have appeared somewhere else, hyping up for an eventual return, return that obviously never happened.
– most characters from the maiami championship, like Mieru, Yuu, and dozens of others, are either killed or forgotten. That's a lot. A lot from the xyz dimension too.

T͟h͟e͟ l͟e͟g͟a͟c͟y͟ c͟h͟a͟r͟a͟c͟t͟e͟r͟s͟:
I think I have expressed my disappointment and disdain in these quite a few times here already, but I think I gotta do it again. They introduced them as a way for older fans to get reinvested in the franchise, and surprisingly it worked, but that also meant the show was now only working because of nostalgia reasons and close to nothing more,so they had to make these guys as relevant as possible in order not to lose their newly acquired audiance. What's even worst is that they aren't even remotely similar, for the most part, to the characters they were based on and is therefore a very unbalanced reason for people to stay, a reason that could break at any moment. These characters ruined the show.
– Jack and Crow were the only legitimately good,who made the show progress. Jack was introduced as a badass, Trashing Yuya's ideal and making him understand nothing about it was his, but both His father's ideal and duel style rather than his own. Plus, he had a very interesting story in the Synchro arc and had something no other legacy characters had: relevance. Even so, that didn't prevent him from replacing Yugo at the last moment in the duel against Sergey, a guy he had no reason for fighting other than "signers vs dark signers is nostalgic", and eventually replacing Yugo in the finals of the tournament which would have been great for both characters. Crow was just exactly the same as his 5D's counterpart, and he is quite literally the only character who can be proud of that. He was cool, even if he replaced Gongenzaka and Sawatari somewhat... Before he gets carded out of nowhere. But still, they were two very good characters that served the plot in their own way.
– Edo was the top duelist of Academia, and he fell to the egao propaganda after losing to Yuya. He was fine, but he didn't need to be Edo nor did he need to exist at all. He wasn't even treated well despite his existed being shoved in our throats for no good reason. As for Asuka, she was there, then she wasn't, then she died. Moving on.
– Kaito... Was introduced way too late to even feel like he deserved in this story. Since the beginning, when shun or Yuto talked about the xyz dimension, they were always a group of 3: Yuto, Shun and Ruri. Then they introduce Kaito and expect us to believe he was there since the beginning because "he's Kaito, and people love some Kaito". His existence only meant less screentime for actually relevant characters like Shun, and this doesn't work. He took the place of Yusho in the very expected Yusho vs Dennis duel hyped up for a very long time... When he didn't even know the first thing about Dennis as a person, and then he interrupted the EXTREMELY built up and awaited duel between Yugo and Yuri, and effectively made it terrible, making it one of the most disappointing duels there was. Then he fights Zarc, loses, and doesn't have anything more to do until the end. Nothing about him justified the first thing about his existence in this show.

And lastly,
T͟h͟e͟ Y͟u͟ b͟o͟y͟s͟:
They're the driving force of this series, so you'd expect them to be at least well integrated, but... That's not really true either. Yuto was a good character, but he gets introduced in episode 8, and doesn't do much until he dies in episode 32 never to be Reborn for the rest of the show, Narrowing his appearances to short interactions in yuya's mind 50 episodes later onward. Yugo was a fun character, but he really does not get a lot. He doesn't have his built up duel against Sergey to avenge yuzu, he loses to Rin and fails to bring her back, his most important duel against Yuri is constantly interrupted and never really reaches the level it should have, then he dies and never returns. Yuri was an imposing and charismatic vilain, but we never really get to know why he's evil outside of "professor told me so". I think it would have been way more interesting to see his actual psychology behind, and to see if he's actually evil or not... And he becomes all nice and is forgiven by everyone at the end anyway so it doesn't even matter. And then... Comes Yuya.
– Yuya was a great character until the ending came, being a very anxious and negative boy who forced himself to act joyful and full of excitement just to entertain like his father told him, but this also meant he had lost all idea of personal identity and of uniqueness. This made him go through intense period of depression and doubt, trying to get better. And in a world where four versions of him existed, you guess how hard it must have been. It fits in Arc V's messages and themes perfectly. And his slow decent into madness as he gradually lost control to Zarc was amazing, crazily entertaining. But then the ending happened, and he gets fused with the four other versions of himself and forgets about depression, wanting to forgive anyone because egao. And I'll repeat this to you: where is the originality here. what in this ending, makes Yuya "unique"? When he shares his body with four other versions of himself, where he continues to use the toxic goals his father ungulfed into his own existence, when he continues to use cards, dueling style and summoning conditions that aren't even his? Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing would have been worse for his character than this ending the show gave us. His character is burnt to ashes, never to be completed and instead is waisted and thrown away for no reason at all. And even then, he is built on an idea of toxic positivity that I really don't agree with: to try to be happy and smile even when you are sad and going through hard time. This is extremely unhealthy, as sadness is very useful and you shouldn't try to bury your feelings under a fake smile. And the way he forcingly ingulfed his flawed ideology to others through the whole show... Made it hard for me to like him.
– And... Zarc, the original version of them four. Zarc is the worst vilain in yugioh, no content. He was built up and showed in mystery for more than 60% of the show, appearing as a kind of Lovecraftian horror monster, driving all the yu boys to him and pulling the strings from behind. And then his backstory got revealed in an awful exposition moment. So basically, he used to be a good guy, pro dueling for fun, but the crowd wanted more violence. They cheered for him to hurt his opponents more, and it twisted his mind... So he fused with his four dragons, attempted to destroy the universe, blamed it on humans and got stopped by Reira. The fact he actually blames it on people is what makes him so terrible to me... If your mom told you to break a glass of water, would you burn the whole house down because he told you to be violent? If you do so, then you better not blame her for that. That's Zarc, and the show actually wants us to care, and even better, to feel bad for him. I won't, because he's hatable. He also has the worst presence as a vilain... He is terribly ugly, very standard and unoriginal in personality, and has the worst, most boring conclusion duel to any series. Then he gets trapped in the body of a baby, and the end, moving on. Berserk Yuya was a better antagonist than him... It's quite possibly the most disappointing turn of events in any yugioh shows ever. And this truly impacts the series... How can I care about a story centered entirely around a character and a story that I personally hate?

