Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 076 The Legendary Dragon

The only legend I can see surrounding the Blue Eyes White Dragon is its track record of simply disappearing on its summoner. Two out of the three duels it has appeared in so far it's totally bailed on. Not a super reliable creature, if you ask me. Of course, we could be talking about another dragon entirely, but given our opening shot...

... I don't know if I can think of any other dragon that could have been meant.

Maybe a new dragon? OOOOOH! Everyone keep your fingers crossed for a new dragon!

Anyway, Yami and his imp (yes, the hologram too) are staring open-mouthed at the fit of disbelief Conical Hat Weirdo is throwing. He half-stands, letting Dummy!Kaiba fall to the floor unceremoniously as he insists that the disappearance of his monster can't be happening, then wondering why it's happening. What's the next stage of grief again, and when do we get to the acceptance part so that we can get on with this duel?

Yami is thinking  on Kaiba with a look of shock. But that doesn't last long.

Did you believe in KAIBA, Yami, or your bleak interpretation of his will to live? Or, maybe this is another conflation of the GAME they're playing with actual life, where Yami is saying Kaiba's will to survive in the game and win controlled the card's disappearing act? A disappearing act that would be far more suited to a MAGICIAN, by the way...

Jonouchi and Honda are pumping their fists in the air outside the booth, while Anzu and Bakura maintain some measure of dignity. Jonouchi calls out to Yami, wondering what move he pulled to make the Blue Eyes White Dragon disappear, saying it was a rockin' trick to make the thing self-destruct like that. Anzu is looking a little forlorn as she questions why as well, because it looked to her that Kaiba's card just refused to attack. Jonouchi immediately begins to lambast her for suggesting that the card was thinking for itself rather than having people make decisions for it. Just like the women-folk, amirite Jonouchi? In the process, he makes a conjugation error in his speech because LOL he's so DUMB.

Anzu guesses he's right, though, even if she IS a little perturbed by how angry he is about her sharing her point of view. Me too, actually. Bakura isn't very inquisitive, saying that no matter how it happened, Yami still has a chance to win. I suppose all his sense of curiosity is focused on those Millennium Items, huh?

Mokuba is stoked, cheering Yami even in the headlock Vlad the Hair Impaler has him in. Vlad is perplexed, wondering if the holographic tech in the booth malfunctioned for a moment. Mokuba calls him an idiot, telling him that the box wouldn't break so easily, presumably because Seto designed it and Mokuba thinks his brother can do no wrong. Mokuba offers the alternative explanation that not just anyone can use his brother's card, and says the monster disappearing serves Conical Hat Weirdo right with a gigantic grin.

Guys, why does the hologram even matter? He still called out an attack, Yami should still lose points, as per the rules of the game, right?

Mokuba calls for Yami to kill the ventriloquist, as murder children thirsty for blood do. Vlad the Hair Impaler, however, knows that no matter how far Yami might have gotten in the duel, there's still one more Blue Eyes White Dragon in Kaiba's deck. Still not looking super confident about it, though.

Conical Hat Weirdo curses Yami, but Yami has no more patience.

That's what I've been saying this WHOLE TIME!

Yami reminds Conical Hat Weirdo that he doesn't have any monsters on his side of the table, and he needs to get his ass in gear and summon one. Conical Hat Weirdo eyes Kaiba's deck while contemplating the fact that he's already lost two of the Blue Eyes White Dragons, and that the third one is still somewhere in there. He tells himself to calm down, because miracles can't happen twice. Wanna bet? He thinks that if he can summon the last dragon, he'll be well on his way to victory.

So, he throws down a Grappler in defense. While drawing a card, Yami knows Conical Hat Weirdo's strategy is just to protect his points by playing defensively. Yami glares at his card and then across the table at Conical Hat Weirdo, thinking about that pesky "Stop Defense" card that his opponent still has in play, forcing him to play all his monsters in attack position. He's also worried about losing once Conical Hat Weirdo draws that final Blue Eyes.

All of this reiteration informs his placing a card face down and...

