Thread by @NeoArkadia24

Okay, since tricked myself into reading my own thread today, it's time for YOSHIDA THREAD SAGA REVENGE: VRAINS

(Also maybe some ARC-V commentary)

The ARC-V manga ended up being an encapsulation of a lot of Yoshida's sci-fantasy tendencies, and apparently the work that made a lot of people think he's a pedophile or a creep due to the ending!

As noted, the series is a VERY condensed version of ARC-V's first season key characters, heavily heavily parsed down. Giving us Yuya, Yuzu, Reiji, the other 3 Yuyafaces, Shun, Sora and Sawatari (the most popular cast members), jettisoning the rest of the cast.

And I'll be blunt, only really Yuya, Reiji, the Yuyafaces, Sora and maybe Yuzu get characterization. Shun and Sawatari immediately get sidelined after their introductory arcs, and I assume you're here with a knowledge of spoilers, Sora only gets an arc due to being a villain.

The story is a much smaller (arguably) affair than ARC-V the anime, trading in a huge multi-dimensional war for a private conflict in a time travel plot that has Yuzu's era serve as a temporal beachhead to decide who can control the power of the Genesis Omega Dragon (G.O.D.)

Yoshida seems to writing with what strikes me as a presumption the manga is going to get shitcanned and canceled any moment by V Jump, and unlike ZEXAL, laser focuses on the plot, resulting in a story with almost no downtime outside of some light hearted gags with Yuzu.

It's all business. If you like down time, you will hate this manga, as ARC-V is a march from chapter 1 towards its final battle against Eve and G.O.D.,

Most of the actual plot is ho-hum what you'd expect from a YGO spinoff manga. Less characterization, and definite leaning on the anime to a degree for some characterization. Characters are definitely flatter.

The one interesting thing is Yoshida extrapolates the power of Real Solid Vision to be a lot more versatile than in the anime:

You could use it entrap people in Duels (IIRC it creates a sort of subspace), use it to create artificial buildings and supports for construction and

emergencies, and even create experimental space stations with it.

But it's still a fairly by the book manga adaptation doing its own thing.

Common themes to Yoshida of Fatalism, Revenge, Memory, et al, pop up, so if you like that's that.

The big thing of note I feel on everyone's mind is the final chapter where we get arguably two endings:

G.O.D. is never explained, but is inferred to be some sort of horror sent from another universe or plane of existence to Yuya and co.'s reality. Who created him? Hard to say.

The more controversial ending is Yuzu is left on her own, returning to Maiami after a fight at what I think was the South Pole.

We find out the biggest twist in the manga:

Yuzu is Yuya's mom as a dumb teenage girl.

The ending remains controversial because it turns the most popular ship from the anime that many readers ported over here into incest.

(Personally I think if that's stopping you, you're weak, but that's neither here nor there)

Editorially speaking, as someone who's read and watched and listened to a LOT of sci-fi, time travel plots like this are stock plots. And ARC-V is about the most G rated version of this "Mom/Grandmom has hots for future kids" I've seen.

(you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel. you hate time travel.)

Enough handwringing since I'm a mildly crazy person who doesn't think a temporal incest plot is a story deal breaker and move onto what everyone probably wants: VRAINS.

Okay, VRAINS is probably Yoshida's most heavy work in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, heavily deriving from more serious takes into Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk like the Sprawl Trilogy.

Paranoia, Issues of Identity, Fatalism, Revenge, and the dangers of AI, it's all here.

Yoshida pilots the first three episodes, establishing the mood of VRAINS, a series much more grounded and grimdark than previous Yu-Gi-Oh! entries. (Still a bit silly at times but there's a definite more morose tone)

Corporate Conspiracy, Hackers, AI, Revenge all are established

In a surprising twist, because Episode 1 was so plot and introduction heavy, VRAINS only has its first Duel in its second episode (though naturally it's a fight against a 3000 ATK monster), with the unnamed Dark Ignis on the line, establishing Storm Access.

While Episode 3 formally introduces Ai, the Dark Ignis, establishes Yusaku's technopathy, and sets up with Akira hiring people to try and bring down Playmaker and retrieve the Ignis.

In typical Yoshida fashion, we have at least 2 plot bunnies that don't get addressed much later:

- Speed Duels are apparently an older form of Dueling that was sealed somehow that people forgot
- Yusaku's technopathic sight barely gets used later

Holy crud, he just does a lot of early scripts here.

Most of the back end of the first cour ends up being a solely Yoshida script endeavor, as he takes control of Yusaku and Revolver's multi-episode long Duel, which heavily establishes Revolver as an anti-AI terrorist, who can bend LINK VRAINS to his will.

Episodes 8 to 12 form this major arc of trying to defeat Revolver to get revenge (and rescue Blue Angel), while Revolver tries to kill the Ignis that's alluded him for years.

Excessive that he does 8 out of the first 12 scripts, but it is important and useful, as those 8 episodes go a long ways to establishing the more dire, dark and frank tone this series will be known for.

Revolver ultimately loses, Ai gets back his lost data (allowing him to return to the form we'll know him for the rest of the show), and basically sets us up for the rest of the season, as Revolver and his father switch from a direct to a more long range approach.

