Predictions and Observations:
Making the Grade / Raring to Go

Okay, today’s episode!

We learned yet more about Duel Academy and its students:
-Chumley was held back two years
-Students are promoted through the dorms based on exam performance
-Similar to other campuses’ bookstores, Duel Academy has a card store
Rare cards are an eagerly-awaited and infrequent event at Duel Academy
Jaden is a generous and friendly person, to choose to be late to exams to help the card-shop manager
Chumley is a good cook; there seem to be a lot here
Chumley likes grilled cheese sandwiches
So far we haven’t seen Chumley off his bunkbed yet.
Chumley is rather selfish and not too nice a guy.
Chumley has the top bunk, Syrus’s is middle, and Jaden’s is the lowest bunk
Jaden is a very sound sleeper, and dreams in duels; Syrus’s asking why he can’t ever be in defense mode when woken up implies that this is a normal thing
Alexis worries about Jaden during exams; she is SO falling for him…
Bastion thinks very highly of his deck; any errant card from the shop would only make it worse
Bastion thinks that Jaden *could* be a good duelist, if he only applied himself. But right now, he just thinks, ‘hmmph, the slob.’
Jaden was not sleeping during the exam; he heard everything that was said and only “woke up” long enough to let Syrus know that he would ace the melodramatics exam when we know he’s a sound sleeper and he didn’t seem to be bleary-eyed at all when he “woke up.” Jaden probably just didn’t feel like taking the exam, and so sort of rested his eyes instead even though he wasn’t tired
Students are pitted against students from their same dorms, but not from different dorms, and from any level in their dorm; Chumley was worried about having to face Jaden in a duel and so was telling Syrus to let Jaden sleep and miss it, and we know that Jaden and Chumley are not the same level.

That does it! Talking about student ranking, I’m getting so frustrated with all of this terminology! Here are my terms, how I will refer to the world within Duel Academy:
-When talking about a student’s grade, as in Jaden is in the same grade as Bastion because they are both newcomers to Duel Academy: Level. I will refer to the new class as freshmen, though no HS terms beyond that.
-When talking about a student’s group within the school; Obelisk, Slifer, or Ra: Dorm or dormitory, as the students themselves put it, though in the past I have used “house”, I will not anymore, because in this episode it was established that the proper term is Dorm.

I noticed a way that the Dorms correspond to the EG’s: Slifer could be the weakest, but could also have the greatest potential, just like the Slifer students. Ra is technically strongest, but only if you know how to use its abilities or even to make it work for you at all (great beast of the sky, please hear my cry…), making it secondmost powerful in terms of usability. Finally, Obelisk is easiest to wield, with 4000 attack points to begin with. So therefore the Dorms are in order if you think about them in terms of how foolproof they are. But wouldn’t the least-foolproof of these titans go to the Dorm with the students who are best at strategy and can unlock its true power? It’s backwards!

The students were well-behaved, the officer guy walked right past them through the door without a guard walking with him or anything. It’s not the students the army is defending these cards from, was my impression. This tells about the world outside the Academy, and offers another glimpse, along with the Academy itself’s existence and the possibility of a Ph.D in Duel Monsters, into how much things have changed: Dueling has become much more important in the world than it was in Yugi’s time, possibly in recognition of the world being saved again and again through Yugi and everyone’s adventures. This issue was hinted at in A Duel with Dartz I as well, like I said before, when the Air Force practically begged Yami and Kaiba for help; the world knows about these crises. Therefore my theory is thus: Something big is going to happen this Spring in Yugi’s world that marks the big climactic end of his adventures, saving the world in a major and legendary way, and probably, since they’re soon going to discover the Ancient Past and all and Yugi no longer has the Millenium Puzzle when he meets Jaden, Yami will leave. This is only my educated guess, mind you.

