[RX-78GP04G Gerbera]

If by "better" you mean giving into fan complaints about it not being "dark enough" rather than being a breath of fresh air after endless darkness already (Shadow Games and then Duel Monsters), then yeah, it did.

I LIKED how GX started out BECAUSE it was a new change of pace more focused on casual fun rather than constant gloom and doom, death/soul-stealing, end of the world stuff going on, but still having good Duels with cool monsters, decent effects, and so on (after all, a number of huge cards came out in the GX-era and not just 5D's). But after Season 3 started and they started shifting Judai around the way they did, hardly anything made sense anymore, tons of things were left unanswered, and tons of new questions get thrown out there that also mostly went unanswered.

Not to mention characters that actually had played roles before were all just shoved to the background and getting nothing more than half-cropped Duels most of the time while they bring back Rei who somehow magically went from looking like an 8 year old to a 16 year old in 1 year, and playing NO real role whatsoever. Even the whole perceived relationship between Judai and Asuka never went anywhere, despite Rei obviously making her jealous at her reappearance with flirting with Judai.

I'd much rather they have kept the manga going (instead of rushing to its end for ZeXal's release) and have it as an anime since at least that balances out the 2 A LOT better than the anime tried to; between seriousness and fun.

People were just so used to Shadow Games and/or Duel Monsters, that they forget that "Yu-Gi-Oh!" is "King of Games", not "Yugi is the main character and all subsequent series should be like the first 2".


Yusei's Deck was only balanced early on and only really due to how they can transition to real life play (and only for Starters really, but as always, it boils down to a few select, more general-purpose cards), but as it goes on, he starts yanking out all this situational stuff that would otherwise have no real use for him outside of that 1 time and/or in real life.

Like Stay Force. Continuous Trap that let's you pay 1000 LP during each of your End Phases to keep a monster from removing itself from the field by its own effect. How much could Yusei actually use that outside of his use with Savior Star Dragon against Team Ragnarok? Really nothing at all.

Or Salvagent. The effect in general is good and all (Tribute it to Special Summon a Synchro Monster from your Graveyard, but it's no longer treated as a Synchro Monster), but the 2nd half of the effect is pretty much pointless outside of the whole anti-Synchro strategies of Team New World/Aporia and hardly any of the actual anti-Synchro cards in real life are used either.

I could go on and on and list similar things, but that's pretty much what I mean in terms of Yusei's Deck being so situational pretty often.


And, as said, Yusei holding a "perfect record" and never experiencing any "true" loss throughout the whole series, unlike Yugi/Atem, Judai, and Yuma, thus he never really learns anything and grows/changes/improves from it, making him quite a boring character overall.

Even with the whole situation with Z-ONE at the very end, Yusei just absolutely refuses to believe in any other possibilities of the future than his own, despite Z-ONE clearly showing him how the world ends up destroyed in the future because of people overusing the Synchro Summon, which causes the Mechanized Emperors/"Meklords" to emerge and start destroying everything, and Accel Synchro Summoning NOT helping, but actually making things WORSE (from knowing first hand when he tries to stand in Yusei's place to bring hope to the people by taking on his face and memories and such, and using Shooting Star Dragon).

And what does Yusei do? He doesn't believe it, says Z-ONE is wrong, and pulls out a stronger Accel Synchro Summon in response. Like there's absolutely no room for alternatives or even the possibility of alternatives.

Sure, one can compare that to when Atem was all about not having darkness while perceiving the ones under the Oreichalcos to be evil and dark, but soon learns that that's not the case, that everyone has light and darkness in them, and as a result, he learns from his mistakes and grows to be a better person and Duelist as a result, allowing him to not be mind-screwed by Raphael in their rematch.