Predictions and Observations:
Bloom of the Black Rose

Episode Aired: December 13, 2008
This Post Posted: December 19, 2008

Cockroaches, huh? Well, Yusei seems okay with it. Maybe he's just not afraid of bugs anymore after beating that insect duelist. And the loud music probably scares 'em away.

Yusei altered the twins' duel disks to fit! That's so sweet! In this episode, we get reminded that Yusei is one heck of an engineer, probably as good with machines and computers as he is with cards. Since we've seen that his runner already works fine, I wonder what fine-tuning and improvements he's working on for the Cup? But wait-- Leo's dueling in the Cup, so it couldn't be a turbo-duels-only deal. But, if it isn't, why's Yusei working on his runner to prepare for it, besides that it's something to concentrate on besides nerves?
But back to the duel disks. Now they fit their duelists as well as Leo and Luna's decks do, and they can wield them with confidence. I'm reminded of how in past series, gear, which was just duel disks, has been considered more or less interchangeable; people swapped duel disks, shared them, and just carried a pair of Academy duel disks in a backpack in case of a duel. Now, with duel runners added to the mix, a duelist's gear is as personal and essential to a duelist as his or her deck, or it's gaining that role with Yusei, as a duelist-engineer, in the lead. Now, we've seen a case where, even regarding duel disks alone, a duelist's gear is as individual and personalized as their deck, with Yusei modifying Leo and Luna's duel disks to fit them.

"- Maybe he wanders the streets and helps out struggling duelists, kind of like a knight in shining armor but with a deck!
- A knight? Sounds more like a superhero..."
I just loved these lines. He does end up wandering and helping people, even if he doesn't exactly intend to and he maybe doesn't even notice just how much who he is and what he stands for inspires people. Such is the role of the main character of a YGO series; Yugi was similar, and Jaden matches this description even more perfectly because he was metaphorically the perfect match for his superhero cards, and even more than metaphorically in the end and this is why.

Blister knows Goodwin? To say that it sounds like something he'd do? Or maybe Blister just knows OF Goodwin. Safe to say he has access to all of the City's bureaucratic computer data (and ends up dipping into it to change certain details frequently), which is probably quite telling about Goodwin's doings.
'If it's not a bribe, it's a threat.' Blister said of Goodwin. If my theories about Jack are right, even his situation somewhat fits that description.

Blister, you rock; going to the Satellite to put Yusei's mind at ease about Rally and the others...

"That's if Goodwin ever lets me see them again." Poor Yusei; I really get the sense here that aside from his concerns for their safety, he misses them.

Jack was apparently not too enthusiastic about the Fortune Cup, until he found out Yusei was in it. His 'training regimen' was sitting on the couch drinking tea. Is that another reason Goodwin wanted Yusei in the Fortune Cup, to motivate Jack? And why, when we know Jack as someone who's always game for pummeling a few wannabes? Simple: like Mai in Duelist Kingdom, he got beat. He's not the best anymore, and he knows it, so it's hard to get too enthusiastic about defending his title as second-best.

So Jack IS in the Fortune Cup... I predict a rematch...! Short of a disaster-based disqualification (smited by a seriously ticked-off EG, struck by lightning, fainting spell) or some sort of other situation (game called on account of giant glowing dragon), it's pretty much inevitable that Yusei and Jack are going to end up dueling each other in the final round.

"And Jack, make sure you win this time, okay?" Is that to say that Jack didn't win the last Fortune Cup (because he doesn't seem too wild about the idea), that this Fortune Cup is more important because Yusei is in it, or is Goodwin not even referring to the Fortune Cup and just means that Jack really should beat Yusei this time?

Jack predicts a guest appearance by the Crimson Dragon with Yusei in the tournament along with him; clearly he's got a better idea of this than anyone else who's tried to find out if Yusei can summon the Crimson Dragon.

Stardust Dragon *was* still in Jack's deck. We'd been wondering this whole time.

Even up the playing field, Jack said. At first I thought he was going to go out and duel the Black Rose into submission, thus removing some competition early and making it more likely that Yusei would end up dueling *him*.

"I can't hear you!" Little bit of irony there with the song, which included "...I can hear you breathin'..." and so on.

Tanner called Yusei "Yuse".

What about Alex? Where'd he get to?

Twin exhaust, turbo-rotor, and holo-display are now canonly features of Yusei's runner. For the record.

What happened to Tanner's *last* runner? And how does Yunagi know?

"I'll bring it back with a full charge". Strike another point of evidence for the 'duel-runners-run-on-electricity' column. That makes it 2-1 against gas, with the other two points being Zigzix's declaration that the generator powers "Cars, lights, and whoa-oa, turbo duels!" (A Blast From the Past I) and Trudge's mentioning the "diesel fumes" in The Take Back II.

"-Why's Jack Atlas here?
-Lessons?"
Very funny, Blister, and actually not that far off.

