Media Essays: Why Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Failed

If there's anything in media I can't stand, is wasted potential. This was a show that had all the credentials to be great...and it just wasn't.

There's lots of media out there that shows plenty of promise, but the execution lets it down something fierce. The subject of today's post is one such example. That subject is none other than one of the most divisive seasons of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime of all time. I am talking of course...about Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V.

What is Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V?

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V is, as the title suggests, the fifth series in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. Released in 2014 and concluding in 2017, the series had a total of three seasons and 148 episodes. It's the story of a young boy named Yuya Sakaki, the son of a circus showman named Yusho Sakaki. Yuya hopes to be a "Dueltainer" like his dad before him, but his life takes a wild turn into crazy town when he winds up at the centre of a multiverse war that sees the lives of everyone he knows and loves at stake, including his best friend and love interest, Zuzu Boyle. Now he has to team up with several other Duellists in order to put a stop to this war...

The series was released to mixed reception from fans and critics for reasons I'll go in to later in the essay, and the series is still held as one of the most divisive in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! People either really love the show for its dark tone, multiverse war concept, likeable characters, fast-paced duels and flashy animation while others hate it for what is perceived as poor writing, bad pacing, ill use of its cast, nonsensical duels and a rushed ending. I'm sorry to say that I'm on the latter side of the argument, but more on that later.

The series had a troubled production that may have contributed to some of the show's problems. These include the head writer, Tsutomu Kamishiro, suffering a lot of schedule slips and turning in scripts late which resulted in rushed situations elsewhere, butting heads with the rest of the staff by wanting to push the series in a more cynical direction and not accepting contributions if they failed to align with his plans. Geez, sounds like Ken Penders when it came to his work on Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics. =P Several Season 1 writers left during Season 2, which may be way Season 2 was extended as long as it was to accommodate any ideas that may have been lost in the process. So, while I wouldn't say this excuses all the problems the show had, knowing all this DOES at least explain why the writing was probably so poor in this show. What we as viewers often forget is that making media is NEVER as straight forward as we think it is, and that behind-the-scenes stuff just happens that can affect the quality of the show.

As is, it's clear that the backlash to ARC-V's storytelling must've had an effect on Tsutomu's career since, apparently, he hasn't been credited on a single piece of work since 2017. He even alludes to possibly having had a bad time on the show by having @F***TheYugioh as his Twitter name before he deactivated his account. Like...damn, talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Nevertheless, now you know what Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V is, let's dive into why it was so bad...

Problem 1: The Pacing Is HORRENDOUS

Everyone and their mothers have said this, and I'm saying it as well. The pacing of this show is TERRIBLE!

How do you have a 148 episode show and somehow make it feel simultaneously padded AND rushed at the same time? That takes a special kind of talent to pull off writing as poor as this. Now granted, I did just say earlier that many writers from Season 1 left which probably affected how Season 2 came out and may explain why that season was so padded. But that still doesn't excuse how bad the pacing is everywhere else.

In Season 1, we have Yuya having to win four more duels to earn a spot in the Arc League Championship and all four of those duels are two-parters when they could've easily been over with in one part and none of them needed to happen at all. These duels only exist just to pad out the show, plain and simple. We could've spent that time more wisely on plot-points that actually mattered, like say ZUZU BOYLE LEARNING HOW TO FUSION SUMMON AND GONG STRONG LEARNING HOW TO SYNCHRO SUMMON!!! Why the hell didn't we focus on that instead of these unnecessary duels?! That's so dumb! You have two interesting plot-points and instead you focus on Yuya farting about with a duellist who uses a cooking archetype, a duellist who uses quizzes to his advantage and a fortune-teller who wants to get her hands down his pants?! WHY?! Granted, the fourth duel was with Gong himself, so that wasn't a waste, but the other three were. They should've devoted all those episodes to Zuzu and Gong's plots instead of this nonsense to make better use of the pacing and it wouldn't have felt so padded out as a result. As is, Season 1 is relatively well paced for the most part. However...

