Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
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 CARD GAMES ON HOVERBOARDS!!!!
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Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS is the sixth entry to the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise aired in Japan from May 10, 2017 to September 25, 2019 and first in Canada from September 1 2018 to September 13, 2021. This would mark the final entry to ever be produced by Studio Galop, to be replaced with Studio Bridge as head animators for subsequent entries starting from Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS that promotes Rush Duels, which makes this the last entry to be a Master Duel-centered show. Out of all of its predecessors, and successors, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS lacks the various known tropes, and a manga counterpart (which probably due to the production issues), and having no video game adaptations outside of Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution, which is a reskin of Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist, and its world inclusion in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links and the short lived Yu-Gi-Oh! Cross Duel.
Plot
The series is based in a world roughly ten years from now, where a massive Virtual Reality Network called LINK VRAINS has been established. It's a suspenseful, thriller-style story in which Yusaku Fujiki Duels in order to learn the truth of the events surrounding his past
There is a city where network systems have evolved: Den City. In this city, with the advanced network technology developed by the corporation "SOL Technologies", a Virtual Reality space called "LINK VRAINS" (Link Virtual Reality Artificial Intelligence Network System) has been developed. By using LINK VRAINS which was built inside the Network System, Duels unfold where Duelists change their appearance separate from their real life identities, and in this VR Space people became excited over the latest way to Duel. However, in "LINK VRAINS", a mysterious hacker group that hacks via Dueling has appeared: The Knights of Hanoi. Their goal is to destroy the "AI World" known as "Cyberse" that exists somewhere in the depths of the Network. However, there is one Duelist who stands against the threat to "LINK VRAINS". His name is "Playmaker". He has become famous in the Network World for crushing the "Knights of Hanoi" in fierce Duels, without mentioning his name. But the true identity of "Playmaker" is ordinary high school student "Yusaku Fujiki", who pursues the "Knights of Hanoi" that appear in VRAINS in order to find out the truth of an incident that happened in his past.
Qualities that Go into the VRAiNS (Pun intended)
- The idea of playing Duel Monsters in a virtual world in a similar vein to VR Chat is interesting, there have been many places that were explored prior to the 3rd season were interesting.
- Additionally, the hacker group known as Hanoi trying to eliminate the Ai, and their reasons for it speaks volume of how most of social media platforms nowadays use learning algorithms, as well as the recent controversial app, Aiart.
- While some Speed Duels are interesting, the Master Duel of the climatic duels are well-done.
- If you don't like the tone of the original Japanese version, the English dub gives the series a little bit of humor to keep it from being too grimdark without undermining it entirely.
- To be fair, the original Japanese version also does have humorous moments.
- Fan-favorite likeable characters, such as Takeru Homura, Emma Bessho, Aoi and Akira Zaizen, Spectre, Ai, Risa Hayami, Kusanagi, Earth and Revolver to name few.
- Very interesting archetypes like Trickstar, Altergeist, Gouki, Borrel/Rokkets, @ignister, Salamangreat, G Golem and the infamous Hydradrive.
- The idea of having and experiencing Trauma from the Lost incident is interesting, and done well with Takeru Homura.
- On the same vein, having a character like Spectre who has a different view on the Lost Incident and treated it as "Good days" as he lacks any attachment to humanity and society, which explains his loyalty to Revolver is also interesting take on the matter.
- Recaps/Clipshow episodes, while they're frequently annoying, at least they provide some time to cool off from an arc to an arc, which was abolished by the 3rd season.
- Re-introducing the past mechanics, (except Pendulum Monsters probably because the series was produced at the time Duel Links did not have ones), with the least represented Mechanic Rituals being prominently shown for the first time. This inclusion of mechanics shows the interesting gameplays they add to the Link Monster Decks in the show.
- Although the third season took a major nosedive in the writing and was being rushed to end the show, it was saved by Ai, and the last two duels being Revolver vs Soulburner, and Playmaker vs Ai.
- For a piece of Japanese animation with budget cuts and production issues, the show kept carrying doing exactly what it wanted till the end, which is admirable, considering that most of shows tend to get cancelled with how hard and expensive animation as a medium is in general.
- This series ended Galop's 20 years of working on Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise on a decent note, and any Master Duel anime era on a high note.
Qualities that faceplanted in the concrete
- The budget cuts and production issues that reached their peak from Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V harmed the series' original premise. [1] As well as receiving any alternative pieces of media.
- Some duels can get monotonous due to how hard it tries to replicate real life OCG/TCG Duel, and according to Masahiro Hikokubo, it was difficult to make Soulbuner lose duels he could have lost.
- Some interesting ideas were abandoned as soon as they were brought up:
- The Real vs Impostor Yusaku sub-plot.
- The Hanoi Spy in SOL Tech.
- Besides Ai, Yusaku, Takeru, Ryoken and Aoi, almost every other character had no character send off, and the lost Incident Victims are treated worst.
- Specter didn't have any line of dialogue for 34 episodes since episode 86 where he lost to Lightning.
- Miyu Sagusaki existed as a plot device for Aoi to be relevant again, only to abandon that.
- An unnamed origin of Windy who was killed off-screen.
- The third season takes a massive nosedive, besides the last 2 duels, while Ai is still a likeable character, he spend most of these episodes eliminating characters flawlessly except Takeru, Ryoken and Yusaku, and not letting Aoi disintegrate as a cruel joke.
- The tone can get too bleak at times.
- The controversial art theft by Konami Cross Media, having taken a a fanart without permission to replace Japanese text. [2] This was corrected in subsequent airings of the series.
- The era of this series which had featured the controversial change to the Duel Field, known as New Master Rules, which received major backlash (not as much as Master Rule 3) harmed this series' reputation.
- While the English dub is still good, some jokes are bad, and some are poorly placed undermining the severity of some scenes too much.
- Production issues behind the scenes forced the show to include a large number of "recap episodes", which the series has become notorious for. Asano Katsuya took to Twitter to apologize for these episodes after episode 38; explaining that they were needed to allow them to slowly improve the series. [3]
- As this series was left without any manga adaptation, many unutilized ideas were left to be desired, this could be attributed to the fact that the series' ratings weren't as good as its predecessors, or production issues reached its peak that SHUEISHA decided to ignore the idea.
- To add insult to injury, there was a Brazilian Facebook page that advertised a fake manga adaptation that supposedly was to be published infamously named "Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS Cyber Warrior Yusaku" that would be made by Akihiro Tomonaga, which was not only circulated on Yu-Gi-Oh! Subreddit, but also mainstream news sites hyped it, which made fandom anticipate it. As it turned out, it was a prank by the said deleted Facebook page as neither Akihiro Tomonaga nor YGOrganization said anything about the said manga.[4]
References
Videos