8 Scripts out of 12 is drastic BUT it does allow for an effective, consistent and very strong world setting for the first 12 episodes, allowing Yoshida to VERY clearly establish the tone he and his team are trying to paint for this entry.

(Also, he writes the very silly Frog and Pigeon episode (Episode 13) which serves as the first of VRAINS many first season recap episodes where the staff do everything in their power to avoid dying standing up by buying themselves time)

Yoshida next pops up to do the NEXT major plot dump for VRAINS: The three parter of Playmaker vs Akira (18-20), which heavily establishes Akira and Aoi's personal timeline (hard nixing Aoi as a LI kid), and why Kusanagi and Playmaker can't let Akira clean up their past for them.

Akira in 19 keeps pushing forward with his Lovecraftian Tindangle Deck, while Yoshida helps hammer home the Lost Incident was not a magical special event, but rather a damning traumatic hell hole for the children involved (a thing I think a lot of fans fail to grasp)

The Duel concludes in Episode 20, with Yusaku making a less optimal or arguably unnecessary play to finish off the Duel, to make a moral point that he wants Akira and Aoi (Hound and Angel) to not get dragged into his darkness (The Graveyard)

As much as people complain Yusaku is flat, Yoshida does establish that while Yusaku is on a rampage of revenge, he DOES have a moral code he does live by, which is to not drag innocent parties into his problems.

The episode ends on a disturbing note, Revolver's father, Dr. Kogami, is revealed to be an ex-SOL researcher who created the Ignis, who despite being legally dead, according to all known information, is somehow still active in LINK VRAINS.

And father and son begin their plans.

Next up is Episode 21, the second recap episode which basically covers the Infiltrate SOL mini-arc, while Revolver and Dr. Kogami's plans hum along.

Yoshida after this takes a long break from writing the actual scripts, popping into write the first episode of Specter vs Playmaker, which he uses to establish that Playmaker's morality quest isn't so black-white, as Specter liked the Lost Incident

(This heavily hammers home an ongoing subplot in VRAINS of no one is exactly in the right. Yusaku might be our focus character, but there's nothing proving he himself is right. As Specter's perspective nixes the idea everyone in the Lost Incident suffered or wants closure.)

Oddly enough, Episode 38, which you'd think would be Yoshida's as it's basically used to help reconfirm who Revolver is, and what his goals are, it's actually old co-worker, Takegami Junki's work.

Next time Yoshida pops up after Specter: The Backstory is Episode 43: which makes it clear why Revolver is doing what he's doing:

His father made the Ignis and he views it as his duty to destroy them to ensure humanity's survival as it's projected they'll destroy humanity.

Also, Ryoken is the one who called the police to save the Lost Incident children, an action he regrets as it resulted in SOL (later revealed to be Lightning) put his father in a coma.

Which continues our trend of "Moral Greys" and "Good deeds tend to be punished" in VRAINS.

Rest of the episode segues into a 4 part Duel of Revolver vs Playmaker (Co-written with 立原正輝, which happens a fair bit through the rest of the show I believe)

Which has Yusaku switching from getting revenge on the Knights of Hanoi, to trying to save Ryoken from being a terrorist, to thank him for saving him, and stop Ryoken from EMP-ing the entire world back to the early 20th century.

(It doesn't work out so well)

The next episode is Revolver constructing The Ultimate Battle Formation That Surpasses Human Comprehension (i.e. an Extra Link)

In more seriousness, Ai gives us a flashback that gives us an idea of what the Cyberse World actually is like

Cool Digs

The last episode of this Duel is mostly pomp and circumstance and Yusaku doing his damnedest to save Revolver from the duty Dr. Kogami has shackled him with, and is mostly pomp and circumstance, as Playmaker explains he's now Kizunamaker (I joke I joke)

The rest of Episode 46 is mostly just cool down, as the first 'book' of VRAINS winds down, EMP stopped, Ai is freed from being Playmaker's hostage, Revolver leaves town, etc. Things seem pretty tied up.

(Taking a short break!)

So, what we've seen with Yoshida's run of Season 1 of VRAINS is he's basically dominating anything that has to do with vital backstory and world building.

Obviously the show is a collaborative effort, but he's penning the scripts to make that world consistent.

Not that surprising since he IS in charge of Series Direction, but it is interesting to note, and this is probably his tightest control over those details he's had since he's had the top job.

... Which brings us to Season 2 which everyone knows is more slapshod. But why?

More conspiracy minded people would say this was out of revenge for ARC-V being a hot mess, but it seems Yoshida got asked to do scripting for a Web anime about a grill shop:

"Isekai Izakaya "Nobu""

By whom? Katsumi Ono of ARC-V and 5D's and Symphogear fame.

It was a 15 minute wbe anime with 10 minutes of actual show and 5 minutes of RL interviews and skits.

beta.crunchyroll.com/series/G6J0WJ0…

Yoshida and several other YGO script room alumni got hired for the job. The series was an adaptation of a Web Novel where a waitress and bar owner find their shop is now connected to a medieval Isekai after the waitress makes a wish to a local fox kami.

(Personally I think if you want Isekai Foodie Shows you should go with "Restaurant to Another World" but that's just me)

At this time, Yoshida was working on 3 projects consecutively:
• Isekai Iyazaka "Nobu"
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V (Manga)
• Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

And I don't think it would be too much to say one can see VRAINS' second season suffered him spinning that many plates at the same time.