Season 2, as mentioned earlier, is where the pacing really suffers. No joke, we spend the ENTIRE SEASON in the Synchro Dimension. This alone made for a very long and VERY tedious watch as we're just spending way too long in there and you can feel the snail's pace storytelling on display with this arc. Our heroes arrive in the Synchro Dimension, then they get arrested and thrown into the Facility, then they get recruited to be in the Friendship Cup and we spend several episodes just watching the duels in this tournament. Throughout most of the time in this season, our heroes are locked in hotel rooms and pretty much just talking to themselves as they watch the duels happen, so we don't get a lot of character interactions in that time. This also makes the arc pretty dull to watch at times. To make matters worse, the Fusion Dimension invades the Synchro Dimension and attacks, but there's still several episodes left before the arc is over, so their invasion is over as quickly as it starts and thus we have to pad the season out a bit more with Zuzu getting kidnapped by Sergey for Roget and the final duel between Yuya and Jack Atlas. You really can feel the writers just stretching this arc to its breaking point here and it just baffles my mind that they thought this was OK.

And then you have Season 3 in where we barely spend any time in the XYZ Dimension, which only begs the question why they bothered going there at all if they weren't going to do anything with it, we waste a whole batch of episodes on the Battle Beast when his plot amounted to absolutely nothing, the Bracelet Girls are brainwashed but that plot point also goes nowhere, we have a padded-out duel between Zarc and the Lancers which got VERY tedious very fast because of how super-duper-mega-invincible Zarc is throughout the duel until he...isn't at the very end of it, and then instead of having the show end with Zarc's defeat and everything being restored, they padded out the ending with a bunch of episodes that consists of just Yuya duelling to make Riley smile and get rid of Zarc's influence. I just...who thought that was a good idea? Why wasn't Zarc's defeat the end of the show right there? Why did they need to pad it out with this unnecessary ending that didn't need to happen? They should've moved up the duel with Zarc to near the end and spent more time in the XYZ Dimension so the ending wouldn't have felt so stretched out.

This show really does love to stretch itself thin in order to fill in its 148-episode count, despite the fact that this show easily has a premise that can fill in 148 episodes no sweat. We either have episodes that just waste time in order to pad out the show or plot points that go nowhere and also waste time. Why the pacing is so bad, I'll never know even with the behind-the-scenes knowledge I have. The only mercy I can give this show is that at least the duels avoided the problems that the original series had in that a lot of them would go on for too long or be padded out with people on the side-lines just saying nothing useful. The pacing of the duels actually prevents them from feeling boring (for the most part) as they don't pad them out too much with most duels being either one or two parts long at most. God, imagine how tedious this show would've been if we ever got a six-part duel like in 5D's or the original series...

Problem 2: Too Many Characters That Are Pointless Or Wasted

I don't know what goes through writer's heads sometimes when crafting a story. Who writes a story and thinks "I need to cram as many characters as possible into it!" and thinks that somehow won't backfire in any way.

This show just has WAY too many characters to count, and so many of them are pointless too! Let's list all the characters that either serve no purpose in this series or had potential that was completely wasted:

Sylvio Sawatari: He's an absolute jobber who gives the Lancers a bad name and I'll never understand why the writers thought he needed to be here. He doesn't even serve his role as the rival that well since Declan's already the "Seto Kaiba" like character to Yuya's "Yugi Muto" if you get what I mean. Take him out and absolutely NOTHING is lost.

The Tyler Sisters: They show up in the XYZ Dimension arc and leave just as quickly. I can't even begin to fathom why they were created at all if they were going to do absolutely nothing other than be a minor obstacle to overcome. These two should've been recurring enemies, not minor obstacles.

The Battle Beast: He too literally exists just to be an obstacle for our heroes to face and given he never shows up again after his duel is over, it makes his presence even more of a waste. What was the point of devoting so much time to him if he wasn't going to do anything? At least have him participate in the battle against Zarc for crap's sake!

