Follow the Dualtainer of Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V – Volume 1 Review

Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V is the fifth series in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise and is the sequel to Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. The series follows the adventures of the Phantom. The Phantom is searching for the Genesis Omega Dragon card, but is on the run from the Leo Corporation. Yuzu Hiragi is the daughter of Syu Zo Hiragi, the owner of Syu Zo Dueling School and is chasing after the Phantom in hopes that he will save the school.

The story starts with the introduction of Yuzu and her father in Paradise City. Their duel school is struggling and Yuzu believes if she can get the Phantom to teach at her school, they will rake in the big bucks. Finding the Phantom, however, is no easy task since even the Leo Corporation is having trouble. Leocorp is the company responsible for allowing a new kind of duel with their Solid Vision technology. The technology is spread throughout the city and summons a realistic environment duelists can interact with while dueling. The Phantom recently hacked into Leocorp and is using the technology for his own personal use. Leocorp sends their special forces to deal with the Phantom who reveals himself to be Yuto. Yuto has some trouble against Shingo Sawatari and reveals he has a DUEL personality, Yuya Sakaki, the true Phantom. Yuya summons his signature pendulum monster, Odd-Eyes Phantom Dragon, to defeat Shingo. Yuya is able to escape from Shingo with some magic tricks, but not from Yuza who made Yuya sign a contract to teach at the dueling school with some sleight of hand. Shun Kurosaki of Leocorp’s special forces tracks down Yuya and challenges him to duel. Despite some trouble, Yuya comes out on top by showing Shun the true power of the pendulum cards. At the end of the volume, we discover that Yuya is searching for the Genesis Omega Dragon card and has a quaDUELple personality.

The storyline is very reminiscent of the original adventures of Yugi Moto. Here are some easter eggs and similarities I was able to catch:

• Yugi, Yuya, and Yuto. All the protagonists so far are double syllable names with “Yu-” as the first syllable. We have yet to discover the names of the other personalities, but I’ll be disappointed if doesn’t continue the trend.
• The protagonist duels a member of the biggest corporation in town.
• Both series start off with a character searching for a dragon card. In the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba searches for the owner of the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon card. In Arc-V, Yuya is searching for the Genesis Omega Dragon card.
• Both Yuya/Yuto and Yugi wear a necklace that will have a huge significance to the overall story.
• Yuto resembles Atem/Yami.
• Yuya resembles Jaden from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
• Yuya is a dueltainer, which is a duelist and an entertainer. Specifically, Yuya is a magician. In the original series, Yugi’s best card was the Dark Magician.
• The Action Field summoned for duels prevents outsiders from entering, similar to Shadow Duels.

The series incorporates XYZ summons from the previous series and introduces a new type of summoning, Pendulum Summons. So far, it looks pretty overpowered, but that’s also what I thought of Yugi’s deck from the original series. The Action Duels of this series requires the duelist to move around the field to find Action Cards. These cards can be drawn immediately and do not take away from their normal draw. The Action Cards can be game changers. So far, even with the new duel rules, it’s not tough to follow. The Yu-Gi-Oh! manga series has always done a good job of explaining the rules and providing turn by turn commentary. I’ve always enjoyed the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga artwork and it’s nice to see they did not change the style. It gives just the right amount to give that WOW feeling without being overwhelmed with a visual overload. For example, in two pages the manga showed the setup to a pendulum summon and still have Odd-Eyes Phantom Dragon take up most of the space.

I will admit I am one of those people that always like the original series over the new ones. However, I was consistently eager to find out what happens on the next page when reading Arc-V. The series captures the essence of the original series but incorporates its own unique twists to make it stand out from the rest.