Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 048 Fight With Spirit, Jonouchi!!, Part 1

Give me a "J"! Give me an "O"! Give me an "N"! Give me... Oh, you get the idea. I never WAS a cheerleader when I was in school. Too much effort and talent involved, neither of which I had much of to spare. Plus, those tiny skirts were intimidating to me. I can imagine Yuugi not very much caring about the inhibitions I listed in cheering for Jonouchi though, including the skirt. His enthusiasm for his friend is just that deep.

Who else smells teen spirit in here?

What do yo-yos have to do with fighting with spirit? Is he going to enter a competition? Someone asks if yo-yos are really back in fashion, and Yuugi confirms this, saying that the modern yo-yos have a much better rolling system. Yuugi, do you remember the last time you tried to popularize something? You should; it wasn't all that long ago, and it resulted in a kid stealing and reselling the toys that your other self had to teach a lesson.

Jonouchi is eager to have the spotlight back on him and offers to show the onlookers his skills. He shows them a technique he calls "dragger" that allows it to spin in place for a time when he throws it. Everyone seems pretty impressed with this, so he shows them his trick when he lets it touch the floor, and calls it "let the dog out." Everyone is less impressed with this, letting him know that "walk the dog" isn't any cooler for the new name he gave it. Jonouchi slumps in embarrassment and decides he has to pull out all the stops to please THIS crowd. Always taking it up a notch, that Jonouchi. He chooses a trick he's never been able to do before, but what could go wrong?

Well, that turned out just as well as could be expected. Jonouchi's only accomplishment here is getting wrapped up in his own string and getting yelled at by someone off-panel who tells him to quit acting like a moron. He looks behind him for the source of the voice, a kid whose desk Yuugi is standing next to, whom he identifies as Nezumi. Nezumi has a great bandage on his face and looks a little surly, if not distinctly rat-like.

It's like they're TWINS or something.

Jonouchi asks what kind of horrible defect Nezumi could have that makes him hate yo-yos as Yuugi holds up his yo-yo, encouraging Nezumi to try it just once. Nezumi draws their attention to his bandage and they lean in for a closer look, asking what happened. Nezumi is surprised that they haven't heard about it already, Jonouchi asking to be filled in on the deets. Nezumi tells them that he was a victim of a school gang that extorts students with yo-yos.

... What? Jonouchi and Yuugi are taking this story a lot more seriously than I am, because they look appalled and Yuugi is leading him into elaboration. Nezumi tells them he was walking around at night alone when he was accosted by three members of this gang, demanding all his cash. He tried to run, but they began to assault him with their projectiles on strings, and threw the yo-yos so hard they did some damage. Nezumi ends his tail tale by clenching his fists and grunting, with Jonouchi and Yuugi looking on in indignation.

Jonouchi raises his yo-yo clutching fist as he makes a righteous speech about how yo-yos should not be used to take money from the weak. It's UNFORGIVABLE, I tell you! Honda seems as surprised as I am that a yo-yo can be used as a weapon, but I suppose a hard, round object used as a projectile can be pretty painful and if someone's enough of an asshole they would use it to cause pain. Yuugi is outraged that anyone would pervert the purpose of such a pure toy!

Nezumi asks Jonouchi to make those bullies pay for what they did to him, and even knows where they can be found. Jonouchi agrees without a second thought towards Nezumi's suspicious character design, or the fact that only a moment ago he was yelling at him for being idiotic. Nezumi says the punks are probably in the district in which they assaulted him, and Jonouchi is moved by how brave he is for offering to take them to the place where he was beaten up. Jonouchi promises that he'll get Nezumi revenge, and Honda offers to help. Jonouchi says that's unnecessary, because there's only three dudes and he can take 'em. Nezumi suggests that Yuugi come along, because he'd feel weird if a fight broke out and there wasn't anyone else there as physically unimpressive as him. I'm guessing that's what he meant, because he's kind of vague in what about Yuugi's presence would make him feel better. Yuugi is also not giving his answer much thought, because he agrees on the spot.