Reed, Pierre and Aura: Their duels only existed to waste time and thus their characters are also a waste of time too. We did not need these characters in this show whatsoever. It's worse in Aura's case because the beginning of Season 2 had her sticking around for the first few episodes before they leave for the Synchro Dimension, suggesting that she might become a member of the Lancers, but nope. She never joins them and is forgotten about until the finale. At least replace Sylvio with her or something, she would've been more useful.

Dennis McField: Why does this guy exist? No seriously, I'm genuinely curious. Why does this guy exist? Not only did they already do the "Friend Turns Out To Be Evil" twist with Sora so having him turn out to be evil just felt redundant, but his time as a mole in the Lancers barely even factors into the plot. It's not like he slows them down in any way or inconveniences them much before the jig is up, he's just there and I don't understand why. Take him out of the story and nothing changes whatsoever.

Dipper, Julia and Kit: These three should've been members of the Lancers, but instead they're just one-off rivals for our heroes that are forgotten about after Season 1 is done. Julia at least somewhat had a point since she served as a motivator for Zuzu to learn Fusion Summoning and Kit mentored Gong in Synchro Summoning (offscreen that is). But Dipper? He does nothing at all and gets carded by Celina. Julia and Kit at the very least should've been Lancers instead of being dropped out of the story like so.

Iggy Arlo: He's just a one-off duellist for Yuya to fight in the Arc League Championship, but for some bizarre reason, they brought him back in the Fusion Dimension arc for another duel with Yuya in where he gets a quick redemption arc and then...nothing. He just disappears from the plot, and we never see him again. WHY THE HELL DID HE COME BACK IF IT WASN'T GOING TO AMOUNT TO ANYTHING?! Like the Battle Beast, if his return was to have any point in the story, he should've joined the Lancers to stop the villains, otherwise he shouldn't have been here at all.

Alexis Rhodes: Of all the Legacy characters we see in this series, Alexis was the most wasted. She only gets two duels in the entire season and has no bearing on the plot whatsoever. You literally could've put anyone else in her place and nothing would change. If she's here for fanservice (not that kind), then it's really bad fanservice because all she does is stand on the sidelines watching everyone else duel, and then get carded by Yuri after losing to him. At least Crow, Jack and Kite got their time to shine, but not Alexis. To add insult to injury, Crow gets un-carded later down the line and actually gets to join in the battle against Zarc! But Alexis? Nope, she doesn't even get that. Gotta let the boys have all the glory while the girls get thrown to the wolves, am I right? =P

Barrett: He was introduced as Celina's bodyguard and while he does have an impact on the plot by bringing Celina back to the Fusion Dimension, it was handled very poorly and after he and Celina go back to the Fusion Dimension, we never see him again. So, what was the point of his creation? Rather than wasting time on the Battle Beast and Iggy Arlo's unnecessary return, Barrett should've been an opponent our heroes faced and Yuya should've gotten the chance to rematch him to pay him back for Celina's abduction.

Captain Cutter: He's just a Duellist of the Week. He shouldn't have existed. Nuff said. Literally anything else could've happened in order for Celina to capture Zuzu without him being here and nothing would change.

Frederick, Tate and Allie: They literally only exist to be Yuya's cheerleaders. Take them out and nothing would change whatsoever. It's especially weird because the first couple of episodes give specific focus on Tate, suggesting he might be important to the story, but no. He's completely useless to the story and doesn't do anything significant. Even Allie at least got an episode devoted to her duel, but that was only so they could show off how powerful Riley is. These three shouldn't have been here unless they had an actual role in the story.

So, with all that said, how would the cast be better handled if we trimmed the fat and kept the ones that matter? For starters, Frederick, Tate, Allie, Sylvio, Iggy, Reed, Pierre, Aura, the Battle Beast, Captain Cutter, Dennis and Barrett would all be gone completely. Sora would remain a bad guy so all of Dennis's moments would've gone to him instead, the Tyler Sisters would have an expanded role and duelled in place of the Battle Beast, Iggy and Barrett, Julia and Kit would be members of the Lancers instead of Dennis and Sylvio (Dipper would still be carded as a motivator for them) and Alexis would have more to do instead of being pointless. That would've trimmed the cast down considerably, used some of them better and also cut down some of the unnecessary padding the show suffered from.

