Another Look at the KCGP

**Ryusaki** · 01/10/11 11:52 PM

Recently, many people were able to re-experience the Doma arc due to it being accurately subtitled for the first time, and a lot of people I spoke to now consider it more of a guilty pleasure than a canon-breaking monstrosity. Now, thanks to GoldenUmi the last controversial filler arc is subbed for the first time -- the KCGP -- and I've re-watched the arc in order to provide a better judgement of it.

The first thing I'll say is that it doesn't hold up as well as Doma. This arc doesn't generate as much strong feelings as that arc, but it's still generally regarded as either a bit of light-hearted amusement or a brainless waste of time. Watching it again, I'd say it doesn't deserve hate, but it's certainly DM's most simplistic arc. Character development is wafer-thin and a lot of the characters act as if they were written by 4Kids -- I'm looking at Jonouchi in particular.

The tournament never really feels as important as a world championship should, mainly due to most of the competition being one-note joke characters. I know this was a filler arc and there wasn't time to show tons of duels, but fancy dress characters like Richard Goat really don't seem like world-class contenders. They're not particularly amusing either, so all in all I'm not sure what the point of them is. The animation also really harms the arc. Coupled with the bare bones dialogue it just makes the arc look really childish.

Some other great mysteries:
-- Why didn't Siegfried realise the Golden Castle of Stromberg's deck-halving effect would quickly run out of cards to halve?
-- Just what fairy-tale is Glife the Phantom Bird referencing?
-- Whose idea was it to give the pivotal Kaiba vs. Siegfried duel such terrible animation twice?
-- How did Siegfried manage to get ahold of Pegasus's misleading-age cream?

But it's not exactly all bad. The decks of the zon Shroeder/Schroider/Schraider brothers are both very interesting and nicely-researched, and it's a great pity they've never seen release (although it's no surprise Konami didn't see an audience for Leon's cutesy fairy-tale cards). And those two characters are good additions to the YGO cast. The few duels in the arc are almost all excellent, and moments like Siegfried's Walkuren Ritt against Ryuzaki and Haga, and Kaiba's Chaos Emperor Dragon combo are rightly famous. There's also quite a few great BGMs which play exclusively in this arc as far as I can tell, due to their inappropriateness in the following arc.

I can't help but feel sorry for the Japanese audiences who waited through this arc, looking forward to an adaption of the exciting manga Memory Arc and then got...well, you know how that turned out in the anime. Anyway, I'd say this arc had potential to be a lot of fun but it's just a little bit too derp. Still enjoyable, but not exactly a highlight of the series.

**NeoKING** · 01/11/11 03:05 AM

The Kaiba Corp Gran Prix should be abbreviated "KCGX" because that's what it resembles. I got the same vibe out of the tournament that was held by Sai'o and the white dorm at the end of GX.

**Siliva** · 01/11/11 03:21 AM

Originally Posted by NeoKING

The Kaiba Corp Gran Prix should be abbreviated "KCGX" because that's what it resembles. I got the same vibe out of the tournament that was held by Sai'o and the white dorm at the end of GX.

You don't realize how much I LOL'd at that.

**Ragna** · 01/11/11 03:29 AM

I still hold the KCGP in a higher regard to DOMA because it's the only filler that actually did what a filler was supposed to do. A quick and interesting story with a minor threat.

DOMA was admittedly fun, but I still stand by that it completely fails as a Yugioh arc. It's like Dragonball GT. It's fun if you pretend for a second that it isn't a part of the series it's supposed to be.

**pokeslob** · 01/11/11 03:50 AM

personally I loved the KCGPX, I enjoyed the new characters because they had interesting personalities and cool theme decks. The story wasn't so deep, but it was good to have some extra backstory to Kaiba and them lol.. and my favourite part was MASK THE ROCK, friggin Sugoroku's deck was SWEET

**GymLeaderLance99** · 01/11/11 07:40 AM

Originally Posted by NeoKING

The Kaiba Corp Gran Prix should be abbreviated "KCGX" because that's what it resembles. I got the same vibe out of the tournament that was held by Sai'o and the white dorm at the end of GX.

