The astute among our readers may notice that this review is late, similar to the last. Unfortunately, I can offer no real excuses this time. I have simply had a surprising lack of words to describe this episode. Not because it is so good that I am at a loss, but because this episode manages to contain so little in its 20 minutes of import that I only had to look at the screen every once and a while to catch tiny slivers of original content. In fact, I want you to take a good look at the featured image above. Take in those decently drawn anime girl legs, because that is 95% of the new footage in this episode. For some reason I can simply not fathom, it was determined that what this series really needed to follow up its best episode so far, 13 episodes in, was a recap episode.

“But Medraut, recap episodes can be entertaining.”

Yes, but the writers of this show did not simply decide on a recap. They somehow managed to create a recap so spectacularly dull that it reverses the momentum the previous episodes had given to the narrative. This is momentum the show sorely needs, especially this early on when the viewer needs to be hooked in order to catch the exposition still being pieced together for the story (a term I use loosely) to flow properly. For context, imagine that you’re watching Star Wars Episode IV. Luke leaves Tattooine to help free Princess Leia, but instead of moving on to a rendezvous with the Rebels, the movie immediately plays a 10 minute clipshow of what had taken place so far.

A “clip show” is precisely what this recap is too, dressed up as a news scoop put together by the reporter characters that I won’t even dignify looking up the names for. All that matters is that their digital avatars are a seagull and a frog, for some reason. Why are these two characters the only people with non-human avatars shown so far. Good luck getting VRAINS to address that. To be fair, they aren’t awful characters, but they are by no means interesting either. Every once and a while the stream of footage will pause for an interjection by Ghost Girl, shifting her crossed legs back and forth as shown above.

Hell, I can’t even comment on the animation in all honesty, because most of what is seen has been shown before. I guess they draw Ghost Girl to look appealing enough, but is that even a compliment? Do yourself a favor and forget this episode exists if you’re intent on continuing with VRAINS. It is simply not worth your time.

Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS – Episode 13

3.2

Writing

1.0/10

Visuals

7.0/10

Enjoyability

1.5/10

Pros

• This episode has no pros

Cons

• The entire thing is worthless

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Medraut

Medraut is co-pilot of Cards on The Table, a lover of B-Movies, and will play Madolche until the day Yu-Gi-Oh! dies. He enjoys long walks on the beach and staying up until 5 a.m. insisting that 60 card Paleozoic Volcanics will work.