We all have done it, wonder how our life would be inside of an anime?! What powers we would get. How would we work in an anime world? The past few weeks I have been asking myself that questions a few times. With the world in its current situation I think it’s the perfect time to resort to this form of escapism once again as this time we travel to the world of Yu-Gi-Oh
Duelist: Yuni “Pinkie”Cohn
Character Name:
Yuni Cohn
Duelist Name:
Pinkie
Age:
24, but she has silver hair though she is often seen as much older.
Role:
Main Character
Relationships:
Pegasus Niece
Quirks:
Converses with her cards, seems oblivious to what is real and what is not, keeps quoting cartoons and anime. Doesn’t like if people call her madam or “that older woman” Sweet Tooth.
Every Yugioh main character has got to have a name that begins with Yu. At least if you watch the sub…. I am looking at you Jaden!…. Since I bet I would sound much cuter in Japanese than I would sound in english.. a name starting with Yu it is. We use this series to introduce Yugioh back into the main world of the show.. and while we are at it.. let’s make this a legacy show! I believe we are very close to the 20th anniversary so let’s create a world that can highlight some of the shows greatest moments. In order to achieve this feeling we are going to combine the latest show with the first season of the classic show for maximum callback.
Set somewhere between GX and 5d’s ..but with all the newest card rules intact. This anime fully takes place inside virtual reality. Using technology similar to that off YuGiOh Vrains. Our story borrows a lot of concepts from Ready Player One. Pegasus is retiring having reached the age of 65 he has decided to pass his company Industrial Illusions on to he or she who can become the next king of games, Thus the story is set about 40 years after Season 1.Pegasus will entrust his company only to someone who can beat his “video game” Duelist Kingdom 2.0. A completely virtual world. In this game he created several “bosses” based on actual duelists of the old world.To challenge one you have to pay starchips which you can acquire from challenging other players. If you defeat a boss, you gain a golden millenium item card. The first 8 who show up at the pharaoh’s tomb with all the 7 items can duel each other in the finals for a change to beat the true king of games. If you beat him…become Pegasus successor.
Yuni lives with her adoptive family in poverty. Pegasus is her last known surviving blood relative and all pleas for help to his address have so far been unsuccessful. Too poor to even own a deck, Yuni spends what little surplus money she has, on sweets. Her owner of her favorite sweet shop, and older lady named Ryndia one day invites her to share some tea with her. She explains that she has been invited to the tournament..but can’t. No one will look after the shop.. and her old bones would ache in the vr pod. She tells Yuni she knows she is Pegasus niece and offers her a chance to finally be acknowledged. Handing her her own personal deck as well. Yuni agrees.. thinking this could save her family and finally make her connect to blood, as she would enter the virtual world of Duelist Kingdom 2.0.
Taking the duelist handle of Pinkie in the virtual world, she is a bit of an odd girl. Unlike other YuGiOh characters she starts completely alone, so Yuni starts to talk to her cards and begins to develop a friendship with them. Giving them personality and voices in her head.
This way we can bond with the cards a lot more… which can help card sales.. it’s YuGiOh after all. Throughout the series we see Yuni develop her own “heart of the cards” ideal, where she relies on her friends to come through for her. As her bonds grow, she also begins to feel this world is more real. Going into a bog to save a drowning animal, risking herself for holograms. However this often results in her finding new cards.. as if the world rewards her for caring. Her weird approach to this..makes her hard to befriend as people think of her as delusional.
The Deck: Madolche Archetype
The deck that Yuni would use would reflect her love for sweets and look cute. After all I have to stay on brand for my blog. Desu Nee? The archetype I have chosen to use is the one of Madolche. Which is a combination of both sweet and viable. It also works well because of Yuni’s belief that these cards are her friends and would never abandon her. Now this is not a tutorial on how to Madolche but it is an extremely powerful deck with One Turn Kill possibilities and insane combos. Madolches get send back to your deck instead of your graveyard when destroyed by your opponent and help each other be summoned or revived should you tribute them. They work together to banish the opponent’s field while striking with 5 or six of them combined (yes six is possible now if you follow master rules 4.0 … long story)
As in all my powers, there is a theme of love and friendship somewhere and I believe Madolche can produce the idea of this feeling. Of course for the anime this deck has to have a lot added to it to provide a new gimmick of the week…but hey by completing quests in the duelist kingdom or beat some holographic minibosses… like Weevil or Rex , Pinkie obtains new cards. So at least it will be way less male-cow-manure like than 5d’s or Zexal where cards magically poof into your hands. Pinkie’s signature monsters still would be the current deck aces. Madolche Queen Tiaramisu has the power to banish monsters from her opponent’s field. Pinkie would imagine her as a Tsundere or as she jokingly calls her Tsundessert. Her “bestie” would be Madolche Puddingcess Chocolat-A-La-Mode.. and if you think think that is a mouthful.. her card effect is almost longer than this post. She can use XYZ materials to summon friends though.
For those who do not know… and I assume that is just about everyone reading this XYZ cards are a special summon from your extra deck by stacking two or more of the same level monsters on top of each other. After summoning the player can than remove those stacks from the card to conjure up powerful effects.
