Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, Aki Izayoi, and Rehabilitation

While composing my thoughts for the follow up to my last post I realized that while I could easily talk about the big themes being conveyed in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s and touch on which characters represent which aspects in an abstract manner, I wouldn’t really have the time or space to touch upon some other aspects. I regrettably had to gloss over much of what 5D’s has to say with Aki. So let’s fix that. While this is largely a companion piece to my post on The Fortune Cup, I will be discussing Aki Izayoi throughout the series, rather than focus on how one single story arc used her character. There will be spoilers.

The Black Rose Witch

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There’s a few common refrains about Aki Izayoi when the fandom talks about her role in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, but the one I’m interested in looking at is the idea that Aki “Got away with” the acts of violence she was shown to be committing during the first arc, and that future stories in 5D’s tried to bury that. In my rebuke of this take, maybe a few of the other common criticisms of Aki’s character arc can be better understood, though maybe not fully rectified.

So what are Aki’s crimes? When we first hear of her 14 episodes into the show, she’s shown wearing her “Black Rose Witch” outfit and terrorizing the people of Neo Domino with her psychic powers. The characters talk of rumors regarding some of those who dueled her having died but we never get a hard confirmation on that with the exception of one character in the show’s second story arc, called The Dark Signers arc. We soon learn that case was a lie, but seeing the destruction she caused in her debut, it’s very unlikely that many people walked away from her without at least being seriously injured and the show doesn’t shy away from reminding us of the destruction Aki can and has caused. When The Dark Signers arc concludes and the next story arc begins, Aki rejoins society after a six month time skip.

5D’s vs. Prison

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Before we’re ever introduced to Aki Izayoi, the show has us spend several episodes inside of the penal system of Neo Domino City when Yusei is thrown in there for the crime of entering the city illegally from Satellite. While this wording hints at there being a legal way to move up from the city and into Satellite, we see that this is impossible in practice even to the point where Rex Godwin’s assistance still required Jack Atlus to illegally enter the city and cover up that he wasn’t a Neo Domino native. Since that mini-arc gives us a good look at what 5D’s thinks about punishment, we’re going to have to take a detour to talk about it. Also I didn’t get to last time so I’m squeezing it in but don’t tell anyone.

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a 1975 book by the French philosopher Michel Foucault that analyzes penal systems across Western cultures. In the book, Foucault points out several absurdities within our normal way of thinking about punishment, such as the story we’re often told about how punishment’s function is to prevent crime or to reform criminals. The absurdity arises when we see that not only does crime still exist, but that punishment has statistically made the punished more likely to reoffend. He also points out how the kinds of crimes that receive the strongest punishments are those committed by the lower classes. In the book he concludes that since the narrative we’re given about the penal system is demonstrably untrue or at least unsatisfactory, then there must be another reason for its continued support.

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  Just FYI I’m simplifying this a lot.

Yusei sees two sections of the detention facility while in Neo Domino’s custody. One is for short term “reform” where he would be sent back to Satellite after a short sentence. There he meets Himuro, a former professional Riding Duelist who was arrested for an undisclosed crime after he lost his prestige in the pro circuit. In typical shonen fashion, he starts off as kind of a prick but comes around after a game with Yusei. The second section is the most important one, but during his entire stay Yusei is abused and tortured by the prison staff. Partially because Godwin wants tests run on him to see if he’s one of the Signers (basically the chosen ones) but we’re told in no uncertain terms that the warden punishes Yusei with prejudice due to Yusei being from Satellite.

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Yusei and the friends he made in the short term wing are moved to the long term holding area without any given reason. The poor treatment escalates here since we’re no longer dealing with prisoners set to be released in the near future. In this half of the mini-arc, Takasu becomes adamant that “Satellite trash” like Yusei couldn’t possibly be a Signer and ends up turning his wrath not just on Yusei, but his friends as well. Remember that Yusei was arrested for something that’s considered a real crime, and was sentenced by the city’s courts to be “rehabilitated” and where he actually ended up was under the thumbs of Rex Godwin and a hyper abusive, prejudiced warden. Worth noting that everyone in the detention center is portrayed as likable, or at least sympathetic. When Yusei gets out of the detention center, through the graces of Godwin when he realizes that Takasu will probably kill Yusei, the first thing Yusei does is break right back in because they didn’t give him back his stuff.

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In the very last episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, Neo Domino City perfects its free energy source and the police are disbanded once the city reaches a proper utopia. 5D’s agrees with Foucault on this subject. The penal system, and its justifying ideology for punishment is a sham.

Aki in The Fortune Cup

Okay, so we’ve covered what 5D’s has to say about its penal system. We can extrapolate from there why, by the show’s own logic, it would be pretty close to the worst thing that could happen to Aki, or really anyone. So now let’s examine Aki’s character.

In the Fortune Cup arc, Aki enters the tournament under the instruction of her mentor, known only as Divine. Divine, also being a psychic like Aki, shows her a form of compassion by way of complimenting her. Aki was ostracized by her friends and family because she couldn’t control her powers and became dangerous, so Divine’s support meant a lot to her. Due to Aki’s, um, design it may be hard to remember that she’s only 16 when the show begins and she’s likely spent at least one year with Divine. If you read my post on The Fortune Cup arc in general, you probably know where this is going, but Divine’s support of Aki isn’t genuine. It’s a form of control. Divine is taking advantage of a broken teenager’s need for companionship in order to get her to do what he wants.

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This is how he speaks to her for the entire show. He talks her up and then instructs her on what to do. Contrast this with the first conversation she has with Yusei when they speak about being Signers.

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This is the first time in the show that we see ANYONE ask Aki what she thinks.

