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A group of psychic duelists established by Divine to oppose Yliaster in respect of resurrecting the Crimson Dragon. In truth, this was a front for its leader Divine to create an army of psychic duelists and overthrow Rex Godwin. One of its notable members was Aki Izayoi, the group depended on her success in the Fortune Cup so as to let the world know of their ideals, even if that meant revealing themselves to the rest of the people. However, when Aki defects to the Signers, the Arcadia Movement is reduced in shambles.
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Tropes applying to them as a whole
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Arcadia Movement has shades of this. Divine's goal in creating an army of psychic duelists seems to be a metaphor of creating a Master Race. And to that end, he has no qualms kidnapping children, indoctrinating them through torture and unethical experimentation.
- Summon Magic: Literally. Psychic duelists are able to manifest their card monsters even without dueling or using required components for a Synchro monster, something that only Yami Yugi, Yami Bakura, and even Yami Marik can only do.
Members
Divine (Sayer)
Divine (Sayer)
Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese), Marc Thompson (English)
The leader of the Arcadia Movement. His organization offers refuge for psychic duelists rejected by society, but conducts experiments on people with psychic potential at the same time. One of his goals is to raise an army to wage war on the world to take revenge on all the people who reject and revile the psychic duelists and made him what he is. He was the first person who ever accepted Aki and gave her a home, even if only because of her strong psychic powers.
He uses a Psychic deck, appropriately.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: He is the leader of an organization of Duelists with psychic powers. Despite this, he tells Carly he doesn't believe in the supernatural, including fortune-telling.
- Asshole Victim: It was a smart idea by Yusei to bait Divine into yelling out the quiet part out loud about Toby while Aki and Misty are dueling, in response, the latter commands Ccarayhua into devouring him. Poetic justice is an understatement. But if that wasn't enough, nobody could care less about him once he's behind bars after the Dark Signers' defeat.
- Badass Longcoat: Keeps one in season 1, and when he returns at the end of season 2.
- Bait the Dog: He's a Psychic Duelist who has been rejected by society for fear of his powers, and takes in other Psychic Duelists who have gone through similar experiences, but it turns out he cares more about power than their suffering, and will remorselessly kill them if he believes they are no use to him.
- Big Bad Wannabe: What he ends up being, as he's disposed of by the Dark Signers twice and doesn't execute any major plans.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Wears two black ones.
- Dark Is Evil: A lot of his monsters are dark-attribute
- Disney Death: While believed to be dead after he was swallowed by Ccarayhua, materials reveal that he is revived at some point after the Dark Signer arc, but is quickly arrested and brought to the Facility.
- Eaten Alive: By Earthbound Immortal Ccarayhua after an Accidental Public Confession.
- Engineered Public Confession: Falls victim to one of these in Episode 61, leading to his death.
- Evil Laugh: Does this sometimes.
- Evil Redhead: He's got a head of red hair, and while he never reaches Big Bad (or even Arc Villain) status, there's no denying that he's an amoral and ruthless man.
- Fatal Flaw: Overconfidence. Letting his guard down after Carly comes back as a Dark Signer costs him greatly, and he doesn't learn, making an unwise remark towards Misty when Ccarayhua is in plain view.
- Faux Affably Evil: Puts on a very calm and affable demeanor, but once things start to go awry don't expect it to last.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Uses a gold-plated duel disk.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: After losing to Dark Signer Carly he gains some crazy burns on the side of his face.
- Hate Sink: He sees people as pawns rather than people and shows no remorse for the misery he causes (namely towards Aki and Misty) for his own personal gain. It only took Aki to learn it beforehand when she learns the truth about his actions and eventually the truth about Toby's death.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Even after the Dark Signers are defeated, Divine still ends up arrested and locked behind bars according to the Yu-Gi-Oh! 10th Anniversary Animation Book.
- Karmic Death: Twice. He survives his first one and is revived after the second.
- Kick the Dog: He tortured and killed innocent people with his experiments. He also kills Carly.
- Killed Off for Real: Subverted, twice.
- Lack of Empathy: After being exposed as the culprit behind the death of Misty's little brother, he outright boasts about how he doesn't need people he can't use. His actions before this boast supports his worldview, ignoring people he doesn't need at best, and invoking You Have Outlived Your Usefulness at worst.