Problem 3: The Duels Are Terribly Written

This show, hand-on-heart, has some of the worst writing I've ever seen when it comes to duels in ANY Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. We make fun of the original series for its ass pull moments, but those are excusable because this was back in the franchise's heyday, and they hadn't figured out all the rules yet. Here? There's no excuse at all.

Nearly every duel in this godforsaken mess of a series is an absolute headache to watch because of how often the characters pull crap out of their asses in order to pull off certain moves or win the duel outright. And it's not like the original series where we can make fun of it and joke about it either. There's nothing funny or amusing about any of these asspulls. They're just annoying and have me yelling in irritation "How convenient!" It's rather pathetic how often characters in this show will just "conveniently" have a card that "conveniently" is able to do what they need and can "conveniently" swing the duel in their way. The duels with Reed and Pierre are the worst examples of this. Those two REALLY did have a case where the writers were just making up whatever nonsense abilities were convenient for them in order to make them seem "skilled" when all it did was just feel like they were pulling crap out of their arses. The fact they use made-up cards instead of real cards in the real world doesn't help either. And don't get me started on Leo Akaba just "conveniently" happening to have Pendulum cards when he shouldn't even know how to do it due to never having experience with the method. That was total BS and everyone knows it.

It gets worse when in some duels, it feels like the characters are just making up effects on the spot in order to win. The duel with Zarc is the worst offender here as that duel consists of him blatantly BS-ing his way through his opponents while barely breaking a sweat. It's so bad that when Riley/Ray is able to defeat him in the end, it felt very anti-climactic because the writers were too focused on making Zarc look completely unstoppable, and so his eventual defeat didn't feel satisfying. There's making your characters look like skilled duellists and there's terrible writing. This is terrible writing, plain and simple.

Oh and don't get me started on Action Cards for the love of the Egyptian God cards...whoever invented them should be sacked for such a dumb idea.

If you're going to write duels for the anime, then don't make up crap as you go. Establish all the cards in your character's decks (or at least most of them), use real cards instead of made-up ones and use the real card's real effects! The duels won't feel as BS if you do it this way and will feel more convincing. Yes of course, we do need some contrivance to make the duels go a certain way, but that should be down to the characters drawing the right card at the right time, not making up crap on the spot for sheer convenience's sake.

Now obviously, I'm not saying every single duel is terrible. That's an exaggeration. There's actually some really good duels here such as Zuzu vs. Julia (rematch), Sora vs. Shay (first match), Zuzu vs. Chojiro, the Tyler Sisters vs. Allen and Saya, Yuya vs. Celina and Lulu, Yuri vs. Alexis, Yuri vs. Yuya, Yuya vs. Jack Atlas and Yuya vs. Declan. But they're only a handful of good duels in a sea of garbage ones.

But if there's anything positive I can say about these duels: it's that they made me want to play actual Raidraptor and Frightfur decks. I guess that's a positive. The anime is essentially a glorified commercial for the card game, so I guess the fact it made me want to buy the cards seen that were in the show means it did its job right. XD

Still, this show should be used as an example of how NOT to write duels...

Problem 4: The INCREDIBLY Sexist Handling of the Bracelet Girls

Yu-Gi-Oh! cannot write women. That is a fact of life and as someone who loves strong, capable female characters, it grinds my gears that it apparently took them until the Rush Duel era of anime to FINALLY fix that problem. Yu-Gi-Oh! girls get shafted, and I mean SHAFTED, but none have had it worse than Zuzu Boyle and the other Bracelet girls.

In the early episodes of ARC-V, people made jokes and memes about how Zuzu Boyle actually felt like the main character of the show rather than Yuya Sakaki. And you know what? They're right! In the early episodes of the first season, Zuzu is the one being proactive and actually trying to figure out what's going on, Zuzu is the one who's advancing the plot while Yuya's doing nothing important at the time, Zuzu is the one pushing to get stronger after a defeat at Julia's hands and Zuzu is ultimately the main focus of the villain's plan and what this mess is all about.

