Why is D/D a "good guy"'s deck in Arc-V?

5 months ago by Yliaster to c/yugioh

The whole deck is pretty much exclusively Fiend-type monsters in a "horror" theme with "dark contracts" but Akaba Reiji isn't at all a bad guy or sinister or anything. The only coherence is that he is "serious" and "calculated" which the art and playstyle of the archetype correspond to respectively.

(You could argue CEOs are monsters but Kaiba kinda owned that role better than Reiji, "as president of kaibacorp I have to do that everyday")

Aesthetically it seems like it's made for a villain.

Just look at Nighthowl or Ragnarok.

angelfeast 2 points 5 months ago

@Yliaster i always wondered the same thing. it really felt like they were wanting to do something more complex with him, especially juxtaposed with how he starts out manipulating shingo and wiping the memories of the lds trio without their consent!

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Yliaster 1 point 5 months ago

Iirc during the first opening too he shows up on the screen as they're saying "ultimate confusion" which doesn't seem to be just a coincidence and aligns w what you're saying tbh.

Though, he wipes the LDS trio's memories? I guess I forgot about that part.

Maybe they did end up changing him up midway.

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angelfeast 1 point 5 months ago

@Yliaster yes, after the lds trio duels shun, akaba wipes their memories in order to embed shun with them for the tournament. in my opinion he could've at least tried to explain part of his plan to them first, before deciding if that was necessary.

i know someone who thinks they might've been going for a sort of gendo ikari-type character but had to change course because the voice actor got sick during synchro. what do you think?

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Yliaster 1 point 5 months ago

Oh I recall what duel you're referring to now. The one where shun just summons revolution falcon and otks all of them. Weirdly enough I seem to have missed/forgotten entirely that they had their memories wiped, I thought they had some distrust in him as being part of the Lancers? (Or is this prior? It's been a while haha)

I feel like the voice actor changing itself doesn't need to change direction since Reiji sounded more or less the same (at least to the unattuned viewer).

The only time a change of VA changed the character in the ygo franchise I can think of is Carly from 5ds— that was because she was part of a cult, and cults were a rising national threat at the time, and this was part of the larger changes 5ds did to save face at the time. The main bad guys switch to being time tellers from the future (originally fortune tellers from the past, and you see this with the vibe change from the focus on ancient Aztec lore to futuristic Meklords and technology etc w Z-One and his goons), and Carly started becoming Jack's serious love interest (as seen in their signer's duel against each other in S2) but after the scandal they reverted her to being "just another random girl in the harem squad", and no more serious emotion scenes happen bw them for the rest of the show.

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angelfeast 1 point 5 months ago

@Yliaster oh, sorry, i don't think they changed akaba's voice actor! i meant he got sick and that's why akaba was sidelined during most of the synchro arc. he doesn't have much dialogue at all. it doesn't seem like a stretch to think they had originally planned to do more with him in synchro.

iirc the memory wipe happens at the very end of the episode where akaba and shun make that deal, after the lds trio duel. it's almost in passing, so it seems like a lot of people don't remember. it stood out to me at the time because i was a fan of another show where a noncon memory wipe happened and it was Very Controversial lol.

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MysticKetchup 2 points 5 months ago

Well you could argue that Yugi's deck in the original series wasn't heroic either. He had cards like Summoned Skull and Mammoth Graveyard that were very much evil looking monsters. And continuing into GX Edo/Aster Phoenix who despite starting out as a rival he was never really bad and helps the good guys out several times, had D-Heroes including Plasma who is literally named after blood. Given that characters like Spawn and Edward Scissorhands were early inspirations for Takahashi, "looks scary but is good deep down" pops up every as a reoccurring element in the series even if some characters very obviously wear their evil on their sleeve.

My guess is that they chose it because they wanted to keep him as an intimidating rival, whose methods/goals aren't always clear. Him having a scary-looking deck adds to that mystique.

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