Oh, yeah, analyzing that. I just love scenes between Jack and Yusei; the chemistry and dramatic tension is compelling.
"What brings you here, Jack?" Yusei said here. The last time they ended up suddenly face-to-face, it was Jack asking. "Now then, what brings you here?"
"And then you and me are straight" is, I think, the most important part of this deal for Jack; this whole time he's been worrying about his dealings with Yusei coming back to ruin him in the City, in one way or another. First it was the concern over Yusei finding some way past all the Security on his tail and into the City to come get Stardust back; now it's the fear that the public will find out that Yusei would have beaten him. At this point, Jack just wants to be free of all this. But I wonder if he'll stick to that, because it seems to me that a rival that good is dreadful to pass up; for all the animosity between them, Yusei and Jack push each other to be their very best. As Jack put it, Hunter's no Yusei; that night about a month ago, both of them were having the time of their lives dueling a true equal, and matches like that are rare. Like Yunagi said, Jack and Yusei are connected; if destiny has its way (and it usually does, lol) they'll *never* be straight.
What motivated Jack to do this? is of course the question of most import. Most pertinently, why give Yusei back Stardust Dragon? Actually, I sort of saw this coming. For one, Jack is somewhat honorable as a duelist (backstabbing his best friend notwithstanding) and Yusei *did* technically win the duel that was for Stardust Dragon. And if that wasn't the reason, and it wasn't, this is: Jack wants to be left in no doubt, whatsoever, that if he wins this duel he is the better duelist of the two of them. As long as it can possibly be said that he had an unfair advantage, or that the playing field wasn't level, Jack will continue to doubt himself as he has since Yusei almost beat him.
But get this: Jack put his faith in Yusei's honor. He didn't even know Yusei couldn't back out if he wanted to until after he'd offered the deal. What's to say Yusei couldn't have just taken Stardust and gone back to the Satellite, for all Jack knew. Well, what would say that besides Yusei's honor would be that he already didn't, and he still hasn't humbled Jack for double-crossing him, messing with his deck, and endangering his friends by sending Security after him.
But also we saw Yusei promise that Goodwin will regret putting his friends in harm's way; I'm reminded of Jack's 'scared little kid' comment in the Blast From the Past duel-- Yusei promises revenge, probably because sometimes it seems like the only way not to be taken advantage of, but, as Jack will attest, I'm sure, he doesn't end up taking revenge in the end.

One thing I think will be really interesting to watch is how much Yusei and Jack's banter is restricted by the fact they have an audience; unless they want to get caught breaking the law in the middle of a gigantic tournament, they can't mention that Yusei's a satellite. Both of them know better than to talk openly about Signers and the Crimson Dragon in front of such a huge crowd, though it may end up being a moot point on that count when it makes a cameo appearance in the stadium. Jack can't mention that he lost to Yusei, and if Yusei knows that Jack couldn't have countered that move, it may be amusing to see if he decides to make use of the power of being able to reveal that detail to the world, or even just if it ends up coming out anyway. But one thing I'm keeping my ears out for is more clues as to when and why Jack betrayed Yusei and went pro, and what things were like when they were friends.

Jack actually didn't know. I was curious as to whether he'd take it up with Goodwin or Lezar. How much of a breach of trust is it for Jack, that Goodwin did something so dishonorable? I'm suddenly reminded of how Armstrong could no longer be warden of the Facility because the inmates lost all respect they could have had for him when Yusei exposed that he'd been cheating at the duel itself. Did Jack actually trust Goodwin and is this a chink in that wall, or does Jack just know how to keep his enemies close? That he accepted the whole Signer thing essentially without question suggests the former.

Yunagi says Stardust proves Yusei is a Signer? How so? Since when do we know that Stardust *isn't* 'just a rare card with a pretty pic'? Yunagi said that each Signer has a dragon card, but no one said Yusei's was definitely Stardust. Not like there are any other dragons (that we know of) contending for that title, and this makes the whole the-energy-spiked-only-when-Archfiend-and-Stardust-attacked-each-other thing make complete sense, but we know that the duel energy would do the same thing if it were Dark Magician vs. Blue-Eyes. What I'm saying is, I just finished my college-level deductive logic final, and the argument that "each Signer has a powerful dragon card, and Yusei has Stardust Dragon, therefore Yusei is a Signer and Stardust Dragon is *the* powerful dragon card that proves that" is extremely invalid. Of course, inductive logic works differently and it's not too extreme a notion to think that this is awfully coincidental to not mean that Yusei is a Signer. Canon logic, in addition, works MUCH differently, and it states that if the canon makes a weird leap of logic and considers it fact, we do the same because the canon cannot hear you argue and it is the way it is whether you accept what it says or not. We're already suspending disbelief; why stop now? But as a small note, this also hints at possibilities that Yunagi knows something about the Signers we don't quite know yet and perhaps he *does* have a final premise to make that valid, or that we may find that we've been directed away from figuring out the plot too quickly and we'll find out that the logic was faulty after all, to the tune of finding out that Stardust's being *the card* in this instance is a false lead.

