Let's wrap this up.

Yu Gi Oh Vrains. I'm just gonna say it. Vrains is my favorite series.

Unfortunately there's not much for me to say.

Vrains is about a hacker named Yusaku dueling threats in the titular Link Vrains.

I'm not sure where to start on this one. I love this series, but it's hard to talk about.

Let's start with the premise. Vrains premise offers a lot of opportunities. A group of A.I.s called the Ignis are scattered across cyberspace by the Knights of Hanoi.

The story takes advantage of the fact it's a virtual world to good effect. Honestly, I'm just amazed that Yugioh never tackled the Internet before now.

What really makes me like Vrains is how well it's tone is used. Vrains is constantly serious with some light moments by AI (Dark Ignis.)

I haven't touched on this. Yu Gi Oh can be very dark and I think that's why I love this franchise so much. It knows how to use the dark and light moments to great effect. It's a great showcase that there's more to making great fiction than just making it all grimdark like Batman V Superman thinks.

This series has something called the Lost Incident. Where children were starved for not dueling well and the effects are important to the plot. It's basically what I think Arc-V should have done after Zarc's defeat, but that's there.

Let's talk about the plots. The first arc is about the Knights of Hanoi and their quest to destroy the internet. Don't worry our cat videos were saved by our hero.

The second arc was about finding the other Ignis and learning details about the backstory.

The third arc was about AI turning evil. It was much better than it sounds, trust me.

The characters were given really good personalities and backstories. They're all just too strong, even if they don't get to do much.

If there is something to criticize it's that the first season relies on the 'Playmaker uses his skill to get new monster' thing WAY too often, but that's small in the grand scheme of things.

There's also the amount of clip episodes. It was due to the show having a bit of a troubled production. Again, small issue.

Let's talk about the villains.

Revolver is the rival and the villain of the first arc. His motivation is that he wants to stop the Ignis from attacking humanity. He basically became a good guy after season one. There was some tension with him and the other knights as allies, but nothing ever really came from that aside from a duel with Soulburner. He was rough, but you could see he had a good motive for some of his actions. I love his relationship with Yusaku. The two were friends as kids for a brief period which adds some tragedy to how things turned out.

One thing I found iffy was that Soulburner blamed him for the Lost Incident. Even though he was a child, it was his father, and he called the police to save them.

Lightning (The Light Ignis.) was a very intelligent villain. He was constantly using plans to divide his enemies, such as when he dueled Blood Shepard, because he knew that if he teamed up with the heroes he would be screwed.

He had a bit of a pathetic ego under his guile and intellect. You see that when he duels Spectre and at the end of his duel with Revolver. I liked that. Gave him good depth aside from being the bad guy.

Bohman was not as strong a character. He was basically a warrior spirit guy. He had a relationship with Haru which was nice, but it wasn't much sadly.

Now for AI. He becomes the final villain and he is wonderful as that. His motive is revenge for what happened to the Ignis and that he saw a future where Yusaku was killed.

He was very energetic with Roboppy, but at the same time he had very good serious moments. He was pretty suicidal in the final, where regardless of what happened in his final duel with Yusaku he would be deleted.

I think they balanced his energy and seriousness very well. To the point where he is my favorite villain, due to his character.

Now to talk about the heroes of our story.

Yusaku was much different from all the other protagonists. He was aloof and distant from everyone other than AI and his friend Kusanagi.

He was a vengeance seeker and done very well. He doesn't just want to get revenge for what happened to him, but because he was haunted by the Lost Incident. He felt like he couldn't move on from it unless he had his vengeance. It was very well done and I loved how they handled it.

After season one, he was a little better with his distance. He was more friendly with Aoi. (Shippers fire away.) He started being nicer to AI. (Shippers fire away.) He just became a better guy after season one, not completely different but was nicer.

One thing I do wish happened is that there was an episode that focused completely on his mental state. I think it would have made his development stronger. We never even know what happened to his parents. He lives on his own.

Yeah, Yusaku is probably my favorite main character.

Aoi (Blue Angel/Blue Girl/Blue Maiden) is probably the best female protag in the whole franchise. She was a sister to a high ranking guy in a company(Akira.) and she could never make any real friends because of that. Her brother was always at work, so she was pretty much completely alone for most of her life.

We learn that she based Blue Angel on a storybook that Akira used to read to her, because she cried with their parents dead. (Yeah. She and Akira were on the streets with Akira having to break the law because of their parents being dead and their asshole relatives selling their house.)

She develops as a much happier person as the series goes on. Even becoming close friends with Yusaku who revealed to her that he was Playmaker.(His alias in Vrains.)

Takeru(Soulburner) was a very energetic guy. Though he did hide it when he met Yusaku IRL. He was a bit of a hot head. He was one of the Lost Incident kids and he was inspired to meet Playmaker after hearing that the Knights of Hanoi were beat.

His parents died while looking for him and he was haunted by that. He actually got a small amount of development. Most he got was during his duel with Revolver where he learned to move on from the loss of his parents and Flame(His Ignis.)

There are other characters. Like Ghost Girl, Go, and Blood Sheepard. They're mostly very strong even if they don't do much for the plot.

Vrains to me is a great show and I recommend you watch it. As I said, it is my favorite Yu Gi Oh series.

As of the time I'm writing this, it's a single day before Sevens comes out. I'm looking forward to seeing it and I'm hoping it will be good.

If you want to see more from me, check out my page. You might find something else ya like, ya might not. Who knows?

Take care everybody.