You're kidding. A duelist who doesn't endlessly talk about everything they're doing at any given second throughout the entire game? No wordy descriptions of card effects, no snappy shit-talking, no astonished reiterations of tricky moves? I'll believe it when I see it. If one of these kiddos manages to keep his mouth shut the whole time, I'm guessing the other will compensate by giving TWICE as much commentary. I do think that by this point, KT had gotten a bit more confident in his art and has let it speak for itself quite a lot more than in the previous half of the comic, but I don't know if I buy that he had gotten as confident as this title would suggest. That would be pretty dope, but I'm going into this a skeptic.
And wary. Very wary of that little upside down smiling creep treat. I'm more disturbed by it than I am the skeleton horseman over here. Yuugi is looking somewhat shocked at him though. Jonouchi worries aloud that there's no way Yuugi's jelly-blob can possibly beat the thing, but Honda yells at him to just hang in there. Yuugi appears to steel himself, acknowledging the call to keep on keeping on, and mentally urging Yami to watch, because he's sure he'll defeat asshole!Bakura with his new deck. Not sure if Yuugi has a suspicion that Yami is a player on high that might be able to see him, or if it's just an expression, but off course this would lead to him finding Yami's true name. That in itself would indicate a pretty tough fight won, I suppose.
Meanwhile, asshole!Bakura IS watching his opponent sharply, chuckling over the 500 defense points the gooey monster has and wondering if this is REALLY the deck Yuugi visualized when he dreamed up that Duel Disk. He imagines this will be easy, commanding his Death Knight to ride forward.
Asshole!Bakura thinks at first that he's got that little grinning twit dead to rights, but a moment later is shocked when the Death Knight's sword hasn't cut all the way through it. A growl of frustration escapes the skeleton horseman is the sword bounces back up, leaving not so much as a dent in Marshmallon. It's really a shame I was allowed to see that coming the way I was.
Yuugi mockingly tells asshole!Bakura that it's too bad for him, since Marshamallon is invulnerable to normal weapons, and we're shown the card again as if it wasn't a big flashing spoiler for us before. Yuugi's friends all cheer, asshole!Bakura scoffs in anger, and I pout like the giant baby I am.
Asshole!Bakura recovers quickly from his initial irritation, promising to set a trap that will kill Yuugi instantly with a little chuckle. He sets one card face down, ending his turn on this minor note. Yuugi draws a card, announcing it's his turn again, and looks a little surprised by the card he just picked. He places another card face down, then...
Okay, at least THIS card doesn't appear to be a spoiler.
Jonouchi regards the Silent Swordsman with a perplexed air, admitting he's never seen it before. Anzu has picked up on the fact that the deck Yuugi is using now is different than the one Yami uses, explaining this to the boys and concluding that Yuugi must have built this one himself. It dawns on her that Yuugi isn't JUST Yami's dueling partner, but has been developing his own ability this whole time too. Real sad when the other personality sharing your body has been considered the default will behind your entire partnership for THIS long, honestly.
Asshole!Bakura announces his turn, and as he's drawing his new card, he considers the Silent Swordsman with its 1000 attack one of those really annoying monsters that raises its level every turn. Not a fan, apparently. He considers killing it now, but is wary that it was played in attack position, which to him means that Yuugi WANTS him to be reckless and take it out now. After all, he's noted the two face down cards Yuugi has sitting there, one of which he does not doubt is a trap.
Suddenly, asshole!Bakura yells that he's playing a spell card from his hand.