Heh, it really is true. XD (BTW, Samejima was the one who held it, IIRC. It's part of why he ends up going back to the Duel Academia.)

Well, I'll probably be watching GU's stuff for the KCGP some other time (I'm still waiting on 221-224 to get properly subbed to finish my first subbed!DM watch-through, lol), but from my first watch with the HK for what little help they are, I thought it was a fun watch. It felt like a calm, winding down arc after DOMA and before the Memory Arc to give everyone some last bits of shinetime and development (especially Kaiba with his Sieg duel), the duels were entertaining enough, and there were some good moments (Sieg using Ride of the Valkyries against Haga/Ryuzaki to the tune of the same-named song was one of the best things I remember the arc for). There are some issues like Ryusaki pointed out (I really think the halving-deck thing should've been obvious, and some of the duelists could've been built up as more than joke characters), but it's definitely not the worst thing to watch IMO.

**Ryusaki** · 01/11/11 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by NeoKING

The Kaiba Corp Gran Prix should be abbreviated "KCGX" because that's what it resembles. I got the same vibe out of the tournament that was held by Sai'o and the white dorm at the end of GX.

Now now, the KCGP isn't that bad XD.

Originally Posted by GymLeaderLance99

Well, I'll probably be watching GU's stuff for the KCGP some other time (I'm still waiting on 221-224 to get properly subbed to finish my first subbed!DM watch-through, lol)

Yep, the best is yet to come. Amazing that the Ceremonial Battle has never been subbed.

I was also surprised to see Amelda and Valon get a brief cameo in the 198, I'd forgotten about that. They get one in 220 as well...

**Neptun** · 01/11/11 07:19 PM

I was kinda disappointed by the fact that so many new characters were introduced and only one of them has had their deck shown. I mean, next to Zigfried and Leon we had 11 new introduced character, and only one of them has dueled onscreen. Even that one wizard-nerd who managed to reach the semi-finals and made viewers wonder whether he was more than just comic relief got off-paneled every freaking round.
... What was the point of Vivian dueling twice exactly again?
other than that, the arc served its purpose of calming the situation down. I may stand out for it, but the Doma Arc was epic enough for me to work.

**Lia** · 01/11/11 08:26 PM

KCGP was the the arc that interested me at the least. Probably because of the non-stop duels, but still it had some funny moments. The story also wasn't something who knows what. What also irritated me was the bad animation. Hara concealed the situation a little, but still 2 or 3 admissibly animated episodes weren't enough. xD In short - the ark was entertaining, but definitely not that interesting. The DM anime wouldn't have changed so dramaticaly if the arc was skipped.

**cheesedude** · 01/14/11 03:12 AM

I thought the arc was interesting, but not great. I actually like Rebecca as a character, so her having a few full duels was great. Both the Schroider brothers were interesting enough too. It could have been a lot better, but overall it was good for an otherwise pointless filler. My only real complaint is Jounouchi's loss to Seig, though that was expected.

**cashman_11** · 01/14/11 07:51 AM

I personally liked the KCGP arc, especially since I was just able to re-watch it properly subbed. Heres my thoughts
-I like how the Duel box idea was mentioned in the anime, it's a cool little reference to the manga Duelist Kingdom arc
-This arc runs into the same problem ANY of the tournaments that were not manga based, they rarely show all the duelist duel. Rebecca is considered a main duelist, yet we see Vivian duel twice, but Rebecca's duel against Abe isn't shown. This and more is always a dissapoint to me, at LEAST show the main characters
-I like the idea of Jounochi VS his mentor

Overall, it's a pretty decent arc, it's also really short. Having Rebecca actually duel by herself was also nice to see. It's arc's like this that make me wish more anime cards from that time were released. Cards such as Blue Flame Swordsman, the Landstars, the Fairytale cards, and the Valkyries would all be nice to have. (I realize that Blue Flame is more Doma, but still, and while some are rather broken, it'd still be nice to have some)

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