Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS/Awesome

General
Three reasons why OP2, "Go Forward", is awesome:
 * A meta example; the Link Summoning animation.
 * In the first version, 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.
 * The second and current version of Link Summon animation that debuts in Episode 14 cuts the another "world" part, but in exchange, the monsters now turn into tornadoes colored according to their Attribute as they go into the arrows. Not only is this new animation faster, but it also harkens back to the summoning animations of Xyz, Fusion, and Synchro instead. This is possibly due to the original series director, Masahiro Hosoda stepping down for unknown reasons and being replaced by Asano Katsuya. The Link Monsters' ATK gauges also now include those monsters' respective Link Markers.
 * 1: The opening is sung by KIMERU. The same artist who sung that last opening "Overlap" of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! Series!
 * 2: Similarly to Shun using his Raid Raptors to maneuver around the Action Fields, the second opening has Playmaker dodging the bullets fired by Blood Shepherd's Battle Drones while on his D-Board. After that Playmaker gets hit by their missiles, but instead of looking hurt by it, Playmaker only looks determined and ready to continue the battle.
 * 3: It shows all SIX Code Talkers in the order of which Playmaker has acquired them. Decode Talker, Encode Talker, Excode Talker, Powercode Talker, Transcode Talker and surprisingly Shootingcode Talkernote, all of them wielding their weapon and ready to battle. And after the six Code Talkers assemble, Firewall Dragon comes in and transforms into its attack form.

Season 1
The duel also involves so many Link Summons, particularly by using other Link monsters (a.k.a. "Link Climbing"), it ends up causing the amount of Link monsters in both player's Graveyard, in total, to be as much as FOURTEEN MONSTERS. And since each of them also had Link monsters in play, that means both players depleted roughly half (and, actually, more than half) of their Extra Deck during the duel! Playmaker ends up exploiting that via a card effect, that leads to his victory. Even if GO managed to get a monster with higher attack points than Topologic Bomber Dragon, Revolver would still be able to activate Mirror Force, making any move Go makes this turn into a favorable outcome for Revolver. *Episode 42 features not just one, but TWO awesome Storm Access, with both duelists being backed up by someone close to them due to the danger of this episode's Data Storm.
 * 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.
 * Topologic Trisbaena's debut looks way too awesome for what is supposed to be an antagonist's new ace. And it's not just the CGI either. First, it has three "modes", specified during the commercial for Flames of Destruction set. Second, its effect banishes Spell & Trap cards instead of destroying them, making them harder to retrieve back, and it inflicts Burn damage to the opponent in addition to that. And then it still can attack with its decent 2500 ATK afterwards. And last, it's not even that hard to summon, being a Link 3 that needs only 2+ effect monsters.
 * Topologic Trisbaena's debut looks way too awesome for what is supposed to be an antagonist's new ace. And it's not just the CGI either.
 * First, it has three "modes". All of them are shown during the debut, which each of them being specified during the commercial for Flames of Destruction set.
 * Second, its effect banishes Spell & Trap cards instead of destroying them, making them harder to retrieve back, and it inflicts Burn damage to the opponent in addition to that. **And then it still can attack with its decent 2500 ATK afterwards. Usually when a monster has a powerful card removal effect, it cannot attack in exchange for activating said effect, especially when Burn damage is also involved. That's not the case for Trisbaena.
 * And third, it's not even that hard to summon, being a Link 3 that needs only 2+ effect monsters.
 * Playmaker vs. Spectre:
 * There's something awesome in how much of a stalemate the Duel is, considering the back and forth damage & LP gain exchange that results in both eventually going back to 4000 LP, and how both, at one point, control a 4000 ATK monster. Spectre is the first character to actually manage to stall Playmaker that badly.
 * Playmaker gets credit for working around Spectre's threats by not attacking and goading Spectre into taking the initiative. The attack is parried, both monsters are destroyed, and neither player takes damage from the battle, but because Spectre's setup is dependent **on his one Sunavalon monster, his entire field crumbles around him.
