So, guys, again, going back to another one of my anime reviews is my next Yu-Gi-Oh! series review, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. I got into this series back around August last year because my local Forbidden Planet was having a sale on DVDs and they had all three seasons of the show there for £5 each, so I got all of them and was really happy since it meant I could start the next Yu-Gi-Oh! series and this is the last Yu-Gi-Oh! series that was every brought over here on DVD, which meant that Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V was only sold in America and I'm in the middle of getting them from there. Anyway, going back to this, this was a series I hadn't heard a lot about before starting. It's like what I said for Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. I hadn't really heard anything about it beforehand. I mean, I usually hear tiny things like how every series after the original Yu-Gi-Oh! has never been received positively. I know there are definitely fans out there and I guess the main Yu-Gi-Oh! fans like them fine, but they're generally not well liked. But, seeing as I've been a fan of the series long before I even knew what they really were, I still generally try to watch them and enjoy them for what they are and I do generally enjoy them and get my own form of enjoyment from them. And so, in the end, while this was probably my least favourite of all the Yu-Gi-Oh! series I've seen so far, I honestly did really like this. That's not to say it's perfect, not even close, but I did end this series really satisfied and happy with how things played out. There are definitely some really stupid moments and things that are pretty cringy, but I felt like that's to be expected with some elements of this series, and when I looked past a lot of those, I did end up liking this series. I actually finished it a few months ago, it only took me until now to do my review of it. Anyway, let's get into it and, like always, I'll be talking about the entire series with spoilers, so, if you don't want anything spoiled, go watch it then come back here. Okay, so, the basic plot is that the main character this time is a thirteen year old boy named Yuma Tsukumo who lives with his grandmother and sister named Kari. He goes to a school with his friends, Tori Meadows and Bronk Stone. He also has a key called the Emperor's Key around his neck that his parents gave him. His parents are also missing and he misses them. He's also generally really bad at Duel Monsters but still hopes to be a Duel Champion. But, one day, he discovers a creature inside the Emperor's Key named Astral who's a Duelling Spirit. He helps Yuma Duel and they discover the existence of special cards called Number Cards, of which, there's 100 of them and they hold Astral's memories because he's after forgetting exactly what he is. So, they decide to search for the rest of them, even if Yuma does start it off begrudgingly since he mostly just wants to be left alone from Astral and doesn't want to have anything to do with him, but, he does eventually decide to do it, all while others are after the Number Cards themselves. So, I guess I should probably start with some things I didn't like at the start. I guess, out of the four series I've watched so far, this one probably starts off the weakest. There is a goal set in the beginning and we are shown some interesting things, but, for the most part, a good amount of the early episodes were just the same thing happening with Yuma going into a duel kinda cocky and thinking he could do it but needing Astral's help to duel and then retrieving a Number Card from his opponents. It wasn't terrible, but did kinda start to wear a bit thin after a while. I guess you could say something similar about the other series as well, they just kinda have a formula of something happening leading to a duel between characters, but this one probably did it the weakest of them at the beginning. And there were some episodes that were just cringey and I didn't like at all like the Sparrow episode, that was just stupid. Another thing that kinda bothered me were some of the characters. I didn't hate any of them, but a couple were kinda annoying, mainly Yuma himself. He's definitely my least favourite of the Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonists I've seen so far. He was just kinda annoying at the start and the whole thing with him needing to get help just about every time got too repetative after a while. There were some characters I did really like like Tori and Shark, he was pretty cool after a while, but those first few episodes were just kinda something I was just having on in the background. However, once the whole World Duel Carnival was introduced, I thought things were picking up a bit more. The biggest of which was the introduction to Kite. This guy around Yuma's age who's also after the cards because he believes they hold the key to helping his younger brother, Hart. And, I'd say Kite was probably my favourite character in the series next to Tori and Shark. I think he's the best written and they do do a good job with him. He's also a prodigy duellist and is working for someone named Mr. Heartland and Dr. Faker, who's actually his dad. And there's also another group after them that Shark knows who're participating for the chance to win themselves named Trey, Quinton and