Random observations on re-watching episode 45
●When Mikage explains about Yuusei’s father developing the Old Moment site that caused Zero Reverse, Ushio asks why a Satellite resident was in charge of such an important project. That’s the cue for Jack to point out indignantly that Yuusei was born in the top strata of the city, and he, the (former) King, was born in Satellite. But both of them are missing the point: before Zero Reverse, Satellite and Neo Domino were not separate! Dr. Fudou could not have been a resident of “Satellite” because it wasn’t a satellite yet. ●When Martha sees Jack, she exclaims how much he’s grown, and Jack points out it’s been years since he left her house. She then prompts him to do something he apparently used to do even before he left: practice playing the role of King. Exactly how many years was he playing at being King before he became one? No wonder it was so easy for Godwin to find out what he wanted and manipulate him.
And he was at Martha’s house before he was in Team Sat. Kiryuu must have been very persuasive to get Jack to accept him as the leader when Jack himself was so ambitious. But how? Was it through dueling skill or social skills? Way back in the Team Sat flashbacks, Kiryuu is the only one we see winning on a trap card move instead of just monsters, so he probably had more dueling skill than the others did then. But the others didn’t seem to have much social skill either: Jack ticks people off, Yuusei is uncommunicative, Crow associates mainly with much younger children. Come to think of it, why did Kiryuu pick this bunch of problem children? Was he sent to infiltrate them because two of the three are Signers?
●Why does Martha look like she’s wearing the Blue Water gem? Is it going to help with doubletalking her out of what happens later?
●Martha asks Yuusei if he’s still afraid of Kiryuu. Yuusei clarifies it’s Ccapac Apu he’s afraid of, but now he feels better because he has so many comrades -- as if including everyone at the table. Jack protests that he hasn’t agreed to be Yuusei’s comrade, and Yuusei promptly ignores him, continuing to speak about how encouraging it is to have comrades. And as Yuusei points out, Kiryuu too was once a comrade.
Is he foreshadowing what about half the fans are expecting, that Kiryuu will come over to our side somehow? Or is it foreshadowing that Jack, like Kiryuu, will become a former comrade, perhaps leaving to be with Carly?
Back in episode 43 or so, it may have looked as if the Signers finally formed a united front, but they still haven’t. Jack is in it only for Carly. Ruka is in it only for AFD (and seems not to grasp the weight of killing a human to get a card). Aki is in it because she seems to be substituting Yuusei for Divine as her authority figure. Only Yuusei seems onboard with Godwin’s game plan.
●The Ushio-Mikage-Jack-Carly soap opera is alive and well, with inadvertent humor: Jack explains to Mikage that he owes a debt to Carly, which is a pun in Japanese.
Martha puts Ushio to work to take his mind off his romantic troubles. She explains that Satellite is full of people who have learned how to deal with pain and sorrow. She tells him the sob story connected with Takuya, the little kid who idolizes Security. Unfortunately, Ushio knows that Satellite residents are not eligible to become Security. So the kid will have his hopes crushed unless Yuusei succeeds and removes the threat of Old Moment, which is Godwin’s justification for discriminating against Satellite.
But if there is so little connection between Satellite and Neo Domino, and the Security officers cannot be residents of Satellite, how do they get to their jobs there?
●Rudger arrives -- on foot. Isn’t it disappointing that a showdown with such a major villain should be a standing duel? Isn’t that our first clue that this may not really be a showdown with the major villain? Even Aki notices that there is something different about the geoglyph from the one that appeared in the vision the Signers saw.
●Rudger threatens Yuusei, you will dance the dance of death. It’s the same phrase Kiryuu used; where are they getting it from? Yuusei replies that he doesn’t dance. Too bad for him. Personally, I would love to see the Dark Signers Viennese waltz!
I’m not inclined to re-watch episodes 47 and 48. Although the twins are major characters, the whole fairyland interlude seems like a digression into some other program altogether, not the one I chose to watch, and it’s going on too long for my taste. For example, I hear a rumor that Bomber is coming back. But imagine that, when he does, we get a month’s worth of documentaries about Peruvian harvest festivals in his hometown. That might actually be more interesting and relevant to me than fairyland is.