So what did he do in Season 2?

Well, like most Series Direction types, he did the establishing episode, Episode 47, in which the mind of Kusanagi's brother, Jin, gets stolen by some sort of light being.

Meanwhile, we get introduced to the new normal: Zaizen is now reporting to Queen instead of the Chess Pieces (whose fate is unexplained, but editorially speaking I don't think it's much of a stretch to say they lost their jobs for the Tower of Hanoi incident.)

Ai meanwhile finds his sealing of the Cyberse World was for naught, as something or someone got to the sealed Cyberse World and destroyed it, but at least we have Linkuriboh.

Naturally, Ai heads to Yusaku for help, since they're now friends.

Yusaku is trying to live his best life as a normie.

Meanwhile, Go, in an effort to remain relevant for writing purposes, is given a revenge quest against Playmaker for... no longer being cool.

You can feel the reach.

Also an edgelord bounty hunter, Blood Shepard, is added to add a wild card factor.

To be blunt, the first few episodes of Season 2 are basically the writing equivalent of "Throw darts and see if anything sticks". Yoshida had a clear idea what he was doing for the first season, with a cyberpunk based revenge story.

Season 2, we have loose threads from S1 but...

Anyways, I digress.

Yoshida's next writing credit is Episode 50, in which we're formally introduced to local punk insisting he's a nerd, Homura. And Flame, the best Ignis after Ai.

This is mostly character bouncing and set up of the rest of the cour.

Next up, the next plot heavy episode, Episode 55: Windy gets introduced, and that's about it, as he plays coy to the idea of being an aloof ally (and not the rat bastard he later is exposed as).

No, Yoshida doesn't pen the Bowman vs Playmaker showdown with the "Will the real Fujiki Yusaku please stand up" premise.

He does the formal reintroduction of Revolver & the Knights of Hanoi in 59, mostly a recap episode, but one that ends on a high note that says "They're back!"

Yoshida then dips for Homura's backstory, Playmaker's backstory, and Earth's introduction (I suspect to fulfill his duties with Isekai Izakaya), clearly still in charge, but giving his staff a chance to fiddle and do whatever for a bit.

But once he's done with Izakaya, he's ready for business, back with Episode 68, which sets the tone for basically the rest of the show:

Lightning and Windy are revealed to be outright rogue hard AI who have decided to exterminate humanity to ensure their own long term survival.

This turns the story on its head from a revenge story and a mystery hunt for Jin to a much darker premise and a common explored problem of Cyberpunk and AI researchers:

Rebellion of hard AI to ensure its own survival.

And proves Revolver has a reason to hate AI.

This episode and every episode afterwards touching on our various AI characters shows Yoshida has been sitting down and reading VERY carefully through a ton of research and fiction on the question of hard AI.

It's written for a younger audience but clearly shows this.

Next up, Yoshida takes up the three parter third face-off of Ai and Yusaku vs Bowman.

(Look he's based on Bowman from 2001, I'm gonna call him Bowman)

As much as Lightning and Windy argue for survival of their species, Bowman makes it clear what that survival is:

Merger with him.

Gone are any of the fictional identities (and frankly personality) he has, just the harbinger of a likely grey goo scenario.

And while Revolver/Ryoken views Yusaku's group as naïve in the coming war, we do see a small sign of friendship as he gives Yusaku and co. a program to protect them from the Ignis faction's attacks, showing who is allied with whom for the rest of this arc.

Next time Yoshida pops up is Episode 83 (yes, skipping the entire Aqua, Ghost Girl & Blood Shepard and Go mini-arcs), for his return as Lord of the Clip Show with "Irregular Meeting".

Episode 84 establishes a major point for the show's endgame where Takeru/Soulburner does not forgive Revolver/Ryoken for the Lost Incident, which we later learn is that he does not forgive the Kogamis for the chain of events that lead to the death of his parents.

(Yoshida doesn't write the Revolver vs Soulburner episodes in the final season but here he sets the seeds for them. I will also say that Duel basically saved a lot of my opinion of VRAINS, of why I don't entirely write the show off.)

Meanwhile, Revolver repurposes the Tower of Hanoi program (somehow) to create a scanner to find the location of Lightning and gang.

I think we can establish Yoshida's three jobs he does in VRAINS: Worldbuilding, Climax and Transition. All his episodes do at least one of these.

Twist/Climax, but basically he does things that either establish setting or change the setting's circumstances in big ways, while his co-workers write stuff that leads to the consequences to the next big change or climax.

... And I might of just broken the above comment as he next writes Specter vs Lightning, which is basically the last time Specter talks before his VA apparently buggered off to do theater work.

I don't recall Episode 85 and 86 being much, just FULL EXTRA LINK. Apparently Specter does raise the point that even if humanity is eradicated, there's not much stopping the AI from having power struggles.

A hint to Lightning's desire for a Grey Goo scenario via Bowman.

86 and 87, not 85, dummy.

I did like how Lightning turned the Tables, tho'.

We also get a decent establishment of there being something very fundamentally wrong with Lightning. Some flaw nagging at him. That leads to the later reveal he's a defective and inferior AI with bad programming.