Jonouchi and Honda are on edge, shouting about how the trap cards on Yuugi's side have been blocked and convinced that the Silent Swordsman is gonna get it. But Yuugi smiles, much to asshole!Bakura's shock, and mocks him again for thinking that EITHER of his face down cards are traps, because NEITHER are. He flips and activates one of them, a card called "Marshmallon Glasses". Looks like a pair of googly-eyed goofy frames that have an image of Marshmallon smack in the center of each lens. The card says that whichever monster is equipped with them only has eyes for the seductive Marshmallon and will attack it every time. And who can blame that monster, really? *shivers*
Yuugi declares that the glasses go on Death Knight, and they look absolutely hilarious on a skull that's otherwise supposed to be intimidating. It's a total horror-killer, and I love it. Asshole!Bakura is not at all as amused as I am, fuming over how the stupid glasses make his Death Knight only see the jelly monster. Yuugi points out and reiterates that now the skeleton horseman can only attack Marshmallon now, because I guess that KT thought this could NOT be overstated.
I can't quite make out what the Marshmallon is doing there - is it clasping little jelly hands above its head in victory, or making some sort of rude gesture? The latter certainly has precedent.
At first, asshole!Bakura is super annoyed, growling about how Yuugi has stopped him with a COMBO of puny monsters. But he's soon grinning again, encouraging Yuugi to laugh while he can, because he's setting up the most powerful trap combo they've ever seen. Not that anyone WAS laughing or anything, but...
He plays another card face down, and again, ends his turn on that. Yuugi accepts this without note, and announces he's about to go. He does consider how Silent Swordsman's attack rises to 1500 due to him leveling from zero to one, but knows he can't defeat Death Knight's 1900 attack until the next turn. Having established this to himself, he breathes an "okay" and begins to pull a card from his hand for his battle phase.
Asshole!Bakura tells him to stop right there, yelling he gets to use a certain card at the very beginning of Yuugi's battle phase - a trap card called "Ghost Beckoning". Both the card shown and asshole!Bakura are in agreement, that this induces Silent Swordsman to attack. Said swordsman lunges forward with an exclamation point to indicate its surprise at moving at some other will than Yuugi's. Jonouchi and Honda again freak at Silent Swordsman's certain death if it attacks now. Yuugi STARTS to declare is use of another card to counter, but then trails off in the sudden suspicion at asshole!Bakura's grin that this isn't ALL there is to the trap.
And indeed, asshole!Bakura turns over another of his face down cards to activate a second trap, much to Yuugi's alarm.
Watching this duel is taking fucking YEARS off Jonouchi's life, I SWEAR.
He yells at Yuugi that he can't let that happen, because, as indicated on the card above, the Silent Swordsman's attack will bounce back and deal twice the damage on Yuugi himself. Yuugi sweats, wide-eyed, while asshole!Bakura says it's too late. He declares that Zoma is already dead as Silent Swordsman rips through it, and it disperses. Yuugi looks on with even more nervousness, Jonouchi helplessly just commenting on how BAD this is. Asshole!Bakura narrates how Zoma is now turning into ectoplasm, and then advises Yuugi to prepare himself for the coming 3000 points of direct damage to the player.
Zoma sweeps around Silent Swordsman, ectoplasmic jaws open wide at Yuugi, whose poop-face is more intense than ever in the face of this attack; he is no longer sweating, though. Anzu whines in concern at Yuugi, the other two bystanders gaping in horror.
Yuugi throws out an arm, and asshole!Bakura grimaces at him out of pure rage and disbelief.
... Pardon?
Yuugi explains that by the power of this card, they've advanced three turns in an instant, and the power of asshole!Bakura's ectoplasm is neutralized. Not certain how this necessarily cancels out the effect that still should have happened three turns ago now, but maybe I'm missing some intricacy regarding how Zoma can't bounce everything back because the turn it's supposed to be acting on is technically already passed? Regardless, it's real ironic that Zorc isn't the only one who gets to use wacky time control powers here! Take that, loser creep god!
Like all our favorite infomercials, Yuugi assures asshole!Bakura that this isn't all. Asshole!Bakura's expression sours all the more as he notes the bigger buffer version of Silent Swordsman, which Yuugi declares has advanced to level 4. It's got a hefty 3000 attack points now, and Yuugi commands it to attack during an extreme zoom onto its serious scarred eye. It lunges forward and slashes the level 4 sword in a criss-cross pattern over the Death Knight, which literally explodes the damn thing into pieces. Asshole!Bakura grunts, his life points reduced to 2900, and cursing that little brat Yuugi.
