Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V Characters That Got Screwed Over The Most

You really can tell how easy it is to kick this thing in the groin over and over, eh? I've already made a post talking about how much this show sucked, then did a three-part essay where I re-wrote the whole series to make it better and now I'm here with yet ANOTHER post about Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V! I know, talk about beating a dead horse here and I acknowledge that it is kinda unnecessary to do yet another post about the series when I've talked about it so extensively already.

But that's the thing: Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V is such a jumbled, overstuffed, incoherent mess of a series that there's just so many ways you can talk about why it's bad. For the subject of today's essay, I'm talking about one of the biggest reasons why the show was so terrible: its cast. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this cast was way too large and way too numerous in order for it to be manageable. Because of this, you get a show where it either didn't know how to properly juggle its large cast or just had a VERY confusing idea on how to execute their stories. No joke, I don't think I've ever seen a cast of characters this badly handled in any media I've seen. OK maybe RWBY was worse, but this is still high up there!

For this essay, I'll be listing all the characters in Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V that I personally believe were done the most dirty. These are the characters that got screwed over the most thanks to the series' terrible writing and poor handling of its large cast. They can be either main or supporting characters since in this series, both main and supporting characters got the short end of the stick here.

Without further ado, let's dive in...

1: All Four Bracelet Girls

You all saw them coming. As if I could make this list without including the Bracelet girls here.

While the list is in no particular order, if it WAS then the Bracelet Girls would be Number 1 without question. Of all the characters who got screwed over in Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc- V, nobody got it worse then these four. Dear god what were the writers thinking when it came to this quartet of potentially awesome characters?

Of the four, I think Rin and Lulu got it the worst since we don't even see them in person until the final season of Arc-V, whereas Zuzu and Celina at least got some time to shine before they were reduced to damsels in distress. Lulu and Rin are essentially the princesses locked in the tower and waiting to be rescued, and then when they eventually DO get rescued they've been brainwashed by the villain (because of course they have). Now granted, the ONE time Rin gets an onscreen duel, she does win so ironically the least featured of the girls actually has the best track record with no onscreen losses and all so she got to show how skilled she was. Lulu though? No onscreen wins whatsoever. We never get to see her win any duels, so she got the worst showing of the four. Due to Lulu and Rin's lack of screentime, we barely know them as characters and anything we know about them is how the other characters feel about them. Lulu is Shay's sister and Yuto's possible girlfriend and Rin is a close friend of Yugo. OK, but what about them themselves? What do we know about these two? Um...Lulu's really nice and Rin's a hot head? That's about it. It's shameful how much those two got shafted and hence why in my rewrite I gave them more screentime.

Zuzu and Celina on the other hand got screwed over in typical Yu-Gi-Oh! female character fashion in where they're shown to be competent duellists and get some time to shine, but then as the series goes on they get shafted to hell and back and become damsels in distress who get brainwashed by the bad guys. Why this franchise loves doing this to its female cast, I'll never understand. Zuzu is especially annoying because she was very obviously set up to be the ACTUAL main character of the show, but because Yu-Gi-Oh! can't ever have a female protagonist for whatever reason, they had to shaft her just so Yuya can be the big hero and thus he's stealing all of Zuzu's thunder. Really think about it: in the first season of Arc-V, Zuzu was the one being proactive and trying to untangle this series of crazy events that keep happening all around her and SHE is the one who's the most invested in the plot at large while Yuya's farting about doing sod all. Then there's the fact Zuzu and the other girls are the most important part of the villain's plot, thus meaning the story is pretty much centred around them. So why the hell they didn't make Zuzu the actual main character despite clearly setting her up to be one, I don't know. And don't get me started on how Season 3 treated her so badly that she didn't get any duels whatsoever, not even when brainwashed. That was despicable.

I don't think any female characters in Yu-Gi-Oh! have been screwed over as badly as these four. Two of the girls are barely even characters and are more or less just plot devices to motivate all the other characters into doing something, Celina was a promising member of the Lancers who became just another brainwashed damsel and Zuzu was a character who should've been the main character but is instead reduced to a plot device to motivate Yuya and she too become another brainwashed damsel. I can't fathom why these four were so horribly handled. It's really sad when the most positive thing I can say about them is that they play some cool archetypes with Melodious and Lunalight being the best of the bunch. If only these four were as well-handled by comparison...

