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6/15 c9 3Master Of Anime224
The two things Yugioh is missing: properly written woman leads and LGBT representation. "If you get into it" yeah lol that new material is not coming before I catch up, trust me, because I WANT TO BREAK FREE
Okay I think I need to sleep
6/15 c8 Master Of Anime224
Okay, seriously though, "the tiny lesbian" this Kyoko girl has me cracking up. Poundland Josuke continues to be much smarter than he lets on, and just an all round great guy. Still waiting on that first victory, though. And I feel like I should make you aware that I am 100% going to start stealing your metaphors :P
6/15 c7 Master Of Anime224
Ooh, Rio and Yumi sitting in a tree, K-I-S- okay I'll stop now. Rio doesn't even deserve to lace the boots of such a shining example of a human being (even if said boots are likely the exact opposite of shining). Also, you lied to us. You said she wouldn't break plates!
6/15 c6 Master Of Anime224
Okay, but... Grodd? Seriously? Is Yumi about to summon the Flash or some shit? Equip him with the Speed Force? All jokes aside, I like Rio as a character, I can't help but enjoy reading that kind of black-hearted wretch. And aside from a few instances of stating stuff that's patently obvious, I just can't express enough how much I love your writing style, especially the way Yumi's perspective leads to some hilarious lines. Reminds me of me, in some ways (obvious arrogance is totally not obvious xD)
And Rio can be into Yumi all she likes, I see only one ship sailing here right now because Sakuya is the only one for her, dammit. It's stupidly cute how she gets all flustered over it.
And finally, DO YOU REMEMBER? THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF YUGIOH REDA? (I sang it to myself and it actually fits the meter of the song so I don't care if it's a lame joke, I'm making it)
6/15 c5 Master Of Anime224
Yumi's attempts at killing time had me on my ass right here. That was just too funny. And Kazuhiko and Sakuya will never be friends? Yeah, right. That kinda line just makes it inevitable. And yay for auto-sensory drug substitute! I must confess I have gone against your advice long before this, and you're talking out of your ass: it's even better under the influence!
6/15 c4 Master Of Anime224
That whole 'strongmanly' line, I'm assuming that's a translation of 'otoko-rashiku'? Which given the sheer amount of meanings for the word 'otoko', I think you did a good job representing the nuance. Also, now he's getting pissed off because people make fun of his hair? DEFINITELY Josuke. To the point that I envision him using 'cool' in English instead of the standard 'kakoi'. Again, sorry for the romaji. Also for some reason never would have pegged Yumi as a bokukko, despite her character. I'm also fascinated by the nuance added to speech by the pronouns people use, especially the way anime uses second-person pronouns to show how someone regards someone else in relation to others.
And poor Kazuhiko... will he ever get to win a duel?
Review edit: the line literally changed to 'manly' as I was reading it, but I'm keeping the original review content. The bolding is probably better in any case
6/15 c3 Master Of Anime224
Aight, so ngl, I wasn't gonna review this at all until I caught up with it, because I'm not ThatLoneAvenger making like it's cool to chill in bushes while making babies with dumpster fires. He recommended me this story, and as I (for some strange reason) trust his judgment (he wasn't kidding about the dumpster fires, he threw love at Reality's Curtain when I first released it and that was basically a dumpster nuclear fusion plant), here I am.

And it's actually good! Don't worry about taking your time to smell the daisies, I can appreciate a good bit of glacial pacing. I have my own story which uses it, after all. Now, usually I'd go with the same format as TLA, critiquing the story and writing, but as you're so far in it seems a little pointless to critique the technical writing, and as for the story, well, there's not much of it yet, is there? I have to question maybe the level of the emotional stakes, even this early, because I felt myself slipping out of the story until this Kazuhiko dude showed up to try and mince Sakuya with CRAZY DIAMON-I mean, his Mutant deck. Seriously though, as soon as you mentioned the pompadour he was Josuke. Also me slipping out could just be the heat making me tired. It's 24 celsius here in England rn and that is far too fucking hot.
Okay, so Imma just skip through it all real quick here: first we meet Yumi, who we know thanks to the flash-forward does in fact make it to the grandest stage, and this is her remembrance. Or is it? She strikes me as the classic shonen protagonist, bubbly and energetic and overflowing with empathy and compassion, such to the point she can't bring herself to understand Sakuya's cynicism. Which brings us onto Sakuya, whose cynicism masks a kindness and loneliness that she aches to let free. And finally, she makes herself a friend who insists on calling her 'teacher', which is I assume 'shisho' and not 'sensei'? Sorry for the romaji, but quite frankly cba with Kanji. It's not my strong suit. And despite telling her to not call her that, she responds by calling Yumi her student. Is it wrong that I hear this in Japanese? I assume it just means you're doing your job correctly.
The duels are good, though I feel that the formatting could use a little work. Just to show off LP totals and ATK values in a clearer way, but I have no idea how the formatting has evolved as we get later, so feel free to ignore me entirely. Overall, I am enjoying this so far, and I shall definitely be catching my ass up. I may leave a few reviews to pad the count throughout, but I imagine they'll mostly be snarky comments since I can't justify a criticism without the full picture of the story so far.
Disclaimer applies, no comments are intended as insult and any criticism is made in an attemt to help the author make their writing better. But if I criticise stuff here and 48 chapters later it hasn't improved naturally, I'm probably just being pedantic, or you missed something. Either way, we can pick that up in 48 chapters, right?