Anzu, does that actually MEAN anything, or are you just talking out of your ass?
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The title appears to be drawing a parallel between Yuugi's Silent Swordsman monster and himself, and how his understated role in the story up to this point has been hiding a LOT of power that no one really noticed until this point. I made fun of Anzu in that last line of the recap, but I guess I can kind of see what she was getting at. With Yami being the more front-facing between him and Yuugi, he presented as a lot more boisterous and outspoken, as opposed to Yuugi being a quiet, supportive type. But just because he hasn't been shouting from the rooftops with every step about how much he's capable of doesn't mean he hasn't evolved into a juggernaut himself. He's just been a lot more reserved about it.
I believe any reader who's been paying attention isn't all that surprised by Yuugi's strength and ability here, but it is somewhat cathartic to see his friends finally have the chance to observe and acknowledge this fact. We as an audience have the benefit of a more omniscient viewpoint that allows us insight into Yuugi's growth along WITH Yami regardless of how often he was taking charge in duels. There's obviously a REASON he refers to himself and Yami as PARTNERS, rather than asshole!Bakura's view of regular sized Bakura as a mere HOST. Yuugi and Yami are a team, both lending skill and cunning to every gaming effort, and that has become more apparent as the story has gone on.
But the other characters haven't been able to see that for themselves yet. The scant few times that Yuugi has been the one in charge of the game, he's been actively trying to put the breaks on a game that was dangerous (with Kaiba), or no one else was around to see this (with Ryuji). He's been front and center so infrequently, and fairly vulnerable when he was, so I don't blame his friends for having such a shock when the sensitive, kiddish Yuugi turns out to be a badass. There's been barely any indication to them until this moment that there was another dimension to his growth as a character.
Nor to his enemies - asshole!Bakura gives every impression that he thinks Yuugi's going to be a cinch to pull one over on. As I mentioned above, he views the regular Bakura as a host first and foremost, with the occasional artistic talent to lend to their operation. He doesn't see Yuugi as anything more in relation to Yami either, so seeing him get flustered and frustrated when Yuugi hands him his ASS above is nothing short of DELICIOUS. It's like candy watching it slowly dawn on asshole!Bakura that this is not as easy as he had assumed it would be.
See what happens when you make friends and allies rather than underlings/sentient furniture? Not that asshole!Bakura would be capable of actually endearing himself and his cause to sweet soft Bakura. That kid would recoil at the first word. Hell, he probably DID, and that's why asshole!Bakura didn't bother manipulating him in the nicer way and just went for the repression/memory wipe method for the duration of the story that we saw.
But that's just a little headcanon. Don't mind me.
The Level Monsters are kind of neat, though they typically are Level 3 or 4 as a baseline in the actual game. Yugi has two that represent him, with one being Silent Swordsman and the other being one that will show up later. They're both pretty neat. They kind of remind me of Echoes and Tusk from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, which got new level up abilities in time with their owner's character development.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I have no idea how the Turn Jump thing worked. The best I can surmise is that Yugi skipped ahead three turns, so Bakura missed the activation timing on his card? But if that were the case, then it should still be on his field! I think Yugi is just cheating!
There's also a neat moment for Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh! R, though I don't remember if you were covering that or not.
Curious how leveling monsters work in the actual game - do you have to have a separate card for each level, or is there some other way of keeping track of what level they are at any given turn?
DeleteIt's kind of obscure just how the Zoma thing worked in the chapter as well, because I guess it died and then turned into ectoplasm, so maybe since it's dead it's off the field? I don't know, this part seemed a little ill-thought-out as a whole. I loved Yuugi trouncing asshole!Bakura, but it's just not as clear HOW as I would have preferred.