Crowler seems to be hinting to Sheppard about how in-over-his-head Jaden is. Something about that indicates to me that there’s been a lot of argument on this subject between the two of them. I’m not really sure what the relationship is between Crowler and Sheppard, because it seemed at first that Sheppard was Crowler’s superior, calling to ensure that Crowler gave everyone their chance, and Crowler being forced to go along, calling Sheppard as soon as he hangs up, “furry-chinned windbag!” However, during exams, Sheppard either can’t or doesn’t want to overrule Crowler on pairing a Slifer with an Obelisk, even though it’s unfair. Now that brings up an interesting point: what if Sheppard didn’t want to stop Crowler? Could Sheppard have just decided to give Jaden the chance? During the match, both Crowler and Sheppard seem to be watching only Jaden v. Chazz, and the way they act implies that this will settle their argument once and for all. But then that would imply that Crowler has debated this with Sheppard as a fellow teacher rather than Crowler doesn’t like it but he has to listen to Sheppard and do what he’s told. I’ve probably been even more confusing than this situation is, so please forgive me. In brief, I’m not sure where the different teachers fit into the school’s hierarchy, and the interaction between Crowler and Sheppard was only slightly helpful in this matter.

Chazz in this episode seems to echo Kaiba in playing XYZ Dragon Cannon. A stab at guessing the plan: could this be foreshadowing about the development of relations between Chazz and Jaden?

Since most students keep improving gradually, the promotion-through-exams system explains why Obelisk has the largest dormitories and student body, and why the Slifers are mostly new except for Chumley who was held back, if you can rely on the system I mentioned before with the uniforms. This also makes the system not quite as hopeless as it seemed before. However, Syrus and Chumley both also passed their exams, but were not promoted like Jaden. Jaden’s sudden promotion, seeing as how it was him alone and Sheppard announced it and all, seems to be highly unusual. I’d imagine that perhaps you need to pass an certain number of exams, or speed it up by passing with distinction, because Syrus was saying in his “all-night Slifer séance” that he needs to pass the exams because he doesn’t want to be stuck wearing red forever, implying that good performance results in promotion. However, I note that some students like Chazz, whom I also believe is new from my discussion before on the uniforms, is already in Obelisk, although Chumley said earlier that promising freshmen are typically put in Ra first and we know that Bastion scored the highest on the written entrance exam, making it highly unlikely that Chazz outdid Bastion in entering and is therefore higher-ranked. More likely, it seems that the range of new students is the first two years or something, like, say, - if you’ll pardon me I’ll use high school terms for simplicity’s sake- Jaden, Syrus, and Bastion, are, for sure, Freshmen; Chazz and his thugs are Sophomores, and Alexis, Chumley, Zane, and the rest are Juniors or Seniors. I don’t even know I that’s how Duel Academy works, the four-year thing, but it just helps me think about it. Another idea is that this dueling prep school Chazz and his lackeys go on about is some sort of fast-track and going from there to Duel Academy puts you in Obelisk immediately. I’ve known weird programs like that.

I’m getting a better and better impression of Sheppard. I can’t explain it. Maybe it was how he was moved to tears by Jaden’s enthusiasm and determination. Maybe it’s his position directly opposed to Crowler, or maybe it’s that that aspect of Crowler’s life presents Sheppard to us as one who sees potential in all of the students and is rooting for them. He just seems nigglingly familiar, like I should know him. Maybe it’s because he really seems to understand duelists’ potential, reminding me of, most lately, Yugi, and Yami especially. But that’s another story. Maybe it’s also the subtle foreshadowing of his personality that he is the one who proudly wears red. I would like to note that we got to see more of him this time around (it’s a gradual thing), and that is a nifty coat.

Why did Crowler reveal himself to Chazz and his buddies? Why would he want them to know that he’s playing favorites? He could just as well not told them, they wouldn’t have passed up the rare cards, so why did Crowler tell them? It makes no sense.

That’s about all for now (I know I must have forgotten something…), so next time—Oh, now isn’t that interesting? The WB switched it on us, I checked the official listings. My next posts will regard the first Dawn of the Duel episode, the normal Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is entitled, “Tomb of the Nameless Pharaoh,” and is premiering on Saturday. That is the only episode showing this week, which is a contradiction to what I said before which *was* quite strange. I don’t even recall the name of that other episode I said. The next GX episode will be part one of our first multi-parter, entitled, I believe, “The Shadow Duelist,” and will show- you guessed it if you know Cartoon Network: always Monday thru Thursday when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh!- next Monday. Therefore, this is all for GX until Monday night, and I’ll write next on Saturday morning/afternoon/Sunday morning… For now, as always, let me know if I’m getting annoying, not being clear, and what your views are, too! Bye! -Clio