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"When the shadows are devoured by even darker shadows, the curtain pulls back and reveals, a world without light!" -Kalin Kessler (5Ds)
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Well, well, well, guess who didn't die yet? Yup, it's me. Surprised? Probably not, lmao. Anyways, my next question would be: what should be my next blog about? And ofc where to find that inspiration? My blog archive wiki lmao. What, you expected that I will randomly stalk other profiles to steal someone's idea? Nah, that's too much effort for me lmao. Anyways, I remembered my "Character's story" blog series and decided to continue with it cause why not?
For character's story series I usually concentrate on characters with harsh history or dramatic change cause they are the most interesting ones to analyse, am I right? And that made me wonder, who should I pick next? Searching trough YGO series and character list, I picked Kalin Kessler from 5Ds. Wonder why? I'll explain now, so let's get it started, shall we?
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Character's information
(A short info that we all love to steal from Wiki...)
°NAME: Kalin Kessler//Kyosuke Kiryu
°AGE: 19
°ORGANISATIONS: Dark Signers, The enforcers // Team satisfaction
°DECK: Infernity
Kallin Kessler is a side character from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds series. He was a former member of the Dark signers with giant as a sign and currently a resident of Satisfaction town. He was a close friend to Yusei, Jack and Crow when they were in team satisfaction back in Satellite.
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Character philosophy
Now, ya'll know that I don't like giving ya random informations that you already know. The point of this blog is to analyse character's philosophy and give some insight about some of his doings and personality. I believe that you also want to see the road our character has been on as well. That's why it's discussion time, get ready, it's philosophy time.
Kalin is an interesting character if you ask me, he literally turned 180° when he became a dark signer and then again 180° to turn back to "normal". Quite a rollercoaster if you ask me.
Unfortunately, the first time we saw Kalin was back then when he was a Dark singer and his personality was crazy and full of maniacal emotions. That personality of his for some reason brought our full interest out because of the things that happened in past between him and Yusei during their duel. Look, as much as his character was a cliché, I was still curious to see how will the story go on and what will happen to Kalin. Let's be honest, he ain't the first one who was a good guy that turned into a bad because he was "betrayed" or thought that he was. All that we care about is mostly about the reason of his change and what's next: will he die/continue with his evilish statement/realise that he was wrong and that's all basically (I don't count those who are interested in deck that he was playing and wanted to know how some archetypes work because I find it useless to learn something from anime, fight me). Anyways, what was the reason he turned himself into a dark singer? How heavy was that reason to force him into complete darkness and evil? Was it justified or another manipulation?
Before all those questions, we need to remember his past that he shared with the crowd from Satellite, with that we can start with deep thoughts and analyse him as well.
So, we all remember that Satellite was basically in a devastating situation where living normally was a fairytale and each day was just a survival until the next and like that 'til "better time" comes? Everyone from that town alongside with Kalin believed that Satellite can force its way out and fight for better today but no one dared to start anything because they were afraid of the consequences for their actions. To break the ice, Kalin believed that he can do something and with that determination he decided to gather a crowd of people who also wanted to make a change. And with that, team enforcers was born with Kalin as their leader.
Yara yara blah blah, to short the story, they thought that before doing something with the government and police they need first to conquer those who are anarchists and want to rule the city without any good intentions. Now, this is the part that started to "corrupt" Kalins heart. Why you ask? The feeling of constant winning and domination basically made him drunk from all that and he wanted to fill his desire and thirst even more while the others from the group just thought that they were releasing the town from bullies. Hey, I'm not telling ya that Kalin didn't want that too, I'm just pointing out what's truly happening inside him. Yeah, he still was a good guy that saved Yusei from near death, but have in mind that he also pushed them to fight against the strongest gang of duelists and after that, he wanted to go even further and fight the central police. And so on, the bois noticed the changes that Kalin went trough and slowly, team enforcers blew apart until he was left alone.