╰──➤⊱Conclusion: 3/10


Arc V is a show I desperately wanted to like, but I ultimately cannot. It is built around a story that doesn't make sense based on a character I hate, on an ideology I find to be wrong in all sense of the terms, on a story with awful pacing and a conclusion worst than anything I saw so far, and on characters that get disrespected through the whole show... It's an anime built around nostalgia, and it really prevents it from developing as it should. The more I think about it, the more I became disappointed in arc v and it's very promising introduction... And I feel very bad about that. In conclusion, I wanted to like this show, but it really isn't possible for me. Feel free to like it if you find elements to like in it... But I can't, and I promise you, I tried.

Dont watch this anime. I am a huge yugioh fan, ive seen every series, read every manga, play the card game, and by god, this is ....just the worst.

I will give that some episodes actually have some good animation, and on the whole i did like the music in this series, but thats the best thing i can say about it.

So lets start with the story. The first arc is not great, however in a stereotypical yugioh way. I mean, GX and Zexal didnt have strong starts either, right? In fact I would say Arc-V's start is better than Zexal's.It has your standard introducing characters ... through pretty low stakes duels, and the show introduces a pretty neat concept. Using all the summoning methods. Now, this is a brilliant idea, and theoretically should make the duels in the series very interesting. However the duels in this series are by far the worst, and thats because of the other dueling gimmick they introduced. Action Cards. Granted, in the first arc, action cards werent that bad. They had varying effects and hell there were sometimes action traps that actually hurt you. So well it did provide a convenient excuse for the good guy of the episode to get out of a jam, it wasnt that bad. More on that later.The plot of the first season gradually builds up into what would become the premise of the whole series. There are 4 dimensions that are at war with each other. Sounds interesting doesnt it. They proceed to introduce a few characters from each dimension who make very cool introductions, and then move on to the second arc, which involves them going into one of those other dimensions.

Now, here is where you start to see the signs of the show getting bad. The first dozen or so episodes in this arc are a complete stall for time with no real plot development.They introduce some more characters and include some fanservicey ones in order to draw in those 5Ds fans. Now having characters from 5Ds show up would be quite cool...if they were actually them. These are jsut characters with the same names and designs however, the Jack you meet isnt the one who fought the dark signers with yusei. its someone completely different. But back to the actual plot. Now youd think that , with interdimensional war happening, things would be pretty intense right? Nope! Most of this arc is taken up by a very slow tournament arc, that ends up doing nothing to help the cause of the heroes or the villains.Oh and all those cool characters who you wanted to see interact and develop with each other? Too bad, theyre locked in their rooms for most of hte arc.However there was a couple good episodes towards the end of this arc that really hyped up the overarching mysteries and seemed to really be leading somewhere, so i continued. Oh and the villain of this arc was a complete pushover who was so incompetent im surprised he managed to get his evil plan as far as he did.

Now the third arc. Where it starts to get really terrible. So the cast gets separated again, jsut like at the start of the second arc! And of course most of the focus goes to the less interesting of the cast. They also introduce two GX legacy characters, who , if you love GX like i do are just....sad to watch in this series. They never get a proper win and , in fact, do more harm than good. This is where the series starts pushing the "smile" message way too hard. In a situation dealing with people living in a war zone and have gone through essentially genocide, and a group doing the genociding who believe that what they are doing is for the best, the solution is to have a really fun duel to solve it. And it works. All the problems there literally go away because of that.