And I'm still thinking on covering "R", though I'm leaning toward just going ahead with GX. We'll have to see how I feel once this one is all done sometime next year if I keep going at the pace I am.
Yep, each of the Level Monsters is their own unique card.
Deletehttps://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/LV
I absolutely love this duel, it's one of my favorites. Yugi has really been looked down on by pretty much everyone, which is weird because they've seen Yugi duel Jonouchi in the hospital without Yami, plus Yugi's played Jonouchi a bunch before that on his own and won every time so they should be aware that Yugi is definitely good at the game; maybe because they look down on Jonouchi's ability so by extension they don't think Yugi's win streak is all that impressive? It's even weirder for asshole!Bakura who actually talked up Yugi's gaming abilities to Otogi and SAW Yugi win completely on his own in a game that 1.) Otogi invented and 2.) Yugi had never played before.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's kind of like the Superman disguise; nobody would ever even IMAGINE that mild-mannered Clark Kent could be Superman. People see things through a filter of their own biases and preconceived notions. It's easy for people to think that somebody as demure as Yugi who generally acts as quiet support couldn't POSSIBLY be as strong as Yami.
It's kind of sad to be honest. :^( Seeing Yugi completely destroy everyone's preconceived notions about him though is so empowering in the best of ways though and it's my favorite element of this duel. :^)
As Blue Magic above said, the only thing I can think of with Turn Jump is that Zoma missed the timing for its effect to resolve, which is certainly possible. Turn Jump doesn't have a real card counterpart as of the time this has been written, so that's the only possible explanation that I can think of. Maybe it negates effects that are chained to it? IDK.
Yeah I think once Bakura was stupid enough to put the Millennium Ring on in the MeiKyu brothers cave on Duelist Kingdom, asshole!Bakura has had him in a constant state of repression/sleep/memory manipulation and has just forgone all pretenses of deception he's used on Yugi and company. Frankly, I think your headcanon is just plain old canon.
Oh yeah, I had totally forgotten that asshole!Bakura was THERE to see Yuugi win DDD! You're right, in that case, asshole!Bakura SHOULD absolutely be aware of how good Yuugi can be, but to me, his refusal to acknowledge that just speaks to his hubris as a villain. No doubt he thought Otogi was an inferior gamer/strategist to him too, and assumed that he could have beat him faster and better than Yuugi did anyway. These types ALWAYS tend to automatically think they're leagues ahead of everyone else with little to no evidence, so they're always floored when it turns out their ranking of their own skills so far ahead of everyone else's is so inaccurate. And then they completely block that information out and continue thinking they're superior regardless, lol!
DeleteOf course, this is just me making a guess as usual, since it was never elaborated upon how asshole!Bakura thought he would do against Otogi. It just makes a certain amount of sense to me, because you see it so often in real life. *coughElonMuskcough*
As for Yuugi's friends not really gleaning his level of skill through his winning of duels with Jonouchi, I can kind of see where they might not register that as a measure of his skill too. They're in a completely different category than the tournament duels with their high stakes and rankings - it's just two dudes playing around and having fun. No one's really keeping score in those kinds of matches, so it's compartmentalized into a different category altogether. We do that sort of thing with all kinds of activities that COULD be competitive, but we're just doing them as a social activity the rest of the time. Writing, cooking, etc.
Still, I know what you mean when you say it's a little sad, and I do agree to a certain extent. It's a shame that his closest friends just never imagined that the skill he'd shown in the off times they'd seen him dueling/gaming would translate to a high-stakes game like this. At the same time, it's so very satisfying seeing Yuugi burst from the cocoon and blow everyone away like he did.