And now for the standard shameless advertising: if you like reading a good OC Yugioh story (as in having an original setting too) please give a thought to Reality's Curtain and The Golden League, my own works. Also TLA's Mark of Death, which is set in the same universe. Pretty please. Seriously, we have a big-ass review theatre for all 3 and it's perpetually bloody empty. Choose any seat you like. There's even free popcorn!

Okay, that's enough shit outta me, keep yourself safe in this uncertain time and stay awesome.
1/29 c1 3ThatLoneAvenger
*rolls out of a bush* Holy crap, I don’t know why I thought that was a comfy place to read a story, but I know I won’t be doing it again. *stands and pats self down* Right, so, name’s TLA. Good to meet ya. I imagine you weren’t expecting someone to show up reviewing this story pretending they were in a bush. Much less starting right on the first chapter when you’re already FIFTY ONE entries into this thing… Geez, I’ve some catching up to do.
Oh, right, I should explain myself a bit. You prob saw me follow this story a lil while ago. Truthfully, until tonight, I’ve not gotten to read any of it cuz, well, time constraints. But, being an original YGO story writer like yourself, I like to troll around and find other good original stories and share some love. Even if they’re not so good… I’ve tried giving love to some real bad dumpster fires before… eugh. Imagine my delight tho when I read this and thought, “Woo hoo! Not a dumpster fire!” Right off the bat, I gotta tell you I really loved this start. And I shall elaborate… right after I explain how I do this junk. When reviewing stuff for the first time, I take two paths of critique: first for the story, then for the writing. I actually haven’t written a fresh review for a new story in a REALLY long while, so pardon me being a bit clunky here. Aight, enough incoherent rambling; let’s do this!

STORY: Meet Yumi Takano. Young, aspiring duelist who clearly has a bright future set ahead of her given the little flash-forward we see at the start first. Gotta grasp readers with that excitement, right? But then, we flashBACK to her humble beginnings as an urban girl living just outside the city limits. Whole area seems to be called Chiba, so that’s my reference from here on out. So, Yumi’s been practicing up and even has ties being the child of former DM pros, and wants to make it big like them. Makes it interesting that her living arrangement seems to instead be with her grandmother. Parents travel a lot I’m guessing. Yet, she lives with such run down conditions and antique pieces of machinery… this is setting up some VERY interesting family mysteries.
Aight, time to take that hearty little bicycle into the city! Get some dueling practice in at the playground! Win some, lose some, it’s all fun and games right now. (It’s all wholesome AF honestly.) Then comes along Sakuya Ishikawa (I know I know, everyone’s Japanese and everything reads like they are, but I’m American and we say first names first, damn it!), who is every bit the kind of playground bully I would expect her to be. Stuck up, obviously affluent, lackeys and all. All checks out.
I love how Yumi just straight up goes into pissing her off just to get her to duel her tho. Damn girl, you got spunk. And funnier still, it WORKS. The duel is on! Ah, the innocence of how simple the game used to be, with normal monsters, spells, traps, and nothing crazy beyond fusion monsters. The OG cards are fun too (I legit google image’d a Wiener Dragon just to get a better picture in my head, and… oh my god, it was pink and smiling at me, I couldn’t stop laughing).
Things reach that pinnacle climax moment when these two characters start mirroring Yugi and Kaiba having a “Eyes Dragon” card versus a “Magician” card. It’s close right down to the end… where Yumi loses. Ow. That actually hurt my feels a little, watching that bi-
… I’m sorry, I’d normally be super vulgar and not care about it with any other story, but these characters are kids and for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. Let’s rewind. *ahem*
Watching this bully girl walk off with Majesty Magician really sucked. I know it was kinda to be expected, but just… again, ow. Yumi, obviously broken up over losing her first really competitive duel, goes off to wallow in misery for a short bit elsewhere. (Cuz them’s the rules; you lose at the playground, you gets evicted from the playground. Gangsta.) Now this is my favorite part: Sakuya shows up to GIVE BACK THE CARD, and explains that she’s been putting up the bully front just so she could command respect and not get bullied anymore herself. And THAT IS GOOD GODDAMN CHARACTERIZATION. THIS TWIST IS GOLD AND I LOVE IT.
This leads to the two of them starting a (maybe) friendship where Yumi might just get to benefit learning from a stronger duelist, while Sakuya might gain her first real friend in who knows how long. It’s a strong setup and leaves me excited for what the future continues with- wait, huh? There’s one more short scene?
*reads through it* … I feel like it should be read as ominous, but honestly it feels like you just wrote about how I am waking up in the morning. And I am not okay with that. Seriously. Get out of my room.