 * Playmaker must get particular credit. He was about to win (after a pretty impressive stalling from both, admittedly) when Spectre used Zaizen as a living shield so that he couldn't take any damage. So not only Playmaker had to stall, he had to play purely on the defensive since he couldn't risk damaging Spectre, and managed not only to do so, but to still destroy Spectre's ace monster and most of his field. And after thanks to Zaizen's sacrifice he no longer has that limitation, he immediately ends it by destroying both Spectre's resurrected ace and all his Life Points in one hit.
 * Furthermore in the end Playmaker is reduced to 50 LP. And Spectre activated a card that deals the same damage he receives also back to Playmaker. Considering most values are in multiples of 50, this means that Playmaker should lose even with the smallest possible damage done to Spectre. Playmaker gets around this by dealing exactly 4000 damage. note
 * Revolver pulls off an impressive Xanatos Gambit against Go Onizuka using Mirror Force. Revolver starts the turn with a 3000 attack, Link 4 Topologic Bomber Dragon and a face down card while Go Onizuka has no monsters.
 * When GO link summons Gouki the Shadow Ogre and uses it's effect to destroy Topologic Bomber Dragon, Revolver activates Arrow Protection's effect from the graveyard banishing it and his Link 4 Topologic Dragon, preventing Go from attacking for the rest of the turn unless he controls 4 link monsters allowing Revolver to re-establish his board on his turn.
 * Go manages to get 4 link monsters into his field and proceeds to go for the kill, allowing Revolver to activate Mirror Force and completely wipe GO's side of the board because he had nothing but attack position Link Monsters on the field.
 * The Duel spanning episodes 43 to 46 displays incredible plays from both sides.
 * Revolver deliberately shows that he has obtained Mirror Force through his card effects, and sets a Spell/Trap card. Playmaker moves to neutralize it, only to realize it a decoy card, which Revolver replaces immediately on top of setting his Mirror Force card. While Playmaker goes to spring the trap, he also sets up protective effects to minimize his losses.
 * Playmaker carefully works his way around Revolver's Topologic Bomber Dragon and Mirror Force, first by negating Topologic Bomber Dragon's effect and Co-Linking his Code Talkers to have an ATK advantage over Revolver's field. However, this is all turned on its head, as Revolver protects his Dragon and gains the ammunition needed to recycle a large number of his cards.
 * Revolver then exploits the fact that his Topologic Bomber Dragon's effect is negatednote to start summoning a large number of monsters in a single turn. First comes the use of his monsters to summon Borreload Dragon, which takes control of Transcode Talker and opens up Playmaker's field for destruction in battle. Then, after laying waste to Playmaker's field, Revolver begins using Playmaker's own Code Talkers — including the ones fallen in battle — to summon a series of Link 4 monsters. This culminates in him performing the first ever Extra Link in the show, dominating both Extra Monster Zones using a whopping five Link 4 monsters, an equivalent of twenty monsters' investment!
 * Playmaker continues to display remarkable tenacity, trying his best to stay alive while dropping to as low LP as possible without losing. He then capitalizes on Revolver's Extra Link to mutually link his Link Monsters with Revolver's, allowing him to amass a tremendous 6400 ATK boost that ultimately wins him the game. With only 13 LP leftnote.
 * Revolver makes pretty impressive plays against Playmaker's setup. Suspecting that Playmaker's sole facedown is a gamechanging Trap, he masks Borreload's attack with its own unreactable effect, preventing its activation. This is a trick that would not have occurred even to many real-life players, demonstrating that there is more to Revolver than merely swinging with high-power monsters.

Season 2

 * Episode 47 introduces a rebooted and upgraded NEW LINK VRAINS. Unlike the previous design of digital looking real world cities, this time there's a octahedron-shaped floating central area with many layers surrounded by many floating islands, highlighting the cyber paradise it was meant to be.
 * Ai’s return in this episode has him forcing Blood Shepard to log out via Data Storm, allowing Playmaker to duel Jin Kusanagi’s attacker unimpeded.
 * Playmaker Ritual Summons in episode 48! Not only do the original blue cards appear in VRAINS, but it's Playmaker/Yusaku The Protagonist himself who uses and reintroduces them. While there are a few characters in previous series who used Ritual Summon, it should be noted that the last protagonist who performed a Ritual Summon was Yugi from the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series. Not even Yuya, who used every extra deck summonnote known at the time, has performed a Ritual Summon despite their being an "Odd-Eyes" ritual monster in real life.