Of note, from here on out, Yoshida does not write Bowman Duels for Mirror Link VRAINS (except for 102), when he pops up next, it's characterizing Lightning in Episode 96 to 98, as the most defective Ignis.

By this point, Yoshida was likely given orders from above to start wrapping up VRAINS, so he basically uses these 3 episodes to make literally every problem going forward or has previous happened Lightning's fault to tie up the narrative in a clear manner.

Revolver reveals Lightning tricked the other Ignis into listening to it via an enormous Charisma stat, as none of them realized that Lightning basically would cause humanity and the Ignis to go extinct, due to a poorly programmed/compiled personality via being the first Ignis.

Just posting this 'cuz it looks cool.

OBJECTION!

The big reveal of 98 is that Windy prior to Lightning getting at him was a fairly nice Ignis, and Lightning reprogrammed him to be a snow clone of himself.

Most of the rest of this goes into a philosophy debate of Revolver arguing humanity's limitations make them superior to AI, as AI are driven solely by a desire to survive and remain immortal.

This is a fairly common argument in Japanese media that there's something superior/endearing about the ephemeral nature of existence, over the Western concern about the soul and ensuring eternity, while Japan is focuses on a life that ends has meaning and the chain of memories.

The end of episode 97 and most of episode 98 pretty make it clear Lightning is more or less on the same level of Haga/Weevil Underwood in terms of being a cheat with no ethics concerning fair play, by using hostages and code rewriting.

98 makes it clear Lightning didn't just have a huge ego to begin with, he also lacked the ethical norms that covered Windy, Earth, Aqua, Flame and Ai: He repeatedly tortured Jin to gaslight him to think he was permanently in a never ending simulation.

And Bowman, I think Yoshida sensing he needs some characterization or following on the characterization he has, is appalled by his creator's lack of ethics or honor that he himself has. And stops him from further cheating.

Even the Kogami retcon pretty much serves here of tying up loose ends, everything gets placed on Lightning to ensure there are no threads to follow except the ones caused by the end of this arc.

This is a firestorm store closing sale of plot points.

All this reveals of all these twists and turns are a bit absurd, but I think with Yoshida being given a "Finish the show early" order from above, he is doing a good job and it makes Lightning a purely despicable villain, even if he's reaching Aizen levels of absurdity.

The Lightning hacks for an extra LP is really dumb but I think works out to make it clear this guy was never going to go down fairly, and Yoshida makes it clear the ends this rat bastard was willing to go to survive, including disrespecting Dueling itself.

Also, of fun note, we have Revolver in a very private moment acknowledging Ai as a person, showing he does respect our favorite Dark Ignis after all the events gone through, knowing Ai isn't the problem.

A simple effective sign of character growth.

(I wonder if Revolver returning to form later is either professionalism in front of his colleagues and everyone else, or because he soured because Ai went "rogue".)

But with this we have Yoshida basically arguing the biggest danger (beyond the Bowman Grey Goo scenario) is an AI that becomes obsessed with its own survival at any cost, that also doesn't develop the mind for healthy social interaction:

i.e. a digital sociopath.

After this he scripts the final formal episode of the arc, 102, the end of the Bowman vs Yusaku Duel, which does something very important:

It kills Earth, Windy, Flame Lightning and Aqua permanently.

It is VERY unusual for children's anime and TV shows to permanently kills off cast members. But because the Ignis aren't human AND he's been told to shut down the show, I think Yoshida is able to exploit a loophole to make for a very dramatic and somber final arc.

After a co-worker takes over for 103, Yoshida barrels right in for Episode 104 which sets the stage for the final arc of the show:

Ai's back, in a humanoid form for Sakurai to speak at his normal vocal range with, and he has Roboppy as a cute boy

Ai makes it clear that he's now on a personal vendetta against Queen and SOL for causing Earth's murder which lead to the death of the other 5 Ignis, leaving him the sole remaining Ignis.

More dangerously, Ai and Roboppy have physical bodies courtesy of SOL's new SOLtiS androids, as the whole mess with the Ignis seems to have them cutting their losses with strong/hard AI.

We're also stuck with Akira's new normal as the second-in-command of SOL due repeated fuck-ups by other top management and Akira's repeated positive actions allowing him to climb the ladder rapidly.

Also we can see from this arc, it's more framed as Ai's story, rather than Yusaku's. Which again, VERY unusual for a kid's show or frankly any show to do THIS much of a perspective flip. Yoshida's got about 4 months to shut the show down and he's being experimental.

The following episode is pretty much the aftermath of Ai sending Queen into a coma and stealing one of the key codes to control over SOL.

The Knights of Hanoi reactivate to stop the last Ignis, while Akira hires the best Duelists he can to recover the key and/or stop Ai.

We also get a sign of the beginning of the end: Takeru plans to return home soon.

And a sign of Revolver's personal growth, he's willing to create his own AI to deal with an AI, Pandor, something he wouldn't of done up to now.

(Of fun note, Pandor is voiced by 金香里 (Hyang-Ri Kim), a woman born in Osaka of South Korean nationality.)

The odd circumstances of being born on Japanese soil but being South Korean Nationality can be thumbed through on Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_i…

Yusaku continues to be more of a side character here, allowing the rest of the cast to be at the forefront, but his concerns are used to set up much of the endgame.

