Yu Gi Oh! Arc V

Plot

In Paradise City's You Show Duel School, a second year middle school student named Yuya Sakaki aspires to become a professional Dueltainer, and awakened a new power called Pendulum Summoning which attracted attention of the Leo Corporation's president, Declan Akaba. Yuya later meets three Duelists who greatly resemble him: The collected Xyz duelist Yuto whom he unknowingly absorbed, the overconfident Synchro duelist Yugo, and the sadistic Fusion duelist Yuri. These look-alikes originate from other dimensions besides Yuya's Standard Dimension as he and his friends find themselves in the middle of an interdimensional conflict against the Fusion Dimension's Duel Academy, which Yuri attends. Duel Academy is led by his estranged father, Leo Akaba, who seeks to unite the four dimensions. Declan formed a group of elite Duelists called the Lancers to stop his father, while they build their numbers during their travels to the Synchro and Xyz Dimensions.

Gradually recognizing a dark presence swelling inside him since absorbing Yuto, Yuya learns he has a strong psychic connection to him, Yugo, and Yuri that occurs whenever their summoned dragons are calling one another. Yuya and his friends also realized that Leo seeks to capture Yuya's childhood friend, Zuzu Boyle, and the Lancers' Fusion Dimension member, Celina, as they are identical to the Xyz Dimension's Lulu Obsidian and Rin of the Synchro Dimension who were already captured. Arriving in Fusion Dimension to save Celina, Zuzu gets captured as well with Yuya and the Lancers infiltrating Duel Academy to save the girls. When they confront Leo, he reveals the four dimensions used to be one world until the day a mad duelist named Zarc attempted to destroy everything. Leo intended to stop Zarc with the special En Cards he created, only for his daughter Ray to steals the cards and sacrifice herself in his stead to defeat Zarc while splintering the world into the four dimensions.

Leo reveals that Zarc is the darkness within Yuya and his counterparts, who are themselves remnants of Zarc's scattered essence which has been compelling them to absorb each other so Zarc can be reconstituted and exact his revenge. Only Ray, who has been reincarnated as Zuzu and her counterparts, had been subconsciously preventing Zarc's attempts prior to Leo having the girls abducted in order to merge them back into his daughter so that he can restore their world while personally ending Zarc. But Arc-V Reactor was unable to fully restore Ray's physical form as Leo planned. After Yuri absorbed Yugo, Zarc capitalized on the turn of events by taking over Yuya's body and having him absorb the willing Yuri to complete his resurrection. Yuya's friends all proceed to challenge Zarc in a series of two-on-one duels to stop him while reaching out to Yuya. Ultimately, with Ray possessing Declan's adopted brother, Riley, to fight Zarc, Yuya manages to regain himself to help Ray defeat Zarc with the En Cards. This splits the dimensions once more.

When Yuya awakens in the Standard Dimension that has been reborn as the Pendulum Dimension, he had no memory of his experience across the dimensions or of Zuzu until Declan restored his memories and everyone else's with a reenactment of the Arc League Championship. Declan then reveals that Riley used a moment in the dimensional divide to transfer Zarc's essence from Yuya into himself to keep the evil spirit from being scattered across the dimensions again. Riley turned into a catatonic infant girl as consequence, Declan fearing that Zarc may eventually take over Riley's body and resume his rampage again. Yuya is told that only he can stop Zarc for good by using his Dueltaining skills to make Riley smile and pacify the possessing spirit. Yuya proceeds to travel to other dimensions and defeat the other Lancers with Riley watching the footage. On his way, Yuya finds Zuzu and her counterparts still inside the remains of Arc-V in an inactive state. Though his counterparts help him tame the Four Dragons, Yuya learns he made no progress with Riley, and convinces Declan to let him take the professional duelist test right after he got promoted into Senior class, and Declan became his opponent. Learning who Zarc was in life, Yuya and his counterparts manage to defeat Declan and pacify their past counterpart. This act awakened Ray, who appears in the Pendulum Dimension and revives as Zuzu, with her counterparts now a part of her as in Yuya's case, reuniting the two of them at last.

Standard Dimension

The Standard Dimension, later reborn as the Pendulum Dimension, is the dimension where Paradise City is located. It is the main setting of the first season. Surrounded by the other dimensions, the Standard Dimension contains all three summoning methods of Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz. This dimension is known for its unique Action Dueling, which uses real mass that allows Duelists to interact with their monsters and the artificially created environment thanks to the creation of the ARC System (Augmented Reality Combat System). The ARC System is an evolved form of the original Solid Vision System, which only had intangible holograms. After the battle against Zarc, the Standard Dimension was reborn as the Pendulum Dimension, where everyone can now use Pendulum Summoning while possessing a heightened sixth sense.