2: Yuto

It isn't just Zuzu and her counterparts who got shafted in this show. At least one of Yuya's counterparts got the short end of the stick too.

It's such a shame because Yuto had a really strong start. Not only is he introduced as some mysterious masked menace, but his first onscreen duel with Sylvio sets him up as a very skilled duellist. I mean his opening turn has him set his entire hand face down for starters, that's pretty nuts. And then he shows off Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon in all its terrifying glory. So what went wrong with him? We barely saw him duel again after that and when we did see him duel again, he has a duel with Sora that gets interrupted so there's no winner and then he loses to Yugo after he literally shows up out of nowhere. Then for the rest of the story he's basically living inside Yuya's mind and more or less acting as somewhat of a mentor to him. While Yuto is technically still involved in the plot and all, especially during the duel with Celina and Lulu, it is pretty annoying that they gave this guy such a powerful first impression and then immediately shaft him afterwards just to let the other characters have all the fun. Yuto really should've had more time to shine BEFORE getting defeated and getting absorbed by Yuya in my opinion. It just felt too soon when it happened and thus robbed him of a lot of other times he could've shone or a chance to be more involved in the plot.

When it comes to the Yuya counterparts, we can all agree Yuto got it the worst of them all, and that's a pity. This show really loved to screw over the XYZ Dimension didn't it? Yuto and Lulu were the worst handled of the four counterparts and the XYZ Dimension was outright destroyed! Someone on the writing staff clearly hated XYZ summoning from the looks of things...

3: Alexis Rhodes

I said in my previous posts how with the Legacy characters, Alex unquestionably was done the most dirty, and I doubt anyone will disagree with me on that.

I more or less explained why Alexis was so screwed over in my previous posts, but I'll cover them again for the sake of this one. When it came to the Legacy characters, they usually had their time to shine and some like Kite, Jack and Crow even got to score a victory against the new characters in order to emphasize what a big deal they are to the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise as a whole. Alexis however? She didn't get any of that. All she does is save Zuzu from a bunch of grunts and then get her ass kicked by Yuri, WHO BEATS HER USING AN ANCIENT GEAR STRUCTURE DECK NO LESS! I dunno if that makes Alexis look really bad or makes Yuri look really good. Talk about an oxymoron there. XD After losing to Yuri, Alexis gets carded and then...that's it. She doesn't get any other duels, doesn't get to redeem herself and doesn't contribute to the story any further. She's just here for really, really, REALLY bad fanservice since she barely contributes to the plot, only duels twice, gets carded and doesn't even get a chance to duel Z-ARC like Kite, Jack and Crow do. Her fans must've been ticked off something fierce after seeing this...

It really does feel like Alexis was only brought in because "The Fusion Dimensions is basically Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, so let's have some Yu-Gi-Oh! GX characters appear!" Well, they did and they did them really dirty too! And this is coming from someone who doesn't like Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, so let that sink in. Seriously, Alexis was already done dirty in her own series, so why did the writers of ARC-V screw her over again? Does somebody amongst the Yu-Gi-Oh! staff just REALLY hate Alexis or something and are determined to do her dirty no matter what? This show could've redeemed Alexis and given her her time to shine at long last, but no, Alexis is a female character so of course she gets thrown to the wolves while the boys get all the glory. The disgusting amount of sexism from this franchise really sickens me, I swear... And she's such a missed opportunity too. As I detailed in my rewrite, there should've been a dimension all about Ritual Summoning and Alexis would've been the perfect candidate to show up in that world and contribute to Z-ARC's downfall. It would've given her a more unique presence in the story and also given Ritual Summoning some much needed spotlight since it's often very overlooked compared to all the other summoning mechanics. But alas, it wasn't to be and thus we got what we got instead.

Alexis Rhodes: it doesn't matter what universe she's in, she's always getting screwed over. Poor girl really deserves so much better...

4: Leo Akaba

Oh Leo Akaba. What were the writers thinking in regards to you? You had the potential to be one of the best villains in the entire franchise. Now you're a laughing stock for how idiotic and nonsensical your motivations are.