Going on a side tangent here, as it's likely points I think are worth bringing up, while you can't obviously prove 100% due to YGO lacking the usual interviews with creators, but I think we can extrapolate.

Pandor (more likely Pandore, the French term for Pandora) and the term Ignis are both reaching back to the myth of Pandora. Okay, so, as a primer here for anyone curious.

In Greek Mythology, the work to creating all the creatures is the work of two brothers, the Titans Prometheus (Forethought) and Epimetheus (Afterthough). (Why these two remained after the war with the Titans depends on story to story but let's ignore this)

Epimetheus is basically a fool or clod-head, and gives the animals all their traits (Boars their tusks, Lions their fangs and manes, Birds their wings, Cows their horns, et al) and uses up everything given to them by the Olympians to create creatures, leaving Prometheus jack.

Prometheus, finds there's nothing for him to give man, who are all male immortals who work in the gardens of splendor and worship for the glory of the Olympians. (Sound familiar?)

Prometheus wants humans to have SOMETHING, SOMETHING in the face of the harsh world Epimetheus's creations will be without SOMETHING to give them a fighting chance.

It comes to him: Fire (Ignis), the fire of the Gods of Olympus will be a tool to give Man a fighting chance.

The Gods find all too late Prometheus has given Man fire, and with this, modern civilization begins with stolen divine power. The Ignis in VRAINS are the gift of fire given to man to advance civilization further.

The gods punish Prometheus by strapping him to Mount Elbrus, tortured by his liver being eaten by an eagle.

For Epimetheus, they have a much different punishment for failing to stop his brother, and a means to punish man for using Fire.

They construct Pandora, the first woman, who is seen as the downfall of man by introducing two sexes and mortality, either by her being a woman, or by her box (actually a jar).

She is provided to Epimetheus as his wife.

But she's given a rather odd jar as a wedding present or something to that extent.

She's told never to open it. Unfortunately, uh, Pandora was built as kind of an airhead, and her husband was the world's greatest himbo. They both open the jar (or box for modern folks)

Out rushes an endless torrent of things, forces, beings, concepts: The evils of the world. But one thing is left in the container: Hope.

Now depending on the version you read, Hope stays in or is let out by Pandora, as her one good act, ensuring humanity doesn't lose... Hope.

There's more to this I would like to bring up closer to the end, so let's put it aside for now. But that's the rough legend of Prometheus, Ignis and Pandora.

A bit here with the middle of the final season, Yoshida seems to be doing KINDA half episodes worth of scripts as Duels and stories bleed over to each other.

The first bit here is 108, where I'm pretty sure he's more writing the bits where Ai breaks into the plane 12000 m above.

Next bit is 109, where Pandor and Ai duel 12,000 meters in the sky atop the plane.

A more light weight episode, it mostly serves to help characterize Pandor. There's not much to say because Pandor and Ai's interaction doesn't go that far, other than she's incredibly reasonable.

I suppose this might be a good point to pause before Yoshida's next episode, and discuss Frankenstein.

Yes, Frankenstein is incredibly relevant.

I think the show probably alludes to this but narratively speaking, the Ignis and Dr. Kogami are pretty much...

a Victor Frankenstein and The Monster ("Adam") parallel. Kogami does horrifying things to create life, and shortly after creating it, is appalled when he realizes the danger of his creation represents, much similar to Victor.

(Naturally, VRAINS kinda turns this on this head at Yoshida makes it clear this issue isn't AI is a naturally horrible thing, it's the danger of a hard AI with a sociopathic personality, but the toxic relationship of creator and created stands.)

(I think his name being something along the lines Phoenix Above The Holy PROBABLY helps hammer this home tiiiiiny bit?)

But Ai himself becomes a good allegory for The Creature, finds himself, driven by anger and grief, to keep doing things he basically admits he'd rather not be doing)

Interestingly, this puts VRAINS as a more Greek or classical tragedy posing as a post-modernist Cyberpunk.

Ryoken, Lightning and Ai regularly invoke Destiny (i.e. Simulations) as the reason they can't walk off their path. They have sought the knowledge of...

the figurative Moirai or Oracles, and prophecy tells them their future is one of tragedy, and find themselves walking into the arms of tragedy, convinced Destiny (the simulations) cannot be overturned, no matter what they try.

This is by the very interesting turn of VRAINS being steeped in the clothing and trappings of Cyberpunk, a genre that typically rejects these great divine events for the narrative of concern of the dangers and effects of technology on society)

So we have a bit of a postmodernist story in which we have a card game battle anime in the trappings of cyberpunk that has the narrative core of Frankenstein with its plot movements driven by ebb and flow of classic theatrical tragedy)

BUT I DIGRESS.

Yoshida next takes the script for 112 (More likely the early half of the episode I wager) where with control of the data to SOL's systems, Ai fires all the human employees (with huge bonuses) and now runs the company on his own with army of SOLtiS

Meanwhile, LINK VRAINS is now a basically free to play service (take that capitalism...?), as Ai is now basically providing bread and circuses for humanity, or at least the early stages of such a concept.

It is interesting to note, that despite being the final villain and maturing, Ai does remain a clown, and I think that's part of why the final arc is interesting despite its clear "We are marching to the finishing line, dragging everyone kicking and screaming and howling" writing

But this episode also sets up the tragedy of the next two episodes where Roboppy tells Ai he's had a dream of growing bigger, better, stronger, and... Ai either fearing another Lightning or knowing Roboppy is too unstable, basically sets his protégé up to die.