So, you know what would've been a great idea?

ACTUALLY MAKING ZUZU THE MAIN CHARACTER INSTEAD OF YUYA!

But alas, this is Yu-Gi-Oh! Women exist only to be cheerleaders, jobbers, damsels in distress or to get brainwashed by the villain, or sometimes all four. So naturally, Zuzu falls into this category too. After a promising showing in Season 1, the writers very confusingly decide to give her less duels to participate in in Season 2 and her role in the arc is very minimal with the only significant thing she actually does is exposing Director Roget's plan to the Synchro Dimension. Come Season 3? She gets even less to do. Zuzu never gets to duel anyone and on at least two occasions, she prepares to do so but then her duels get hijacked by other characters because making Zuzu look capable and able to hold her own would just be stupid, am I right? (sarcasm) All she does is get kidnapped by the villain, brainwashed, un-brainwashed and then used as part of Leo Akaba's scheme to revive his daughter. It's absolutely pathetic how Zuzu was handled in this show. She had potential to be the best Yu-Gi-Oh! girl out there, and instead ended up as the worst. Even her desire to get stronger as a duellist by learning Fusion Summon amounted to diddly squat as she still ended up as a damsel in distress and barely got any time to shine in spite of her new skills. There is no excuse for how badly she was handled and how she was reduced to nothing more than a Plot Device to motivate everybody else's actions.

The other Bracelet Girls don't get it any better. Celina (the Fusion counterpart) at least gets to be part of the Lancers but most of her duels are barely shown with most of the action in them happening offscreen and she later gets kidnapped and brainwashed, but at least she got to do something. Lulu and Rin LITERALLY don't appear in person until Season 3 and all they do is act as brainwashed minions for the Doktor until it's time for Leo's scheme to carry out. This? This is nothing more than an absolute joke. It's ridiculous how badly these girls were handled, and the writers should've known better when it came to writing these characters.

If the Bracelet girls were that darn important, than they should've been the main focus of the story instead of being Plot Devices for Yuya and friends to be motivated to do anything, and they should've been the ACTUAL main characters instead of Yuya. Their presence is the most important aspect of the story after all, so why is the story NOT about them? And why can't this damn franchise write female characters without them being shafted in some way? It reeks of sexism and considering how this franchise loves to have the female characters get brainwashed, it also reeks of the writers having a disturbing fetish... X(

In conclusion, the Bracelet girls were the characters done the dirtiest in this show and they should've been the real main characters.

Problem 5: The Fanservice Is Terribly Handled

One of the big draws of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V was the fact we got to see characters from previous anime appear again, which makes sense given the multiverse concept of the show. So how did it handle those returns? Not very well.

So what do we get in terms of legacy characters? We have Crow Hogan back and to be fair, he's decently handled, and some fans even prefer this Crow over the original (I'll never understand why people hate him). He gets a good amount of onscreen wins, even defeating two Lancers, and becomes the only Lancer other than Declan and Sora to actually damage Zarc's Life Points in the duel.

We also get Jack Atlas and he too is pretty well-handled with a good number of onscreen wins and even being the one to defeat Sergey, and he also plays a part in Riley and Yuya's developments, but his backstory isn't as interesting as the original version's and he gets defeated by Zarc without doing any damage to him.

Kite Tenjo from ZEXAL appears here and while he gets a lot of time to shine, he has an incredibly rushed arc in where he suddenly goes from being a loner to deciding to join the time with no time spent on said development and how he got there. It's yet again the writers just flipping a switch and changing a character's personality on a whim instead of actually developing them. Also, he too gets his ass kicked by Zarc without doing any damage to him.

And then we get Aster Phoenix and Alexis Rhodes and hoo boy, it feels like the writers of this show HATE the GX-era of Yu-Gi-Oh! because Aster and Alexis are done DIRTY! Aster never wins a single duel onscreen, is depicted as a bad guy and is so out-of-character that fans dub him "Aster-in-name-only" while Alexis only gets two duels, one of which ends with her getting carded by Yuri, and otherwise has zero impact on the plot. And no, taking Zuzu to Yusho barely counts as impacting the plot as anyone else could've done that. Aster and Alexis were treated like garbage here and no doubt GX fans hate ARC-V for giving them the finger like this.

