Yu-Gi-Oh Arc V Review

Bryan Downes

Arc V is the worst Yu-Gi-Oh series ever, there’s nothing else that needs to be said. However, I am going to have to review this; as per usual I will give each arc a score out of ten, and add them all up for a total score out of 40. Due to the nature of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime essentially being an ad for the card game, I might throw around a few terms that don’t make sense. Regardless, I will attempt to make this easily understandable for those who don’t know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh.

 

Standard Arc: 9/10

Standard Arc can be described in two words: Wasted Potential. The standard arc is one of the best things to come out of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, and the rest of the series doesn’t do it justice. This arc is the greatest in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, and is better than a lot of the anime it aired alongside of.

 

One really stand out moment from this arc is when the main character, Yuya, goes into his berserk state for the first time. This is truly a stand out moment because Yuya is the typical “Optimistic, Friends With Everyone” Hero to an even greater degree than the protagonist of Zexal, Yuma, who’s ace monster can literally be translated as “Hope Hope”. This makes it extremely shocking when he turns into a living ball of hatred. If only the rest of the series was as at least as half as good as this arc.

 

Synchro Arc: 7/10

This is when this show becomes Kamen Rider Decade, and Arc V drops in quality accordingly. The main characters travel to alternate dimensions, that are bootleg versions of existing Rider/Yu-Gi-Oh series. Same concept, although at least Arc V features the actual characters from the past series, with the odd exception of the main characters. But I digress, this isn’t about how Arc V is just Kamen Rider Decade.

 

The Synchro Arc started off well, with the main characters starting off separated, and tensions running high. And then there’s the tournament arc, this is where things start to go downhill. The tournament arc started out fine, but then it starts to drag on and on. This is something I can forgive, due to the nature of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime series also being a marketing tool for the card game. What I can’t forgive, however, is the tournament butting in during key plot moments. Previous tournament arcs managed to integrate the tournament into the plot well, and in a non-intrusive way, usually integrating the tournament into the story. The same can’t be said here, the tournament really ruins the pacing sometimes. The end of the arc is also pretty meh, I was so burnt out from everything before I couldn’

 

Xyz Arc: 1/10

The Xyz Arc is the worst arc in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, worse than Waking the Dragons, worse than the Ignis Warfare Arc, and worse than the next arc in this series. As bad as they are, I remember those arcs, and there were some good moments in them. I didn’t remember anything from this arc, which a lot of people would argue is worse than being extremely bad. There are other problems outside of this though, like having only one returning character from Zexal show up.

 

The main problem though? You can skip the entire arc, and you wouldn’t be lost when watching the Fusion Arc. That means that this arc is just unnecessary filler, and is meant to sell merchandise. I mentioned earlier that Yu-Gi-Oh is an anime meant for marketing, but other shows have been primarily for marketing yet still maintain good quality. A good example of this is Kamen Rider Build, which I have previously stated to be my favorite TV Show of all time.

 

Fusion Arc: 3/10

The Fusion Arc is bad. Really bad. Would I say it’s as bad as the Xyz arc? Oh lord no, but I’d still say it’s pretty bad. Before I get into the negatives, I’ll go into the positives since there’s not a lot of them. The summoning of Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon was pretty cool, and very raw. There’s also one very good scene where Yuya is struggling to hold on to his sanity, but that’s more so from the quality of the voice acting. That is all the positives I can think of, like I said the arc isn’t that good.

 

For example, there is a lot of padding, even for Yu-Gi-Oh standards. About 50% of the arc can be cut out, maybe even 75%. The Final Villain is also a huge let down, over a hundred episodes of build up, just to be let down by an edgy version of the main character.

 

In total, Yu-Gi-Oh Arc V gets a 20/40. There’s some good in there, but it’s buried in a pile of garbage and stale filler. If you want a good Yu-Gi-Oh series, I recommend watching GX or 5Ds.