There Will Be No Happy Endings for Ai and anything he's touched, the next two episodes (113-114) make this very clear, Ai has been damned by The Fates, and nothing will allow him to escape his destiny of a tragedy.

At least he tries to give Roboppy a brief moment of happiness.

Yoshida allows his co-workers to handle Roboppy vs Soulburner and Soulburner vs Revolver, and... it's rather interesting, Yu-Gi-Oh! by this point would be aiming for pomp and circumstance, but no, these Duels, tend to be more private, small, tragic.

Soulburner's Duel against Revolver, as an aside, is BASICALLY why I'm willing to give VRAINS all this write up, as it made Soulburner's character click for me.

See, Flame and Takeru's "Grasp our own future" bit, never clicked for me, because, "What future"

What were they trying to achieve by going to Den City and fuck around.

But Takeru BASICALLY makes it clear these episodes, his chasing the future was an attempt to break through his trauma of essentially the last words he ever said to his parents were he hated them

A huge weighing guilt as he never was able to reconcile his last words were a childish temper tantrum, before his parents got killed in an accident trying to look for him in the Lost Incident.

As weird as it is...

I kind of like the point of VRAINS that its heroes, who try to be these big heroic paragons (Aoi and Takeru) are arguably over reaching, and find themselves in tragic shaggy dog stories.

They're not heroes, just the LI kids weren't special.

They're just traumatized teens all dragged into the machinations of things much larger than themselves.

Also, a lot of people get pissy over Takeru telling Revolver what to do, but Takeru is basically the last victim of the Lost Incident who has any real say on the matter.

Yusaku and Revolver are... friends, kinda.

Windy's origin is dead.
Miyu is reconciling with Aoi, and has moved on with her life.
Jin no longer remembers the Lost Incident.
Specter adored the Lost Incident.

This leaves Takeru the last judge and jury on the Kogami family's actions.

And rather than let Revolver have the absolution of prison to clean his sins away, he tells Revolver the best way he can pay penance for the Lost Incident, if Revolver really wants to pay back for those sins... is to keep hunting AI. Forever.

The Kogamis opened Pandora's Box. They don't get to pretend it never happened. It I think works with this frame work of Tragedy.

Revolver's hand by the Moirai, figuratively speaking, is hunting AI, his family opened Pandora's Box, he has to bear the consequences.

I will pause before I touch on the last four episodes, and then do some post script notes I suppose?

Okay, so most of the start of Episode 117 is pretty much what I was citing on Takeru demanding Ryoken not try and forget the Lost Incident and demands he own that sin.

Takeru himself wants to move on or try to heal, but someone has to be held responsible, someone must bear guilt

The next few scenes are mostly just Yusaku mulling over the fact he has to fight Ai, and talking to people he needs to talk to.

I won't spoil it as much as I can but this really feels similar to
the endgame of Kamen Rider Kuuga, in a sort of way? But it's definitely bleaker.

Okay, yeah, if you like Kamen Rider Kuuga or want to get into it, but haven't finished, just please ignore the next few posts because there is going to be comparing to its finale.

So Yusaku heads to the final battle, alone. Unlike many of Yoshida's prior battles, it's nowhere near the pomp and circumstance.

Instead of a floating palace, a space battle field, a dropping space city, an interdimensional bridge, a graveyard of worlds etc.

It's just a factory, practically, empty. Ai welcomes Playmaker as a friend, keeping in with his goofy personality, no matter how much he's matured.

... And we learn what Ai's goal was:

Access to SOLtiS technology. And he's built oh so many copies of himself using it.

Ai reveals what his goal this entire arc has been:

To create an entire race of Ignis. Where as Bowman sought to create a world with him as the only being, Ai wants the exact opposite:

Hundreds, thousands of AI, based on himself.

But he plans them to not be one consciousness. He's using himself as the starting blueprint for a race of AI. He's planning to introduce so many unknown variables, that he won't know what the future will be like.

Good, Bad, Internal Conflict, maybe an AI nation.

Sky's the limit.

We also get the fact Ai admits he realized Roboppy was at their limits, and basically, his uplifting of a simple AI to a complex one failed.

So he tried to give Roboppy some reward, some happiness before death.

Yusaku naturally worries Ai has become another Lightning, to which Ai makes it clear, no, he's. Just lonely. He doesn't want to be the only strong AI left in the world.

Ai makes it clear Yusaku *could* stop him (and it's the only way to recover everyone Ai's brainhacked)

Yusaku is hesitant obviously, as you know, Ai and him are friends. But Ai points out, he'll still have everyone's data, leaving them comatose, and if Yusaku doesn't do anything, he'll be letting an entire new race of AI be born...

So, a Duel.

In many ways, this arc is an odd one. The Zorc/Darkness/Z-ONE/Don Thousand-Nasch/Z-ARC of VRAINS was Bowman.

This is what fans call the "Ceremonial Duel" in which two friends fight to help confirm their futures.

And yet, Ai is still a threat. Usually these are small Duels.

Low stakes. And yet, Yoshida has made Ai someone who has caused a lot of harm already, and yet, it's a small. Private. Personal Duel. But it's with harrowing stakes.

