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A swiftly tilting Duelist.

GX Duel Memorial Album #11

(The Secret Behind The Name Of “Neos”, Judai’s New Ace, Is Finally Revealed!?)

TURN-62

Q. When did you start planning for the appearance of “Elemental HERO Neos”?

Before the start of the new year, I knew we needed a new ace card for Judai, but we couldn’t seem to settle on anything. Also, about half a year before the episode aired, the anime staff had a meeting with Takahashi Kazuki-sensei about the future of the anime, and later, based on what we discussed there, I had the opportunity to meet with Sensei again later.

At the follow-up meeting, Sensei thought for a bit and uttered various words that connected together and formed an image: “A new Hero…” “That can use monsters with new powers born from a world of chaos…” “A new chaos… …” “Neo + Chaos = Neos!” Through a chain reaction like that, the word “Neos” was born. Of course he didn’t just come up with a neologism, but he and I also thought through how to express and present it, its world building, the abilities of the monsters, and it felt like we were solidifying the design concept as we went along. Although we couldn’t incorporate all of Sensei’s ideas into the anime, they became the framework for Judai’s new Deck centered around “Neos”. Personally, I think we had a very productive time together, but I was also extremely nervous since it was so rare for the two of us to have a meeting alone together (ahaha).

TURN-63

Back then, I had a slightly pompous mindset of “Is there anything that can’t be expressed through a Duel?” (ahaha), and this episode felt like the pinnacle of that. “Make Dinosaur Curry in a Duel”… sounds like complete gibberish, but I recall the viewership ratings for this episode at the time were pretty good. ^ ^;

The anime staff deserve a lot of credit for being able to bring to life such a unique Duel via the script and their production work, but it was a lot of fun to be able to work on something like this.

TURN-64

An infinite loop somehow suddenly occurred during the Duel between Kenzan and Sho. When I hear the term “infinite lop”, I recall the Duel between Yami Yugi and Marik in the original manga– it’s rather quite intense and impressive. Giving combos a name is cool, and the feeling of pulling off an infinite loop after being driven to a corner and then making a complete comeback is exciting. It really made me realize once again just how truly amazing Takahashi-sensei was: He was handling the story, Duels, monster designs and all sorts of minutia for the comic’s original weekly serialization.

TURN-65

Q. How did you come up with the sequence where “Chimeratech Overdragon” attacks five times at the climax of TURN-65?

First off, since I needed to create a situation where Ryo was completely cornered, I came up with an anti-Machine Deck combo.

Once I established a particularly nasty combo, I had to come up with ways for him to turn the tables. I also hard to think about how I could best highlight the difference between the Ryo we’ve known up to now and the Hell Kaiser he was becoming. “The Ryo we know would turn the tables in a single attack. Hmm, but would Hell Kaiser?” I think that’s how I probably came up with the idea of continuous attacks. I also wanted to incorporate a sense of novelty by including a new monster.

Also, actually, “Chimeratech” attacks six times. However, since the explanation of the Trap Card’s effect and the characters’ inner thoughts were included after the first attack, it ended up being a “Five-Hit Combo” instead of a “Six-Hit Combo”. When you actually listen to the dialogue, the vibe of “Five-Hit Combo” feels really good, it’s so impressive that I think the episode’s screenwriter, Susuki Yasuyuki-san must have intentionally written it that way.

EVERYONE LET’S ASK HIKOKUBO-SAN!!

Q. Regarding the Duel in TURN-53, do you remember how or why you came to the decision to have Edo use “Archlord Zerato” as his trump card, if you could let me know?

The concept behind Edo’s Deck during that episode is that I bought two packs of “Invader of Darkness” and 6 Packs of “Sanctuary in the Sky” and built a Deck out of it. Since “Archlord Zerato” was the monster featured on the pack, I think it was a natural choice to use it.

Source: V JUMP