The fourth and final arc. What a mess. They finally give resolution to the mystery arc thats been building up and is very,very interesting in concept. However it is executed in the worst way possible. Its also around this time Action cards become unbearable. By this point you only see 3 different action cards.Evasion:negates an attack, Miracle:monster isnt destroyed and No Action:cancel another action card. Every . Single . Time. Well, now since theyve bothered hyping up these action cards as the tools of the main heroes so often, surely they will be useful in defeating the big bad? No. The big bad prevents action cards from being used at all, which was nice to not have that annoyance for a few episodes but by god it made it so pointless. Now the duel against the big bad...just,so,so awful. He just defeats all of the cast and then an insanely minor character shows up with the mother of all deus ex machinas and defeats him in one turn. The most unsatisfying final villain defeat ive ever seen in anime. They then spend the remaining 8 episodes getting a baby to smile. Not a joke, thats actually what happens and its as stupid as it sounds.

Now on to the characters. The main character, Yuya, is insufferable. He starts off just eh, but with lots of room for development.However, he never actually develops. I would even argue he regresses. In a show that centered itself around a very serious conflict, youd think he would develop out of his naivete a little bit, or maybe not cling onto his childish ideals so hard. Hell ,even just have a few episodes where he gives up on them. But nope, if anything ,his stance on "bring smiles through dueling" only gets stronger every episode, and he goes around sequentially making everyone believe in it too.He learns nothing throughout the entire show, he doesnt even become a better duelist, he jsut gets more and more situational cards, which he wouldnt even need if he just played his deck well.

The main female characters. So the main female character at the start is Yuzu and she starts it off pretty well, she gets a win against Yuya and actually does get some development. Then she gets kidnapped at the end of the arc and spends the rest of the show as a damsel in distress. Well, she does have about 7 episodes where she isnt lol. However, then they introduce Serena! Serena starts off even better than Yuzu and also gets some really good development. However after the second arc, she gets captured and also becomes a plot device. The other two girls, Rin and Ruri, are kidnapped before the show even starts and generally do nothing.

Other characters. while a lot fo them start off strong and get a good 2 or 3 episodes focused on them, theyre generally dropped off and just spout the same smile rhetoric as Yuya, dont get their arcs resolved, or both! Mostly both. Hell 6 of them end up dead at the end of the show and nobody really makes that much of a mention of it and they all act like its a happy ending.

Villains. arc v only really has 4 villains, and im going to go through them all, so this section will be a bit spoilery.

Roger:Huge idiot. His entire , very flawed, plan is to kidnap Reiji in order to use it as leverage to become more powerful than Reiji's father. However the audience already knows this is a futile endeavor as Shun tried this very early on , and it was made clear that Reiji's father didnt give a fuck about him.His dueling skills are also atrocious. He wouldve lost to two minor characters if it werent for this ridiculous system he set up where he got to try again and again if he lost.

Leo:what a joke. This guy is built up as the villain for most of the series, and he is just an insane idiot. He had every single opportunity to stop the heroes from winning, and to succeed, but he makes the stupidest decisions possible. He nearly gets defeated by Yuya and Reiji and only doesnt lose because the duel gets stopped. Then he goes on to duel against the real big bad of the series, and loses in one turn. he doesnt even get to play a card.

Zarc: The real big bad. This is where lots of spoilers come in. So hes the combined "original" form of Yuya, Yuto,Yugo and Yuri. Sounds cool in concept. Having someone with aspects of each of them would be interesting. However hes just an omnicidal maniac who stomps everyone he duels, until he gets defeated by a huge deus ex machina.

Yuri:The only actually good villain. He was fun to watch, had an interesting deck, and was all around a troll. Sadly he was heavily underused.

The duels themselves were just...so boring. Even putting aside action cards, no real interesting strategies were used, and everything just went on the ol' "bring out ace monster, sit on it until you win". The mosnter designs were not very good.The only deck i can say has interesting designs is Shun's.they were either waaaay too "cute" and childish,or were weird mashes of stuff together.

So, to recap, dont watch this anime.

"Arc-V is the best YGO since Mugen" - Me, 2015

Oh Arc-V how did you go so wrong, you promised me so much, yet you failed to deliver. I really need to learn from Sagume to stop from praising so much until you were done.

YGO Arc-V is one of the most spectacular failure within YGO history, it is one of the best example on how to mess up what you promised to your audience. So let us dissect it carefully to see how it fails.

Arc-V plot began with Yuya's story in the Standard world, at this point, the story was like a mystery, we followed ... two route, one bright route, with Yuya where we see the daily life stuff, all happy and that stuff, while a second route with Yuzu were we see the dark menacing plot about an inter-dimensional war with hints that something sinister and evil lays dormant underneath the fragile scenary of happiness.