Oh and if you want another reason why it feels like the writers hate Yu-Gi-Oh! GX? Duel Academy is featured in the Fusion Dimension, but it's a school for the bad guys. I can't even begin to fathom this. Why would you ever do this? If you want nostalgic call-backs to previous eras of the anime, then having a nostalgic setting from GX and giving it a dark twist is the wrong way to go about it. It'd be like if Pokémon had a multiverse concept and Kanto was depicted as the evil region, it just feels like a middle finger to fans of GX in that regard. The bad guys should've had their own setting instead of an evil version of Duel Academy.

But if anyone got screwed over, it was fans of the original series. Not a single character from Yu-Gi-Oh! makes an appearance in this show, and I can't understand why. This is a multiverse story, so why don't characters from the original series appear? And don't give me any nonsense about how "because the characters in that show don't use any Extra Deck summoning", FUSION SUMMONING WAS INVENTED BACK IN THE ORIGINAL SERIES! They should've at least had an alternate version of Joey or Kaiba or Mai Valentine or even Pegasus appear in this series and given they use archetypes that have been given upgrades over the years, they could be depicted using either method. Mai could've been in the Synchro Dimension using Cyber Slash Harpie Lady or in the XYZ Dimension using Harpie's Pet Phantasmal Dragon, Joey could come from either the Fusion or XYZ Dimension since he uses Fusion Monsters and Red-Eyes has an XYZ monster now and Kaiba especially could be depicted as either Synchro or Fusion Dimension given the Blue-Eyes archetype has monsters for both. Pegasus's Toons don't really have Extra Deck monsters, but he does use Thousand-Eyes Restrict, a Fusion monster, so Pegasus from the Fusion Dimension could work well. Imagine how cool it would've been to see at least one character from the original series join the Lancers. Then again, given how this show handles its legacy characters, maybe it's for the best they didn't do so. They'd have mucked it up somehow...

Problem 6: The Main Villain Is An Absolute Moron

I'm not the first to point this out, and I certainly won't be the last. Leo Akaba is without question the DUMBEST villain in Yu-Gi-Oh! history.

OK, so his deal is he invented the ARC system that the characters use to enhance the duelling experience and unfortunately, it led to a duellist named Zarc getting drunk on power and using duelling as a means to cause carnage, so his daughter Ray Akaba used four special cards to stop Zarc and that resulted in the four dimensions being created. Zarc and Ray were both split into four, one in each dimension, and Leo wants to reunite the dimensions and bring his daughter back. OK, it sounds crazy when you explain it, but it does make sense as a motivation for the villain to carry out his plans.

What DOESN'T make sense is the fact he wants to prevent Zarc from coming back. Well dude, if you don't want Zarc to come back, then uh, let me suggest something very, very helpful...

KEEP YOUR BIG, FAT, BALDING HEAD OUT OF EVERYONE'S BUSINESS AND DON'T CARRY OUT THIS STUPID PLAN OF YOURS!!!

Seriously, really think about it! The reason Zarc even gets revived at all is because of Leo's idiotic plan! If Leo just didn't carry out this multiversal conflict in an attempt to get Ray back, then the four Yuyas would never have met and thus Zarc would never have been resurrected! He caused the one problem he was trying to prevent with his idiocy! Hell, the Fusion Dimension has Yuri, one of the components of Zarc, and it never once crossed Leo's mind to maybe, just maybe not raise him up to be a sociopathic monster? How did he not think that wouldn't backfire on him in any way whatsoever? And then when Zarc does get resurrected, he just rushes in without a real plan other than "use the four special cards" and promptly gets his ass kicked so quickly that even Sylvio put up more of a fight than he did, and he's the biggest jobber in the whole show!

