The Waking The Dragons arc is one of the most contentious filler arcs in Yu-Gi-Oh! history, and that's saying a lot, there was quite a bit of filler overall. Waking The Dragons took up an entire season, and introduced all sorts of nonsense to the overall Yu-Gi-Oh! plot that just didn't need to be there. But was it really as bad as some fans make it out to be? Let's take a look at the best and worst aspects of it.
10 Best: The Globetrotting Nature
The Waking The Dragons arc really took its time, and saw the gang going from country to country in their attempts to stop Dartz. It has worldwide consequences. Everyone is dealing with this issue together, not just the main cast. Everyone is losing their souls, so it seems. It's an interesting story set-up for the series, and makes things feel a bit grander than something like the virtual world arc, for example.
9 Worst: Virtually Every Character
Basically every new character introduced in this season is just... bad. Australian needs to tone down the Australianism by 572%, crop top is just too much literally every single time that he's on-screen, the one that beats Yugi is semi-bearable but is way too miserable constantly, and Dartz... eh? Virtually none of these characters are memorable for any sort of good reason, just bad ones. But we'll get into those a bit later.
8 Best: The Stakes
The stakes of this arc were pretty serious due to the effect of The Seal of Orichalcos, a card that stole a player's soul if they were to lose a duel with it in play. Because yes, a paper card has the ability to do that.
The duelists that were introduced in this arc were annoying, yes, but also talented, meaning that the gang could technically lose their souls at any time if they weren't careful. Even Yugi lost a duel very early on in this arc. You really gotta be careful here!
7 Worst: Mai Especially
Mai was a great character that was done so, so dirty by this arc. Not even diving into the voice actress change that... well, no matter... Mai joined the dark side this season, and it was rough to see such a great character go down a dark path. Nevermind that her motivations really didn't make sense considering the journey that she went through the previous season. We also never got to see her again after this arc, meaning that she never got a chance to redeem herself. What a horrible way to go out.
6 Best: The Actual Dragon Cards
The Eye of Timaeus, The Fang of Critias and The Claw of Hermos are actually super cool cards that have a really interesting premise. Having cards that can combine with any monster, trap and spell card respectively to form a new monster (or weapon) with an interesting effect is a ton of fun. These three cards were some of the few from the season that weren't horrible, so that's nice.
5 Worst: Valon And His Cards
This duel. This duel. It's... indescribable. If you know, you know.
Besides Valon just being terrible in general, his entire deck revolved around armor cards that he attaches to his body and physically assaults his opponents with. Absolutely no words. Little did we all know that Joey has some armor cards of his own to use and, well, that's it! Cancel the season. Fully unacceptable.
4 Best: Kaiba & Yugi Vs. Dartz
While some of the things that went on during this duel were absolute nonsense, just like the rest of the season, it was fun to see Kaiba and Yugi team up against Dartz. It's always a good time when those two are working together. As previously noted, while this duel gets to be too much very quickly, it's fun in the beginning at the very least.
3 Worst: The Length
One of Waking The Dragon's biggest issues is that it is far too long, This is, of course, dictated in part by just how much filler is needed in order to keep the series moving with actual canon material, but Waking The Dragons takes up an entire season where it really didn't need to. It runs for 40 episodes when things could have been wrapped up in about 20, meaning that things drag on for longer than needed.
2 Best: The Pharaoh's Rage
Remember that one time when the Pharaoh literally murdered Weevil like 47 times in a row? Beautiful. Stunning. Iconic. Cinema.
While dealing with the Pharaoh sans Yugi for an entire season got to be a bit much as things progressed, this scene alone makes up for it. It is absolutely manic in the best way possible. Atem really did what he had to here.
1 Worst: The Lack Of Actual Cards
Anime-exclusive cards can be a fun time every once in a while, but season four, just like the following filler arc, goes completely overboard. Half the cards used in this arc aren't real, including Valon's entire deck, for example. Leviathan and its infinity attack points aren't real, and neither were many, many other cards this season. Was it so hard to have everyone use real cards for an arc?