It was this initial story telling that drawn me in, the contrast of light and dark, kept me intrigued and full anticipation. At this point the story was very good, we follow Yuzu for the truth and Yuya for the lies.

However it was at episode 50 after the invasion by the obelisk force, that the story began to degrade, the first was the introduction of the theme of "EGAO", I guess the point the directors are trying to make was to try to reach the happy ending no matter what, always try to do the best, all that stuff. But the issue with this is that the authors have no idea how to show this idea. And this issue showed severely in the Synchro arc.

For the entire Synchro arc, the issue was the war between the poor and the rich, the idea of elite vs commoners, the powerful vs the weak. How a world torn between the two would end up so badly. This issue is not something that can be solved easily, and it showed not just by the forced tournament arc that killed the pace, but also in the ending, with all the EGAO world things.

As a curiosity I asked the Author of YGO Mugen, AiYe, on his opinion on the Synchro arc. His resulting opinion is that the Synchro Arc should end with Synchro world destroyed, showing that divided we fall, also to avoid actually giving a solution to this problem because there is no solution. Synchro Arc should have erupted into a war arc, with Shinji leading one side, against the elite council and roger on the otherside, with Fusion mopping them both up. Instead it ended on "EGAO".

This is the source of all the issues with Arc-V, for a show about a war between four dimensions, the show itself is caught between two dimensions, on one hand eager to tackle hard deep problems, on the other hand it needs to appeal to young kids who can not understand this. Unlike YGO Mugen, the demography of Arc-V and the people who follow it are completely different, and in its effort to appease both, it failed spectacularly, ending in a way, neither appealing for the older demography, nor the young demography.

Second issue would be the pacing, like I said Synchro killed the pacing of the show with the tournament arc. It basically did a reset on all progress of the story and repeated the story of Standard, Tournament->Obelisk->Yuzu runs->Yuya confused about EGAO. This basically wasted 50 episodes, and its not like there aren't the pieces to improve it. Shinji's existence should have been the core of the arc, it should be about the commoner and elites go to war, to both gave Yuya a sight of the darkness so that he may grow and understand what it means to face adversity and smile at the end. Instead with the killed pacing it rushed the XYZ and Fusion arc with bad episodes that topped Nico's bad review list. Such a shame.

In the end Arc-V is a show that got crushed under its ambition and its own lack of skill. A shame for the show that had the potential to rival YGO Mugen.

I really enjoy watching yugioh 5D's. I even watched it twice.. But arc v is not

To make it short, I really hate Yugioh arc v very very much...

What I like for this series are:
1. Introducing pendulum summon
2. Introducing old characters from previous series (but they are different though)

But, I hate it because:
1. Duels dependent too much with action cards.. The character duel with run and jump to many place to gather the action card, for me, it is cheating.. Yuya cheat too much.. The duels in overall make me want to vomit.
...
2. For me, Yuya characteristic is as bad as Yuma. Different with Yusei, Yuya is too childish and too reckless.

3. Sometimes, I don't really understand. The characters battle just to decide whether the opponent is good or bad.... "Oh yeah.. I lost.. So, you are a good person"... "Oh yea.. I won. So, I can make you smile".. "Oh yea.. I lost, I can smile now".. It is too childish..

Again, I wanna say
I am an avid Yugioh Player and also play Yugioh online (Accelerator, YgoPro, duelingnetwork). For me, the duel in anime is suck. Too much dependent on action cards and action cards.. The duel length is mostly very very short... In average only 4 or 6 turns.. And yea, in anime, we rarely saw Yuya hold on attack, because actually Yuya does not really have cards to negate attack, so he dependant with action cards, which is for me is cheat..

There are some duel worthy to mention, that is duel with Zarc (because they cannot use action cards though) and Yuya's father vs yuri (also without action cards). Other than that, the duel is cheat and not worthy to watch.



I hope there remove action duel and make the better plot and characters for the next series... Or I will just drop it.

To all Yu-Gi-Oh! fans I am sending the people who created this show a letter to get them to redo the ending. Tell me what you think of it, we can’t let Arc-V end the way it did. Please help me, boycott anything that has to do with Yu-Gi-Oh! until the creators agree to change the ending by bringing Yuya & Yuzu’s counterparts back to life and restore Reira to his true self.

Dear Director Katsumi Ono



Hi my name is A.J. DeNofa, I live in Pennsylvania in America and I have been
watching the dub for Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V since February 2016 as well as the
Japanese version on ... the internet. I want to say that I have never gotten so
emotionally attached to a show as I have with this one, but I don't mean
that in a good way. This series had the worst finale ever. Why? Why did you
end it without bring Yuya & Yuzu's counterparts back to life? I was looking
forward to that part the most. I had no idea you were going to just let them
die!