I covered in previous posts why this guy is the dumbest villain in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!, so I'll give you a refresher:

This guy's motivation is that he wants to get his daughter Ray back. Ray has been divided into the four Bracelet girls and so he wants to get them all back together so he can bring Ray back together. However, the four Yuya boys are all the components of the villainous Z-ARC, the man responsible for Ray sacrificing herself and splitting the world into the four dimensions as we know them today. Somehow, it never crosses his mind that carrying out this stupid mission of his runs the risk of reuniting the components of Z-ARC and potentially bringing him back as well. No joke, the plot of this series could've been avoided entirely if this dumbass didn't coin up this plan in the first place! He caused the very thing he was trying to prevent to happen by carrying out this mission! What's worse is that he intentionally provokes Yuya during their duel together, even though making the Yuya boys angry is what brings Z-ARC out! Like, what is he expecting to happen at this point? I thought he wanted to stop Z-ARC coming back, yet here he is pretty much trying to make it happen! And that's ignoring the fact he has Z-ARC's Fusion counterpart, Yuri, under his control and raised him up to be an evil sociopath who delights in the suffering of others instead of, you know, killing him and thus preventing Z-ARC from ever coming back? What, was that too clever an idea for you to think of Leo? =P

But what screws him over for me even more than his idiotic plan is how the writers clearly set him up to be a truly evil villain and then come Season 3, they suddenly changed their minds and tried to make him sympathetic instead. Well sorry guys, it didn't work. How can anyone feel sorry for this guy who basically declares war on the multiverse, has his underlings turn people into cards and destroys worlds just because he wants to kidnap four innocent teenage girls in order to bring his daughter back? I don't feel sorry for this asshole! Instead, I'm rooting for the heroes to kick his ass and even when Z-ARC is revived, I'm rooting for Z-ARC to take him down! They should've made him unrepentantly evil or just not created him at all and made Yuri the villain instead. Leo's presence just creates more problems than it solves because of how badly executed he was.

A terribly written villain with an idiotic plan and a terrible attempt at making him sympathetic, it's no wonder Leo Akaba made it on this list.

5: The Tyler Sisters

I will complain about how wasted these two were until the cows come home, and I don't think anyone will ask me to stop. Seriously, why weren't these two more recurring enemies in the series?

The Tyler Sisters are a pair of skilled duellists with a fun Tag Team dynamic and an awesome Fusion-based Amazoness deck each. Their duels were some of the most entertaining to watch in the series and their designs and personalities make them memorable minions for the villains. So naturally, the writers did jack all with them and pretty much wrote them out of the show once the XYZ Dimension arc was over. I just...why would you do that? Why would you introduce these two just to have them appear in one of the later arcs of the series, only have a couple of episodes to shin and then get rid of them as quickly as you brought them in? Like I said, they should've been introduced from the start and should've been recurring villains who the Lancers deal with throughout the show, not essentially characters-of-the-day to deal with! That was just so wasteful and I hate how these two weren't used to their full potential. It's why in my rewrite I increased their role in the series and had them appear more often. It's why I say this show would've benefitted from a smaller cast and replacing certain characters with others, because then you get cases like these two where they feel pointless and are utterly wasted because of what little was done with them.

The Tyler Sisters: A pair of sisters who were equally screwed over by this show's terrible writing and overly bloated cast.

6: Aster Phoenix

I swear somebody amongst the writing staff of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V must really hate Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, because Alexis wasn't the only Legacy character from that show who got screwed over. Aster Phoenix is another unfortunate example of this too.

I've read that fans really hate how Aster was portrayed in this series, and I think I see why. In GX, Aster was more of an Anti-Hero, which is reflected by his gradual change from Elemental HEROes to the Destiny HERO archetype, and certainly was not a villain like he is here. Ask any fandom and they'll tell you that one way to tick them off royally is to make a beloved character evil for no real reason. OK, this is an alternate version of Aster and he's from the Fusion Dimension so he's going to be different from the real Aster. But then if Alexis is allowed to appear and still be a hero, why can't Aster? Hell, Kite is in this series and is still an Anti-Hero like he is in Zexal, so what's Aster's excuse? Why is he in this show as a villain when none of the other Legacy characters are? I also read on the Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki's trivia page that apparently, of all the Legacy characters in this series, Aster has the least amount of things in common with his prime counterpart. So yeah, why even make this Aster Phoenix if he's this different from the norm? He may as well have been a brand new character if he's going to be Aster-In-Name-Only.

