Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 047 The Evil Dragon Cards, Part 2

As bad as occasionally blacking out as some indescribable entity uses your body to gamble at high stakes with your and your friends' enemies is, having your soul ripped from your body must be billions of times worse. Yuugi is a tough cookie, but there's a point at which he has to think there's got to be some way out of this deal. At the very least, the people around him should be noticing how often these things are happening and try to do something. Maybe start a bake sale for Yuugi's freedom? Raise enough money to smuggle him out of the country and move him someplace that is the OPPOSITE of the malevolent version of Cheers Domino has become for him?

Too bad Patreon wasn't a thing when this was written. I can just imagine the fundraising page description now: Help Yuugi move to a remote island where he doesn't have to be challenged to horrible life/soul threatening games anymore!

Hmmm, that's a cryptic statement. Does Yami mean that his soul would have been stuck in Yuugi's inert body? Or would he have been stuck in the puzzle forever because Yuugi's soul would have been gone and unable to host his anymore? I think it's been established that he can't just possess anyone; there's something extra special about Yuugi and his presence that is crucial for Yami's manifestations. But what is it??

Imori curses, having been so close to winning the title of shepherd of darkness when Yami comes out. Yami tells Imori that this time his soul is on the line in this second challenge. Yami and Yuugi are certainly two separate souls, but then why didn't Yami just possess that Bruce Lee Wannabe when he had the puzzle? Why didn't he possess Imori? There's something about Yuugi that Imori will never be able to replicate, no matter how big his desire to control those dark gaming abilities.

What could it BE??

Imori pauses, staring at Yami a moment before asking if he really needs to beat both Yuugis in order to grab that darkness shepherd title. He then shouts his acceptance of the second match. Yami stares at the jar where the dragons disappeared with Yuugi's soul and hopes he can get HIS soul back. WAIT, so he considers Yuugi's soul HIS as well? They must be separate, or else Yami wouldn't be there, but he doesn't consider them to be separate at all, like they're still part of the same soul. Maybe their soul is split, or maybe they're like different natural parts of one...

Goodness, this is more complicated than I can figure right now. I'm starting to get a headache...

Imori chuckles, taunting Yami by reminding him that his worry is warranted, because the dragon cards' power is devouring Yuugi's soul as they speak. However, he reveals that the jar takes as long as three months to eat a soul in its entirety, so if Yami wins, he'll get Yuugi back. I guess he got that information from his book, but how did the author get that information in the first place? How would one even test something like that?

Once the cards are all back in their neat pile, Imori declares the start of their game. He instructs Yami to draw six cards as he did Yuugi, and they both assemble their hands.

Looks like Yami is starting at a little bit of a disadvantage, but when is he not? The rules are reiterated in the next panel: six cards to start, gathering three of the same card allows a summon, and the resulting dragons fight each other. Imori draws a new card first, and discards one that doesn't suit his purposes, and repeats the process with every turn. Eventually, he gathers two of each a level 5 water card, level 4 fire, and level 5 wood, affirming that on his next turn he should be able to summon a dragon. Unfortunately, Yami is stuck with only two of the level 4 earth cards, with his other cards being miscellaneous. He does have the third level 5 wood card, though, so Imori won't be able to play that one at least.

Yami looks down at the discard pile and contemplates its contents, which had a lot of cards before he even started playing. Woah, hold up there, in one of the previous panels, the discard pile didn't exist anymore, so I assumed Imori put them back into the greater deck. Where was the discard pile for that panel in which they started the game? Ugh... I guess it was magically invisible...

Yami remembers all the cards Yuugi discarded for the previous game, so he knows which cards Imori is trying to collect now. So Yami was aware of the last game, though he couldn't come out, and he specifically remembers the plays that Yuugi made, so he was clearly watching from inside Yuugi rather than the puzzle, and that means... Writch, you're obsessing over answers you're not going to get yet so just STOP.

Imori knows which cards Yami is trying to get too, which is level 5 metal and level 4 earth. He's confident that his water dragon will take out the metal one, though. He also assumes the wood one will take out the earth dragon as well, but as we've already established, he's not going to be able to summon that one, because Yami has the third card. Imori has the level 5 water cards assembled at this point, and Yami goes on to collect the last of the level 4 earth cards with his consecutive draw. He discards the level 5 wood card he had, and Imori... thanks him for it?

Yami seems just as confused as I am, but Imori explains that one can also use a card discarded by an opponent, which is what makes discarding high level cards so risky. Well, isn't that something all of us would have liked to have known when the game started? You know there's such a thing as lying by omission, right Imori? He doesn't seem to care much as he slaps his cards on the table with the declaration that he can summon two dragons now.

Flustered, Yami draws a card, thinking that the longer it takes him to summon his dragons, Imori's dragons get stronger. This is also a rule I never realized existed. Why weren't these included in the recap panel? He draws the last card in another collection, however, and is able to reveal his two dragons as well.

So far things seem to be going exactly how Imori predicted, but Yami was predicting Imori's cards as well, so he was anticipating this as well. All of the dragons sport their names on their foreheads, and resemble their elements as well, so they're easy to identify. Yami and Imori simultaneously shout for the battle to begin.

