May 29, 2015
This is my personal favorite entry into the yugioh franchise of the 3 that I have watched (Duel Monsters, GX, and 5Ds). This brings us a fairly different take on some duels in the form of riding duels while still keeping the heart of the yugioh franchise alive.
Story (8/10):
As with any yugioh series, the story follows a series of adventures our heroes must take on against antagonists to save the world. How do they do it? In a series of card games, of course. However, I feel like the in-depth plot development of these arcs were very well-done. The audience was given a chance to
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understand the viewpoints of both the antagonists and our protagonists. The overall theme of the show is something along the lines of 'the importance of bonds between friends'. The show demonstrated this theme several times through the character's actions as well as through monologues and speeches made.
This show introduces the concept of dueling while riding a D Wheeler, basically a motorcycle. At first this idea seems silly, but the atmosphere of riding duels was very exciting. The characters and monsters were constantly in motion so there was a lot more going on than just finger pointing and monsters just chilling in front of our duelists.
We are also introduced to a new summoning technique, synchro summoning, to bring out new synchro monsters. This is what is used to bring out most of the new powerful monster, but it did not feel overpowered and was not the absolute single summoning technique in the show either. It brought a new update to the game that only served to make the duels more interesting to watch.
Art (7/10):
The character designs were on-point with yugioh's crazy hairstyles while managing to keep the overall deign of characters balanced. The background design of the different settings were distinct and unique. My main issue is that the quality of animation was somewhat inconsistent. Some episodes, we had breathtaking animation with fluid motion with excellent layout designs. Other episodes, the characters would look out of proportion even during closeups. The 3D models used worked very well for the most part even though it was fairly obvious that the characters/monsters were not drawn. There were a few times where the 3D just didn't work very well.
Sound (10/10):
5Ds knew exactly where it was going with its sound. The openings were all fantastic in terms of both music and animation while keeping with the overall theme of 'bonds'. The battle music helped several duels go from exciting to on-the-edge-of-my-seat exciting.
Characters (8/10):
Yusei is our first and only yugioh protagonist to start out at the age of 18. Not only that, he has had to deal with issues such as poverty and being an orphan as a child which made him grow up to be a strong adult. The rest of the cast each get the spotlight for their character development when necessary and are fleshed out very well. There were a few characters who had a lot of potential for better development and a larger role in the story that were slowly left out of the plot.
Enjoyment (10/10):
I laughed, I cried, and there were whole scenes that I re-watched at least 5 times because of how amazing they were. It was great seeing an older cast and the slight darker tomes the show had.
I would recommend this to anyone trying to get into the yugioh franchise and even if they weren't. You do not need to have watched any of the other yugioh shows to jump into this one, but be warned that the show does not hand-hold the audience through the rules of duel monsters that other yugioh shows might do.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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