#soogymoogi

Art Fight 2026 Attack 5 (Revenge): "Out of Shadow"

Stuff I like about Arc-V:

Probably my favorite OST in the franchise, especially Class War, D/D/D and Swing, Pendulum of the Soul, but basically every leitmotif lands.

Some of the most engaging characters and concepts (I do not talk enough here about how much I love Reiji, Shun, Serena, Yugo and Rin especially)

Worldbuilding wise it's got a lot of blank canvas space you can put anything you want into, imagining what happened to each of the older show casts in their Dimension counterparts or imagining what a Link/Ritual/Rush Duel Dimension looks like.

Zarc's concept is really cool and its ideas for Yuya are really engaging. The idea of Zarc making Yuya into the final boss is an especially interesting twist on the series formula.

People gas it up but seriously Season 1 and the Battle Royale arc is really that good.

One of the few shows to get wholly original content in Duel Links and basically every new scrap of Arc-V content is really fascinating if just to see characters chat who otherwise never met in canon. We also finally got real screentime for Rin and Ruri!

OHOHO A GOOD SPREAD >:3c

YUYA, 4: If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

POKEMONNNNNNNNNNN *HE SHOULD BE AT THE CLUB VOICE* HE SHOULD BE A POKEMON TRAINERRRRRR this kid was born to go on a lighthearted journey with funny animal friends 😭 give him the hippopotas and tyrantrum he deservessss

YUGO, 26: What’s something the character has done you can’t get over? Be it something funny, bad, good, serious, whatever?

I THINK I HAVE TO GO WITH THE SPAWNING INTO A DUEL ACADEMY CLASSROOM. ON THE BIKE. AND THEN DRIVING THE BIKE THROUGH THE FUCKING HALLWAYS. the fact thats an episode cold open iirc is HYSTERICAL. HE'S SO FUNNY, ALL OF HIS FUNNY MOMENTS ARE SO MEMORABLE

IV, 23: Favorite picture of this character?

OH THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION he really does get some of the best expressions in zexal...like every shot of him in his insane volcano shark duel has some of the crazy coolest lighting but i am fond of this shot where he just has big ol fangs <3 hell yeah brother

Dennis, 25: What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

First Impression:

been a Shinji appreciator since- [remembers I can't say "since I saw him" since my first ever Shinji post was assuming he was synchro arc fodder since he just showed up and didn't talk to crow and the kids yet] long enough! I love his deck and got so insanely hype when it was being produced cuz like. Whaaaaat??? Content for the lil guys? Scraps for Check?

I remember when you would go into the Shinji tag and it was just hate and misunderstanding towards his character, or unapologetically assuming the protag was always right because protag. Like sorry, "stranger from a different world visits and fixes everything because the people that live there were just too dumb to solve their problems" makes me sooooo mad when they're trying to talk about real world oppression. if simply talking to people fixed the problems do you REALLY think no one thought of that before. Shinji was right to call for action, idc

you did not ask for a Shinji valentine but that last part made me laugh and want to make one. here you go

send me a ship and a number and i'll tell you

holyice

5. how many kids they'll have

i love the idea of them trying for one and ending up with twins, possibly because i think stressing durbe out is funny. if you tell me to come up with names i'll cry.

8. what they argue about

durbe is overprotective. rio feels the constant need to prove herself. they both think they're right about everything and believe themselves to be the calm rational one when they're equally neurotic. really, both of them struggle with needing to be hypercompetent and then hurting the other's feelings by not trusting them enough to lean on them.

hellshark

2. what their love letters look like

ryouga is, unsurprisingly, not especially romantic, certainly not in text - but thomas is actually capable of some pretty flowery prose once he feels comfortable enough, and not one moment before that. it probably happens that he gives ryouga a mushy note, ryouga doesn't recognize it as a display of vulnerability and pokes fun at it and a big blowup follows before they remember how to use their grownup words. embarrassing.