And then there's his duelling record. He doesn't get a single onscreen win, the closest he ever manages being a draw with Yuya during one of their duels, being the only Legacy character not to get any wins at all. Seriously, even ALEXIS got to win at least one duel in this show! This guy got nothing! And then there's his nonsensical heel-turn where he basically just decides to stop being evil because...Yuya made him happy or something, I have no idea. His time on the show was yet more bad fanservice since this guy has none of the things that made people like Aster in the first place, his onscreen track record is pathetic, his heel-turn is rushed and he's reduced to a jobber by the end who's only there to show how invincible Z-ARC is. Seriously, I bet this show was not a good time for GX fans. They get to see Duel Academy reduced to a school for villains and then they see two characters from GX done dirty. Even as a guy who doesn't like GX, I felt insulted by this. Ironically enough, GX has the same problems that ARC-V does when it comes to having too many characters and not knowing how to handle them properly...

Destiny sadly was NOT on Aster's side in this show...

7: Sora Perse

Now some of you might be confused about this. Why is Sora of all characters on the list? How did HE get screwed over since he arguably has one of the better track records in the show and had a lot of time to shine, plus he was heavily featured in the plot and wasn't a waste of space like some characters? I'll grant you that, Sora definitely got screwed over the least when it comes to all the characters on this list. But he still makes the count for one big reason: his heel-turn.

Sora was introduced as a mysterious boy who has a keen interest in Yuya to the point he wants to be coached by him, he's a skilled Fusion duellist and he mentors Zuzu in that department and he seems like a goofball. But that all changes when the mask drops and he's revealed to be an agent for the Fusion Dimension. That was a great twist and made Sora an even more interesting character. But that's the problem...they barely did anything with this twist! After the façade is dropped, we see him acting evil for the remainder of Season 1 and then suddenly come Season 2, he's not evil anymore and he happily works alongside our heroes while keeping Zuzu out of the Fusion Dimension's way. The most we get is some half-hearted explanation about him liking the times he had with Yuya and Zuzu and that's pretty much why he's not evil anymore. Seriously, this show was so bad at having characters turn from evil-to-good! No character who turns good has a believable change in character, their heel-turns all feel rushed or poorly executed!

But Sora also got screwed over by the fact that they did this "friend is secretly a bad guy" twist again with Dennis McField, one of the most pointless characters in the entire series! Not only is this pretty much responsible for Sora's rushed heel-turn, but it even made the twist with Sora being a bad guy feel unnecessary. It's like "Why bother having Sora be a secret bad guy if Dennis was going to do it as well?" Dennis should've been dropped entirely so Sora could've had more time as a villain and more time to give us a believable redemption arc for him. It really does feel like Dennis just stole Sora's thunder and stole screentime that should've been his just by existing! It's such a shame too because Sora was such a fascinating character, but his story got lost in the sea of unnecessary characters and poorly juggled plot points as a result and thus we got a character who ultimately felt wasted in the end.

Sora Perse: he may love his candy, but the way he was handled in the show was anything BUT sweet...

8: Julia Krystal & Kit Blade

You may recall in my rewrites and my essay about the show's problems how I feel these two should've been Lancers and should've been part of the main cast, and that stance hasn't changed a bit.

Seriously, what was the point of having these two in the show if they weren't going to be part of the Lancers? They set them up right off the bat to be part of the main screw for Exodia's sake! Julia and Kit were rivals for Zuzu and Gong respectively, Julia served as a motivator for Zuzu to learn how to Fusion Summon so she could beat her at her own game and Kit played a mentor role for Gong by teaching him how to Synchro Summon! These two were pretty important to the developments and the stories of at least two of the show's main characters and they just...disappear after Season 1 and are never seen again until the series finale where all they get are a single non-speaking cameo. Talk about a waste! It would've been so easy to increase their roles too! Get rid of Sylvio and Dennis, put them in their places, have them continue to act as rival/mentors to Zuzu and Gong and make it so they're part of the Lancers because they want revenge after their friend Dipper was carded! Like, that's the story that's set up for these two, and it just...doesn't happen! What the hell? This is why this show needed to shrink its cast and get rid of the superfluous ones, because characters like these two ended up getting really screwed over and denied the proper roles the story had set up for them.

Julia and Kit: if only they could've been Lancers instead of Sylvio and Dennis...

And that's it for this list. I hope you enjoyed it, and I swear this will be the LAST TIME I write a negative post about Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V. Seriously, I'm done now! Honest! Do give me your thoughts down below on what you think. Which characters in ARC-V do you think got screwed over the most? Do let me know.

Join me next week as I begin a huge retrospective of my time reading the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics. See you then media fans!

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