 * The card he Ritual Summoned, Cyberse Magician, is really amazing (the fact that its Ritual Summoning is accompanied by a unique summoning chant, also the first instance of Playmaker reciting one, only makes it better, too).
 * First it is an evolution to Cyberse Wizard which he also used as a tribute to summon Cyberse Magician.
 * Second it has many useful effects. It gains 1000 ATK whenever it battles a Link Monster, it halves all the damage you take, when you control a Link Monster your opponent can only target Cyberse Magician for attacks and effects and when destroyed it allows you to search you deck for a Cyberse Monster card. Playmaker makes good use of the first two effects in his duel against Bowman.
 * Third it's not even that hard to summon thanks to Cyberse Witch's effect which allows you to search for the cards you need and summon monsters you need to tribute for the summon. You also don't need to worry about her low 800 ATK Points, because Cyberse Magician's effects above protect her
 * Credit needs to be given to Bohman once that aura around his body fades. Despite having no recollection of anything, including anything that has happened in the duel itself, after he decides to keep dueling, he quickly scans the field, assesses the situation, and comes up with a strategy right then and there.
 * Playmaker uses storm access to get the card needed finish the game. Unlike the previous uses which uses a data storm nearby, Ai instead summons a data storm for Playmaker to go through.
 * The card Playmaker got this time is Shootingcode Talker, the only one of the six Code Talkers he hasn't acquired yet. Shootingcode Talker's effect allows it to gain additional attacks equal to the amount of monsters it's linked to in this case two. This allows it to attack three times in the same battle phase, destroy all of Bohman's monsters and deplete the rest of his LP.
 * Soulburner makes his presence known by appearing out of a flaming tornado out of the storming sky and keeps Bit and Boot busy so that Playmaker can focus on catching Haru and Bowman.
 * Soulburner introduces a new type of Link Summoning in the game, Reincarnation Link Summon. While it doesn't evolve or change your monster into a new form like Chaos Xyz Evolution does, it instead summons the same Monster as the one used as material, but with the ability to use an effect that it couldn't use before thus truly reincarnating the Monster in a new stronger body.
 * Following after Playmaker, Soulburner also Ritual Summonsnote giving the series another Ritual Monster user which it severely lacks. The monster he Ritual Summoned, Salamangreat Emerald Eagle, while lacking in versatility compared to Cyberse Magician, makes up for it with pure firepower. By sacrificing a Salamangreat Link Monster it gains the effect to destroy Go's Dinowrestler King T Wrextle and inflict damage to him equal to its ATK thus granting Soulburner his victory.
 * Continuing to use Summoning methods other than Link Summon, Playmaker is the one to reintroduce Fusion Summon instead of Soulburner as expectednote, but what makes this Fusion Summon even more shocking and amazing is that Yusaku uses TWO Link Monsters as Fusion Materials.
 * Not to be outdone by the boys, Blue Girl really puts on the pressure against Soulburner. Similar to her fight against Playmaker, her Trickstar's constant effect damage chips away at Soulburner and with Lycoris on board Soulburner cannot perform Burning Draw or else the resulting burn damage will tap out his life points, putting Soulburner on the defensive the entire time. While he does manage to set up a trap that does reduce any effect damage 300 or less to 0 (Trickstars always burns in intervals of 200), Blue Girl simply doubles that to one up him further. Finally, as if a response to Playmaker, she activates her own Fusion card. However, this plays out exactly the way it did with Playmaker as Soulburner activates Burning Draw (with Lycoris no longer threatening his life points) activates his own Fusion card which pulls a Super Polymerization and fuses with her Link Monster eliminating almost all of the issues he's been having in the duel. Finally in an attempt to cushion the damage via increasing her monster's ATK, it activates his own by doubling Soulburner's monster for a One-Hit Kill.
 * Bohman vs Playmaker rematch. Bohman cheated by using a Skill in a Master Duel, but Playmaker still win the duel anyway. Bohman's attack has its damage reduced by Playmaker using Link Ration Trap card, allowing Playmaker to remain in the Duel with 100 LP, AND summons a Token. On Playmaker's turn, he declared he will win on the same turn, quickly doing multiple Link Summons in order to assemble the materials for Cyberse Clock Dragon, and win the duel in a single attack strong enough to wipe out Bohman's remaining LP, even with Bohman's Judgement Arrows doubling the ATK of his Trident Hydradrive Lord.
