Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Seasons 1-2 [DUB] (2009) Review

 Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Seasons 1-2 (Fortune Cup/Dark Signer arcs) [DUB] (2008-2009) 8.5/10

“Let’s rev it up!”

Hello everyone. Today, I’ll be going over the first season of Yugioh 5D’s. Seasons 1 and 2 aired from April 2, 2008 - June 24, 2009. The English dub for these were released at a later date, so those dates are from the JP dub. The show was produced by studio Gallop, who made the previous Yugioh series. 5D’s was legit one of my favorite shows growing up (I was 10 years old when this started airing). I loved the whole “card games on motorcycles” thing and it seemed to be telling an actual story as opposed to the previous series. With Yugi, he was trying to uncover the secrets of the Pharaoh and the Shadow games. Alright that’s very interesting, but the way the show was executed could’ve been done better. GX took a more “monster of the week” approach and had each season focus on a new villain and was an overall softer tone of the series, with the series being much more child-friendly. 5D’s seems to be returning back to how the original was like. Telling an overarching, serious narrative while also throwing in some of the flare from the GX era. A very nice mixture of the two. I immediately fell in love with the main character Yusei (his design, his personality, his voice, everything about the guy). In fact, 5D’s is what got me back in the card game. When GX was first airing and I saw the tone change from the original series, I had lost interest. 5D’s brought back my passion for the game. Back in middle school, I was binging a bunch of anime (Trigun, DBZ, Gungrave, and this). I was, I think, halfway through the Dark Signer arc when I just got burnt out on anime. I’ve been meaning to revisit 5D’s for the longest time now but I wanted to do it properly, which meant watching all of the original series and GX. Rewatching this now is filling me up with absolute joy and I can not wait to get into this. I am well aware that 4Kids changed a few things here, but regardless this was a blast. So, let’s begin.

Our story takes place in the next generation of dueling (after GX). The world has now been completely taken over by the card game Duel Monsters. Society itself runs on the game. If you have a problem, play the game. A run-in with the law? Time to duel. Hell, even currency has been shifted to Duel Points. A new way of dueling has been created called Turbo Duels. It’s Duel Monsters on motorcycles with special rules. In 5D’s, the world has taken a turn into the cyberpunk genre. A dystopian/classist society where the poor are exiled to a cornered off sector of New Domino City called the Satellite. Anybody that lives here is treated like trash and is looked down upon by the rich folk of New Domino City. Enter our main character Yusei Fudo, who wants a revenge match against an old friend named Jack Atlas. Yusei plans to break out of the Satellite with his Duel Runner and confront Jack about a past misdeed. While Yusei is doing this, he has to deal with the law constantly breathing down his neck and society itself not wanting anything to do with him. After finally making it to New Domino City, Yusei must confront Jack and they have a duel. In this duel, a powerful dragon called The Crimson Dragon emerges, wrecking the Kaiba Dome. So the first half of the Fortune Cup arc is about Yusei fighting against society itself and the set up of the Crimson Dragon legend and the significance of The Signers, five people who are tasked with fighting off against the Dark Signers. The second half is the Fortune Cup, which is an annual tournament run by Director Goodwin. Goodwin plans to use this tournament to figure out who the Signers are. The second arc is about the Dark Signer invasion.

After Yusei wins the Fortune Cup, a new threat to society comes up: The Dark Signers. These guys are a group of evil people that sought out the destruction of the world through the power of the Netherworld. To harness the power of the Netherworld, the Dark Signers use dark tuners, dark synchros, and the all powerful Earthbound Immortal cards. Their invasion will set off a war between the Signers and Dark Signers that will decide the fate of the world. You know. Typical anime shit. During this arc, we will see further development on the characters that were introduced in the Fortune Cup and new characters will get some spotlight.

So the first part is the Fortune Cup arc, which sets up the Dark Signer arc and builds up the main cast of characters. I love the cast. Every major character has a purpose. All of the side characters are decent too. I also love the story for this arc. It’s all centered around the Fortune Cup and, as the tournament progresses, secrets get spilled. The Fortune Cup is a very simple arc but I just love it. Yusei is an excellent protagonist and is one of my all time favorite protags in anime. Yusei does not fuck around, even throwing hands a couple of times. Jack Atlas is an excellent rival. Personally, I like him more than Kaiba. Luna and Leo are very adorable children, but they mature as the Dark Signer arc gets underway. I kinda liked Luna more because she’s more serious and she can talk to Duel Spirits, but I also love Leo’s very childish personality and his protective attitude towards his sister. Akiza is a very underrated character and one of my personal favorite female characters in anime. Her insanity and complete disregard for other people are a great start to her character and seeing her overcome that horrible mental state was amazing to see. Her whole side plot with Sayer, The Arcadia Movement, and Misty was very interesting and I hope season 2 expands on this. Goodwin is the main villain for the season and what a villain he is. The final duel with him was amazing. A 3-on-1 duel and he’s just destroying them with a personal favorite deck type. Lazar is his sidekick/lackey and was severely underutilized, but it seems like he’ll be popping up in the second season. This guy reminds me WAY too much of a water downed Frieza. Hell, he even sounds like Frieza.