Quattro along with their dad named Vetrix who knew Yuma's dad, Kazuma, and, like the others, they want the Cards for themselves. And it was around this time I started getting into the series more and I began to like Yuma more. Even though I found him annoying initially, and at other moments throughout the series, I did start liking him more at this time. And, something I really liked about him was his involvement with Kite and Hart because he eventually learns about their predicament and decides to help them out even though Kite doesn't want any help. And I like how Yuma and the others become closer to Hart and he looks to them more as friends. Not only that, but Shark also begins to lighten up more and help even though he's mainly looking to get revenge on Quattro who he was supposed to duel before at a championship but he set him up to make it look like he cheated to get him disqualified. So, he's trying to get after him for that and we also learn Shark has a sister named Rio who's been hospitalised for a long while and he wants to help her. That part actually reminded me of Joey and Serenity in the original series. Anyway, so, we get the eventually get to the tournament and I really like this segment. I think it has a lot of cool moments like when Yuma begins to progress through it and he begins to do well in duels by himself a couple of times and we see other duels taking place a Vetrix taking down a lot of them and getting more Number Cards. And I like when Yuma gets serious about stopping him. That's what I did really like about Yuma, when he actually did focus on the situation and did the right thing. And I should mention how I do still like Yuma as a character, just initially, and from other small moments in the series, he was a bit annoying, but I did still like him overall. I know I'm probably in a minority about that, but still. Anyway, we get to final rounds where Yuma and Astral go up against Shark and Kite duel Vetrix but loses and so it's just Yuma and Vetrix in the finals. And, I can't remember when it was introduced, but at some point, Yuma gets a transformation with Astral when they merge together into a form called Zexal and it pretty much looks exactly like Super Saiyan Goku. It's beyond unmistakable to see that he looks like Super Saiyan Goku with his first form. It was kinda distracting and what made it even more obvious is that he has two more forms called Zexal 2 and 3, just like Super Saiyan 2 and 3. So, yeah, that was pretty weird. But, eventually Yuma does win and is actually able to turn Vetrix back to normal to what he really is and manages to turn Dr. Faker good again which actually helps Kite and Hart out a lot and this saves Hart too because we learn Hartland was trying to destroy Astral World, as in where Astral's from and they're able to stop that along with getting more Number Cards and it was cool to see Yuma, Shark and Kite team up against Faker. So, that whole World Duel Carnival thing was something I really enjoyed. It had its undeniably stupid moments, sure, but I still found myself liking it, especially at the end. I liked how different characters were making connections like Kite slowly accepting Yuma and the others as friends and Hart almost kinda doing that immediately and other small ones like that. And I liked the duels themselves, mainly the final Yuma and Astral vs. Vetrix one, and, again, Yuma, Shark and Kite vs. Faker was cool too. And, just overall, I liked this part. And then this leads to the next part with having to deal with these guys called the Barians, these creatures who live in another world called Barian World, who are also after the Number Cards to destroy Astral World since the two worlds are at odds with each other. And, from the beginning, we're only introduced to a few of the Emperors there but we're being told of some other one named Nash who's supposed to be the leader of them all. But, for the most part, we watch some of the Emperors pretend to be humans and be Yuma's friends while they also try to set him up to get his numbers with something called Barian Field Spells to make sure he duels. And these kinda episodes, while they do push the story forward in a way, do kinda make the show feel slow because it's the same routine of duelling and stopping them until more things are revealed like when Yuma, Tori, Astral, Shark and Rio go somewhere to learn more about what's going on and we're shown more about Shark himself. And, this whole part is something I'm a little confused about. I'm not sure if I missed something or it was just kinda confusing, but, we learn that Shark is actually from some ancient time and was a king of a whole kingdom and all the other Barians were actually his servants and Rio was his sister from then too. I think that's right anyway. Again, I didn't really get it, but it's close enough. And, yeah, then towards the end, we see Shark is actually the Barian, Nash, who was mentioned a while back. And this is after we learn Shark didn't remember anything and was surprised to find out too until he eventually remembered. And, I'm not gonna lie, I really did love the ending. I probably skipped over a few things, but I did really like the ending when Astral gets taken from the key to Astral World and so Yuma is left depressed for a while with his friends trying to help him out. I didn't mention this earlier, but Yuma also made some other