Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS/Awesome


 * Yusaku capturing Ignis shortly after learning of the AI's existence. SOL Technologies and the Knights of Hanoi, both powerful organizations, were trying to capture this AI for five years and Yusaku captured it in a few hours. He did so by giving Ignis a fake escape route right into his Duel Disk. He also made sure when Ignis was trapped in his Duel Disk, he would have no way of tampering with it, leaving it forced to become Yusaku's ally against his enemies. Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!
 * Episode 2 showcases Yusaku's Duelist Skill, Storm Access. When Yusaku has less than 1000 LP left, he can add a powerful monster card to his deck. How does he use this skill? By riding into a huge tornado and turning the data storm into a card!
 * Aoi saving Yusaku from falling to his death, paying him back for when he saved her in the first episode.
 * Link Summoning makes its debut this episode as well.
 * Link Summoning's debut: First, the user shoots a laser beam into the sky which opens the gate to another "world" inside of an already virtual world. Then the user flies through the gateway and floats above it, commanding their monsters to go into one of 8 directional arrows surrounding the portal. After that is done, the monster gets summoned with a little flair before the user shoots through the portal again to continue riding the datawind.
 * Playmaker Link Summoning four times during the same turn during his first duel with Go Onizuka. There's been very few times where the Extra deck has been vomited out on the field like this. The monsters summoned Link Spider, Link Bumper, Honeybot, and finally, Decode Talker.
 * Go Onizuka has the tendency to deliberately put himself in a disadvantage only to go on a Heroic Second Wind and absolutely destroy his opponent the next turn in order to maximize entertainment value. Playmaker actually copied his style and purposefully put himself in a very desperate situation at only 100 Life points and still managed to make a huge comeback, counting on the 100 Life Points left over to use Storm Access, a skill only usable if Playmaker has less than 1000 LP and gather the pieces for victory.
 * The exchange between Gouki, The Great Ogre and Decode Talker was a highlight. Both monsters went at each other 3 times in epic clashes similar to a Wrestling match, as they were being protected from being destroyed by battle and standing up after every hit. In the end, though Great Ogre ran out of monsters to save himself from the continuous attacks which led to Go's defeat, making Great Ogre collapse on the mat. Decode Talker even does a little taunt to tell Great Ogre to come and get some more.
 * Yusaku showing competence when he joined the Duel Club on campus by presenting Aoi with a fake deck when she wanted to see it, hiding the fact he's actually Playmaker in the process.
 * Ema and Akira's plan in episode 8, which involves using the entire Link Vrains as a trap for Playmaker.
 * And then Revolver trashes it without a second thought, claiming he could bring down the whole link VRAINS easily, should he have a reason to.
 * Yusaku beating Revolver during their Master Duel, with this being the first time since Yugi for a protagonist to beat his primary rival in their first real duel with them.
 * Episode 14
 * For Meta, the reveal of the new Link Summoning animation which takes place on the field instead of the lengthy animation that takes place in the other dimension, and harkens back to the summoning animations of xyz, fusion, and synchro instead.
 * Ghost Girl coming dangerously close to a second-turn kill against Playmaker, after a very impressing turn and completely stopping Playmaker on his own first turn. She's also savvy enough to know she mustn't let Playmaker use Storm Acces, taking care of leaving him with always more than 1000 LP until the finishing blow.
 * Episode 15
 * Ghost Girl's continues to pull a good call with countering the ability to access Storm Access. While many duelists have played anti-support against a main character's deck type before, she's the first one to do so specifically for a special ability like Clear Mind or Chaos Xyz Change (Or work to avoid the trigger scenarios like said Chaos Change's resulting monster and its lifepoint limited effect). She uses multiple contingencies, only failing when he himself gets multiple lifepoints using effects in play.
 * Episode 16
 * In their first turn, Kitamura's AI manages to summon a powerful Link 3 monster and completely destroy Playmaker's hand, also setting their graveyard so that in the next turn they also eliminate the card Playmaker draws and get an extra monster on the field out of it. Not a bad start.
 * Blue Angel saving Playmaker with her energy whip before he gets his duel disk stolen by Prototype Ai B
 * Episode 17
 * To follow up on Blue Angel's arrival, she is able to set up her entire board Turn 1. Afterwards, what follows can be best described as an effect damage showdown, each using their own effects to whittle the other's life points. When it seems like she is about to lose (the AI was about to send his own monster to the graveyard in order to banish it to deal the last bit of effect damage), she stops the battle and gets to her turn where she unveils a new Trickstar Link Monster, removes his remaing monsters, and clinches it with a direct attack.
 * Following Playmaker's duel, Playmaker is able to use the cards he discarded to Special Summon monsters back to the field and stage a OTK utilizing Storm Access through paying his life points.
 * Following Playmaker's duel, Playmaker is able to use the cards he discarded to Special Summon monsters back to the field and stage a OTK utilizing Storm Access through paying his life points.
 * Go Onizuka, disguised as Playmaker, makes a return to the public eye in episode 22, wiping the floor with Hanoi grunts not through dueling, but with some impressive stunts to turn their weapons against them.
 * His following duel with Doctor Genome shows his skills off pretty well too, topping it off with a Link 4 Monster attacking all of Genome's monsters after negating their powerful effects.
 * Playmaker/Yusaku and Go Onizuka both dueling and defeating Knights of Hanoi with ease and actually agreeing to work together to find the course of the virus that's turning players into Another's.
 * Aoi returns to VRAINS and battles Baira in a close match.
 * In episode 27, Naoki finally enters VRAINS as Lonely Brave, and despite the hilarity of the whole situation, he manages to defeat a member of the Knight of Hanoi finishing with Playmaker's catchphrase! Unfortunately this leads to Faust kidnapping him.
 * Powercode Talker's pose in its debut duel is all about being awesome. It even gets the classic action scene where it attacks a monster, and then acts cool behind the ensuing explosion.
 * The duel itself. Playmaker throwing down with the Knights of Hanoi is nothing new, but he fights against lt. Faust whose deck shuts down his Link Sunmoning. In spite of that, Playmaker still managed to pull off Storm Access and defeat his opponent in ONE episode whereas it took GO Onizuka and Blue Angel two.