Treasonshipping post.

Oh I also have this too

.⭒ rua graphics.

.⭒ requested by @a-staphaios.

1,123 LUA ICONS  / YGO 5Ds

x - x - x | x - x - x | x - x - x

with tech, toys and duel monsters cards.

I know I was negative in my 5Ds overview but I honestly did like the first half. I wouldn’t sit down and watch the whole thing again but the things and characters that did stand out were some of the best things to come out of Yugioh. I can 100% see how this is people’s favourite show, it’s just not my cup of tea and the problems I do have with it drag it down as a whole. However, it’s still Yugioh and I still like it, so I’m gonna make a top 10 characters list for it… based only on the first half and Bonds Beyond Time though, I haven’t watched the second half. So I don’t know anyone introduced after the Dark Signers arc. Also, yes, I’m aware I just gave away one of the entries on this list with that explanation but let’s just ignore that.

10 Martha

I’ll admit I struggled a little bit to get ten characters for this list. These bottom two did somewhat boil down to “just pick someone” but thinking about it, I do genuinely like both of my choices. I don’t have a deep reason for this one, I just think Martha was funny and her “death” did draw emotion from me.

9 Kiryu

Again, this was kinda just by process of elimination. Kiryu’s history with Yusei, Crow, and Jack kinda came out of nowhere but it’s still a good story. He’s an interesting take on the concept of extremism and while his actions in the past were horrific, I can still feel some sympathy for the guy.

8 Misty

I really like villains, what can I say? Misty just had this air of mystery to her in her early scenes, that made her really interesting to watch. Like when she told Carly she saw death in her future which I still can’t believe was foreshadowing, that’s so clever. Her backstory and Divine’s intervention did botch her somewhat but I still like her overall.

6 and 7 Lua/Rua (Dub name: Leo) and Luca/Luka/Ruca/Ruka (Dub name: Luna)

These twins’ names are so confusing. I’m putting every variation of their names but just know that I default to Lua and Luca. These two are in separate spots, it’s just kind of hard to talk about them separately because their story is so intertwined. Between them though, Luca’s the better one. I liked both of them instantly for being fun and feeling like real siblings (switching between being at each other’s throats and having each other’s backs) but I really didn’t like how Lua overshadowed Luca, especially in that Dark Signer duel. I don't mind it being their duel and Luca coming in part of the way through to duel alongside her brother but Luca was in the Spirit World for way too long. She barely got to do anything in the duel she was destined to fight. It felt like she was being intentionally cast aside. Also, Luca was just more interesting. Her connection to the spirit world was interesting before it felt like over-padded filler and she was the one with all the pressure on her, which is more relatable. Still, I like the twins' conflicting personalities and siblinghood. They were one of the few light-hearted elements of 5Ds, a reminder of what the protagonists are fighting to protect, something really important plot wise to me that 5Ds was really lacking in.

5 Crow Hogan

This was inevitable. I loved Crow taking in some orphaned kids and becoming very protective of them in Arc V, of course I love him being every orphaned Satellite child’s father in 5Ds. I love how he seems like just a sneaky street thief at first but then you see that he has a heart of gold, being a loyal friend to Yusei and Jack and a father figure to the kids in Satellite who had no one. Crow had no one as a kid before Yusei and Jack and the game of Duel Monsters and he wants to make sure no one ever feels that loneliness and it’s just… god, he’s so sweet and simultaneously badass.