Yami uses this card to destroy the Grappler, but, of course, Conical Hat Weirdo has smugly crossed his arms as he reminds Yami that his life points are totally unaffected. Yami looks... frustrated? Irritated? Angry? Not really sure? Probably just butthurt that Conical Hat Weirdo is explaining rudimentary rules to him like he's a n00b.

Conical Hat Weirdo draws a card, plays a nameless monster in defense, AND places a card face down. Well la-de-da. Yami wonders if the card Conical Hat Weirdo played was a magic or trap card, but draws a card too, so he can multitask and keep the chapter going. After glaring at it a moment, Yami slaps it face down on the table too.

I had to go back through the game shown before this to make sure Mystical Elf hadn't been sitting there in defense this whole time, hah! She doesn't appear to be one of the face down cards in the following panel, either, so I'm assuming this was just a fail on the translation's part and Yami actually SUMMONED the Mystical Elf rather than SWITCHING its position.

This is the OFFICIAL translation, folks.

Conical Hat Weirdo counts the cards on the table, two face down and three monsters, but none of that scares him. He's convinced that once he draws the final Blue Eyes White Dragon, he'll annihilate Yami. Yami glares at him like he's peering into his soul. It's at times like these that I miss Yami's murder grin and all the creepiness it could have delivered if it were still around. It's a damn shame it had to leave us.

Still, as the opponents are staring each other down in a significantly reduced creepy way, Jonouchi declares that the tension is so thick it's difficult to watch. Bakura marvels at how there are face down cards on both sides, and predicts that one of them is the one that will decide the whole game. Anzu tells them all not to worry, because she's confident Yami will win. Mokuba demands that he win too, so, you know, better do what HE says. He might poison you if he doesn't get his way.

We all knew this would happen. You don't build up a possibility like this so hard only to ignore it. Yami's friends weren't the ones building it up, though, so they're free to be super shocked and call out his name in desperation. Mokuba does too, praying that Yami will beat his brother's card just this once.

Conical Hat Weirdo calls out the Blue Eyes White Dragon's attack on Yami's Holy Elf, and as it's charging up, he says it's all over. But the Mystical Elf starts muttering something in a mysterious elf language or whatever. Yami chuckles and flips over one of his face down cards, which is the Mirror Force card he used a couple of duels ago. Conical Hat Weirdo is shocked by the most obvious trap ever in the world as what Yami calls the Holy Barrier deflects the dragon's attack back at it. But while the blast is returning the the Blue Eyes White Dragon, something wipes the smirk right off Yami's face.

It takes up residence on Conical Hat Weirdo's face instead, presumably beneath his stupid mask. He flips one of his own face down cards and reveals it to be a spell card, Negate Attack. He says that the attack is sucked away into holes in space-time, which is a strangely odd thing for that card to do. Couldn't it just, I don't know, dissipate the energy or something, instead of ripping holes in space-time? Yami growls about how Conical Hat Weirdo anticipated his trap, but when you announce that you're SETTING a trap, what else do you expect?

Conical Hat Weirdo chuckles about how he managed to beat Yami's card and he's always one step ahead. Hubris ahoy. Yami's friends are in a frenzy of worry, wondering what Yami's going to do now, and Mokuba is just as dismayed as he states it's over. Conical Hat Weirdo tells Yami it's his last turn, and he's likely at wits end to boot.

Yami doesn't look that upset when he chuckles and turns over his other face down card, calling it his NEXT trump card. Conical Hat Weirdo's eyes widen when Yami shows him the Monster Reborn card.

No! Michael Buble against Sinatra?? That's not right!

Conical Hat Weirdo is infuriated to see the dragon on the other side of the table, but he resigns himself to the fact that the two equally-matched foes will have to destroy one another. Yami, however, is not quite so resigned. He tells Conical Hat Weirdo that the Mystical Elf has been chanting a spell since he put it on the table, and this spell allows him to transfer its attack points to whichever monster he chooses. Conical Hat Weirdo already knows where this is going, thinking with shock that Yami plans to add Mystical Elf's attack to the Blue Eyes White Dragon's.