- Last Words: "I don't need people I can't use". Spoken to Misty, who had just learned that Divine was the one who had killed her brother. Who also had Ccarayhua in play.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's manipulated Aki so much that he can mind-control her just by whispering a code phrase into her ears.
- Meaningful Name: "Sayer" is a good name for the guy controlling Aki like a puppet.
- Not Quite Dead: After his first, supposed death.
- Obstructive Zealot: Gets in the way of the Signer's plans for his own goals.
- The Power of Hate: His Synchro chants reference his hate a lot.
- Psychic Powers: As a Psychic Duelist, he can manifest his cards in reality, and his duels can inflict actual damage. He's also the series' first user of Psychic-type monsters, carrying pretty much every one of the initial wave of Psychic cards.
- Sanity Slippage: After losing to Carly.
- Saying Too Much: After commenting that he'd never expected to go as far as trick Misty into becoming a Dark Signer, Yusei deduces that Divine was directly responsible for the death of Misty's little brother.
- Smug Snake: Far too assured of himself for his own good. It bites him in the ass hard.
- The Sociopath: Checks a few number of boxes. He is overwhelmingly arrogant and superficially charming, sees anyone as a means to an end rather as individuals, and feels no shame or remorse for the suffering he has caused.
- Straw Hypocrite: He didn't really care about the plights of Psychic Duelists, he just wanted power.
- Too Dumb to Live: Really not a good idea to insult a kid you murdered in front of his vengeful sister when she has a thousand-foot-tall lizard demon backing her up...
- Trigger Phrase: He used one of these to trigger Aki's 'Black Rose Witch' persona.
- Underestimating Badassery: Doesn't believe the Dark Signers to be a problem. Then he gets destroyed by one.
- Unexplained Recovery: Seeing as he appears after being beaten in a Duel of Darkness and No One Could Survive That!, it certainly qualifies, especially.
- The Worf Effect: Established as a good duelist with his defeats of Lua and Carly. He is then used to show how powerful Carly became upon revival.
- Villain Ball: For no good reason other than to firmly confirm what a thoroughly depraved individual he is, he decides that it's a good idea to insult Misty's deceased brother in front of her by telling her that "I don't need people I can't use". Did we mention that Misty had Ccarayhua, a demonic lizard-god, in play at the time?
Toby Lola (Toby Tredwell)
Toby Lola (Toby Tredwell)
Voiced by: Mayumi Tsuchida (Japanese), Andrew Rannells (English)
Misty's deceased younger brother and the main motivation for why she became a Dark Signer. Toby was a psychic who joined the Arcadia Movement because of his admiration for Aki Izayoi. He was killed by Divine during one of the experiments.
- Ascended Fanboy: He joined the Arcadia Movement because he admired Aki. Turned out to not be such a good idea...
- Big Sister Worship: Not much is shown about his relationship with his sister, but he really loved her.
- Death by Origin Story: His death led to Misty's death by a car accident, who then became a Dark Signer to avenge him.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Despite Aki's protests that she had never met Toby, her duel against Misty reveals that she actually did met him before. But due to her cold personality at the time, it was only a minute moment for her as she was not impressed at all by his fanboy enthusiasm and coldly dismisses him to Sayer.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Despite the bad rumors about the Arcadia Movement he heard, he still joined it and assured his older sister that it wasn't a bad place. It ultimately killed him.
- Irony: He was probably the only person prior to the series to not fear Aki for her powers and admire her instead (not counting Sayer due to having ulterior motivations for Aki). Unfortunately, he was coldy dismissed by Aki herself.
- Kill the Cutie: He was a cute little brother of Misty and an admirer of Aki, but Divine didn't care.
- Posthumous Character: He was dead long before the first time he was mentioned.
- Psychic Powers: He was a Psychic Duelist, but his Psychic Power wasn't strong.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the dub, Sayer simply shipped him off to a Greater-Scope Villain after he failed.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Because his Psychic Power wasn't strong enough, Divine let him die during an experiment.
Aki Izayoi (Akiza Izinski)
See her folder in the Team 5D's page.