He didn't blame them for leaving him. He considered them as scared kids who aren't brave enough to go further and thought that he can do this by himself. Because of his ignorance, he didn't give a damn about what Jack and Crow had to say nor cared about Yusei's words, and that's what exactly got him into what he thought was "betrayal". No matter how much you think you're able to do something without any help, consultations are always welcome, from friends and family. Hearing someone else's opinion can help trough life. It's just the way it goes and you can't escape from that my friend. And so, our drunk queen tried to duel against the central police guard but in order to be protected from his madness, Yusei decided to jump in and pretend to be the leader of their group because he knew that Kalin would be arrested if he got caught. And somehow Kalin mistakenly thought that Yusei wanted to hand him over and arrest him. Imagine his state of mind where he actually believed that his former teammates wanted to betray him. Absolute madness. And after he got arrested (because the guards figured out that Yusei was lying) he went trough Golgota and during his near death experience, someone or something talked to him, asking him if he had some unfinished business, if yes, then he can be revived as a Dark singer. Without giving a second thought, he said that he has. With Yusei. (Facepalm omg dude you're absolutely crazy I can't even.) And with that, he died from starvation and our Dark singer that we all love was born.
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To be honest, I always loved crazy bad guys in animes, they were on a complete different level of entertainment and bringing up attention because of who they are. Absolute clowns I swear. As much as I believe that once you become a dark singer your heart gets corrupted, I also believe that it doesn't just corrupt it, more like just bringing out the true feelings that someone is hiding from others. Or forcing only the bad sides of a character to make it more interesting. Driving him around with only "betrayal" and "revenge" as his only reasons to live this new life he was given. Again, it's all just about manipulating and that's all. Our poor crazy guy got even more drunk on power now that his personality changed, days he spent in that jail also affected his mind, the torment he went trough also broke him and everything just got mixed and he went on loco, yikes.
Now, time for that dope duel against Yusei. My absolute favourite one trough whole 5Ds series ngl. Blame me but the whole duel was a huge hype for me. A random evil ass character came out of nowhere claiming that he knows Yusei is beating the hell out of him and even he almost defeated our perfect "0 loses" protagonist. What surprised me even more was the trauma Yusei whent trough that was stopping him from riding his d wheel again. D a m n how much I love those episodes with traumatised Yusei heh. Anyways, ignore my sadistic desires, let's got on to what went trough Kalin's mind:
After his theatrical appearance with jumping on his duel runner and whole performance during the duel, he went trough their past, summarising how good their friendship was and how successful team enforcers were while inside of him, something was eating him up. As much as he was angry at Yusei for thinking that he betrayed him, he still couldn't erase all those good memories he had with them. All their successful duels, adventures and fun. It was something that even the power of darkness couldn't take away from him. No matter how much it worked on his anger, it couldn't force him to end Yusei completely. Even tho Kalin was under the influence of evil force, he avoided killing Yusei because deeply inside him, ration was telling him not to do that and to try and summarise everything to see if what he believed in was right. When Roman asked why didn't he killed Yusei, he went trough an excuse such as "keeping him scared" or "preparing for the bigger part" but we all know what was going on deeply inside heh. A beautiful cocktail of random emotions that bothered the hell out of him lmao.
Now, what surprised me even more with this character was the fact that Kalin rejected Yusei's offer to help him. He knew that it was pointless. Even if he accepted his revenge wouldn't be completed and the whole contract with the dark singers would fall apart and he would turn to dust without finishing his job. At that moment, Kalin's eyes were filled with guilt, sadness and realisation of what he did was wrong and the whole betrayal thing wasn't even real. Basically it was "at this moment he knew he fcked up" meme. Literally. And after he rejected Yusei's help, he continued the duel but this time with a different heart. A heart that realized it's his final moment and wants to keep all the good memories until the end. He fought with all his might and power and lost with pride and happiness that Yusei's talk no jitsu helped him to clear some things and grudges he held.
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After his dramatic death, when Goodwin was defeated by Yusei, Kalin magically got revived for second time. Lmao ain't no logic but cool, our tragic character is back yay. But that gives us question, what now? What will he do now?