Unlike the previous series, it has been one to be continued after another
with this one. The suspense was literally killing me. I don't want to be
disrespectful or anything, but how could you guys end the show like this? I
thought that during Yuya & Reiji's duel Yuya was going to successfully get
Reira to smile and that was going to not only pacify Zarc, but also restore
Reira to his true age and bring all four girls back so we can see them smile
during the duel. Yuzu should've been there for Yuya's big duel with Reiji.
That was the part I was looking forward to the most all series long, Yuya's
dueling making the girls smile. Then after the duel Yuya's pendulum would
react to the girls' bracelets and that would separate the 4 boys back in to
their own bodies. Ever since Yuto was absorbed into Yuya, I always assumed
he and the other counterparts were going to be restored in the finale along
with Yuzu and Reira was going to regain his true age. I'm glad Yuya beat
Reiji and Yuzu came back, but their counterparts should've comeback as well.
They were such great characters. I see no upside to leaving both sets fused
together. You can't just leave their spirits inside their bodies that's
sick. Sure each set used to be one person, but we all wanted them to be
revived as individuals. They had dreams of their own and people who loved
them. I had such high hopes for this series. I had all these little happy
fantasies of what life would be like for them all in the end. I figured once
restored they would all return to their individual lives. Yuto & Ruri would
be in a relationship and return to Heartland with Shay (who has now lost his
sister and best friend). Yugo & Rin would patch up their duel runner, return
to Synchro and re-prepare for the next Friendship Cup. Yuri would turn over
a new leaf & leave Duel Academy to find himself. And Serena would either go
with Yuri or help Edo & Asuka fix things up in Duel Academy. This is
supposed to be a kids' show, by saying their spirits are inside Yuya & Yuzu
you are saying they are practically dead. Try explaining that to a child
when they ask what happened to the characters they've come to love. We
didn't even get to hear any last words from the girls since episode 129 and
Yugo & Yuto never got to say goodbye to the girls they love. We can't tell
what that was with them just smiling at each other as spirits. This whole
fusing them into one was forced upon them, they didn't get any say. And the
one responsible for taking their lives (being Leo Akaba) just gets to go
back to his family with everyone okay with this arrangement? No! It doesn't
make any sense. He needs to pay for his crimes and all 8 counterparts
should've been brought back. Ending it like this has completely killed by
love for this show. I can never watch another Yu-Gi-Oh episode again from
any series. It I'm not the only one who feels this way. You will see there
are quite a lot of people weren't too happy about the ending. Watch the
reviews and read the comments from these links!

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIimEZoX1sg>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIimEZoX1sg


<http://angryanimebitches.com/category/anime-catagory/anime-currently-coveri
ng/yu-gi-oh-arc-v/>
http://angryanimebitches.com/category/anime-catagory/anime-currently-coverin
g/yu-gi-oh-arc-v/

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU-iw-AuVek>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU-iw-AuVek

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54EEE44HBDo>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54EEE44HBDo


<https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/comments/61lkd3/yugioh_arcv_finale_discussi
onlivesubbing_the/>
https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/comments/61lkd3/yugioh_arcv_finale_discussio
nlivesubbing_the/


<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugeIXypRcdk&index=51&list=PLIWSqZgoGuySJezr
tHK2joJuUb_sfNHb2>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugeIXypRcdk&index=51&list=PLIWSqZgoGuySJezrt
HK2joJuUb_sfNHb2



I was also hoping you'd have 150 episodes, but you only did 148. You
could've had Yuya & his counterparts engage in a battle royal for 149 & 150.
I'm glad it's two more than Zexal had, but at least they had a good finale.
They brought everyone who seemingly died back just as they've done with the
first 3 series. That should've been done with this series. This series had
so much potential, but it has been filled with such disappointments. That
picture of the 8 counterparts together at the end of the show's 6th ending
theme gave the impression that they were going to take that shot when they
were all together. I was hoping once all the counterparts were revived and
Reira was back to his old self again it would be a happy ending for
everyone. You brought everyone back in the final episodes for the last 4
series, why didn't you do it for this series? Please tell me you aren't
really going to leave it like this. I didn't completely watch the last three
episodes, but when I saw the ending I was so distraught that all that
sadness went straight to my stomach. I've been sick since because I just
couldn't stop getting upset over how you ended the show without bringing
Yuto, Ruri, Yugo, Rin, Yuri, & Serena back to life and now I have this
constant need to vomit even though I haven't been able to. I had to be taken
to the hospital. I can hardly sleep or eat. I don't want to tell you how to
do your jobs, but please don't let Arc-V end this way. The way you ended it
was just wrong. We still don't even know how Yusho Sakaki ended up in the
Fusion Dimension and there are still holes in the counterparts' origins. And
I am not the only one who feels this way. This show was supposed to all be
about making people smile, but it's not making us fans smile.



