A man’s impossible dream.

DUEL MEMORIAL ALBUM #09

(There Are A Lot Of Behind-The-Scenes About “GX” We Can Finally Talk About This Time!)

TURN-54

Warrior-Types mixed together with Equip Spells is simple and clean. On the other hand, an “Ojama” Deck is its polar opposite. I think it’s a good match up when the ‘character’ of both sides clash against each other. The anime original Equip Spell “Grade Sword”⁽¹⁾ is not a typo of “Great Sword”. It’s a Great Sword being tied together with the episode’s theme about social class/rank (i.e. Grade). Personally I like card names that change their nuance depending on how they’re worded.

TURN-55

Tyranno Kenzan makes his debut. Depending on the Duelist, it’s fun to feel the excitement of wondering what kind of Deck they’ll pull out, but other times it’s nice to have a character who wears their Deck basically on their proverbial sleeve.

Kenzan was a particularly eccentric character, but looking back on it now, it’s interesting to realize that he had some surprisingly delicate concerns as well.

TURN-56

Sho, who had sealed “Power Bond” away, uses a brand new Fusion Spell “Vehicroid Connection Zone”. As I recall, theme-specific Fusion Spell Cards were very rare at the time, but I think it was fine to lift them up a bit. “Super Vehicroid Jumbo Drill”, which was summoned by its effect, is a monster full of romanticism.⁽²⁾

TURN-57

“Elemental HERO Phoenix Enforcer” is one of the things I wanted to do with “Elemental HERO”. The idea of picking a different Fusion Monster with the same materials depending on the situation struck me as a lot of fun. It expands the amount of options you can pick from.

The intent was not only to use “Elemental HERO” to unveil part of Edo’s true Deck, but also make it even more impactful. It was also good to make Kaiser his opponent, I think.

==EVERYONE LET’S ASK HIKOKUBO-SAN!!==

Q. Hikokubo-san, you wrote the script for TURN-91 “The One-Turn Kill Grim Reaper”⁽³⁾, could you explain how the user of “Slash Draw”, Tachibana Ikkaku ⁽⁴⁾, came about?

Originally this episode was planned to be super intense, essentially taking the famous ghost stories “Yotsuya Kaidan” and “Banchō Sarayashiki” and remixing them into the styling of western urban legends. Naturally, this wouldn’t fit in a single episode, and I didn’t have the ability to summarize it meaningfully, so I was told to keep it simple, so I cut it down to the bare essentials.

Since the story was essentially a ghost story at heart, I think Ikkaku’s personality naturally became more Samurai-like. The Grim Reaper was originally going to be a goddess, who later in the episode would be revealed to be a Grim Reaper. I realized what I wanted to do was create a story that summarized the concept in an interesting way, but I was told to look more closely at the core of the story, and it gradually came together as a story.

Also, Ikkaku’s character at its core was based on an anecdote: When I played a fighting game with a friend, I pointed out “Instead of going for the high spec and high win rate characters, we both seem to prefer characters with unusual combos”. In other words, we were both looking for “something” more than victory, and I have taken the liberty of dubbing such players Romantics. I wasn’t sure how many people would sympathize with that, but I asked to let Ikkaku represent that sense of Romanticism, in order to give the story a more complicated feeling.

Q. Cards that appeared first in the anime sometimes had their effects changed when they were adapted to the “Official Card Game”, did that influence any of your Duel Composition?

This area differs depending on which series I’m working on, due to the intentions and inclinations of the Director and Producers. It would be strange if a card that a viewer sees at one point in the show has a different effect the next time it appears, but on the other hand, there were also those who wanted to keep the information as up-to-date as possible. I guess each situation had its own way of thinking at the time, so I had to adjust accordingly.

However, if the effects were too different, we would just flat out try to avoid using them. I apologize if I’m wrong because I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure during “GX”, cards that were later released in the “Official Card Game” often used still used the effects I originally came up with for the TV show.

Q. During TURN-35, regarding the cards that Jun’s older brother used in his Duel to try seize ownership of the Academy, many of them were gemstone themed Dragons and all of their cards are Parallel Rare foiling, were these picked to give an sense of cards that would fit the Manjome Zaibatsu⁽⁵⁾? Or was it just cards that he, the older brother, wanted his younger brother to use?

Hole in one. I don’t know if it was conveyed clearly, but the mindset we had for Chosaku was “High Rarity = High Class = There’s No Way I Can Lose”. He probably figured Decks that let the money speak for itself were the strongest. Also, I don’t think he was actually thinking about Jun’s feelings. Actually, in the anime, there’s something of a custom to avoid mentioning things like rarities as much as possible, but this is a case of where it’s the exact opposite (ahaha).

Translation Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Amusingly its localized name is “Great Sword”.

⁽²⁾ Romanticism as in the sense of adventure, impossible dream, whimsy, etc. Basically the sort of exhilaration when you see a cool robot or dragon. Or the dream of flying with a plane made by your own two hands.

⁽³⁾ Dubbed as “Don’t Fear The Reaper”

⁽⁴⁾ English Name: Lucien Grimley

⁽⁵⁾ Zaibatsu is the pre-World War 2 configuration of companies in Japan, there were vertically controlled mega corporations owned and operated by one rich family. This format of business structure basically doesn’t exist in modern Japan, replaced by the horizontal Keiretsu business structure, in which a series of companies are connected to each other by using the same banking institution and owning each other stocks. However, the concept of the Zaibatsu persists as a story archetype.

Source: V Jump