Comeback?
There is ongoing disagreement among the fans as to whether the Dark Signers can or should come back at some point. 5D’s is, believe it or not, a children’s show; it airs at 6PM in Japan. And it’s a spin-off from a manga that originally ran in Shounen Jump. Children’s shows and Jump are both famous for not leaving popular characters dead. Except YGO, where it was a major plot point that the Other Yuugi and Thief King Bakura -- hero and villain alike -- have to go to the other side and stay there. Takahashi Kazuki himself said death was one of the themes of the story. For every Kiryuu or Carly fan hoping to bring dead characters back, there’s a chorus of posters pointing out that it would violate the intentions of the original series’ creator.
But there’s a lot of wiggle room. Takahashi helped make some of it himself back in the original series, when Jounouchi collapsed in the Battle City finals. The anime (even in Japan, before 4Kids got to it) softened this beyond recognition, making it quite clear he was still alive by showing the dreams he was having, and so on. (The time-honored “He’s not dead, he’s just taking a little nap” dodge. ^_^) But the original version had much more suspense. It was clearly stated he had stopped breathing, and the only clue he might not be dead was a single blip on the heart monitor. If he had only one heartbeat in the entire length of the Other Yuugi vs. Kaiba duel, then frankly he should have been dead. (And I like Jounouchi…) Yet he revived with no ill effects.
There’s also doubt as to whether all the Dark Signers were dead to begin with. As I wrote in a previous entry, it’s possible Aslla Piscu came to Carly before she hit the ground, and Misty’s case is also ambiguous. Ccapac Apu clearly came to Kiryuu while he was still alive, as did Uru to Rudger. If they’re not really dead, like Jounouchi, there should be no obstacle to bringing them back. (Poor Bomber looks out of luck, though. At least they gave him a heroic sendoff, fighting off the Jibakushin’s possession with his own strength of will and sacrificing himself to save one of the heroes. That’s better than what Kiryuu got. But the whole issue of who or what exactly is to blame for destroying his home town still bothers me a lot.)
So how about their supposed second deaths? Those are even more dubious, for taking place in Shadow Games. Remember that Dick Pitt and Ushio both lost Shadow Games in 5D’s with no ill effects whatsoever. The true Dark Signers turn to dust, but that’s not death either; Rally turned to dust and came back. For better or worse, this isn’t the original YGO where the Other Yuugi had to die; it’s 5D’s, where Yuusei can tell his comrades that all the sacrifices will come back, based on his feelings alone, and yet be proven right.
I’ve also seen the theory that anyone who is defeated with a “Savior” monster isn’t really dead and is eligible to come back. That would let us keep Carly and Kiryuu, but both Bomber and Rudger would be out of luck.
I’m willing to accept resurrection in a fantasy story, but I don’t like it to be treated casually. In some stories, characters come and go so frequently it makes more sense to call it another dimension than to call it death. It loses its power if it happens too often or to too many. In the Übel arc of GX, when Juudai’s friends began to fall, I knew from the number of them involved that they would all be coming back. Original YGO created much more suspense by having it happen only to Jounouchi. (Bakura, Rishido, and Mai were also in the infirmary, but we knew they were only unconscious at that point.)
Takahashi wanted to respect the gravity of death, but even he couldn’t always follow through. It’s no surprise the people who came after him and did later adaptations of his work don’t always agree. Takahashi may have wanted to imply that Pegasus dies at the end of the Duelist Kingdom manga arc, although having an artificial eye removed is usually not a fatal injury; and in the YGO-R manga by another artist, which takes place before the Ceremonial Duel arc of the original, Pegasus is definitely dead; but in the GX anime, which takes place about ten years later, Pegasus is alive and well.
I like the Dark Signers. I think they’re good characters. Even good people die, of course. Death is unfair. But fiction should be better than reality somehow. It should be more satisfying. Wasting good characters is not satisfying. Facile happy endings aren’t satisfying either. Someone will be displeased no matter what the writers do. But they wrote well enough to create characters that we really care about, and that’s a satisfying achievement.