I have 3 options on how you can fix this.



1. Redo the last episode. Have Yuya make Reira smile during his duel with
Reiji and when that pacifies Zarc's soul, Ray revives Yuzu, Serna, Rin, &
Ruri as individuals thus allowing them to watch the rest of the duel and
then after Yuya beats Reiji, their bracelets react to Yuya's pendulum and
their combined power brings Yuto, Yugo, & Yuri back to life allowing each
set of counterparts to reunite with each oither as well as their other loved
ones.



2. Create two more episodes into a special where Yuya & Yusho duel and
towards the end Yuya, Yuzu, and their counterparts finally separate.



3. Create a movie with part of the plot involving Yuya & Yuzu trying to
separate from their counterparts. Feature elements from the manga. Yuya &
Yuzu are seeking a way to remove their counterparts from their bodies and
revive them. They encounter a new enemy named Ren from the original
dimension who wants revenge against Zarc by destroying Yuya and tries to do
that by trying to get his hands on the infamous Genesis Omega Dragon.
Together with their friends and counterparts, Yuya & Yuzu must get the
dragon card first and stop his boss Eve.



4. Again, redo the last episode and create two more episodes in which Yuya
duels his counterparts in a battle royal. Or a tag battle royal with each of
the girls partnering with the guys. I came up with this:



Episode 148 - The episode starts with a flashback of when Yuya & Yuzu met as
babies when Yuya's mom placed Yuzu in his play pen with him saying she is
sure they are going to be the best of friends. Shorten the duel between Yuya
& Reiji to 15 minutes into the episode. After the first 11 minutes Yuya
finally makes Reira smile, thus Yuzu, Serena, Rin, & Ruri are brought back
from the Arc-V machine and Reira regains his actual age and they all enjoy
the rest of the duel. Once Yuya beats Declan the girls' bracelets separate
Yuya's counterparts from him. The boys have an emotional reunion with the
girls they love (except for Yuri & Serena as they don't know what they are
to each other). Yuya & Yuzu especially get all teary when they confess how
they really feel about each other. Yugo & Rin reunite and Rin apologizes to
Yugo for what she did to him and their Duel runner when she was possessed.
Yuto & Ruri reunite as well with Shay and their friends. Yuto & Yugo make
amends for their previous misunderstanding. Yusho & Yoko also have a teary
reunion. Also, Heartland City is fully restored. Barrett apologizes to
Serena for sending her back to Duel Academy. Leo Akaba apologizes to the
girls for what he did to them and accepts his daughter's fate. The girls
however let him know that Ray always had the ability to comeback by
her-self. The 4 girls just simply needed to be together and Ray could revive
her-self. They demonstrate by briefly becoming Ray together. Ray tells her
father the truth about her relationship with Zarc. How his real name was
Yukio Otum (Zarc was just a stage name he came up with) and they were in
love with each other. Ray didn't comeback because she knew Yukio's soul
would split into 4 and so she allowed the same to happen to her so she could
be with him and her counterparts could guide his like guardian angels so
they wouldn't turn evil. With Zarc's dark half gone, Ray announces that
Zuzu's bracelet will stop keeping Yuya and his counterparts away from each
other. Leo Akaba accepts the fate his daughter has chosen for herself and
they say goodbye to each other. Ray re-splits her-self back into Yuzu,
Serena, Rin, & Ruri. Yuri, now freed from Zarc's influence, sadly apologizes
himself to the girls and everyone else for the evil things he did. Yuri
decides to atone by leaving Duel Academy and give up dueling. Serena tries
to stop him, but can't get the words out as they don't any sort of
relationship. However, Yuya then challenges Yuri to another duel.

Episode 149 - In an attempt to get Yuri to properly smile through dueling,
Yuya challenges Yuri, Yugo, & Yuto to a battle royal and they accept. Each
of the girls standby the guys as they duel.

Episode 150 - The duel continues. In the final turn, Yuya uses Odd-Eyes
Absolute Dragon on Yuto, Odd-Eyes Meteorburst Dragon Yugo, and Odd-Eyes
Vortex Dragon & Pendulum Dragon on Yuri. Yuya wins the duel and successfully
makes everyone smile. After the duel, Shingo tries to hit on Ruri and Rin
(both of whom have no idea who he is), but is met with disdain by Yuto &
Yugo. At the end, the counterparts say their goodbyes to each other and
return to each of their respective dimensions with the promise of seeing
each other again. Yuto & Ruri start dating with Shay's blessing. Now that
the tension between Tops and Commons is over, Yugo & Rin decide go on a long
trip together in their duel Runner with the hopes of participating in the
next Friendship cup. Yuri leaves Duel Academy (which is now being reformed
by Edo & Asuka) and goes on a journey of self-discovery with Serena joining
him to keep him company and also find her-self as well. The Doktor, Captain
Solo, Barrett, Jean-Michel Roger, & Sanders are all made to pay for their
crimes. Leo Akaba turns himself in for his war crimes. Sora decides to stay
with Yuya's family in the Pendulum dimension and resume attending the You
Show Duel School. Reira also starts going to You Show as he has made friends
with the kids there. After being rescued by Sora in a situation, Aura shifts
her love from Yuya to him since she met him the same day she met Yuya. As
for Yuya & Yuzu, the two of them go on their first date together and share
their first kiss with each other.