Jonouchi is consumed by a fiery passion to teach those yo-yo jerks a lesson, stating that those who abuse people with yo-yos will be punished by them as well. Or something along those lines. Honda is unimpressed with Jonouchi's speech. Nezumi wears a slightly eerie smile.

Later, Nezumi is leading them to the alley he was lurking in the night of his attack. Yuugi worries about how few people there are in the area and what a creepy atmosphere it creates. Jonouchi asks Nezumi for confirmation that they used yo-yos to hurt him, and Nezumi says that their technique is like nothing he's ever seen. They surround their target and when said target doesn't give up the cash, they're attacked from all directions. Jonouchi is more convinced than ever that these cowards need to get beat.

Doesn't it though? I seem to recall this being the setting of a certain game involving tasers...

The kids all walk into the warehouse, glancing around until Yuugi exclaims that he remembers the place now. Jonouchi knows this warehouse was where Hirutani's gang did their killing too, and has a really bad feeling about being there now. The hook that Jonouchi was attached to the last time they were there is still hanging from the ceiling, creaking as it swings gently. Yuugi thinks of Hirutani as an SoB who tried to get Jonouchi back in his gang with a pretty awful scheme. 

Jonouchi notices some movement out of the corner of his eye. He and Yuugi look up at the walkway lining the walls to see a couple of kids holding up yo-yos and doing poor KISS imitations.

The gang members land in front of Jonouchi and begin to advance menacingly. Jonouchi warns Yuugi to stay back, and curses Nezumi's initial estimate of how many guys there were, because there's WAY more than three. They're all slinging their yo-yos around, maintaining those killer grins, one of them ordering the others to surround their victims with their yo-yo hurricane.

The yo-yos are flying fast, but not touching Jonouchi, Yuugi or Nezumi yet. Jonouchi urges Yuugi and Nezumi to leave before they're blocked in, and Nezumi grabs Yuugi to lead him to safety. Yuugi shouts back to Jonouchi, but Nezumi tells him to hurry up, still pulling on his arm. The gang has fully surrounded Jonouchi now, who is beginning to realize that the ambush was so well set up that it's like the gang was told they were coming. Jonouchi groans at the surrounding yo-yo storm as he hears someone outside of it chuckle and compare him to a rat in a trap.

Woah, dude, you got a serious downgrade in weaponry, didn't you? What happened to the TASERS? Hirutani tells Jonouchi that he doesn't give up easily, and he'll force him back into his gang by any means necessary.

Does this make Yuugi Lindsey Lohan? Headcanon?

Jonouchi just groans again, as Hirutani pontificates on how Jonouchi will now be number 2 in the gang and everything will be exactly like it was in the good old days. Jonouchi asks why he would ever want to be part of Hirutani's stupid gang again anyway, and Hirutani implies that he really doesn't want him to be his enemy instead. He draws Jonouchi's attention to another location in the warehouse, where two gang members are holding Yuugi below the hanging hook in a headlock. 

Jonouchi calls out Yuugi's name. Hirutani gives the command for his underlings to do IT, which happens to be looping the Millennium Puzzle's rope on the hook and raising it, with Yuugi's neck caught in between. 

SHIT. Although it looks a little like Yuugi could just look up and fall out of the noose that the Millennium Puzzle has become, so I'm not too worried here. Jonouchi looks about ready call Hirutani every curse in the book, but Hirutani is too busy congratulating Nezumi on his rat-work to notice. Jonouchi and Yuugi both look at Nezumi with plain betrayal (though Yuugi doesn't have the freedom of movement to do more than side-eye Nezumi), and Nezumi actually looks pretty ashamed of himself.