Link summoning will also still be a thing for our heroine’s deck. Link summoning is like a complex form of tribute summoning..which do not have levels but ranks, (equal to the number of creatures used… or creatures used + any older rank card used) these blue cards have arrows and whatever the arrow is pointed at can be targeted for effects. During Master Rule 4.0 you can only have 1 special summoned monster active…BUT you can also special summon into zones your Link Monsters point at, which sounds way complexer than it is. However in the upcoming format that rule should go away. As this paragraph hopefully made clear.. it’s kinda hard to explain how such a deck would work..besides in YuGiOh we need the power of flexible rule interpretation anyway.
Screw the Rules , I have imagination!
As is custom in these YuGiOh series your main protagonist has to have some super powers. We have seen Yuma turn super saiyan to create new cards (like the character actual becomes blond and super powered) .. we see Yusei turn gold and launch his motorbike into space.. where he finds a new card and Playmaker literally can surf… (yes they surf in the newest yu-gi-oh) into a storm to pick up a new card mid duel… like an item box in Mario Kart. I do not want something as stupid for Pinkie, it will only happen once and with reason, but more on that in the next paragraph. Pinkie just talks to her deck and she asks if a certain card can come out to play. We see a animation of her reaching for a card and then the right cute confectionary girl or critter takes her hand and the duel proceeds. It’s heart of the cards..but cast with love and friendship instead of hope or trust.
New cards can be obtained at the end of an episode..but each yugioh series introduces a new form of Kuriboh as well. Kuriboh, Winged Kuriboh, Kuribbon, Kurainbow and others have been introduced to the show in various weird ways, or they have been used to cheat… a lot. Since Pinkie’s deck is sweets based her Kuriboh variant would be called Kuribonbon, which basically looks like a chocolat Kuriboh. By banishing it from your hand it can negate any chosen action of your opponent’s turn . (Negate an attack, negate a summon, negate a trap card activation, Negate a magic card etc, in trade your opponent can not gain any battle damage… but Kuribonbon can only be played on your opponent’s turn). She will find this card by eating some candies while dueling when suddenly one talks to her and turns into a card. She is dealing with a card cheater at the time so will use it still but later out tells it to never cheat again.
The Power of Harmony
Each new season has a new summon mechanic ..which she will all use..(except for maybe pendulums.. in which you set two level scale monsters in your spell and trap zone and than can summon EVERYTHING, that falls in between those level increments from your hand ..and even graveyard in certain conditions) as this will be a legacy show. Fusions, rituals, synchro, links, and xyz will all feature. I guess I will include pendulums as well or I would feel bad for them.. but just in an episode or two! Of course Yuni also needs a new summon mechanic of her her own. I chose for a technique I shall dub Harmony summons.
It is a technique that is quite like the classic fusions. Where you need a very specific combination of cards to tribute. Cards that harmonise with another. For example this could be having Madolche Queen Tiramisu, Madolche Puddingcess and Madolche Puddingcess Chocolat A la Mode on the field and tribute them for Madolche Grande Dessert. (No idea how it would look yet) A bright red card (Pink is taken unfort) that functions as a sort of boss monster. All materials needed get placed under the card like overlay materials however instead of using them to trigger effects, sending one to the graveyard can prevent the monster from being destroyed or send back to the hand.. these are monsters you are going to need to hit multiple times.
Their effect at base is a useful combination or at least themed similar to the cards that are used to summon it, however their effects increase as their life cards are lessened. For example cards gain 300 attack per life card that got send to the graveyard, or per card send to the graveyard they can lock up an opponent’s spell or trap zone, maybe even a monster zone. When a Harmony monster is destroyed you take triple battle damage that turn. I think the concept of using boss monsters could really work well in YuGiOh, especially in the anime. It’s a mechanic we do not have yet, while plenty of other card games do use this trope. Cardfight Vanguard and Pokémon amongst others.
Playing your cards well
All in all I think this could make for an interesting anime show, the risk of having a lonely protagonist could make battles stale, but of course we will occasionally see a battle of the rivals some she will be rooting for others she won’t. Secondary characters oftenly exist to lose or function as an inferior to the protagonist. As a result a great many of these duels become throw-away and inconsequential. By focussing on Pinkie as a solidarity character we can focus on others when it’s their turn to shine.. the other characters have their own fight and should not be written in a way just to assist the main character. Sometimes path cross and we can harmonize.. cheer for each other to give each other strength to make it to the next battle..or we see how are battle styles do not match and how they would use the game for evil!
All in all I think this could be a solid concept for a very different YuGiOh show. Instead of focussing on some characters that aren’t going to make it far we focus on one girl and her cards, making those cards matter as well. In the virtual world we could bring back some homages as well, such as bringing back Deck Master duels, from that Noah Arc.. in the middle of the Battle city finals. We can young Kaiba functioning as one of the key holders.. while old Kaiba makes his return to finally own both Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions.We can bring back other main characters from unconnected series simply as programmed bosses… “Master of this technique”or so and we have plenty of opportunity to make this show as long or short as we want depending on how many cards we want to introduce! So Konami if you are reading this…let’s talk! I am cheap!
If you want to talk more about anime powers, write me! Remember guys and gals I love you all! Keep smiling and stay positive!
XO
Pinkie
Previously on Pinkie Gets Anime Powers:
My Stand
My Zanpakuto
My Digimon
Next time:
Pinkie's Paradise 