Epilogue

(this can be used for any of the 3 options)


We now fast forward 12 years later. Yusho Sakaki is now the Mayor of
Paradise City. Yuya has become a pro duelist and is now married to Yuzu with
a boy (of age 7) and a girl (of age 5) of their own. Yuzu and her children
head to the You Show Duel School where Yuya is at and also where their son
will be going. They meet up with Yugo & Rin who are also married now with
two boys of their own as well as Yuto & Ruri who also have kids. Serena is
also present. They all show up at You Show for the demonstration duel
between Yuya & Yusho. Yuya's wife and children cheer him on while he duels
his dad. The last shot is the picture of Yuya, Yuzu, Yuri, Serena, Yugo,
Rin, Yuto, & Ruri from the end of the show's third ending which they took
together before returning to their respective homes.

THEN END.

I'm sure to you guys what you had for the finale may seem like it was a good
ending but it isn't. The spirits of Yuya & Yuzu's counterparts reviving
inside of them is just not the same as having them actually revive as
themselves. All 8 of the counterparts should've revived when Zarc was
defeated and the last 10 episodes should've just focused on restoring Reira.
You guys took too long in getting Yuzu to come back and the reunion between
her and Yuya wasn't as emotional and romantic as I was hoping for. I'm a guy
and I usually don't get into romantic stuff. This season didn't do Yuzu
justice at all. She was only in like 18 episodes and didn't get to duel or
do anything heroic at all. I'm sure she and the other girls were like sick
of being the damsels in distress. I was hoping to see the guys have a
romantic reunion with the girls they love and see more action from Rin &
Ruri. After learning about them for 3 seasons we should've gotten more from
them than what was given. Yuya didn't even get to beat one major bad guy in
a dueltaining match. He didn't get to be that much of a hero. I get that
maybe you guys don't want to be predictable, but please be predictable! Give
your audience what they are expecting because it is what they want. Until
you guys change the ending or find some way to bring all 8 counterparts
back, I am boycotting anything to do with Yu-Gi-Oh and I'm going to
encourage others to do the same. That means no watching season 3's dub, no
VRAINS, playing the games, or watch any of the other previous series until
you grant this request. I don't mean to rant and sound like an angry person,
but I can't let you guys end ARC-V like this. Please don't let it end this
way. End it the right way.

Please give me a response by ether letter, email, or phone call. Preferrably
all in English


P.S., I am sending this letter in Japanese too just in case you can't read
English.



Sincerely,

A.J. DeNofa

Alright,my first review and or therapeutic anger removal plan,what should i do first,why ARC-V of course,the anime that really didn't grab my attention due to how childishly boring it looked,but went and took a light Zexal II phase that made my attention span go "Ooh,that's nice, watch it!".

And oh boy was that mistake I ever regretted.

(Keep in mind that i will be spoiling very much of the story here,so,you are free to scroll really fast through this story section,and jump right into the other sections I'll put so you can learn more about ARC-V,and not about the story.)

Le Story Section.

The story is arguably the worst ... out of ALL the Yu-gi-oh series',even being worse than TDSOD (that's The Dark Side of Dimensions,for those who don't get it).How bad do you ask? It's bad enough that I gave it a ONE!! O N E!

But before I cover my spirit in anger,let's take a look on why it's bad.
As i said,I will spoil the story before the events of ARC-V,which are explained in the final arc (heh,get it,arc?) of the series,so this is the final warning for you to avoid it.