Synchro Dimension

The Synchro Dimension is a dimension, where its residents all use Synchro Summoning. It bares homage to Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. Its setting is New Domino City, which serves as the setting of the second season. New Domino City thrives on a free competition society consists of two classes. The elite class of 1%, the Topsiders, are the upper class society living in wealth, while the poor Commons are the lower class 99% of society living in poverty under the Topsiders' area. Discrimination against Commons is high, and they are treated as the tools for allowing the Topsiders to live richly. In rebellion against their limited freedom, the Commons started to duel while riding Duel Runners, which are motorcycles combined with Duel Disks. These duels later became known as Turbo Duels. New Domino City is ruled by the High Council who uphold the law and Sector Security who act as police for the Topsiders. To maintain the peace of the city, the High Council hold the yearly Friendship Cup, where Duelists from both the Topsiders and Commons can fairly duel each other on Duel Runners. However, those who lose are sent to an underground garbage refinery with little to no chance of returning to the surface. After Yuya's duel against Jack in the Friendship Cup final match, the High Council retired and the social class system was abolished. Some of the characters from the 5Ds series reappear as different dimension counterparts, who are primarily the main characters, Jack Atlas and Crow Hogan.

Xyz Dimension

The Xyz Dimension is a dimension, where its residents all use Xyz Summoning. It bares homages to Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal. Its setting is Heartland City, which serves as the setting of the first half of the third season. Heartland City was reduced to ruin from the invasion by the Fusion Dimension's Duel Academy with the remaining survivors forming a Resistance group based in the ruined Heartland City becoming their base. Before the invasion, there were two branches of the Heartland Duel School called Spade Branch and Clover Branch, where both became the main forces for the Resistance group. The Spade Branch was wiped out in a later assault. Kite Tenjo is one of the main characters of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, who makes a reappearance as a different world counterpart from the Zexal series.

Fusion Dimension

The Fusion Dimension is a dimension, where its residents all use Fusion Summoning. It bares homages to Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. It serves as the setting of the second half of the third season. When Leo came to the Fusion Dimension upon regaining his memories, he establishes the militant-based Duel Academy and gathers many strong Duelists from all over the dimension to achieve his goal of hunting down Ray's incarnations. The students of Duel Academy are mostly children who were taken from other families once of age. They are forced to remain on the campus to be trained as child soldiers until the Arc Area Project is completed. Those who escaped from Duel Academy are branded as traitors and will be carded as punishment. Alexis Rhodes and Aster Phoenix are two of the main characters from GX, who make their reappearance in this dimension.

Original Dimension

The Original Dimension, also known as the United World, is a futuristic utopia that both the original form of the Four Dimensions and where the ARC System truly originated. When Zarc began his rampage, Ray used the En Cards her father developed to splinter their reality to divide Zarc's being and render him harmless at cost of herself splintered in the process. Leo used the Arc-V Reactor he built in the Fusion Dimension to restore the Original Dimension by forcefully merging Zuzu and her counterparts back into Ray. When Ray used the En Cards to split the world back into the four dimensions, Declan reveals the dimensions are still linked by the still active remains of Arc-V serving as wormholes, with Ray's essence still in the reactor core within the Fusion Dimension, until Yuya pacified Zarc.

Anime

Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V was first announced in December 2013 in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The anime series began airing on TV Tokyo from April 6, 2014, which replaced Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal in its initial time slot. 4K Media Inc. acquired the series outside of Japan and planned to release the series internationally in 2015. The 4K version had its debut on March 12, 2015 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as part of the Yep! anime/cartoon block on ProSieben Maxx. In North America, the English Dub began airing on Canada's Teletoon on July 24, 2015, and on Nicktoons in the United States on February 21, 2016.

Manga

A manga one-shot illustrated by Naohito Miyoshi was published in the July 2014 issue of Shueisha's V Jump magazine released on May 21, 2014. An English version was released on May 26, 2014 on Weekly Shonen Jump. A full adaptation by Miyoshi began serialization in V Jump on August 21, 2015. It was published in English by Viz Media in its digital Shonen Jump on August 24, 2015. A spin-off manga by Akihiro Tomonaga titled Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V: Saikyō Duelist Yuya!! (ゆう☆戯ぎ☆王おう ARC-V 最強デュエリスト遊矢!!, lit. "Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V: Yuya the Greatest Duelist!!) began serialization in Saikyō Jump on April 3, 2015.

Music

There are currently three official soundtracks released by Marvelous Entertainment.

Trading Card Game

Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V adds new game play elements to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game following its introduction in April 2014. It introduces Pendulum Monsters to the game. The Pendulum Monster cards use 'Scales'. When these cards are used in newly added 'Pendulum Zones', the 'Scales' allow players to simultaneously summon multiple monsters at once.

Video game

A video game based on the series, Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V Tag Force Special was released in Japan on January 22, 2015. The game was released for the PSP and PS Vita.

Reception

The series ranked 64 in Tokyo Anime Award Festival in Top 90 TV Anime 2016 category with 729 votes.