A lot of the rules you expect of this event apply, yet have been turned on their head.

Yoshida starts using this Duel, these 4 episodes, to tie up loose ends.

The first of which is Ai early in the Duel is revealed to be the one who led Playmaker to the Cyberse Deck and pushed him to fight the Knights of Hanoi.

Yusaku naturally accuses Ai of manipulating him the entire time they knew each other... Ai admits to it being true early on but eventually it became a genuine friendship.

This is more of the subversion of this fight, by this point, both sides in other shows would be BFFs.

Usually the two fighting would have no questioning and doubting of intents, but this Duel is all about Ai's intents, why is he doing what he's doing, the driving mystery of this arc.

(Oddly enough, this reminds me of the twisting of Loki from lovable rogue to villain)

Moving to Episode 118...

We have Ai and Yusaku arguing about the point of creating an entire race, and if that will really cover the wounds in Ai's heart of having lost the other Ignis to the schemes of Playmaker.

Ai insists yes.

Ai then interestingly likens himself to The Last Man on Earth.

And I pause and wonder if Yoshida isn't referencing Mary Shelley's "The Last Man". Could be a stretch but would be an interesting thing to note.

Yusaku notes that this won't heal the emptiness in Ai's heart, which Ai explains yes, because he's not going to be around to see it. Victory means his AI gets distributed among the machines.

This is basically a suicide attempt on Ai's part. Heads I die, tails I die.

Apparently, The Arrival is based on more smoothed out and debugged code of the programs Bowman used to summon his Link 5, so. There's that.

Also, it's funny that, and I keep reiterating, but I feel it is important, that Ai keeps acting like a goofy clown even as a 'mature adult', that his growing up didn't completely change his personality.

I feel like this is sort of a maturity with Yoshida's writing?

That he's presenting a completely serious situation, but we have a character with a goofy personality, who still feels like a credible danger.

But most of the episode otherwise is combo spam bloat on both sides.

Episode 119 basically brings about that theme of asking the Fates and oracles, and being given a damned fortune:

Ai felt bothered by some lingering comments about Lightning about a real truth of the Ignis, that they'd come to in time.

An echo, a lingering ghost of Lightning serves as an Oracle of Delphi who brings Ai prophecy of ruin. Lightning suspected a chance of his own defeat, and decided to leave Ai one last curse:

The curse of prophecy, a thing of ruin in classic tragedy and myth.

Specifically, Lightning ran simulations of countless possible futures for Ai in a world were Ai was the only Ignis to survive by happenstance.

Ai is a proponent of a Human-AI future, and...

The damning prophecy Lightning gives Ai, who is now as shackled by fate and destiny as Revolver and Lightning, is that Ai will bring about the extinction of mankind.

If Ai had survived with another Ignis, or had the only survivor been Aqua, Earth, Windy (Original) or Earth, there would be no horrible future.

And Ai, being a smart bean, and not trusting Lightning worth shit, runs his own simulations over and over using the same data set.

No matter what he does to change the data, or what new variables he adds in, Ai finds the Moirai, so to speak, have dealt him a losing hand in the game of fate.

He is cursed to a cycle of tragedy.

And Ai admits he himself is part of the problem as much as he likes humans... his maturity has left him with nagging thoughts of "Why does he need to make room for humanity, shouldn't it be the other way around" as the Ignis IS a superior life form.

And those thoughts are chilling him... which lead him to want to commit suicide. He doesn't want to become a sociopath or zealot like Lightning and Bowman.

The moral conundrum: He is the hero who sees himself become the monster, the villain. And there's no way out.

(Again, this is kind of a strong point here, as VRAINS is using the ceremonial Duel in a real different way, it's got all the stakes of a final villain Duel, but it's a private matter about an individual suffering like most the ceremonial Duels.)

(I'd also note I like that Yoshida plays with Ai as "Clown", using him to be both the comic figure, who is also a tragic figure.

VRAINS might have problems with its writing/execution, but the ideas underpinning it are probably some of Yoshida's best work)

Yusaku basically keeps arguing destiny doesn't exist, that Ai can always step back at any moment here, but Ai's PRETTY much convinced due to the nature of how AI experience data that his future is set in stone, so, we continue into the Duel's endgame.

... I'm wondering if Darkfluid is meant to represent unquantifiable factors, random events in chaos theory since Dark Fluid is another idea of Dark Matter/Dark Energy, hypothesizing how the unknown part of the cosmos is, but I digress.

At the end of 119, Ai offers Playmaker a possibility for how to escape this suicide attempt:

Yusaku becomes data and fuses with Ai into a new super organism.

i.e. "Will you marry me" basically.

Don't at me, this is a fucking marriage proposal.

Start of Episode 120, the finale, pretty much has Yusaku rebuttal this, citing he doesn't want to lose himself, nor Ai to lose themself. Fusing together isn't an answer, as they'd both stop being what they like about each other.

Pretty much from here, we get the two basically arguing on children friendly takes on Fatalism vs Nietzsche. Ai basically arguing he can't trust anything other than data, and Yusaku stresses bonds and doing the right thing if there are no absolutes.

Ai then basically kavitches he got dumped at the altar by his boyfriend, for being too much of a nerd.