Defeated with his own greed, thirst and things he did when he was a dark singer, Kalin didn't see a single reason to live normally nor happily. He was basically lost in his own thoughts without optimism or will to talk to anyone about what's truly going on with him. During his headless journeys, he found himself a place where he could stay and do what he thought would bring him satisfaction: dueling for survival. He decided to spend the rest of his life in Crash town where he can pity and downgrade himself until his final end. To be honest, his emotions and opinions are quite understandable, after all, he did hurt a lot of people and brought fear and suffering to citizens of the same town he wanted to protect back then and he even hurt his own friends when he was a dark singer. It wasn't just a thing where he can blame them for corrupting him because he wanted it himself, they weren't pursuing him or forcing to join them ya know?
Later, somehow the magic of filler episodes brought Yusei to Crash town where he met Kalin and with his talk no jutsy style helped his friend to find the way out of his misery. Basically he was given a third chance to live again and he should use it as best as possible because he learned his lesson, he was aware of what he did and he should not pity himself anymore, rather make sure he doesn't make same mistakes as he did in past. With realizing how powerful Yusei's speech was, Kalin went trough his another change of heart and decided to remain like that until the end. Basically he just did 360° to his former self but without that smol greed heh. Oh yeah, also in honor to his glorious past with his amazing friends, he renamed the Crash town to Satisfaction town? Or enforcers town idk, I'm mixed sub and dub at this moment lol. Anyways, he continued with a new page in his life and made some small appearances through the seasons and, I guess lived happily ever after? Idk.
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Deck philosophy
Ignoring the fact that this blog is already long as hecc, I'll do a small analysis for his decks that he used during this series. I'll try to do my best but don't judge if I didn't satisfy your interest because I'm not into Earthbounds and Infernitys thank you.
All that we know about the deck Kalin used when he was in Enforcers was that it had a strategy of keeping your hand full for better options which represents himself as the holder and everything he had, his friends, adventures and good memories. While his new Infernity deck had Infernity Doom Dragon and Earthbound Immortal Ccapac Apu as ace monsters and strategy of keeping his hand empty. And what that resembles you may ask? Simple, a man who lost everything and had nothing else except his anger. He was basically alone there, I doubt that other signers cared about each other. Also, I like the symbolism of his new deck: when handless, power is brought to him. So actually it's about dark singers philosophy, you don't need anyone to be strong. You are strong even without them and you can get even stronger as a lone wolf. Quite inspiring if you ask me heh.
Anyways, sticking to some other cards that Kalin used, Limit impulse and Summoner monk(I think) could represent him as their abilities are to empty his hand from cards (Kalin who gave up on everything for his revenge), while on the other hand, his One hundred-eyed dragon worked on strategy of gathering effects from the dark monsters in his graveyard and copying them. If you ask me, I see this dragon as Kalin, someone who kept his thoughts quiet and gathered all the negativity inside him until he achieved total madness (or power in this case). Crazy comparing ikr but shh this is how philosophy works. But wait! This isn't over. If somehow his One hundred eyed dragon gets negated or destroyed he would immediately use the effect of it and add the Ccapac Apu in his hand. Now this is interesting as hecc. Summarising everything that I just said with his negativity being gathered inside of him, he continued his life in prison as someone who was determined for revenge but the brutality of prison broke him and he died from hunger (he failed like his ace monster) and at his moment of near death, snakes from dark singers called him to join them and all that anger he had was now enforced to his current position and state of mind aka Ccapac Apu which brought him to the top of madness. At least that's how I see the whole relationship between his two ace monsters.
Tbh, the rest of his deck isn't much interesting to me since they all work either discarding or preparing the graveyard for One hundred eyed dragon with Ccapac Apu as his backup (correct me if I'm wrong). And it all resembles the complete character of Kalin Kessler from the enforcers to the end of his dark signer era.
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Conclusion...
A beautiful journey. That's all I have to say. Kalin is actually an interesting character because of many factors including his story and character development and even degradation. Poor guy had to suffer a lot for the plot lmao. Anyways, I do hope that you enjoyed in this mini philosophy class we had today and I would like to hear your opinion on Kalin Kessler. What did you expect from him? Was his character interesting or disappointing? Also, who would you like next to be reviewed? Thank you for reading, sorry for the long post, I'll see ya later. Ps. Sorry for the bad grammar, I went trough a proofread before publishing this blog idk if I missed something.
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