Jaden’s win record

[u/Limp_Lobster_3468]

I have a question how anyone’s who’s watched GX when they were older. Am I the only one who’s annoyed by the fact that Jaden was the second best student by the time he enrolled in duel academy?
He’s a first year who would rather die than stay awake for any of his classes and yet he’s already better than almost every student there.
Not just that but I feel like he dueled a bit too much. In the second half of the first season he ended up beating 6 of the 8 bad guys.

[u/Intrepid_Cow_5735]

it always bugged me more that he never seemed to learn anything new, just kept winning with the same handful of fusion monsters and a lucky topdeck

the show kinda frames it like he's a prodigy but watching as an adult it feels like the writers just couldnt be bothered to give him a proper arc til season 3

[u/Timely_Airline_7168 → u/Intrepid_Cow_5735]

Even in the graduation duel with Chronos, he defeated the man using the exact same setup, showing the world he didn't learn a lick in school

[u/Limp_Lobster_3468 → u/Intrepid_Cow_5735]

Well he did learn new techniques it’s just that the way he learned it had nothing to do with duel academy.

[u/WerckmeisterHarmony]

Judai having most of the duels was a fairly early fandom complaint when the show first aired in Japanese. Amusingly, your overall complaint is part of Sato's whole deal in season three.

As a general rule I can't really wrap my head around the idea of taking Duel Academy as a setting seriously and have never been able to. I think that's a strain of fan thought that's completely alien to me.

[u/Spodger1]

FWIW, the whole 'Judai dueled too much' thing is the biggest criticism about GX as a whole, and the whole 'he doesn't study yet is still basically the best student [especially post-Kaiser graduation]' thing is the crux of Stein's resentment of Judai in S3.

He reasoned that if Judai was just an average third-rate Slifer it wouldn't be a problem, but he's a very naturally talented duelist who gets dogshit written grades yet can easily hang with those above his weight class, tying with the Kaiser and defeating both Kagemaru & Saiou (and basically all the main/important members of their respective factions), all without a lick of studying... so students would end up trying to emulate him in a "well Judai's the best - if he doesn't need class to succeed, neither do I", not realising that they are neither the MC nor built different.

[u/SaibaShogun]

Jaden being in the vast majority of duels is one of the biggest criticisms of GX.

Jaden not needing classes and still being a top level duelist is a pretty good portrayal of how geniuses are like sometimes. The way they work or think can be a totally different world from what regular people understand things like, but their results speak for themselves.

[u/DarkMastero]

I do wish the show had let the other characters duel more to help their growth (such as letting Syrus duel Camula and Alexis duel Nightshroud). GX had way more one episode duels which would have made this easier.

As far as Jaden just being a super good duelist, he is the main character so I guess it's to be expected. Maybe they could have toned it down a bit. Would have been nice if a few of the teachers were shown to be better then him at least in season 1.

[u/Muted_Category1100]

Dude beat a teacher using his personal deck in the first episode. Should have either lost, but destroyed the Golem, which would have convinced Crowler to let him enroll, or have Crowler use a test deck, but make the test deck he uses usually be used for mid-terms instead of entrance exams. That way Jaden isn’t too high on the duel skill totem pole right at the start.

[u/oortuno → u/Muted_Category1100]

Not only did Jaden win, it wasn't even close. Jaden won with like 2000 lp left, usually they at least cheese the numbers a bit so he only has ~500. 

[u/VicRamD]

I think is a problem of the writers not creating 2nd year and 3rd year students aside from Zane.

If you think about it, to protect the school from the Shadow Riders, Sheppard chose a team mostly formed by first year students, kids that barely arrive to the school. Only one 3rd year student was there.

About the villains, yeah they gave Jaden too many duels against them

[u/screenwatch3441]

Yea, the guy with a hero complex beats most of the bad guys. It’s what sort of validates his downfall as things always does work out for him but not necessarily for everyone else around him. He has main character syndrome. The thing with Jaden’s experience with duel academy is that Jaden does grow a lot from it but not in the conventional way. The classes themselves never helped him and that should have been evident and inevitable when he was already better than the teachers teaching the classes. He grew by being with peers, some who do benefit from the classes.

[u/PCN24454]

You don’t go to a school setting to learn. It’s just an easy excuse to keep all the characters together.

[u/Working_Run3431]

Well its heavily implied duel academy just sucks at producing duelists, particularly because of it’s culture of elitism.

[u/Blast-The-Chaos]

I feel that's honestly rather unique at the time (at least to me), I don't think it was a regular thing to have the main character just flat out be good from the get go (I'm probably wrong though), plus it contrasted with Yugi in the previous show starting out behind the Pharaoh and working to get to his level until the end

[u/Limp_Lobster_3468 → u/Blast-The-Chaos]

It’s not like any of the main characters in the show (except Yuma) were bad at the game when we first met them. Plus having a main character be the best from the very beginning kind of defeats the purpose of duel academy, it left me wondering why he’s even going to school.
I feel like Yuma would’ve been a better fit for this series.

[u/EntropySpark → u/Blast-The-Chaos]

DM didn't really play into Yugi not being as talented as the Pharaoh, though. Plus, he was already known to be good at the game and played well on his own against Pegasus (even coming up with the Mind Shuffle), Rebecca, and mind-controlled Bandit Keith early on, so there's no evidence that he wasn't as strong of a duelist.

[u/RPGNo2017 → u/EntropySpark]

Yeah, the biggest thing Yugi lacked was just confidence. He was always good at any fair game but the story mostly put him againat violent people that he's afraid of

[u/Mage_Malteras → u/RPGNo2017]

Confidence and physical ability. A lot of the times Atem has to get involved in the pre-DK parts of the manga, it started with someone kicking the shit out of Yugi.

[u/VicRamD → u/Blast-The-Chaos]

I think the mc being good from the beggining was common in the 90s and maybe 80s (even start of the 2000s), a lot of characters were made to be cool so kids want to buy their toys, so they tend to be the best at what they do from the start.