In the second arc, we are introduced to new characters (with some of them getting a proper introduction) such as Crow, Carly, Misty, Sayer, and Kalin. Crow was an awesome character, looking after orphaned children. Crow runs Blackwings, another personal favorite archetype. Carly and Kalin are my favorite characters of the Dark Signer arc. Carly is a freelance reporter that helps Jack when he gets injured. She runs a Fortune Fairy deck then switches over to Fortune Lady when she joins the Dark Signers. Her arc with the Dark Signers was great and seeing her struggle against the darkness was awesome. Her character was an excellent catalyst for Jack’s character arc. However, I do wish Jack and Carly got together as they would make a great couple. Hopefully this will happen in the next season. Kalin was an amazing villain for Yusei. A friend from the past returns to get revenge against Yusei for betraying him. Coupled with an excellent voice actor, Kalin left a lasting impression. Kalin runs an Infernity deck, which in of itself is a dick move.

The art direction seems to be similar to how GX season 4 was like, which is excellent. I’m really happy that this has kept up with the quality (both art and animation) of that season and not GX season 1. I love the designs for all of the characters, especially Yusei, Jack, Akiza, Luna, Leo, Carly (both normal and Dark Signer), Misty (Dark Signer), and Kalin (Dark Signer). The designs for New Domino City, the Satellite, and the Kaiba Dome are great. I love the whole cyberpunk/futuristic feel to the world, but it all still feels familiar to the Yugioh world. The designs for the monsters are great too. Stardust Dragon, Red Dragon Archfiend, Black Rose Dragon, Blackwing Armor Master, Earthbound Immortal Ccapac Apu, Earthbound Immortal Aslla Piscu, and Majestic Stardust Dragon are my favorite monster designs so far. By the way, episodes 56 and 57 (Yusei vs Roman 2) had no right looking that good. It’s like the animators were saving a lot of their budget for these episodes. Legit, these episodes looked like The Dark Side of Dimensions movie. I expect this from the final duel, but not this duel that’s in the middle of the arc.

The duels for the show are really great. They start off small scale, but meaningful. Yusei was literally surviving in the dumps and fighting off against an oppressive state. Each and every single one of his duels had the weight that if he failed, he would be sent to jail with no way out or something much worse. The only duel that wasn’t like that was the second duel where the guy was trying to get his bike. The duels themselves were very entertaining. From edge-of-your-seat explosive action to a nice, calm duel about Yusei trying to regain his memories. My favorite duels of the Fortune Cup are: Yusei vs Chief Armstrong, Yusei vs Trudge 3, Yusei vs Leo, Yusei vs Akiza, and Yusei vs Jack 2. The Dark Signer arc is when shit hits the fan. My favorite duels of this arc are: Yusei vs Kalin 1, Akiza vs Yusei 2, Yusei vs Roman 1, Luna and Leo vs Devack, Yusei vs Roman 2, Jack vs Carly, and Yusei, Crow, and Jack vs Goodwin.

The music is okay at best. The only time I remember any music or tune in the show was when Yusei synchro summons and a guitar riff goes off. Other than that, the OST is completely forgettable. The OP “Hyper Drive” is one of my personal favorites. The song gets me hyped up every time I hear it, even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times.

I watched this in the English dub and it’s not bad at all. All but like two voices were great. My favorite voices are: Greg Abbey (Yusei), Ted Lewis (Jack), Erica Shroeder (Akiza), Eileen Stevens (Luna and Leo), Murray Thom (Goodwin), Veronica Taylor (Carly), Marc Diraison (Kalin), Marc Thompson (Roman and Sayer), and Carrie Keranen (Misty and Mina). Also, why did Sean Schemmel voice Greiger? It’s literally just Goku’s voice but scratchier. It sucks and they should’ve gotten someone else to do his voice. Another thing. A couple of times, I caught dubbing errors. Like in the Fortune Cup with Akiza vs Yusei, Akiza called out “Shield Warrior” when the monster is called “Speed Warrior”. What makes this even funnier is that “Shield Warrior” is an actual card that was in Yusei’s graveyard at the time, but she was obviously referring to “Speed Warrior”. Another time is Kalin referring to his cards as “Infernalty” instead of “Infernity” during his first duel. Thankfully, they fixed this mistake with the rematch duel.

Overall, I had a lot more fun with this than I thought I would. Revisiting this was a blast and I highly recommend it to those that are into Yugioh. The fact that an animated advertisement is able to tell a more compelling story than most anime I’ve seen is sad and great at the same time. I’m going to hold off on the second half for a bit because I don’t want to burn myself out.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.