So a great start here. Your storytelling prowess shines here, and deciding to cast up with young girls is such a fresh and interesting concept and honestly will probably put whatever this “Sevens” crap is gonna be to shame. A few lose ends to tie up, like the fact that Yumi’s pro parents are mysteriously absent and such. Leaves me rightly wanting. That said, the flaws I DID see in here relate mostly to what I’ma address next.

WRITING: To start with the good, your narrative style is colorful, varied, paints a picture, and does its job well. I like it. There’s few spelling and grammar errors, but I make it a point to gloss over those cuz, like I always say, it’s FF.N, not a professional writer’s convention.
All that said, here’s what suffered here: this is more so a preference of mine, but your narrative, strong as it is, is somewhat overbearing. In that, some bits that should have been granted as spoken dialogue didn’t happen. IE, when you gloss over the turns that were skipped near the end, there’s opportunity to build even more suspense reading the moments that they draw, before finding out they bricked. I feel I was robbed of that. Again, this is mostly preference, but I imagine I can’t be the only one who thinks like this.
Speaking of the dueling, oh dear… I tell ya, nothing kills a YGO story worse than where everyone’s doing their dueling thing and the respective audience can’t tell what’s going on. DSOD suffered from that a bit. Here, the narrative kinda makes off with everything again where the fine details are scattered across it, and it feels jumbled and clustered. I was pretty confident that there was some inconsistencies in Rusty Warrior’s fluctuating ATK between when Fighting Spirit was in play and when it got nerfed, but again, the narrative make it such a mess to my mind as I was reading that I can’t say for sure whether I was right or not. I myself make it a point to avoid that much as possible by providing blocks with stats outside of my narrative and dialogue. Helps keeps things organized and even looks pretty to boot.
That aside, it’s all just observation on my part, and given you’re 51 chaps into this, my pointing this out may or may not be a moot point anyway. But I’d kick myself in my sleep all night if I didn’t, so.

So my verdict overall: I’ll absolutely be reading more and you can expect more reviews from me whenever I can make the time for them. Not gonna lie, I kinda did this out of boredom, when there are a number of other fics my mates are writing that I’ve yet to review… yes, Diabolic Tracer, I see you in this review forum. I know, I promise I’ll be delivering you more reviews soon. Please don’t take this personally. xD
Now I know you said this is basically a clone to post here while you mainly write on AO3, so perhaps feedback on here doesn’t matter much to you. But on the off chance it does, feel free to reach out. I’m not an evil person, and I’m open to new friends. And, of course, I shan’t depart from this review without fulfilling the cliche of recommending to you my own original YGO story: Mark of Death. Mind, the first 1-11 chapters are all roughs from early days; I promise my writing nowadays is MUCH better. If it strikes your interest, maybe I’ll see you reviewing there.

Aight, I’ve belted enough for this review. I’ma post it now and go to sleep. See you again sometime, and stay awesome.
2/5/2019 c3 7Diabolic Tracer
Honestly, I have been thinking what to write for this review for a day and a half now and truth is... I don't really have much to say.

The interaction between the characters and the duel were nice, I love the idea of monsters mutating into higher forms that you implement there with the mutants. The only thing that I felt annoyed with was Sakuya's reaction to being called a teacher. Yes, I get it that she is a lesbian (I actually jumped to the last few chapters to see if that would end up being the case) but she was seriously overreacting there over nothing.
2/1/2019 c2 Diabolic Tracer
They held hands? They held hands?! THEY HELD HANDS!

