Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 16, 2017

“Believe in the heart of the cards”.

As the father of two Millennial males, Yu-Gi-Oh! was a regular part of my early parenting experience (whether I wanted it to be or not), one that of course wasn’t simply (or even mostly) relegated to the first television series to reach American shores (which was actually the second series produced), Yu-Gi-Oh!. My older son especially was addicted to the card game, and much of my hard earned cash went to procuring him “rare” cards like a set of Exodia cards that cost a small fortune. I joked with some other similarly beset parents at the time that franchises like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon, both of which featured some element that required collecting vast amounts of something, were an obvious attempt by the Japanese to wreak economic havoc on the United States, forcing parents to appease their bratty kids by getting them multiple items to complete their collections, as revenge for the outcome of World War II. As with many other multimedia franchises that have their genesis in either anime or manga, Yu-Gi-Oh! has given birth to all sorts of enterprises in both of those media, along with more standard books, films (including Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Bonds Beyond Time and Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions ) and of course the requisite trading card games and videogames. The mythology of Yu-Gi-Oh! is both surprisingly dense but also accessible enough so that even young kids can understand at least the basic outlines, but of course the bulk of the show, at least with regard to any given episode, tends to be caught up in battles, with background information and longer plot arcs (like the Pharoah aspect of the first series) being unfolded slowly but surely, almost as interstitials between various skirmishes. Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V certainly hews to that general foundation, while updating both the look and (at times at least) some of the content of the original premise.

By the time this second half of the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V gets underway, certain plot elements are firmly in place, which is both a good thing and a bad thing for the series. While I hinted at some of the developments in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 1 Blu-ray review, Yuya Sakaki’s own “Pharoah” element has started to be featured more prominently, and the show’s supporting cast of both colleagues of Yuya as well as various nemeses, many aligned with a competing “dueltainment” emporium known as the Leo Institute of Dueling, has been featured prominently enough that “battle lines” are clearly drawn (no pun intended).

But by the time the twenty fifth episode starts (in what is another two part offering), a lot of the background information tends to come in dribs and drabs, with more and more time and emphasis being put on what is after all the stock in trade of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise — namely, battles. That gives this second half of the show’s first season a more by the numbers feel that tends to dissipate some of the energy the series’ supposed mysteries started to foment in the first half.

The series tries to work up a bit of emotional resonance in various ways, like having Yuya engage in a duel with his mentor and protector Gong which will result in only one of them being "promoted", while also detailing (yet again) Yuya’s trauma at having seen his father supposedly “chicken out” in a duel years previously. Quick flashbacks get into the teasing and harassment Yuya experienced, and how Gong came to his rescue, but, again, a lot of this material is presented almost as an afterthought, with the main focus being squarely on the actual duel at hand, something that almost always plays out in a resolutely rote fashion. The series tends to rely more than ever on “miraculous” draws on the part of Yuya that ultimately save the day even when it appears that all hope is lost.

One thing that continues to be at least a little unusual in the second half of the series’ first year is its emphasis on some of the female characters, as if the show’s creative team suddenly realized there’s a whole demographic out there they hadn’t been reaching out to that effectively. Part of the “intrigue” of the show’s first season involves “dimensional counterparts” (otherwise known as alter egos or “hidden” identities, a la the whole Pharoah angle of the “first” Yu-Gi-Oh!), and some of this second half details the tribulations of one such being who is linked to Yuya’s childhood friend and putative love interest, Zuzu. The actual effect of this supposed gender “innovation” is debatable, but it at least offers the subliminal message that girls are as able as boys to summon monsters to help them defeat their rivals.

As with this second half in particular, the show’s first season as a whole has both good elements and not so good elements. While it’s obvious some tinkering has been done with various plot and character tropes that have long been part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe, nothing has been so radically altered that it seriously hampers what has always been a show built around positive messages about worth, identity, and (for want of a better term) stick-to-it-iveness. Unfortunately, that’s also some of the bad news—anyone who has seen any Yu-Gi-Oh! offering (and as I detailed in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 1 Blu-ray review, there have been a lot of them) is not going to find any significant difference in this version, despite varous attempts at updating.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Season 1, Volume 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm (with a host of other producing entities) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This second volume of the show's first season is perfectly in line with the video quality I assessed in our Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 1 Blu-ray review, though some of what I assumed to be the intentional "digital" anomalies of the VR world aren't quite as prevalent in this second half. The show continues to be incredibly bright and vivid, with a really appealing palette that looks wonderfully saturated and energetic in high definition, and line detail continues to be generally very precise. This second half had a couple of brief moments of banding in some segues where lighting levels changed dramatically, but otherwise this is a problem free presentation that should delight the franchise's many fans.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with the first season's first volume, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Season 1, Volume 2 perhaps surprisingly doesn't offer a surround mix, featuring only a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. What's here is certainly fine, with good separation and clear and convincing fidelity, but for a show which has so many sound effects and which features battles so ubiquitously, the lack of a surround track may be distressing for some audiophiles.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Much as with Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 1, this second volume of the show's first season offers no supplements on any of this release's three discs.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Season 1, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Shows like Yu-Gi-Oh! (in any of its formulations) probably don't weather "binge viewing" the way that reviewing often requires, since the episodes tend to be largely interchangeable with regard to the battle aspect, even if some longer plot points are being detailed in the background. That may be one reason why I personally found the second half of the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V to be a little tired feeling, with regular rehashings of various story elements that had already been trotted out with fair regularity during the first half of the season. That said, the show is still kind of goofy and fun, and this latest version is certainly incredibly colorful, with a very enjoyable design aesthetic. For franchise aficionados if not for the public at large, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Season 1, Volume 2 comes Recommended.