Hirutani gives Jonouchi two choices, since escaping is clearly not an option: he either has to swear fealty to Hirutani's gang, or watch Yuugi be strangled to death by his own puzzle. That second option would be a lot more threatening to me if Yuugi's hands were tied and he was in an actual noose. Jonouchi thinks about Yuugi, but Yuugi is silently begging Jonouchi not to join Hirutani's gang. Shouldn't he be passing out about now? I mean, if he insists on staying up there when it would be exceedingly easy just to turn up his chin and fall out of the necklace, he should be running out of air pretty quick.

Jonouchi glares at Hirutani for a moment before challenging his assertion that there's no other way out of the situation than his stated two options. Hirutani looks shocked as Jonouchi springs into action.

LMFAO! Honey, there is NO WAY Jonouchi is dying from being hit with yo-yos. He'll get a few bruises and wake up hurting tomorrow, but yo-yos are not even KIND OF deadly. Maybe if they were covered in six-inch spikes, and were unable to function like an actual yo-yo...

Jonouchi continues to power through the barrage of yo-yos and mentally begs Yuugi to hang in there while he's rushing to save him. You see, the pun clinches it for me. I can't take anything that's happening seriously. No matter how pained Yuugi's expression, not matter how shocked Hirutani looks, no matter how much Takahashi wants to make me believe this is a life-threatening situation through Nezumi's thought bubble here... what little tension there was to begin with was shattered with that joke.

Jonouchi isn't about to let Yuugi die from his totally avoidable strangulation, so amidst the continuing assault of yo-yos, he runs straight for Yuugi, who stutters out his name, somehow. Jonouchi keeps telling Yuugi to hang in there while he gets him down, and now I'm just full-on laughing. The scanlators must have thought this whole thing was as ridiculous as I do. Jonouchi lifts Yuugi, still being hit by the yo-yos, and urges Yuugi to detach the hook from his puzzle and jump.

Hirutani stands off to the side, damning Jonouchi to hell for withstanding the yo-yo abuse to save his friend, when he should be damning himself for not leaving any of his underlings the task of guarding Yuugi and fending off Jonouchi if he went for him. He continues to make the worst executive decisions as he tells his gang to just hit Jonouchi HARDER so he'll stop. Here's an idea, Hirutani: maybe go over there yourself and knock Jonouchi out? Bring back out the tasers? Don't rely on fucking YO-YOS to do significant damage?

Am I giving a gang-leader advice on how to kill these children more efficiently? Reading this manga has made me HORRIBLE.

Jonouchi, using his body to shield Yuugi from the yo-yos still pelting him, looks over his shoulder at Hirutani and tells him that the pain from the yo-yos isn't nearly as bad as the pain from betraying his friend would be. Hirutani grunts as Jonouchi goes on to say now that Yuugi is safe, he'll retaliate in a big way.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The more Takahashi tried to turn his premise somewhat serious, the more I found myself busting up. yo-yos fit the gaming trend theming that we've seen Takahashi use as bases for his chapters before, and yo-yos are a topic that was going to fit right in. But making them into a weapon was a little bizarre. I could have dealt with it if it remained a non-lethal way to cause pain, but these characters seem to be genuinely convinced that enough hits with yo-yos will outright kill a person.

Maybe if it was an infant you were shooting for, or a 100-year-old man with brittle bones, but a 16-year-old kid? No, not possible.

It wasn't just the yo-yos either; I talked above about how easy it should have been for Yuugi to get out of being strangled. It was a REAL risk that Takahashi just didn't execute correctly. If a panel had shown, say, a gang member looping the rope of the Millennium Puzzle around Yuugi's neck just once more, that would have been enough to convince me that he was really going to die if Jonouchi couldn't get there in time. Really, that's all it would have taken! But since Takahashi doesn't seem to know how things like this work and doesn't bother to try and figure it out through research or whatever, the impact of something that was supposed to be suspenseful and dramatic ended up being frustratingly funny instead.

I don't hold out much hope that the next chapter will bring back up the tension to the levels Takahashi was trying for in this one, but we'll see.