Over the course of the first arc, Aki is pitted against a knight who claims to be from a royal bloodline (whether this is an act for a pro duelist or he really believes this is left up in the air) and a man called “The Profiler” who was hired by Godwin to psychologically torture Aki during their duel. They both, along with the crowd, call her dehumanizing things like “The Witch” or “Monster.” The Profiler takes it even further by revealing what he’s learned from digging into her past during the duel and taunting her with it. Not for nothing, but he also uses this card.

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Of course, neither of them are able to defeat Aki and she uses her powers in anger to seriously injure them by the end of the duel. While watching these duels, Yusei tries to understand Aki. He notes that he can observe her rejection and anger while watching her lash out at her tormentors but says there’s something else there as well.

When it’s finally time for Yusei and Aki to duel each other, Yusei proposes the idea that Aki enjoys hurting her tormentors. The first episode of this two parter leaves it hanging there, seemingly implying that Yusei is simply calling Aki some kind of sadist. In the second half of their duel, Yusei pushes further after he gets Aki to confess that she does enjoy dealing out pain as a form of retribution to the society that rejected her.

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  It’s very subtle

But 5D’s isn’t satisfied with just saying that Aki is a monster and that’s that. There’s a second hidden layer under the first. As Yusei pushes the point, he summons Stardust Dragon which causes both of their Signer birthmarks to glow and burn. When Aki again comments that it’s a “detestable mark” Yusei acknowledges her feelings that without that birthmark, without being a chosen one, that society wouldn’t have rejected her, and that she wouldn’t have been pushed into being the person she is now. In Aki’s own words, “That’s why I hate myself.” This is the reason she gives for creating the “Black Rose Witch” persona: to disassociate. This was the state that Divine found her in and when she started to let him think for her.

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At first, Yusei’s answer to this is a kind of blunt “You shouldn’t run from your problems,” which would be unhelpful if he left it at that, but as you’ve probably guessed, he doesn’t. Both their literal conversation, and metaphorical conversation via cardplay continues. He asserts that Aki’s attempts at disassociation proves that she can start over and that she can save herself. Not him, not Divine. He insists that she is capable of saving herself.

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But that’s just the beginning. Yusei breaks Aki’s shell, and he wins their card game, but that’s not enough to make her do a 180 right away. No, rehabilitation is a long process and it’s one that will last throughout the rest of the show. And that’s the part that people tend to draw the most issue with.

Aki Izayoi

For most of The Dark Signers arc, Divine is supposedly dead. It’s also revealed that his experiments killed the younger brother of Aki’s antagonist and staged his death as being the result of another Black Rose Witch rampage, due to the boy displaying that he could possibly be a psychic. Many people see this as an attempt to whitewash Aki’s character since she’s “part of the good guys” now, but I would position that this isn’t necessarily the case. This doesn’t undo anything we saw Aki do in the previous arc, but it does show Aki Divine’s true, hateful character.

When Aki joins the “good guys” it’s after she and Yusei duel again, at the behest of Aki’s parents who saw their duel in the previous arc. Yusei makes more progress with her this time, and her parents being there to support her shows her that, while they failed at providing her the emotional support that she needed, they do still care for her. It’s after this that Aki begins to follow Yusei around like a lost puppy and she does so for almost the rest of the show. In the second half of the show, after the aforementioned time skip, she returns to school, seems to have a good relationship with the rest of the Signers, and even joins a team with them to participate in an international dueling event.

People see this portrayal of Aki as a problem because it defangs her and pushes her into a more traditional role for a female character which is “kind of sexist.” I’m pretty sympathetic to the former complaint. It is pretty regrettable that the writing around Aki becomes much more of the submissive standard that female characters in anime tend to be archetyped as. The former complaint, while I acknowledge that it was hard to see when the show was airing weekly and we were living through it an episode at a time, completely misses the point of what’s happening to Aki. She is being rehabilitated.

In the thick of it, watching week to week this does come off as kind of “shipping” bait and on some level they may have been playing into that. YuseixAki was a popular ship long before Aki’s character ever even appeared in the show and as the show goes on we do see Aki develop a crush on Yusei. What is actually happening, though, is that Aki is clinging to Yusei because Divine is gone. And she didn’t just up and leave him. He was forced out of her life by outside actors who meant to do Aki harm. For someone as broken as she was, that’s not something that you can just walk off.

In the final episodes of 5D’s, Aki and Crow (Yeah, I know) team up to save one of their associates. This is portrayed as Aki being in perfect sync with her teammate and it’s the typical “We won by supporting each other” ending that falls on deaf ears due to the cliche, but in the context of Aki’s character, Aki saves both her teammate and her enemy using her powers and only then it becomes clear that her abilities can be used for something other than destruction.

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In the series finale, there’s a flashforward that shows us that Aki became a doctor. The polar opposite of where she started from, but one that I would argue makes logical sense. When we return to the show’s present we see the team splitting up to pursue their own lives and Aki says her goodbye to Yusei after everyone else has left. This is framed very much like Aki is going to reveal her “feelings” for Yusei and it really pushes that the two are about to kiss… But then, they don’t. Aki and Yusei calmly pull away from each other and Aki leaves to pursue her chosen career path. This is the point where Aki’s character arc reaches its terminus. There’s no moment where a switch is flipped and Aki completely alters her worldview because she lost some card games. No, Aki becomes independent, stable, and complete over the course of 140 episodes thanks to the meaningful connections she found along the way.

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  Quality art.

It’s not a perfect character arc by any means, and 5D’s isn’t a perfect show, but when all is said and done I would argue that Aki’s overall character arc is a positive one that ties into the greater themes of 5D’s like bonds, the nature of authority, and how the former can subvert the latter. It may not be as exciting as more blunt or punchy versions of these stories typically are, but in exchange it shows the long but meaningful process of rehabilitation and rejoining society.