Imori immediately begins to taunt Yami, asking if he REALLY summoned a metal dragon again, and if he forgot how easily it was defeated by his water dragon last time. Yami looks taken aback, but doesn't say anything. Imori commands his water dragon to destroy the metal one on Yami's side with its Water Drain attack and it proceeds to try and flush away its opponent. However, Yami is smiling as he says that Water Drain will only work once, and calls forth his earth dragon to make an earthquake. Imori can only stare in shock as Yami explains that by breaking up the ground beneath them, the water is rerouted and the metal dragon is safe.

He goes on to say that in the elemental chart, metal is protected and strengthened by the earth, so as long as his earth dragon exists, Imori's water dragon is useless. Imori is impressed with how Yami has finally figured out how the dragon cards work, no thanks to him and his omission of important rules. However, he appears to have a trick up his sleeve as he asks Yami what he thinks of his next move with a huge grin. Yami stares.

Imori tells Yami that his wood dragon is getting bigger and stronger every moment, because the water dragon is feeding it with that lifeblood that all plants crave. No, it's not electrolytes. Yami knows he's going to attack his earth dragon with the wood dragon, and Imori does just that.

Ew, that's unpleasant-looking. Imori delights in reminding Yami that plants get their water out of the ground and that his will suck the earth dragon dry enough to crumble. Yami curses, recognizing that the earth dragon is trapped and will die if he doesn't do something. Because the earth dragon can't protect Yami's metal dragon anymore, Imori decides to attack metal with water again and calls for the water dragon to use it's drain technique again. Yami appears to have an epiphany about the metal dragon just as the attack hits and Imori celebrates his direct hit. A moment later, however, he's baffled.

Imori calls the metal dragon stubborn, but he knows the real reason why the attack didn't kill it. The water dragon gave up its power to the wood dragon to power it up, and in turn, the Water Drain attack was diminished. The metal dragon didn't come out of it unscathed, though, because its feet are a bit rusted. Yami calls to his wobbling metal dragon and asks it to use the rest of its strength. The wobble of its head looks like a nod and Imori stares in shock.

Why is that impossible? These are mythical creatures created by a magical shadow game anyway, and THIS is where Imori calls bullshit? The metal dragon flies right at the wood dragon and Imori narrates this in shock. In a final desperate move, he calls out the Water Drain attack once more, but it's too late. The wood dragon is chopped into tiny bits and defeated, noted by a smiling Yami. The Water Drain attack catches up with the metal dragon, though, and finishes it off. Yami mourns it, wondering if it used the last of its strength to protect the earth dragon.

Of course, there isn't much time to dwell on that when Yami has to announce that the earth dragon has been revived. Imori curses and begs his water dragon to do something. The dragons end up using both their signature moves on each other.

With the water dragon having perished, Imori admits that he lost with his mouth hanging open. Yami reminds him that the penalty game awaits him, and his soul will be offered to the jar this time around. Imori only has a split second to freak out before his soul floats of of his mouth. Did his soul just surrender itself, or were the dragons not up for the violent show they put on with Yuugi's soul? Imori's soul is drawn into the jar and it burps with satisfaction. It also vomits back out Yuugi's soul because, as Yami explains to no one but the audience, it can only hold one in its belly at one time. Yami breathes a sigh of relief when Yuugi's soul floats back into his body's chest. Imori's inert body sits in its chair as Yami reties the string on the jar and declares that the seal should never be broken again.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? This one continued on in the vein of the last, but went into a lot more detail on the game. I still really like the idea of this game and I'm kind of wondering if Hasbro or someone has managed to produce a non-shadowy version of it. I would play the shit out of it, and my friends would all be sick of me challenging them after a week.

I also continued to really like Imori right up until the end. He worked great as a foil to Yuugi, because he was so relatable in his similarity without the corresponding luck. Who in this world hasn't looked at someone else who comparatively has it ALL and wondered what that person has that you don't? Imori's envy of Yuugi and his powers is so human and raw, and I love the fact that he had such a drive to do something about it because it gave us a question to ponder: who would Yuugi have been if he hadn't assembled the puzzle and gotten those powers? I like to think that his attitude is different enough from Imori's that he wouldn't have ended up as cynical and twisted, but it's still an interesting question.

Speaking of interesting questions, I'm SO confused about how Yuugi and Yami relate to each other! Are they separate souls or two parts of just the one? I know I keep going back to what Shadi has said in his appearance, but he seems like the most reliable source not only because he's the only one who's actually said anything on the matter, but also because he has unique experience in peering into minds and reading them. Not only has he speculated that Yami was a part of Yuugi in some way before the puzzle was assembled, but he's also noted how similar Yami and Yuugi look despite how different they are.

Is Yuugi Yami's reincarnation? Is that why he's uniquely suited to solve the puzzle and bring Yami out? But if that's the case, how was Yami able to act on his own in this chapter while Yuugi was essentially gone? They would have to be separate souls in order to do that, wouldn't they? Unless I'm thinking of souls as units that are necessarily irreducible, and I'm supposed to be considering the possibility that there might be multiple parts...

I never thought I would want to do research to figure out a damn comic book...