 * What's even more awesome: it is revealed that Playmaker already planned his Cyberse Clock Dragon finisher since the second turn of the Duel in the previous episode.
 * Episode 60 has Blood Shepherd show his mettle when it comes to hacking by successfully imitating a program that only an Ignis would be able to produce in less than a day. By the time Shoichi notices the trap, its already too late.
 * Made all the more impressive by the fact that in the episode prior The Knights of Hanoi openly pondered on whether or not Blood Shepherd has the skills to compare with the likes of the aforementioned Ignis, or with Doctor Kogami and Revolver himself.
 * Turns out that Flame already helped Takeru overcome a significant portion of the latter's trauma.
 * Despite of getting trapped by Blood Shepherd, Flame and Soulburner menage to swiftly adapt to the situation and fool him when he tries to find a weakness in Takeru's memories.
 * Despite only being used to take down a fodder duelist, many cheered the long-awaited reappearance of **Firewall Dragon in Playmaker's duel with Yoroizaka.
 * When he was just starting out as Playmaker, Yusaku goes to town with a Knight of Hanoi using cards from a Starter Deck! This is a testament to his ability as a duelist to be able to fight against the Knights of Hanoi and still manages to deliver a One-Hit Kill, and that's before he got his Cyberse Deck.
 * In episode 65, after Yusaku cleared the puzzle at the end of the dungeon, both a Knight of Hanoi and Shoichi believed that the Cyberse deck was just a lie after the sarcophagus that was supposed to contain it simply vanished. Did Yusaku give up hope? Nope. He used his plays in the duel as a clue to discover the deck's actual location in Den City. Doing so, he found the real sarcophagus and it did in fact contain the Cyberse deck
 * In 66-67:The duel between Playmaker and Earth shows that the Ignis truly do have dueling skills despite Ai and Flame having some questionable dueling skills especially when compared to their partners and how they panic when it looks like they were about to lose.
 * Earth was also able to counter the supposedly unstoppable Cyberse Clock Dragon not just once, but twice and even managed to destroy it the first time! It seemed like Cyberse Clock Dragon was unstoppable after defeating Blood Shepherd and Bohman, but Earth not only managed to counter it the first time by redirecting its attack by letting it destroy a monster with highter ATK, but the second time it came, he negated its overwhelmingly powerful ATK gaining effect. The only reason Playmaker was able to win was thanks to Clock Lizard's effect which also doubles as a moment of awesome for Playmaker for creating a backup plan in case Cyberse Clock Dragon's effect would be negated.
 * In Ep 68:When it looked like it's over for Playmaker and Ai after getting caught by Windy and Lightning. Revolver shows up with a new look and declares that he will kill them, while the other Knights of Hanoi are destroying Windy's shoddily made Cyberse World with Cracking Dragon!
 * In Ep70:Instead of Playmaker being the one to introduce a summoning methord. It's Revolver who re-intruduces Synchro Summon in VRAINS. Also instead of slightly modifying the Tuner rings from 5D's like Arc-V they created a whole new summoning animation◊ for it. First all the monsters used as the Synchro Materials turn into rings which will then stack on top of each other. They then fuse together into one ring which will then split into several rings equal to the level of the Synchro Monster which causes it to look like a "tower". The Synchro Monster then materializes out of the "tower". This really gives us the image that the monsters are truly synchronizing with each other instead of that the Tuner Monster is tuning up the monster(s) that go through the ring(s).
 * 73:Playmaker's skill updating from Storm Access to Neo Storm Access. Now instead of pulling a random Cyberse-type Link Monster from a Data Storm, Playmaker can now pull any Extra Deck Cyberse-type monster from a Data Storm. Yes, that means Playmaker can now add Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, and Link Monsters to his Extra Deck! Playmaker demonstrates this new ability for the first time in his third duel against Bohman by pulling Cyberse Quantum Dragon—a Synchro Monster—and subsequently summoned it.