Though maybe when he wins this sucker and they get that name, he should consider having a long discussion with his friends about their tendency to overlook him and his skills in favor of Yami, lol.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. As far as Jonouchi, Anzu, and Honda go, I think I was being too harsh in my wording; while it's clear that they do overlook Yugi in regards to Yami, it's not malicious or ego driven or anything like that. I think I definitely could have worded myself better there. You're absolutely right; I can completely understand how games between friends can be compartmentalized apart from the high-stakes matches from a tournament. Besides, I should have said before that Anzu, Jonouchi, and Honda DO respect Yugi (otherwise they wouldn't have done things like trust Yugi to solve the guillotine puzzle in Death T or ask him for deck advice, for example) but they do also have a tendency to overlook Yugi in favor of Yami as being the stronger of the two. Yami has always been the one to step up when things have gotten serious so it's completely understandable why they have the view they did, even if it's sucky for Yugi.
DeleteAsshole!Bakura on the other hand has literally no excuse. It's just so weird because he actually talked up Yugi's abilities to Otogi which HAS to involve SOME kind of acknowledgement of his ability. I think you're right; asshole!Bakura thinks so highly of his abilities that he probably thought he could defeat Otogi faster and better than Yugi could, that basically everyone sucks compared to him, etc. It's definitely realistic, like a certain billionaire who shall remain nameless that purchased Twitter for 44 billion because of his own ego (and because he has a history of using that platform to inflate his own stocks which I think the FTC is investigating).
It's remarkable how prescient KT's depiction of billionaires was in this manga; who'd have thought Kaiba being, well, Kaiba would be not a caricature of the wealthy in our world but only a slightly naive exaggeration.
At least Kaiba IS actually a genius that invented his own tech.
Man, KT has a talent for depicting assholes with over-inflated egos. It's kinda scary how real it gets sometimes.
KT really did capture some of the conceit inherent to having a shit-ton more money than one could ever need - there's a slight hint of anti-capitalism in there, through the absolute absurdity of shipping a bunch of kids to a private island for them to isolate them in a tournament created just to lure over the main character in particular, or taking over an ENTIRE city for another game built for the purpose of collecting three hashtag important cards. It's so clear that the obscenely rich characters have entirely too much power over the lives of everyone else, and it just makes me me sad knowing that their real-life analogs deserve EVEN LESS to have EVEN MORE power over our society's trajectory.
DeleteLike you said, at least Kaiba actually DOES invent his own tech. XD
According to the Yugioh Wikia, the Japanese text for Zoma the Spirit is translated as follows:
ReplyDelete"The turn that Zoma is defeated by an opponent's monster, Zoma turns into ectoplasm and inflicts damage to the opposing player equal to twice the ATK of that monster."
From that wording, it's probably some sort of delayed effect, though the delay doesn't seem to be very long. If it IS a delayed effect, then skipping turns would skip over the timing of that effect.
If you're curious on the TCG intricacies, there are cards in Yugioh and Magic that can end the turn immediately. While it's obviously not the same as forwarding the turn count by three, Magic has have rulings where, if something is waiting to happen (i.e. you've played the card, but the effect hasn't happened yet), ending the turn will skip that effect. So you could think of Turn Jump as doing something similar to that.
Yugioh doesn't really have a generic ruling for ending the turn, but the first card did it, the trap card "Flashbang", had similar individual rulings, where if a monster card had an effect that triggered after attacking, Flashbang would straight up skip that effect after the attack finished.
That being said, these "end the turn" effects came out after this chapter was written, so it's not like they were where Takahashi got the effect of Turn Jump from. But it's an interesting way for us to make sense of it.
This is really cool to know. :^)
DeleteSo yeah then, it seems like timing for the LP damage Zoma would have inflicted was missed based on what you said.
I know KT based his card game in the manga off of Magic, so Turn Jump could be a homage to cards like Time Walk in Magic or Time Stop (which actually ends the turn).
Hi John, welcome!
DeleteThis explanation makes a lot of sense, thank you for bringing it to our attention! Though I get a kick out of pointing out the inconsistencies in these stories (enough to have a whole blog about every little nitpick I've ever thought of), I do ultimately want things to make some sense. It's good to know that there can be some mechanical continuity with the way the real game works, even when it's after-the-fact like this.