4 Jack Atlas

Out of everyone on this list, Jack is probably the objective “best” character from a writing perspective. At the beginning of 5Ds, he was a selfish snob who only cared about his status as the king, which he was willing to do horrible things in order to gain and keep. He felt like a discount Kaiba to me, and his appearance in Arc V really didn’t help his case. Then he (predictably) loses to Yusei, leaving him injured and shamed. He isn’t the king anymore, which was clearly what he based his self-worth on and because of what he did to gain and keep that status, he has no one he can genuinely feel close to. Then he meets Carly. Even if you put aside the (canon) ship, Carly is undeniably essential to Jack's growth as a character. She was there for him during his loneliest time and told him exactly what he needed to hear to pick himself back up again and become a better person. They forged a deep connection in a short amount of time. It's really no wonder Jack is so protective of her. After this, Jack becomes a much more humbled and mature character, which I liked him more as. He's still the 'gruff tough guy' of the group but he genuinely cares for Yusei, Crow, and Carly and shows that care, even if it's sometimes not in the best ways. He's no longer someone who will sell out his friends for power. He proves it in the final duel when he refuses that call to power (from the guy who previously manipulated him) but even more so in his duel with Carly, where he was ready to die alongside her so Carly didn't have to die alone. I've discussed that duel and Jack and Carly's characters and relationship in depth in a previous post if you want more details. I'm also gonna talk more about it in Carly’s section. BUT BEFORE THAT-

3 Paradox

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he shouldn't be this high up, I know, I KNOW. But you know what? Paradox does qualify for this list. Bonds Beyond Time and thus Paradox are canon to 5Ds. BBT is basically a 5Ds movie that sets up later plots of the show (I haven’t seen those plots but I know Paradox only cameos and the little details 5Ds gives us about him are things I know about) and I have been wanting to put Paradox on a list like this for months now. Let me have this one, I love this freaking guy. He survived through an apocalypse, watched everyone he knew and loved die because of a card game and decided to go back in time and slaughter the bastard who created this card game of death. It’s the perfect story for the villain for the big 10 year anniversary event that Bonds Beyond Time was. Because Paradox is 100% correct. Not in the murdering but in his reasoning. Duel Monsters is dangerous and destructive. We’d seen it for ten years before this movie and for over ten years after. The main characters do save the world from destruction with these cards but from villains who use those very same cards. Still, Paradox is going really far. Because he didn’t just kill Pegasus, he murdered countless innocent bystanders, with the very cards he hated and claimed destroyed his time by the way. Not to mention he’s dooming entire generations of people to never exist, something he probably didn’t think about until he was dying (which I’ll get to), but the fact that he sees this many innocent people as worthy sacrifices to his goal is pretty terrifying and hypocritical. And honestly, that’s really fascinating to me. His motivation is sympathetic but the way he’s going about it makes him a villain, a really vicious one. Still, I feel bad for him. Yugi, Judai, and Yusei don’t even seem to care about what happened to his time, they just insist the future isn’t set in stone, implying they don’t even believe him and that he’s lying or something (as if someone would go to those lengths for the shits and giggles). However, Paradox knows they’re wrong. He comes from a time far beyond their’s so he knows their actions can’t prevent the apocalypse because it already happened. (I don’t know if Yusei later fixes the hecking apocalypse in 5Ds, I would assume so but BBT Paradox wouldn’t know this anyway.) Paradox, from his perspective, is the only person who can fix the broken future he comes from. That’s why he’s willing to go so far and why he’s so blinded in his pursuit of this goal to see the harm he’s doing. In his final moment in the sub, he wonders if his extreme actions were really worth it, and if they would’ve actually changed anything. It was a moment I initially found silly before giving it more thought. Paradox was so fixed on his “noble” goal of destroying Duel Monsters and felt he was the only one with the power and the will to do so that he didn’t think he didn’t think about the other possible consequences his actions would bring.

So yeah, Paradox is a really interesting character to talk about. He’s also just really funny. He has a lot of funny quotes, particularly in the dub. For a quick example: “I would say you three put up a good fight only you didn’t.” He’s so sassy and sarcastic, I swear that’s the fastest way to my heart: being funny and snarky. I know the idea of putting him over characters like Jack and Crow is absurd, but like… the heart wants what it wants, sorry guys.

