What if the day the Hoshino family was created they had this unspoken competition where they would compete every chapter to see who was the most fucked up and needed therapy cause reading these leaks has me thinking it’s canon LMAO

Aoi Zaizen & Misogyny

The characterization Aoi is given in Vrains isn't exactly subtle about how it wants to frame her, but I've had a fair share of ppl try to say the writing isn't misogynistic, and so to prove my argument here, I just figured I'd go beat by beat in her character arc and see what it points to.

Aoi is a character defined by her helplessness. Before we even meet her, she is made helpless. From the very beginning her struggle is about her brother trying to watch out for her because he's worried she'll get hurt- this isn't inherently a bad setup for a conflict or a character arc, I'm not say saying it is. But it's already starting Aoi off in a position where she is being protected, and any attempt to break out of that is considered selfish. We are expected to understand early on that Aoi is putting herself in circumstances she cannot handle by getting involved in the plot. And it shows. Before she even gets her first duel, Aoi is brainwashed. That's a new record, even amongst Yugioh girls.

The duel with Playmaker is, itself, fine. It's pretty well written and it allows the potential for future growth on Aoi's part. But it'd be wrong not to note that it's this situation that reinforces her helplessness and puts her in coma #1. Aoi is being controlled and is reliant on Playmaker to defeat her, and later, to save her. Her consciousness is wagered in the duel against Revolver, yet it always seems strange that it is. Yusaku's motivation for fighting Revolver is absolutely not about Aoi, it's about his revenge. Aoi is an afterthought. He's not dueling Revolver to save her, it's her needing to be saved that gave him the opportunity to duel Revolver. They have enough tension at play by this point to make Aoi's involvement irrelevant, the only contribution it offers is the occasional shot of Akira watching the duel.

I'm gonna mainly gloss over the duel against the A.I. and Akira vs Yusaku aside from noting a few things. Aoi defeating the AI is fine, it gives her a decent win. It's mostly a result of being on Playmaker's side, and it's not really a significant opponent, but it's a meaningful win if it establishes a new character shift. Which I'll go on to establish it doesn't do. Aoi reaching out to Playmaker and wanting to know his story would also be meaningful and relevant if it went anywhere, but 50 episodes later she still doesn't know Playmaker's identity and had to be given another connection to the lost incident bc her relation to Yusaku was that weak.

So in any case. Aoi awakens from coma #1 and is determined not to be weak anymore, and decides to fight for the sake of others in her duel against Vaira. This is the ONLY relevant win she ever gets, and the one everyone seems to love to parade around as if it proves the rest of her losses don't count, or that I'd be the misogynistic one for ignoring this win. This is ignoring, however, that this duel was part of a series of duels building up Aoi, Yusaku, and Go as they ALL got their own respective Knight of Hanoi to defeat in order to bump up their characters. Go and Aoi hadn't done much by this point, and if they were meant to be Playmaker's partners, they needed something additional to build them up. This one win can't be counted as any more significant than Go's win against Doctor Genome or Yusaku's win against Faust. I like these episodes, I like the way Aoi is written in them and I LOVE that she gets to be the hero. But it's disingenuous to imply this single instance of winning dismisses the following assault of bad writing.

As part of her decision to fight for others, Aoi sympathizes with and even tries to save Specter, who by all means she should have every right to hate. In a twist of backwards development, he gets to win, so that he can have a hastily-constructed reason to duel Playmaker instead, making her the only one to lose to a minor villain out of the party. This duel is riddled with Bad Stuff so much so that I don't even feel a real need to touch on it. The main thing of note though is that the annoying plant man's arrogance comes from the fact that he sees everything coming, nothing surprises him. He gets to be in control the whole time, guiding Aoi along as he mocks her. She is helpless from the beginning of this duel. Whether or not you'd like to claim Specter specifically is a well written character is it's own argument, but necessary in that conversation is the note that any development he gains is at the expense of Aoi. She is an expense in this duel, a sacrifice to give Yusaku one more big opponent before Revolver. Enter coma #2. The Tower of Hanoi arc ends and everyone comes back.

Season 2 is when all the character transformations happen, and for Aoi, each one is just a big neon sign of her imposed weakness.

Blue Angel becomes Blue Girl. This is meant to be a big moment on Aoi's decision to fight in a new way and improve herself. She talks abt improving her deck and becoming stronger. In the episode literally titled "Blue Girl's First Duel" she loses to Soulburner and does not duel again before her second transformation.

This strange, confusing and ultimately pointless transformation doesn't last long, as soon enough she encounters Aqua and suddenly remembers Miyu.

Enter Blue Maiden. NOW we're supposed to understand that Aoi has ACTUALLY matured, for real this time, we promise. Now she's fighting for her childhood friend's consciousness, she has the plot-armor of an Ignis, and a new deck. She is framed alongside Takeru and Yusaku as a main protagonist. She's even being called a victim of the Lost Incident now, albeit secondhand. It seems that while she was put through the wringer, she's at least finally been given the chance to shine.

Several Yusaku, Takeru, and Blood Shepard duels later, Blue Maiden finally gets her first duel. A speed duel against Haru. She wins. Hooray, she beat a relevant character, and all it took was a completely new deck and 2 transformations! Sarcasm aside, she naturally couldn't lose here. You can imagine Marincess debuting only for its user to immediately be killed off again, and to top it all off, this is before the killing game of late season 2 begins. They're saving the deaths for that. But on the bright side, Aoi gets a win to show off her new deck and new resolve, and it has the handy side effects of taking care of Haru and giving slight motivation to Bohman.

But now Bohman is here, and he has to defeat literally everyone except Playmaker so we can have their 5th duel. Aoi is, of course, the first to duel him. He wagers the data for Miyu's consciousness in much the same way Revolver wagered Aoi's. Even with plot armor though, Aoi has to lose. Does it make narrative sense? Oh, sure. Can't have the big bad lose on the first big match. But if that's where your analysis stops, you aren't trying to think critically at all.

You have to understand the implications of these repeated losses. Aoi is given new resolve each time only to have it ripped away, and a random new motivation is thrust upon her as the plot demands it. She loses so Playmaker can clean up the villain she failed to beat.

And that is, of course, without even bothering to ask why Miyu has to be in a coma at all, why Ema loses so much and is being sidelined now. Whatever happened To Queen, after Go lost? The very few girls Vrains has bothered to write have very little agency. Aoi may get the spotlight among them, but she is highlighted only to be the designated loser, the one who tries her best and always falls short to show how dangerous the threat is. Whatever this may do to her psyche can be worked out by thrusting a new character motivation onto her. Next arc she'll once again care about becoming stronger, for the sake of some new arbitrary thing. She'll always be attempting to grow, with no success.

It's also worth noting that much of Aoi's suffering is to serve Akira's very lukewarm character arc. And you can ask yourself why Aoi has to fight for her brother always, or later on her childhood friend, when Yusaku gets to fight for himself. Aoi is almost always fighting for the sake of someone else, but the answer is simply that this is a byproduct of what Aoi has had to become. Continually fighting for herself is redundant if she can't win the way Yusaku does. She needs a new reason to reignite her flames of passion so that her drive to get better won't go out. Yet it will always fall short, each and every time.

Aoi's character is defined by helplessness and desperation as she struggles against forces that have already decided she is worthy neither of victory nor even basic respect.