The story,or at least what starts the story,starts with the man named Z-ARC (HAH,I GET IT) who's an Entertainer Duelist (kinda like a gladiator in the roman times) in the Original Dimension (we'll call it OG dimension,because we all about that hood bruv Xd Xd *insert shit laughing emoji*) who's a top duelist in the newly made ARC system (no,I did it one time,and a second one,not a third one),which is basically an advanced version of Augmented Reality from Zexal. Z-ARC claims that he can speak with the monsters in his deck,specifically,his 4 dragons,Odd-Eyes,Dark Rebellion,Clear Wing,and Starve Venom Dragon. After he accidentally injured a duelist,he was shocked and horrified,but fuck it,the audience liked it,so he kept doing them.So his personality changed to be a more violent one,to make the audience cheer,and that way, he became World Champion,but it was unsatisfying for him. SO HE JUST DECIDED TO DESTROY EVERYTHING AND THEN UNITE WITH HIS 4 DRAGONS WITH THE HELP OF A CARD CALLED ASTROGRAPH SORCERER TO MAKE HIMSELF MORE POWER,BECAUSE FUCK ME IF IT'S NOT A GOOD KIND OF VILLAIN,IT'S A POWER HUNGRY SHIT VILLAIN!! Military (oh hey someone finally had the rationality to use military to stop a world-ending threat,finally) proved useless against Z-ARC,duelists,being of the same thread (Looks like someone wasn't using Tier 0 decks...).But,Akaba Ray stepped in,and used 4 specific cards,to counter Z-ARC and his deck,killing him,and making him vow revenge against her.Shitty Deus-Ex Machina aside,it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows,because the OG Dimension got separated to 4 dimensions,being the counterparts of the 4 extra deck mechanic in Yu-Gi-Oh,(not counting the Links,because fuck Links),Fusion,Xyz,Synchro,and the undiscovered Pendulum,with the same case being for Zarc and Ray.
Anyyyyyyways,after 15 years passed and a boy named Yuuya Sakaki with his ace monster being Odd-Eyes Dragon,discovers Pendulum Summoning,which wins him the match and the tournament,apparently.After that,Akaba Reiji takes interest in Yuuya and Blah blah blah the story is so uninteresting and boring at this part I'd rather skip it to the interesting parts,plus i already spite the story enough,i don't wanna talk about it more,see it for yourself,you'd only find the Synchro arc interesting,because that's the only good thing the guy who created ARC-V's story is good at,that and making badass looking dragons (yes,I'm talking about the 5D's story director man.).

The Art section of this series,is...meh in my honest opinion. It's okay I guess,for being an art style that's been consistent for years,nothing new,nothing interesting. HOWEVER,the CGI truly outshines the most here, I don't know why the final episodes didn't even wanted to use CGI on some characters' final boss monsters (looking at you,Gogenzaka,Reiji,and Shun),perhaps insufficient funds? Whatever,it's a 5.

The sound gets a 7 because GOOD LORD THE TRACKS HERE ARE GOOD! Steadfast Duel,Swing Pendulum of Souls,DDD,they're all so good! And openings 3 and 4 are great too,though the final one...no.

Characters get a 3 because good god are they most poorly developed,I'd say that Yuuya gets the most development out of them all,you know,because of story and MC bias. Same can be said about the MC's love interest,Yuzu,and the two guys from the Xyz Dimension,Shun and Yuuto. BUT DON'T WORRY GUYS CHARACTERS FROM THE OLD SERIES EXCEPT DM ARE RETURNING,I'M SURE THEY WI-nope,they're as bad as the original characters,with little to no development,with Jack getting the better of it,and Kaito,Edo,and Asuka,the worst of it. Anyways,i like Yuuri because of his personality,Reiji because he plays like any guy playing Yu-Gi-Oh in real life would,and Jack because...he's King.

Enjoyment,yeah it's a 5,it could've been a 7-8,but due to the bullshit called "Action Cards" it made "Action Duels" more boring,because we would expect the outcome much easier,while in the previous series' it made for more tension. If only they hadn't forgotten about Action Traps...

Overall,i gave it a 3,it had a lot of wasted potential for this to be the shows 20th anniversary (is it?) show,i wish the dragons could have more depth,AKABA LEO AND Z-ARC HAVING BEEN BETTER VILLAINS,AND THE ENDING TO BE MORE SATISFYING.
But i guess it ended,so we won't see that end...
At least it's over no-Oh no.
NOT THE VRAINS NOT THE VRAINS OH GOD!

tl;dr: Do NOT watch it. Even as a test ride, please don't.


Do you think Yu-Gi-Oh! could EVER get worse? You're served.

Arc-V starts with a decent purpose, an anniversary series that brings all past heroes of the franchise for cameos, what could go wrong, right?

No, not right.

Turns out it's a trainwreck. An interdimensional war is happening and who could stop it? A clown. Yuya is the worst main character in the franchise, and arguably one of the worst of all time, everything about him is wrong. The "rival" is more like a mentor, with no affinity between them, and you don't know when an arc ... starts or finish.

The plot is terrible (not that ygo is outstanding on it, but this time they surpassed themselves in how bad it could be) and the series had to be carried by the past heroes cameos.

That said, the OST is outstanding, just behind the 5D's one.

Not to mention how Arc-V brought pendulum summon to the game it was trying to sell, which wrecked havoc in the format, and left collateral damage until today.