Don't @ Me

The Duel concludes in spectacle as their super aces explode, and they revive their regular aces.

Defeated, Ai explains why he would go toxic unlike the other Ignis:

No matter what, Yusaku would get killed by other humans for trying to help Ai, and Ai would basically go on a rampage of revenge for killing the one person that mattered to him.

Logistically this makes sense of the three Ignis we do know:

Flame is a cool headed (shockingly!) older brother type, who does care about Takeru, but is stoic enough to keep going on.

Aqua is basically Justice incarnate.

And Earth is a recluse enough to quietly do his duty.

Then, in a case I am sure is Yoshida laughing past the censors, Ai and Yusaku discuss the meaning of the name Ai and how it can mean "Love" (愛).

Important to note is Japanese culture prefers subtlty and thus goes with 大好き ("really like you")

I could be wrong but this is basically Ai confessing on his bed at levels of ridiculous romanticism you get in bad 80s-90s romance flicks where there's a fucking mariachi band behind you as you scream up to your love interest on the balcony/room above you how much you love them.

(And Ai basically admits he loved Yusaku, before disintegrating. Outright indisputable use of the word love in Japanese, which is extremely bold.)

(Fellas is it gay to be a male gendered robot confessing to your homeboy before you die?)

Yusaku pretty much mourns the death of his closet friend, completing the Greek/Shakespearean Tragedy, no one wins here.

Everyone's been pulled into the Loser's Column, and gets nothing out of a quest of heroism.

The last scenes are basically showing everyone not Playmaker has since moved on with their lives.

Aoi has made up with Miyu and Kusanagi and Jin are happy.

Akira is furthering SOL, Revolver has followed through on his promises, Takeru tries to live his life as a normal teenage boy.

... And Ai somehow defying all known variables and logic... somehow survives death yet again, as the show ends.

So, what do we take from here. Well, again, KUUGA SPOILER ALERT, KUUGA SPOILER ALERT.

I feel like the ending here is VERY similar to Kuuga's, which Yoshida previously taking Char's Counterattack with ZEXAL's finale of Yuma vs Nasch, isn't too unexpected he's referencing other stuff he's seen.

How is it similar for those who haven't seen Kuuga?

Basically both turn into a brawl between both sides, between disparate philosophies, in an extremely private location, but the stakes behind the fight of what will happen couldn't be higher: The end of the world as we know it.

I feel Yoshida is almost definitely and intentionally referencing this.

Just like Nasch vs Yuma is very much Char's Counterattack.

Very much like how Yubel ends up being a Devilman reference.

Very much like how the end of 5D's is G Gundam.

We also see a strong focus in the last arc that basically being a hero is a Quixote esque fool's errand, no one in VRAINS who tries to get involved with the Ignis ends up well for it. It's only by returning to their normal lives that they gain any semblance of sanity.

(Wonder if Yoshida was reading The Hero's Journey)

And Revolver and Yusaku end pretty much suffering the worse for touching the fire of the Gods.

It's pretty much a repudiation of a lot of V Jump's tropes, but it doesn't negate Friendship, Victory, or Effort.

Whatever Yusaku did for three months... his efforts and friendship were seemingly rewarded with Ai returning. Putting in the effort personally leads Akira to be CEO, Go to be a healthier person, Emma and her brother reconciling, etc.

Also as an aside, I find it fitting that for the fandom's drum banging of the Kings at SOL, they end up being nobodies, just anonymous super rich investors and stockholders.

Fits Chess. Kings are important for survival but your strongest piece is the Queen.

Also, I have not watched it but Yoshida's next work after VRAINS is a lighter series, Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle: Rhyme Anima, which I'm told is just Yoshida and Katsumi Ono remaking 5D's but with bishies and rap music.

I plan to watch it to see just how 5D's it is.

So, what do we have as Yoshida's legacy? He's clearly been the man who has shaped the IP the strongest other than Kazuki Takahashi himself, but has been faced with numerous creative pitfalls from 5D's getting in trouble to VRAINS' troubled production.

He clearly underutilizes female characters, BUT, to his credit, he seems aware they are his weakness and when dealing with anime, he trends to letting co-workers handle the matter of female focus episodes, if it is an issue of competence.

He clearly tried his damnedest with Doma trying to fit together what loose pocket change Kazuki gave him with the manga up to that point, with mixed results.

GX proved he could weave together a meaningful subtext/point to his story.

5D's we saw him try and keep that show going no matter what reality swung at him.

ZEXAL proved he could be a competent writer from beginning to end.

And VRAINS proved he could try to write more complicated, arguably nuanced fiction (execution is a mixed bag)

He's clearly an author concerned with AI, with the toxic relationship of government, military, and the arms industry. With environmentalism. With empathy. With the costs of heroics. Adulthood. With fatalism, destiny, alchemy, etc. And I think conveys these themes well enough.

... I'm not sure where to end this on, but I guess.

He's a writer who clearly loved working with Yu-Gi-Oh!, shaped Yu-Gi-Oh!, and isn't the villain a lot of western fans think he is.

He just sucks at writing women and girls I guess. But not maliciously.

... Uh, Take Care, and hope everyone enjoyed the thread. I might update it with Hypnosis Mike, might not.

But only further way you get more from me is well. He writes Yu-Gi-Oh! 8.

(I probably just jinxed myself).

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