Gagaga Magician
Generation 4: ZEXAL
Users: Yuma Tsukumo
Artwork:
Remember when I compared ZEXAL to "The Force Awakens"? Yeah, I stand by it. Here's Yuma's Not-Dark Magician.
Lore wise, there's nothing special to say about Gagaga Magician, he's just another card in Yuma's refe deck referencing the OG show but with a japanese onomatopeia shoved in it's name. Gagaga cards are supposed to be a bunch of delinquent highschoolers from the wizardry school "Gagaga Academy". And Gaga Magician is their leader. So there's a Gagaga equivalent for many of Yugi's most famous cards such as "
Gagaga Gardna" referencing "Big Shield Gardna" and so on.
Design Wise, I can't help but think Gagaga Magician is a bit overdesigned, he looks like Dark Magician but he also has the 4th Hokage's coat! And also he covers his face and eye like Kakashi Hatake, and he has an armor with gigantic shoulder pauldrons and you know what? Let's add a CHAIN to really show you that this is a japanese highschool delinquent. The background is generic and lacking energy, which is par for the course for ZEXAL cards not named Galaxy-Eyes. I feel like Gagaga magician should lose the armor and just leave the "School Uniform" to make it look a little bit better. I can´t say that Gagaga Magician wouldn't look cool to my 15 year old self, but that's not exactly high praise.
Gagaga Magician's effect is just changing his level from 1 to 8, allowing you to set up any Xyz summon you might need, There can only be one in the field to avoid you abusing special summons to get high Rank Xyz too easily and it can never be used for a Synchro Summon as it would also make them very easy to achieve...The restrictions hurt it a lot as it's effect and combo potential are not that good. Even a fully fledged "Gagaga" has trouble setting up Xyz summons due to the insane amount of restrictions the Gagaga cards have on them to get their effects goings, such as their main special summon card "
Gagaga Academy Emergency Network" restricts you to only use Xyz summons as your only special summon after you activate the card....making it hard to swarm monsters to use for your Xyz. Link Summon Rules make them even worse to use. I should now....I have a Gagaga Deck.
Why do I have a Gagaga deck?...well...*Sigh*
Gagaga Girl
Generation 4: ZEXAL
Users: Yuma Tsukumo
Artwork:
Hey
RedHoodedOwl I know you hate it, and
Agni Kai I know you love it. it's WAIFU TIME.
Because if there is one card in this godforsaken game that is almost as popular a "Waifu" as "Dark Magician Girl" is Not-Dark Magician Girl herself Gagaga Girl!. And a lot of that comes because the anime gave Gagaga Girl a lot of personality....and I mean A LOT. Way more than DMG actually, which caused players to no only like her on a superficial level but also her little "tough girl" act.
First, let's start with the artwork. GODDAMN look at that background! Those beautiful magical circles are in my opinion, the absolute best in the ZEXAL era. Gagaga Girl's design was heavily censored in the TCG, with her OCG design being a bit more
revealing. I understand the need of changing the design a bit but I feel the longer sleeves take a bit from her "Tryhard bad girl" personality away, but it's nothing that important as I LOVE her dress, it's as overdesigned as Magician's, but this one works much better, she looks cute!. I´m not exactly a fan of her bored face though. Also, like any highschooler, she uses her Skull decorated smartphone all the time, even for attacking!
Gagaga Girl is Gagaga Magician´s underclassman and she REALLY wants Senpai to notice her. So much so that when she's defeated in battle she goes back to school and apologizes to Senpai for not being cool enough for the gang.
Despite trying so hard to be a cool member of the Gagaga gang, Gagaga Girl is actually quite timid and gets flusttered often when Yuma or his opponents comments on her.
The gifs above are to prove my point that the anime team really gave this card a personality, and it worked. As despite ZEXAL being not very good, Gagaga Girl remains a very popular card among the fandom. Way more than Yugi's latter Magician Girls
Gagaga Girl's effects allow her to match the level of a "Gagaga Magician" on the field and for any Xyz monster that uses her and another "Gagaga" monster as Materials to get the additional effect of dropping a monster to 0 ATK, which makes an OTK possible by using her and Gagaga Magician to summon this:
Gagaga cards have not received any meaningful support or Link support since the end of Gen 4. Which as someone who built the deck when I was younger, is a bit frustrating.
Trivia Time!
Judges at certain events in 2012 got a "Gagaga Girl" playmat. And it became a pretty desired collector's item with the fandom at the time
Next Up!
Voror you won't want to miss this one!
