Better than GX but not as good as the original.

michaelwilson-72502

Overall, 5D's was fun to watch, but no spinoff Yu-Gi-Oh! series will ever be as good as the original. It had some really good ideas regarding characters and the story. It also had some room for improvement, but nothing too serious.

What I liked:

I really liked the idea of the story. In the future, Domino City has been destroyed, the way it was rebuilt separated the rich from the poor. The less fortunate, including the protagonist, Yusei, are treated very unfairly by the rich. Yusei's journey starts off as taking back what his old friend took from him, but then turns into a mission to save the world, making him more of a hero along the way. This plot was a big improvement over GX, which was very basic.

5D's also had a lot more memorable duels than GX did. Some of which ended up surprising us. Sometimes it felt like the supporting characters would lose and then Yusei would have to finish the job, but in the end they managed to get the job done.

The show's biggest improvement over GX was that a lot of characters other than Yusei got a fair amount of spotlight. This was GX's biggest problem because Jaden dueled too many more times than the supporting characters. So it was nice to see the supporting characters like Jack, Crow and Akiza in action, especially because they had some really entertaining duels.

What I didn't like:

5D's also focused on a new way of dueling: turbo duels, which was dueling on special motorcycles called duel runners. The show first aired when I was 13. At that time turbo duels seemed like a cool idea, but looking back at it, not so much. If turbo duels happened in real life, there would probably be a lot of car/motorcycle accidents caused by distracted driving.

Although the story was good, it really felt like there was more development in the supporting characters than Yusei. Jack went from being selfish to selfless, Akiza learned to control her psychic powers and challenged herself by becoming a turbo duelist, etc. Besides Yusei becoming more of a hero and saving the day, there wasn't much else to his story.

Lastly, the outcomes of Yusei's duels were pretty predictable. The only time they showed him losing was in a flashback, which didn't really count. Showing the protagonist losing once in a while always helps them develop as characters, which is why in the original and GX, Yugi and Jaden lost a few times.

In conclusion, as I said before I enjoyed 5D's. However, because of the room for improvement mentioned above, the only version of Yu-Gi-Oh! I would ever recommend is the original.

score 7/10

michaelwilson-72502 24 September 2018

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4359263/