Joey vs. Espa Roba: Part I
Well, it certainly wasted no time with introduction. Right away we see Rex vs. Espa Roba, and it ends just as quickly. A sneak peak of Jinzo, with no indication of its real power. It was nice to have Rex around commenting; he provided an interesting alternative to Yugi & bunch.
The duel seemed slow. Not a whole lot happened. Joey makes a dumb move, Cyber Raider's defense stats are goofed (DEF: 1100, not 2100), Joey fights back with an interesting and powerful Dice combo (imagine Blue Eyes x6! 18,000 attack!!), Espa uses a nifty trap, and Jinzo is revealed. It just seems like so little.
Yes, Espa Roba looks bad. Yes, he sounds worse. This wouldn't be too bad if he had a better deck, but his isn't very original. He mainly has machine monsters (which we've already seen with Bandit Keith). His only distinguishing possessions are his monster-controlling traps and Jinzo (which seems kinda silly, because Jinzo would negate all his traps).
The backstory with the circus kids was weak, but I loved seeing Mokuba as tournament enforcer. He
chased those kids!
The only thing that really bugs me about this show are the multi-colored backgrounds they frequently show behind duelists. It looks bad and makes no sense. They didn't have those at Duelist Kingdom, so why are they here now?
I guess Espers Jhinto is the Psycho Soldier?
Yes, Espa's Jinzo was called Android Psycho Shocker in Japanese.
The scheduling was interesting, showing Keith vs. Joey: Part I in the morning (my second favorite duel of the series). Joey relied on his traps to save him that time, but that won't help him now. I'm curious to see how Joey'll pull it off, but other than that I'm not real interested. Bring on more Rare Hunters, Weevil, and Mako!