4. what they do on date night

🛏️

i genuinely think they're most comfortable at home, and not just so they can overlay if you know what i mean. there's less pressure to perform, especially on thomas' part. they probably order in outrageously expensive takeout and talk shit about reality tv stars or something. and then, you know. 🛏️

12. what they do for their anniversary

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Right now? Beautiful is Boring by Bones. Mostly for the very industrial vibes and rejection of beauty norms.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Partial blindness in his scarred eye that he fixed with reconstructive surgery. He kept the scars specifically to punish himself and as part of a stylistic choice to convert into a bad boy image. I think he had to fight to keep the scars because an agent said they would make him less appealing, so he deliberately doubled down on the contrast of "Honorable gentleman turned Jack The Ripper in a fight" to spite his agent.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I've only written Thomas once, need to fix that, but I like him being quietly defeatist. Like he's absolutely convinced at the tender age of 17 that he's already hellbound and he'll see the Kamishiros there.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

THOMAS QUATTRO IV ARCLIGHT YOU SKRUNKLY SMELLY PROBLEMATIC FAV

Why I like them/why I don’t

Oh make no mistake I adore IV. He's one of those characters I can chew on for a few weeks and approach from a few angles, either him being this broken mess of a person who commits atrocities for his father's love and has a horrible breakdown, or someone who's embraced that a part of him just likes to hurt people and honest to God, valid my liege, sometimes you do just wanna feed someone to Giant Grider legs first and record their screams.

That Duel Links explicitly shows that his fanbase WANTS him to be a freak, so he embraces it as a kayfabe act, was so funny to me.

What I like about their appearance

That red and yellow hair mix is so cool. I love his scar and I really enjoy the mixing of white and yellow in his uniform.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?

I like Quattro as a name and I will use it, usually I default to Thomas or Quattro when I talk about him (yes I understand the point of the Roman Numerals as that Tron is violently dehumanizing his sons, but counterpoint is Quattro sounds cool so Dub W to Vetrix). I tend to headcanon that Quattro is a name he uses as a callsign when Dueling.

As for voice performances, Yoshimasa Hosoya just dominates. Michael Smith does OK, but Hosoya just leaves ZERO crumbs.

OTP

Gotta be Hellshark. I love ships where I can't tell if they want to kill each other or kiss each other and Ryoga just bounces off Thomas so well, they're always a delight to have on screen together.

Rio/Thomas is also up there just for the potential of their interactions and like, how you get them from "Sorry I lit you on fire" to a relationship at all, like that's a wild ride to take.

NOTP

I would really rather not imagine Thomas romancing anyone in Yuga's age group.

OT3

I don't mean this in an incest way but I think the Kamishiros should be allowed to share Thomas between them like two dogs sharing a squeaky toy on different days. Like Rio gets the weekends and Ryoga gets Monday to Thursday.

I mean that in a way that implies as much destruction on Thomas you think two dogs sharing a squeaky toy would entail. :)

Favourite card they use

Number 40/Heaven's Strings is genuinely such a good design and it sucks how absolutely terrible its effect is.

I do like how his usage of Leo and C88 means Thomas has been given the gimmick (ha) of having alternate win conditions between those two and his 2024 support wave basically being custom-made to FTK.

Puppet Shark though may be a stealth favorite just for like, how custom-made that is to set off fireworks in the eyes of Hellshark fans.

Favourite moment they were in

Watching his duel with Tetsuo and Todoroki live for the first time was such a wild ride, just seeing him go absolutely apeshit. There's a reason people generally say Zexal begins to get really good when the Arclights join the cast and Thomas's debut episode is why.

Also just for the sheer insanity of it as background lore, that he SET RIO ON FIRE.

Final mention has to go to his duel with Nasch where he goes the distance in trying to bring Ryoga back and does insanely well- he does something like 10,000 damage! I think it's a compliment to the duel writers that Thomas makes pre-support Gimmick Puppet look as cool as he does.

Least favourite moment

Less a least favorite moment and more the lack of a moment, but how in the ever-living hell did we go all of Zexal without letting Rio confront Thomas over being set on fire by him? It took until Duel Links added Rio in TWENTY-TWENTY-TWO for them to meet on-screen!

Would I fuck, marry or kill them

There are places my dick takes me that I wouldn't go with a gun, and Thomas is one of those places.

I don't think I'd survive any of those options to be honest.

Arc V was doomed to fail with the Synchro arc compared to 5Ds because they only had so many episodes they could focus on it, even if they got so many.

when you compare it to the earlier parts of 5Ds, the oppression is due to isolation, rather than just wealth divide. Carly IS poor. they show her essentially living in her car. Carly is a victim of society even without living in the poverty situations that Yuusei and the Satellites face. in 5Ds you CAN be middle class, you CAN be poor, AND you can live in the Satellite. in Arc V, you're either wealthy or you're suffering dirt poor. the addition of the bridge was a physical change for the betterment of the Satellite people. it gave them tangible opportunities to go to places they couldn't before, which the protagonist's literally do, since they move over there. it wasn't a metaphorical "well chin up, things will be better if you smile!" slap on the back that Yuuya's smiling mentality gave