Not sure what I'm trying to say there, I had a bit of a gut feeling in Chapter 1, but after Sakuya's reaction to being touched by a birl and the type of mangas that she picks up, I'm starting to think that something is being foreshadowed here. Of course I could be wrong and Sakuya might just be just that type of character that is super embarrassed of having close contact with others.

And yes, the rich kids having jackasses for parents trope (in this case just jackass since the mother appears to be either seriously injured or straight up dead.) But at least her parents don't spent money on worthless things. That might not seem to be very important (and probably isn't for anyone else) but I love when rich people are shown to have enough brain not to waste their money. So thank you.
2/1/2019 c1 Diabolic Tracer
So, I saw your story in the Arc-V tab multiple times before, but now is the first time that I actually sat down to read it. There's not much that I can really say about the story after reading only the first chapter, but here are my first impressions.

The characters themselves are ok, Yumi and Sakuya had a good chemistry in the first chapter. Sakuya was pretty cringy as the antagonist for this first chapter, which I feel works with the reveal at the end where she turns out to be a good girl at heart forced to act like a bad person in order to protect herself. Yumi on the other hand is pretty ok as far as main characters in a YGO OC centered story go. I neither like or hate her.

Now onto the duel... Uh, honestly a part of the reason why it took me so long to read this story was because one of the reviews said that your duels were slow and Pot of Greed was used. Personally, I don't mind the back and forth style of dueling, as outdated as it is, and I'm willing to overlook people using banned or overpowered cards if the setting for using them is right. And these things actually work in your story pretty well.

To begin with, Yumi uses an outdated Duel Disk and has a deck focused on low Level NORMAL monsters with 1500 or less ATK/DEF. Her deck is literally trash, so ofcourse it plays slow. The only problem duel-wise for me would be Sakuya's deck. Actually, using the word 'problem' would be an exaggeration, but I can't think of a better word for it. Looking at her deck is weird for me because from one side it looks weak, but if her opponents are people using Normal Monsters and Ultimate Insect, it looks powerful.

So, I don't know how to end this review of Chapter 1. It was good for what it was and I'm definitely going to read and review the next chapter when I have time.
9/10/2018 c1 Guest
Running pot of greed? And by the god the duel goes horribly slow. This is arc v era you could do better. Dropped
3/12/2018 c10 Guest
And my review got cut off, oh well there wasn't much left to say anyways. I wreckon one of the reasons this story has so little coverage or popularity compared to other similar length fanfics is because it's located in the yugioh section which has like 50k fanfics, meaning this is hard to find. Considering that there is no set location in the story and pendulum is mentioned, you probably should he listed this under yugioh arc v which are somewhat popular lately due to the anime just finishing, it's food for thought.
3/12/2018 c10 Guest
You've got a pretty interesting story happening here, there aren't that many yugioh fanfics with characters and an mc that are yumi's age which is kinda disappointing and I'm glad you've taken that approach. The duels are alright and the slice of life storyline you have is something that yugioh needs to do more of, since at the end of the day it's a game, so cudos on that approach as well. This is a pretty good OC au
8/3/2017 c5 2Not TheScarletDevil
when you write the longest review and misclick like a complete idiot resulting in it being deleted...

basically what I wanted to say, is that I feel genuine happiness from reading your fanfic so far, be it because of the lightheartedness, how adorable all your characters are (seriously I want to hug all of them lol (especially Sakuya :p)) or the actual feeling of camaraderie and friendship that emanates from the group, or just because of the duels, and how well executed they are, with an actual written description of the events instead of the usual robotic-esque layout we see way to much in here, and especially, no illegal plays (at least none I have spotted). the entire thing is just so smooth and easy to read. I'm only at the end of chapter 5 currently, but I can say without having to think about it too much that this is the best yugioh fanfiction I've read so far.
I hated my own stories, because every time I tried to write I ended up getting the most depressing and cheesy results, possibly because of my state of mind, but reading this has actually inspired me to take a look back on the work I had in the back of my mind (and scattered all over random folders on my computer too because I'm clearly a very well-organized person) and try to rewrite it in a way that doesn't make it feel like the work of a depressive dude (of course that's not the only thing giving me motivation back but it ended up being part of it so I'm grateful tbh)

there were a lot of things I initially wrote but tbh I don't remember half of it and I probably need to sleep a little bit, so yeah. keep up the good work
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