Season 4 GX is seriously the best of Yugioh. While Sho sucks from seasons 1-3 he has a great conclusion in the 4th season. Actually, all the main characters have good to great arcs and really shows how they all have grown. I disagree about the OG anime because some duels last 6 episodes with so much filler and flashbacks to really stretch them.Original Yugioh will never be topped. The real conundrum is GX and 5D's. GX had a mediocre start but finished strong, and vice-versa for 5D's. Had 5D's kept its momentum after the dark signers arc, it could have been up there with the OG series. GX has some really boring duels and really uninteresting characters namely this donkey:
but them Heroes man, they're so cool. Judai has probably the best deck out of him, Yugi and Yusei.
Which makes it so good.That and the constant dueling of a Matrix bad guy knockoff.
Sho actually becomes better in Season 3, but he is so insufferable in the first 2 seasons and a half. Thank GOD for them putting in Dino dude to balance out baby-blue hair boy.
And the villains. The villains made the show. Pegasus, Marik and Bakura. The original just had some outstanding antagonists.
not so long ago I marathoned GX and it does deliver in the last 2 seasons. The arc from 3 to 4 is great. I would say the third season is better because it has a story that progresses and makes the characters grow, while 4 closes what 3 started. The fourth season has some of the best duels in the series (Axel Brody/Trueman, Cyrus/the psichic guy, Chazz/Aster) but the villian comes and goes as nothing, the concept behind is great, but not the execution.
And it also fails to to have to showcase the same "musical" theme she's supposed to have compared to the other Melodious. She's just a moe blob in a rose. She fails to continue the cool looking trend of her materials.
What
Yeah, I didn't played but I remember my friend complaining about Necroz whenever the topic of yugioh came up. Not a Yu-boy, but at least ritual monsters got some love in the anime, but I'm guessing Yuya's friend didn't do a lot of dueling after the first season.
Blackwing Armor Master
Generation 3: 5D's
User: Crow Hogan
Artwork:
Hey, ProfRenegade , here's your boi.
DISCLAIMER: The reason why I'm not doing a review on "Black-Winged Dragon", despite it being a Signer Dragon is because:
a) The anime never shows BWD as a Signer Dragon alongside the Crimson Dragon, so it's inclusion was another pointless retcon of season 3.
b) It's nowhere near as popular or good as Armor Master here
c) I can review it with just "It's ugly, it sucks, no one plays it, no support"
Crow Hogan was one of Yusei's closest friend's during his time in Satellite, a member of Yusei's Duel Gang, Crow's face is now covered in Criminal Tracker Marks used by the police to keep tabs on him. After the fallout of the gang, Crow and Yusei lost contact for a bit, but never stopped being friends. When Yusei was having trouble with the looming threat of the Dark Signers, Crow joined the fight as an ally no questions asked. Aided by his extremely powerful Deck, The Blackwings. Humanoid Birds ready to kick ass and take names
Crow's Ace is the level 7, DARK, Winged-Beast, Synchro Monster. Armor Master, a card with a really cool looking design for being essentially Bird Person, it sure is a Master of the Armor as it looks great in it, the black metal on the wings and helmets pops out really nicely on the blue background, and I particularly like the orange decals finishing in some dark orb adornments in it's wings. Once more, the pose is good and heroic, the only thing I would take away are those weird wheel thingies on it's hips, they look bulky and uncomfortable.
While the card itself is REAL good the card benefits from being summoned with what many consider one of the best Tuner monsters in the game "Blackwing- Gale the Whirlwind"
Gale can be special summoned by controlling any other "Blackwing" card, so you can just summon a cool Level 4 Blackwing monsters, get to summon Gale for free, Gale will halve an opponent's monster's ATK and THEN you get to Synchro into an unkillable 2500 ATK Armor Master that will reduce to 0 the ATK of any monster foolish enough to battle it. Needless to say, Blackwings popped in and out of the metagame for years, with the eventual limitation of Gale never really being a problem to them, they were THAT good.
Crow and his Blackwings got so popular that the anime writers decided to make him the 5th Signer in season 2 as opposed to making him a villain like they originally planned. That means, Crow ended up taking Leo's spot as the 5th Signer.
Blackwings get support every Tuesday given how insanely popular they are, even Armor Master has a new Shiny Powered Up form "Blackwing Full Armor Master" released last year
Armor Master and the Blackwings are only now missing in the Link department to have full power in modern times, and even then, they do just as good with the adorable "Wee Witch's Apprentice" as their Link. Great Card. great theme...Shame about the character taking over the spotlight of all the other cool season 1 characters though.
Trivia Time!
Since "Black-Winged Dragon" has a hyphen in-between the words, it's not considered a "Blackwing" monster and as such, cannot use any of their support. As if it didn't suck enough already...
We're nearing the end of this round of Gen 3 reviews, later tonight, we will be taking a trip to the Nazca Lines.