friends in school at the start so along with Tori and Bronk, there's also Caswell, Cathy and Flip. I wouldn't say they're necessarily all that important aside from Tori since she's around Yuma almost the whole time, but they do still have their own significance to the story, especially a little bit later. But, anyway, they try to help him out and Yuma eventually does manage to get to Astral World and even hears from his dad as well who's actually there too and he does manage to save Astral and the other people in Astral World ask him to save them from the Barians who begin to launch an attack on Earth so Yuma and Astral manage to get back, but when they do, they find Shark and the other Barians and realise he's the leader and, although some may find some of this weird. I personally loved it. I loved the way the story was progressing and it was being told. I was personally really invested and I was really having a great time watching this. And this leads to a really cool scene in my opinion where Yuma gets knocked out and so some of the others have to help him and some even stay behind to duel some of the Barians and we see the return of some characters from earlier in the show like Trey, Quattro and Quinton returning who're good now along with Nistro and Dextra, who were introduced around the time of the Carnival and were originally against Yuma until they joined up with him, and Roku, this duelling master that Yuma met early on. And I absolutely love each of them fighting one of the Barians along with Kite as well while Yuma recovers. I'm not gonna lie, that whole sequence with that happening was something I found really exciting. I know I'm probably the only person who would ever admit or think that, but it's true, I really did have a lot of fun during this scene and having some older characters come back was cool to see too. And the rest was cool too. Just seeing as the world is in danger of being destroyed by Barian World so Yuma, Astral and Tori have to go there to stop it and while there, they encounter another main villain there, Don Thousand, this humanoid looking guy who's trying to destroy the Earth and Astral World so Yuma and Nash try to stop him because he's also partly the reason why the other Barians are gone. At that moment, so many of their friends were beaten and so they had to stop him to save both worlds and save everyone. And, no, Don Thousand isn't anything great at all, or, really good at all, but the duel with Yuma and Nash taking him on was pretty cool. Afterwards, Nash challenges Yuma to one more duel to really fulfil it but Yuma does eventually manage to beat him. This part, while still cool, I guess, I think the momentum of the excitement from before was gone a little bit because I liked the travelling they were doing and so it was brought down a little, but I still liked it and it was nice getting everyone back. But then, as soon as Yuma and Astral get all the Number Cards, Astral decides to use them to destroy Barian World. But, because Yuma's made peace with them and is friends with them, he doesn't want that to happen so he challenges Astral to a duel to stop him. This part reminded me a lot of Yugi vs. Atem, though, not in the best of ways because, I'm not gonna lie, while this duel does show how far Yuma has come as duellist, this final duel with them is really weird, even by Yu-Gi-Oh! standards, it's really weird. I know these duels are generally pretty weird, but this one really pushes the weirdness because, while Yuma does make clever moves, the ending just gets really absurd when he starts pulling out cards that're honestly kinda nonsensical. I know duels before have had weird draws where they somehow always manage to get the card they need at any moment about 99% of the time, but here, Yuma not only gets that every time, but he also just somehow has cards that look like him and somehow do exactly what he needs. Again, I know Yu-Gi-Oh! duels before have done weird things kinda similar to this, but this just made that way too weird and went way overboard with absurdity. Though, even with that weird final duel, I did still absolutely love the ending. After Yuma beats Astral, he's sent away back to Astral World and everyone's back to normal and more. Yuma's parents are brought back, the Barian Emperors are human again and are friends with them, Kite and Hart are getting along fine and, even though Astal's gone, they're able to go to Astral World to help him occasionally to help him with something. And the series ends with that, Yuma, Tori, Kite, Shark and the other Barians head to Astral World to help him with some new thing. And, I'm also not gonna lie about that, I absolutely loved this ending with showing where everyone is now and that ending scene with them going to help him out. And we even get a nice moment when Tori even admits to Yuma that she loves him. I actually did really like that. But, I guess, overall, this review may have been kinda all over the place, but I felt it was the only way I could really talk about this the way I wanted to. So, yeah, really guys, despite the problems I had with this, I personally had a really great time with this. Yeah, it has tons of things wrong it and a ton of dumb moments, and I do admit a good amount of why I liked this was due to personal taste and my enjoyment of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise already, but, I can't lie that I did really enjoy this and I'm really, really happy I got into it. And, something that definitely helped with that was that this was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! series since the original that I could watch from start to finish with the dub. I have the entire series from start to finish and the whole thing was dubbed to its completion. So, unlike GX or 5D's, I was able to watch this to its entirety, so that was definitely refreshing. Speaking of the dub, it was mostly really good. I'd say my favourites were Christopher Kromer as Kite, Eileen Stevens as Tori, Gary Mack as Shark and Marc Thomson as Astral. They were definitely my favourites. But the rest do do good for the most part too. The only one I might have an issue with is Eli James as Yuma himself. He wasn't bad and in terms of getting his emotions down, he did a good job, it's just his voice sometimes was a bit annoying. It's kind of a weird thing where in the first episode, his voice sounded completely different to what it becomes later on. Maybe they asked him to change his voice after the first episode because he sounded higher pitched after that one. But, yeah, sometimes, especially in moments where I thought Yuma was being kinda annoying, that didn't help all that much. But I did still mostly like him and I did still mostly like Yuma as a character. And, again, I did still like the all the characters to different degrees. Kite is my favourite like I mentioned and I still think he was the best written, but others like Shark, Tori and Astral were also my favourites. Speaking of Tori, this might actually have my favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! romance in it. No, it's not really a main focus, but it is still implied a lot and I really did like Yuma and Tori together a lot so that was really nice I liked the ending to that too. But, just in terms of other things, I loved a lot of those other things I mentioned like the Duel Carnival and the whole chase at the end and how everything gets to that point, I just really loved that and I had a lot of fun watching those scenes. And I also like Yuma and Astral's connection in this. It's clearly the most important connection in the whole series and I really liked it. Yuma being this stubborn kid who doesn't want to listen at the start but Astral doesn't really bother with his attitude until he caves in, yeah, again, some of it got a bit repeative after a bit, but I still liked it and it does develop over time and how we see that done is fun to watch too. I also liked how this connected to the previous shows like at Roku's place, he has statues of old duel monsters from th previous series and I thought that was cool. I do kinda wish some other references were made like maybe a reference to Yugi, Jaden or Yusei woulda been cool, especially since they did that in those other shows, but, it didn't really wanna do that, and I do respect that I suppose. And, really, even though a lot of it is subjective, I did overall just really love the experience of watching this. It's definitely a series I'd wanna watch again and, even though it does have some really stupid moments, it's a series I'm really glad I got into. And it did have some really cool ideas like the new ways Duel Monsters is done here and other things like that. And I'd say my own personal opinion about this is really positive. I mean, even if people don't like this series, one I don't think anyone can deny is that it's really amazingly animated. Even though the Yu-Gi-Oh series is aimed for a younger audience, they still do a really amazing job with the animation. I don't expect them to be lazy about it at all, but I'm really happy they put in all this effort and I think it really shows. Also, this series may have my favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! opening ever. The first one, Take A Chance. I honestly love that opening and the song. I didn't really like the second opening, which I was surprised to see considering the Yu-Gi-Oh! series usually just have one song the whole time with different visuals every once in a while. But I honestly loved the first opening to this. I listen to it a lot. And so, yeah guys, it's hard to say if I'd really recommend this. I did have a great time with it, but I don't know if it's something that would appeal to a lot of other people, but I personally say give it a shot and see what you think. If you don't like it, I won't stand against that, but still would check it out and I'm still really glad I saw it myself. So, now that I'm finished this, that means the only other series next to do is Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V. Pretty sure it's the last Yu-Gi-Oh! series that was dubbed. I'm actually in the middle of watching it and trying to get Season 3 on DVD from America but I'm having a hard time finding it, but I'm really excited to keep going with it and hopefully I'll be able to do a review of it whenever I finish it. And so guys, yeah, that was my review of Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. Like I said, I finished this series a few months ago and I'm only just doing this now, but it kinda took me a while to really collect my thoughts on it and give it my honest opinion. So, yeah, thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.
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