2 Carly Nagisa

Okay, back to characters people other than myself care about. While watching Yugioh series, I sometimes read the Crunchyroll comment sections of the episodes and when I did so for 5Ds, one thing I saw was a lot of Carly negativity, mainly people calling her annoying or useless. Now obviously, opinions be opinions and you’re all perfectly valid if you dislike Carly… but you’re all wrong, Carly’s fucking adorable. Annoying or adorable aside (since that’s subjective), one thing Carly definitely isn’t is useless. Like I said earlier, Carly was absolutely essential to Jack’s character growth And actually, he was essential to her growth in a similar way. In the beginning, Carly cared for nothing but getting the best scoop as a journalist because if she lost her job, she would end up homeless on the streets. That’s not speculation, that’s something she straight up says. It’s understandable that she’s desperate and willing to do things of questionable morality to keep her job. It’s out of need. Still, it led to her considering making Jack’s private inner turmoil public, which she tried to drag out of him by getting him to spend time with her. She, like Jack, was willing to do messed up things to preserve her status. Both of them realised this about themselves about the same time, which is why Carly was the only one who could help him out of his funk: she understood what he was going through. I know I go on and on about this ship but it really did vastly improve both of their characters. I didn’t like Jack much at all before this development and while I did find Carly cute pretty much instantly, she did bother me a little. Like, disguising herself as a nurse to sneak into a hospital and find one of the patients is… definitely weird. She does get less weird after that scene with Jack in the tower. She still sticks her nose into things that aren’t really her business… like a lot but it’s less out of selfishness, I feel. And even if the snooping around she did in Arcadia’s base was too far, it’s the thing that gets her KILLED. Yeah… Carly being killed and resurrected as a demon was a huge gut punch for me, both because it’s just harsh to have the sweet innocent cinnamon roll DIE (in a realistic way too, jesus christ) and become a demon and because I knew Yugioh was cruel enough to force Jack to duel Carly like this, and very likely kill Carly. I was right, and their duel is one of my favourites in any Yugioh series. However, there is one 5Ds character I prefer to both of them.

1 Aki Izayoi

Yeah, this was obvious. I made so many thirsty posts about her, you guys probably just think I put her at number one because I have a crush on her. First of all, I can’t tell which ones I have a crush on and which ones I don’t anymore, I kinda simp for this entire top five and second, Aki is the most relatable character in 5Ds and one of the most relatable in Yugioh overall. I didn’t go in depth with this in any of my posts as the reasons I relate to her are very personal, so I stuck to what was funny for the sake of the memes. For this though, I’ll try to explain it. I liked Aki the moment she was introduced. She was this mysterious powerful woman, who spoke in a completely emotionless tone during her duels, even as she was hurting people. She was… kind of intimidating, I’m not gonna lie. However, there were hints even early on that Aki was severely damaged inside. That numbness alone was a hint but also the way she spoke of her signer mark, the mask she wore being potentially symbolic, and some of her lines, like the one about physical scars healing but not scars of the heart. It caught my attention. I could tell they were trying to set her up as this traumatised emotionally closed off person… like I am. I saw the most broken parts of myself in Aki. She was always hiding her true feelings behind a metaphorical and literal mask and feeling alienated from the rest of society, which did nothing but shun her for her oddities. Also, I don’t want to go into any personal details, but Aki’s backstory with her parents was relatable too, which is why it frustrated me so personally that she was forced to forgive them. It wasn’t me wanting Aki to be miserable. I’m so incredibly glad she was able to recover and find happiness, I just wish the way the writers had gone about it had been different. Her forgiving her parents should’ve been left completely up to her and the point of her redemption should’ve been for her to forgive herself and not let her father’s abuse define her. You’re not a bad person if you don’t forgive people who hurt you. Forgiveness isn’t an obligation, it’s a gift to give. I just feel like the writers were sending a bad message with the way they treated Aki in that duel, a message that could legitimately hurt people in the real world.

But anyways back to Aki. She was underused by the show, which did actually make it pretty difficult to choose between her and Carly, whose arc ended in a more satisfying way if we ignore everything post Dark Signers. Which by the way, can I sidetrack for a second and say how well 5Ds actually wrote its female characters in this first half? There are a lot of female characters with varying personalities and many of them, Aki, Carly, Luca, and Misty are vital to the plot. Heck, half of this list is women. That’s more than any of the other shows. (I may be a man but female representation is important so shut it.) Anyways, while Aki was a little underused in my opinion, she was absolutely fantastic when she was there and her relatability does put her higher than Carly in my mind.