Yami asks if Conical Hat Weirdo is ready, because his next attack will be Kaiba's revenge. Kaiba's pride might reject putting his name on Yami's attack, but the business part of him would have to be foolhardy to reject this level of hardcore branding. Conical Hat Weirdo is sweating and denying, as a corny villain does, while Yami points and soberly tells him to fucking BURN.

Shit, dude.

Conical Hat Weirdo yells as the third dragon is dematerialized before his eyes, then whimpers about losing. Yami stands, calling Conical Hat Weirdo slime and asking if he thinks he can walk away from their duel when his anger hasn't been quelled. Yami, he hasn't even gotten up from his seat yet, calm the fuck down.

But he doesn't want to calm down. Conical Hat Weirdo looks up at him with a frightened expression while Yami recounts the charges: stealing Kaiba's cards and playing with his soul with a doll. At least Conical Hat Weirdo didn't MIND FUCK Kaiba into oblivion in the first place. That was alllllll you Yami. Anyway, Yami won't forgive Conical Hat Weirdo. Surprise.

Eye of Horus glowing in the middle of his forehead, Yami imposes a penalty game on Conical Hat Weirdo. Conical Hat Weirdo screams, and looks down beyond his lap, where his puppet turns to him. Shaking, Conical Hat Weirdo watches the thing, now bearing HIS face instead of Kaiba's, crawl up and reach for his face.

Given how he's screaming for help right now, I'm guessing your hopes are pretty far off base right now, Yami.

Jonouchi leads the pack to Yami, congratulating him for doing the damn thing and earning back his star chips. Yami demonstrates how he got Kaiba's deck back too by holding it up. But he gains a serious expression when he looks around and asks where Mokuba went. The friends twist and look in every direction, but Mokuba and Vlad the Hair Impaler are nowhere to be seen. They wonder if he's been taken to the castle. Yami looks around in worry as the panel advertises his six star chips.

Meanwhile, back at the Kaiba manor, Kaiba is striding down his red carpet between a line of servants on both sides and a maid following him. He berates them for letting Mokuba get kidnapped while they were supposed to be protecting him and they not-pologize for their negligence and stupidity. I would beat the shit out of every one of them. The maid in tow demurely suggests that Kaiba can't just run off when he's still not well enough, but she should have known her boss wouldn't respond to this with anything other than a "shut up".

He commands a start to his helicopter.

Be sure to say it NICE AND LOUD so everyone including potential enemies can hear you!

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? There wasn't a new dragon like I'd hoped, and the old one's disappearance wasn't vindicated in this chapter any more than the last. It just reinforced the parallel between Sugoroku's Blue Eyes White Dragon disappearing and Kaiba's (stolen) Blue Eyes White Dragon's disappearing, which I still don't think should exist. It's thematically poetic, sure, but when you look at the content closely, it's all sorts of wrong and sends a poor message.

Speaking of sending poor messages, Jonouchi's grammatical flub at the beginning there served the obvious purpose of making him look dumb in rejecting Anzu's interpretation. It's a dumb-by-association trick, making a character do something stupid by proxy to their skepticism or claim so that the reader is more likely to look at the skepticism or claim as stupid just by being in the same statement. Wouldn't want the reader coming to the WRONG conclusions, so we have to make one side of an argument sound dumber by syntax error rather than actual legitimate criticism. Never mind that Jonouchi's skepticism is perfectly rational, because 99.99999% of the time, cards are NOT conscious and DON'T make their own decisions. I don't know if it was KT or the translators who made Jonouchi seem so overly-sensitive and erroneous in his rebuttal, but it was lazy and irritating because they're not letting ME think for myself. They're leading me along and trying to bring me to the conclusions they want, and that always pisses me off.

What doesn't piss me off is Kaiba's new outfit. I'm always a fan of the duster, and Kaiba's boots being somewhat indistinguishable from his pants makes his legs look pretty long...

What's with all the popped collars on these kids, though? Are they all trying to be the Fonz or what?