Wisdom of the Ages

DUEL MEMORIAL ALBUM #07

(Tell Us About Amnael And The Cards He Used.)

TURN-45 & TURN-46

It was assumed from the beginning that Amnael would use a Deck themed around Alchemy, so it took me some time, but I made a lot of revisions before I properly decided on the direction and the necessary adjustments and math.

Amnael was treated as a mid-boss before Kagemaru, but he was allowed the luxury of feeling endgame boss-y in order to mislead the viewers. His Deck was almost entirely new cards, with the exception of a scant few. As for the direction of the Deck, I was constantly flipping through stories, ideas and notes until I came up with “Chaos Distill”. I think this card brings together the whole concept, as it let me come up with the image of distilling metals associated with alchemy, and using alchemy to create life.

Although I was able to create a luxurious setting, I wanted to reduce the burden of designing monsters, so I thought, “Could we use an existing monster as the base and coat it in the distilled metal? I thought that “Alchemy Beast – Salamandra the Steel” could be like “Armored Lizard” from the “Official Card Game” coated in iron (i.e. basically a palette swap). The other “Alchemy Beasts” were not found to fit the image, so ultimately the staff were asked to create new designs.

TURN-47

“Ritual Sanctuary” first debuted in this episode. As people might, a version of this card was given as a present to a certain famous YouTuber who will remain nameless. However, I recall that before that, in as far as I know, two copies were given at the weddings of certain related parties. Maybe there were more that have been handed out that I don’t know of.

TURN-48

This time the “Sacred Beasts” appeared. I didn’t have a definite ranking for the “Sacred Beasts”, but I was thinking, “Blue, Yellow, Red, probably in that order?” to match the dorm rankings of Duel Academia, just to give my personal thoughts. I came up with this with respect to “The Sacred Beasts”, but I’m not sure it entirely lines up?

==EVERYONE LET’S ASK HIKOKUBO-SAN!==

Q. I really like Judai VS Amnael. Many of the cards included involve effects that are related to Banishing, Did you have any problems scripting this Duel? I’d also like to know if you have any memories when you look back on Amnael!

Thank you very much. For Amnael’s Duel, I did a lot of reading and research while making it, and there were a lot of things I found helpful for later on. After all, it’s nice when a word that makes you go “Huh, what’s this?” keeps coming up. The real trouble was putting together a cohesive image from the mountain of research materials, but I realized Banishing had not been brought up much in “GX”, so I wanted to make sure this Duel would leave a lasting impression. That has a certain sense of absurdity that goes hand-in-hand with Alchemy.

Also, the truth is I had gotten information about “Miracle Fusion” before it would release in the “Official Card Game” and decided it would perfect to use to finish the Duel. It made for the perfect card to use to have Amnael admit “Judai truly is the strongest alchemist”. And since Amnael’s Deck was focused around banishing, I think I worked backwards somewhat to make sure it ended up even more satisfactory.

So, looking back on Amnael, I’d say he ended up being an alchemy professor for me as well.

Also, this isn’t my problem, but Duel Disks don’t have a set location to place banished cards, so it was a bit of a problem what to do about banished cards visually.

Q. In Turn-44 what exactly was the card Amnael used that spewed meteorites?

That was “Grand Convergence”.

Q. During the back end of the Seven Stars Arc, Asuka’s Deck switches to one centered around “Cyber Angels”, how did this change come about? What made you aim for a Deck centered around Ritual Summons when GX was mainly about Fusion Summons?

“I want there to be more focus on Fusion Summoning!”. Though with that in mind, it had been an entire year since I used Polymerization as a key card for Judai (the main character) and it had put in a lot of work. I was also hoping that Ritual Summoning would become more popular as well, and I think I was trying to prepare for Year 2 and beyond.

Q. Asuka and Ryo have something in common as they often appear together and both use “Cyber” cards. As the story progresses, it becomes clear Ryo is a friend of Asuka’s brother, was this planned from the beginning?

The character set-up by the head writer, Takegami Junki-san was a marvel to behold. I don’t think Fubuki was a planned character from the beginning. But I think the characters from the beginning were arranged in a good and seamless way, so it made it more natural for characters who could expand the story later to show up. When I watch something like this, I naturally think that’s how it was set up, but when I watch it again, I notice it was the work of smart execution, which draws me in deeper.

Q. “Card Ejector” barely showed up in show, but she was very prominet in the opening credits for the 4th Season. Did you intend to use her more?

I didn’t have any plans, but she had a great design that added color to the Opening and what not. But I wouldn’t have minded using her more. ^ ^;

Source: V Jump