"He probably still thinks that Stardust Dragon is just a rare card with a pretty pic. Hmph! This game isn't about cards anymore, Yusei; it's not about records or speed or anything! It's about the end of the world. And you can bet *I'm* gonna be the one to make sure it doesn't happen!" I get the feeling that one's a classic. Once again, Yusei and Jack present a similar dynamic to that of Yugi and Kaiba, but a lot of things have been reversed; for instance, Jack is the one who's dueling for destiny and something far greater than himself, but even though he accepts the supernatural aspect of all of this (like Kaiba would NOT) beneath that he wants the certainty and self-assurance of being better than Yusei, and in that Jack mimics Kaiba all through Battle City.

That looks kinda... sinister... Okay, he almost, almost had me with the big history lesson to Jack, and maybe it's just because we hear Yusei's side of the story more, but I'm sorry, I just don't trust Goodwin. Especially not after this scene. What the heck is he after?! What isn't he telling us about the Signers? Is he evil, or just crazy or stupid and getting played himself?

To expose the Signers, "push them to their limits, exhaust their skills, stir their emotions", huh? How... bio-band-ish of them. So apparently we ARE going for duel energy here, and Goodwin knows all about 'Ener-D'; could he, perchance, have read his history books? Or spoken to any serious duelist over, say, thirty years old (if that really was Joey Wheeler)?

Um... rule the world...?

WAS that Joey Wheeler?!?! Joey has a cousin? It sounds like Joey, and looks kind of like him, too. If it is, that's the biggest definite clue we've had about chronology yet. Joey looks to be maybe in his, oh, trying not to be too generous because none of us want to think about our favorite characters getting old and crusty, I'd say forties-maybe-fifties, which in turn suggests a margin of twenty to thirty years between GX and 5D's, which is about as stingy with that margin as one can be. Consider that in that time society has suffered a massive, massive overhaul; a margin of twenty years makes the emergence of the baldfaced injustice of the City and the Satellite very sudden indeed. In addition, in that time, turbo-dueling has become not only existant, but part of everyday life. As another point in favor of a time-margin like that, why would one ask 'is that Joey Wheeler' if he couldn't possibly still be alive at this point in time? Then again, we've seen characters stumble through time warps before (Blair, anyone? Two years after she's in second grade, she enrolls at Duel Academy). If that's the margin of time we're talking about, then the Phoenix and Truesdale Blister mentioned will definitely be Aster and either Zane or Syrus, and all of the GX crowd would also probably be in their thirties. And then, we'd of course have to ask how the world descends into such backward classist nonsense on our heroes' watch.

Was that *Frost* he was dueling?! Frost, from the Light Brigade? I went back and looked at a picture; different hair, but same hat, beard, and exact same earrings.

'marker or not, satellite or citizen' Yunagi said. Thanks muchly for the terminology!

What's Leo's story around a Sign? We got a little foreshadowing there; is he a Signer too? No, then his arm would also have been hurting. Is Luna?

But why was Yusei's arm reacting to the appearance of the Black Rose? Is she able to more consciously use her Signer power (if she's a Signer, which I'm fairly certain she is at this point) to create all that smoke and mirrors (and giant black thorns)? Was it the use of the magic that set off Yusei's Sign?
And if not through Signer-related magic, how did she DO that? Dexter already voiced the rumor that her cards come to life (imagine that), but we all know that something like that takes some serious power, and depending on which theories you embrace, may mean a huge concentration of Neo-Space or any number of things. Stuff like that doesn't happen in this dimension!

Lezar seems to be Goodwin's right-hand goon these days; was he always? Is it because Goodwin is making moves that are increasingly sinister and Lezar is the perfect twisted little toad for such tasks?

Since if it isn't a bribe it's a threat and the Black Rose seems to like to keep a low profile when she isn't in what's left of the dueling arena once she's entered it, what'd they threaten HER with, I wonder?

Spectators, is one of those questions that I almost forgot to ask but if it were a snake it would've bit me. I'd imagine Luna and Dexter will be in the stadium cheering for Leo. I'm not sure if Tanner and Yunagi can get tickets (maybe Blister hacked the will-call system, lol), but if they can they'll be there and might even meet up with Luna and Dexter, and if they can't, they won't be far away. We've already seen Blitz, Tank, and Nervin rig cables to watch televised matches, and they probably won't want to miss the Fortune Cup; if nothing's happened (yet), I wonder if they and Rally will end up getting a bit of a shock, and if Blister will end up watching the matches along with them. I do get the sense that since Blister's going over there, it's either going to be a matter of him being gone for a while then coming back (i.e. so uneventful we only hear about it when he gets back), or it's going to be an entirely too useful precaution to have him check on them.

Well, that's it-- looks like we've got a kickoff episode next with "Welcome to the Fortune Cup" (not to be confused with "Welcome to Duel Academy"). This seems to have been sort of a final leadup to the tournament, like "Stalked By the Rare Hunters." 'Til then! -Clio

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