So, look. Gen 6 is a shitshow of colossal proportions, I know I should probably get on with it and do a review of "Decode Talker", but I won't. Not today, I need time to collect my thoughts on Konami forcing the use of a new mechanic and locking all other mechanics behind it, the player backlash that followed, the backtracking, the actual good link support, the problem with Extralinks as a mechanic, and the entire Firewall Dragon debacle, and reach the current healthy state of the game. It's just too big of a roller coaster....So I think, just this once, I´m going to simply remember the simpler times and the most requested card as a little bonus review. This will also let me focus on the "Legendary Dragons" for the next reviews (Alongside Slifer and Obelisk of course)
So Gridlock Pikachu Blindy Cruxist Negaduck Pascal Toxi RadioJoNES, you asked for him, here he is.
Jinzo
Generations 1 & 2: Duel Monsters & GX
Users: Espa Roba, Joey Wheeler, The Big Five, Jinzo Himself
Original Artwork:
Latest Artwork:
During his time in battle city, Joey Wheeler eventually found himself dueling against yet another duelist who claimed to be a psychic but was a total cheat instead, Espa Roba, Espa Roba's ace monster was a Level 6, DARK, Machine-Type monster with one of the simplest, yet deadliest effect for the early game. "Jinzo"
Jinzo's original artwork is just striking, this humanoid cyborg is just standing there, doing nothing but staring and you from the other side of that unnerving mask, the veins popping and throbbing make it clear that whatever this horrible mask is supposed to be for, it's also hurting him, and he doesn't care...His objective is you. The background being a pink mist always give me the idea that seeing him is a nightmare, but also, that he just vaporized a pink trap card and is coming out of the smoke, both interpretations just make me realize how effective of a background it is, and not only that but it plays really well with the green on his armor. Kazuki Takahashi himself designed his second artwork, as you can see by his autograpgh in the lowe right corner, a staple of all the Takahashi Artwork cards. But I don't like it. Much like with Dark Magician I´m not a fan of him always going for black and edgy for OG cards. His pose using thudershock like a Pikachu is nowhere near as good as the thing just...staring at you.
For the game, Jinzo negates all trap cards currently on the field and prevents their activation, this was MASSIVE back in the day, as trap cards were usually your first line of defense against attacks, and with a respectable 2400 ATK for the price of a tribute, Jinzo was damn well worth it. A good Jinzo could end games if summoned at the right time. He's a legend...
That has unfortunately fallen from grace. Trap cards are nowhere near as popular as back in the day, with player playing a max of like 5 traps in their decks and only if they're absolutely neccesary. The rise in popularity of "Hand Traps" (Monsters that activate their effect in your hand during the opponent's turn) such as "Honest" and "Effect Veiler" really hurt his viability.
But the most criminal reason why Jinzo isn't up there with the greats...is a lack of support. For the longest time the only card supporting Jinzo was "Jinzo's Snazzy Party Hat" a card so not worth it it has not being reprinted since release...
After that came a bit of hope with GX's "Jinzo Returner"
This card would attack your opponent directly and revive a Jinzo in your graveyard when it's destroyed, but that just meant exposing yourself to an attack against a weak monster, you could always play him in defense and wait for it to be killed, but that's just slow and too risky.
Jinzo later got an upgraded, more powerful form "Jinzo-Lord"
And not only does it make Jinzo look like shit, but it's a total dead draw if you don't have Jinzo already, and it only provides a burn effect if your opponent controls face-up continous traps...that's too situational.
Then came some GOOD support at the tail end of the psychic era with
This card let's you summon Jinzo for (almost) free as a response to an opponent's trap! Jinzo will get summoned and their trap will be negated! that's cool....but it requires your opponent to activate a trap, for you to have a spell/trap in your hand to discard, and for Jinzo to be only in your deck...oh man, I was getting excited.
Zexal era came in and gave Jinzo his last known piece of support, the amazing "Jinzo-Jector"
Teenage metalhead Jinzo can be tributed to add Jinzo from your deck to your hand, reveal all cards your opponent has set, and if there is a single trap among them, Jinzo will be special summoned at no cost. If more than 1 trap is revealed, you can summon more cards with "Jinzo" in their name! That's amazing!.
....But that's 1 maybe 2 good cards, compare that to my Dark Magician or Blue-Eyes writeups, it's simply not enough.
But Konami sure likes their gen 1 pandering from time to time, and if the shitty Fairy Tale cards from the fillers got actually printed, Buster Blader has his own deck and lore and Joey support packs are a dime a dozen, I know, deep down, that is only a matter of time for Jinzo to fucking return.
Nothing wrong with filler, and looking back I really wish Vrains has had more filler in between all the serious storytelling. I stopped around episode 36 and never did I believed Yusaku has any friends, except for maybe the hotdog guy. I really wish it had episodes center around his school life, or anything to make him more than just serious bland dude.