Oh and let's not forget how he has Yuri, a component of Zarc, as one of his righthand men and somehow thinks letting him go out on missions without supervision and kill anyone he likes is a good idea. You'd think he would've just killed the guy so Zarc wouldn't be able to come back, but nope. He raises him up to be evil and sends him out on missions, which only increased the risk of him meeting the other Yuyas and revive Zarc. For someone who doesn't want Zarc to come back, he does a really terrible job at preventing it from happening. =P

In the words of the Fourth Doctor from Doctor Who:

LEO AKABA IS AN IMBECILE!!!

If ever you've done stupid things in your life, remember, at least you didn't do anything as stupid as Leo Akaba. Declan should consider himself lucky he didn't inherit his father's intelligence as he would've ended up as stupid as he did...

How To Fix It

So yeah, this show had a lot of problems, and those problems caused it to fail miserably. But could this mess have been salvaged? Could Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V have been fixed? Yes, absolutely it could've. So how would I have fixed it?

For starters, Zuzu would be the main character instead of Yuya. She has more importance to the story than he does anyway, so go all the way and make HER the protagonist. Zuzu wouldn't become a damsel in distress and would be more capable of holding her own against the bad guys. The Lancers as I mentioned would include Julia and Kit in place of Dennis and Sylvio, The Tyler Sisters would have bigger roles and the characters who I mentioned would be gone will be gone here. The pacing would be improved too with less time spent in the Synchro Dimension and more time would be devoted to the other dimensions. Also, to further take advantage of the multiverse concept, I'd include a Ritual Dimension in where, of course, everyone Ritual Summons. To prevent the cast from getting too big, there won't be a Yuya or a Zuzu from that dimension. In fact, I'd have the Ritual Dimension serve as the setting for the climactic battle with Zarc and Ray. Think about it, rituals are often about revivals and summoning things, so thematically it works.

The Legacy characters would be better used here with no evil Aster who never wins any duels, no rushed arc for Kite and no Alexis Rhodes being shafted, and I'd have characters from Yu-Gi-Oh! make an appearance. I'd have Kaiba as one of Yuri's right-hand men in the Fusion Dimension while our heroes would meet and recruit Mai in the XYZ Dimension.

Leo Akaba wouldn't be the villain of this story. Instead, Yuri would be the main antagonist, and the plan would be for him to capture Yuya, Yuto and Yugo in order for Zarc to be resurrected and to unite the dimensions once again, but he doesn't want Ray to be resurrected too, so he sends his allies out to try and kill Zuzu, Lulu and Rin while recruiting Celina to his cause (but Celina will still join the Lancers afterwards). Leo would be his unwilling assistant in this mess, having coined up the plan to try and revive Ray but Yuri hijacked the scheme and carded Leo so he can't interfere. Declan learning of this is what motivates him to form the Lancers and stop Yuri and Zuzu, wanting to protect Yuya and also keep the Fusion Dimension from trying to kill her, would seek out the other Bracelet girls in order to protect them too. The finale would see the four Yuyas and the four Zuzus locked in mortal combat and by the end, both Zarc and Ray are revived and the series would end with Ray defeating Zarc for good and the four Zuzus and Yuyas all get their happy ending in the end. Even Yuri gets to turn over a new leaf now Zarc's influence over him is gone. Then to close off, Zuzu and Yuya have one last duel to bring smiles back to all the dimensions with Zuzu as the victor, but Yuya takes his loss in stride as all he cared about was making everyone happy again.

THAT I feel is how the show should've been handled. Could it have still turned out bad? Maybe. But would it still have been an improvement over the original? Definitely.

Conclusion

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V is a series I can only describe as disappointing. It's just sad how this show made so many baffling writing decisions that messed up what was ultimately a pretty awesome premise and it's such a shame it turned out this way. It could've been great, amazing even. As is, it was an overcrowded, overly padded, overly ambitious misfire and it'll stand for years to come as one of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s worst anime series of all time...

And that's it for this essay. I hope you enjoyed reading it and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Did you like Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V? Did you not like it? Are there any ways you would've improved the show? Do tell me.

Next week I'll be counting down my 5 Favourite Fictional Schools. See you then media fans!