Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 056 The Millennium Enemy, Part 7

Another day, another review. Another chance to say something witty about a Japanese comic, too, and I wonder if I'm going to be successful this time. I wish it were as easy as rolling a couple of D-10s like in this game. Of course, if it were that easy, I would have to be as good at rolling the dice as Yami is, and let's face it - I'm no gambling queen to his gaming king or anything. If I were, I wouldn't feel the need to make fun of characters playing deadly evil games, because I'd be one of them.

And I'd be magnificent. Just to let you know.

Level 15? Doesn't that seem a little low for a dark master? I shouldn't complain, though, because these kids are only at level 1 and are going to be having enough trouble as it is. This is reflected by the fact that Other Bakura doesn't seem uneasy about their sneak attack on Zork so much as annoyed. As the Game Master, he grants them extra attacks for their stealthy move, telling Yami to roll the dice with a deadpan expression. Seriously, he looks about as enthusiastic as a cardboard box.

Yami, on the other hand, keeps his determined face as he agrees to roll. Honda's piece shouts that HE wants to be the one to kill Zork. He believed that Bakura was their friend and played the game only to be betrayed and turned into a game piece, so he shouts he'll never forgive Bakura and put a hole in Zork's brain. Somehow I don't think it'll be that easy. Yami asks Other Bakura if he heard that, because his hand was going to channel that anger into his roll. It looks like smoke is issuing from his clenched fist? Is that anger or the dice breaking wind? Yami tosses the dice onto the board again.

There's some worry in Other Bakura's face NOW. But, Honda, sweetie, you said you were going to put a "grenade" in Zork's brain. Try to AIM next time.

Yami isn't done yet; he declares that Anzu's piece is next up for a free hit too, and he rolls a 13 for her. She blasts Zork with a ball of condensed magic and the demon master screams. Yami rolls once more for Yuugi's attack, their final blow, which is a critical at 08. Yuugi rallies his two monster pets to unleash attacks on their former master too, which elicits another scream from Zork. Other Bakura can't figure out how Yami keeps rolling criticals when he's not doing anything strange with his hands. Hey, you couldn't figure it out even when he WAS doing something with his hands, so it's not like you're particularly good at picking these things out, man.

Jonouchi's piece asks Other Bakura why he looks so scared when Yami explained his power to him before. It's simple, dude; when the pieces' angry souls are channeled into the dice, they reflect that by giving them critical hits! What's so difficult to understand about that? Except everything, of course.

Asshole Bakura grows a grin and chuckles. Out of the cloud of dust apparently caused by the pieces' string of critical attacks, Zork's hulking shadow appears. Yami looks on in shock as Zork emerges from the smoke still standing tall. Yuugi and the others can't believe that Zork still hasn't taken much damage despite their successful assault. Though, Zork DOES still have a hole in his chest where Honda's bullet pierced it, so that's something I guess. Kind of.

Asshole Bakura laughs at them, because he reminds them that they're only apprentice worms, and don't have the XP necessary to hurt Zork. Yami looks like he's making some sort of gurgling noise while the adventurers themselves complain that even after all their critical hits, they're not even making a dent. Yuugi goes so far as to say what everyone is thinking anyway, which is that Asshole Bakura has made it impossible for them to win. His Pokii friend says that's a dirty way to play. Too true, but assholes gonna asshole.

What does your god-complex have to do with you being unfair and a coward, Asshole Bakura? The two are not mutually exclusive, you know, so I don't know why you think this is an argument in your favor. I think Yami should have pointed this out, but I guess it's not appropriate to get into arguments over the logic of a single statement of a guy who is trying to murder your friends. So, you know, that's fair.

Asshole Bakura demands that they continue the game, encouraging the pieces to act out their deaths in his script with dignity. Except they won't be acting, of course. Inside his head, Asshole Bakura thinks about how he has other ways of running those criticals than the one that Yami stopped him from using, just like Yami has HIS ways.

Ooooooh, secrets! He thinks about how he sealed each one of Regular Bakura's gaming pals into these special drawer pieces, and each one of them has a role that they play in his scenario. However, while focusing on a pair of dice, Asshole Bakura mentally talks about how he can seal a soul into anything, because that's the power of the Millennium Ring. He holds up his new pair of dice and states that it's now Zork's turn, and he's going to put his own anger behind his attack.

Well, wrath is SORT OF the same thing as brainwashing. Which is to say, not at all.

The pieces are thrown from the strength of Zork's blast attack, and they're not looking very good. One of Yami's hands clutch at his throat and the other reaches out, grief already consuming him, because after all this nonsense, his friends still got hit with all Zork had. Asshole Bakura laughs again, as Zork towers over the lead bodies of his victims. He says Zork's attack hits with a force of more than 50 points, and since all the characters had MUCH less than that, they must all be dead. Yami stares in disbelief at the figurines laying scattered on the board.

Asshole Bakura proceeds to calculate the status of each character on his laptop, despite how he says it's probably pointless. Still, he knows that there are enough variables in the game to leave all the number-crunching to the computer. He spends a moment typing out all the information, as all the data of each adventurer shows on his screen. Asshole Bakura is talking casually about all the numbers he's entering into the computer, all culminating in how many hit points each character has left, which he thinks should be in the negatives by now. I'm surprised Yami hasn't already leaped across the table to strangle this smug piece of shit.

You know, I first read that sound effect as "DAYUM" which I think would have also been appropriate in a "DAYUM KIDS GOT GAME" sort of way. This explains why Yami wasn't busy fucking Asshole Bakura up too, he was watching everyone dragging themselves up and being badasses.

Yami calls out that they made it, though he thinks that he knew all along that his other soul couldn't possibly be gone. That's actually probably true, considering how close they are. Jonouchi's piece asks everyone if they're okay, and Honda's piece answers that everyone seems to be alive, so they're all good. Yami smiles down at Yuugi's piece as he thinks that, even when separated, they're never apart, because if Yuugi's soul died, then Yami's would die as well.

This confirms it, then. They CAN'T be two separate souls. They absolutely have to be two different parts of the same soul, because I can't think of any reason why Yami's soul couldn't carry on in Yuugi's body if they were completely separate entities. I'm more and more convinced that Yami was a past incarnation of the soul, and Yuugi is the present incarnation of a certain PART of that soul. I have yet to do a lot of research, but this seems to be in line with the little I've read about Egyptian cosmology, which talks about souls having somewhere between four and six different parts to them, depending upon which source you go by. Since the Millennium Items are from Egypt, I figure that's the cosmology we're working from, anyway.

As Yuugi is agreeing with this ground-breaking assessment from Yami, Asshole Bakura is staring in disbelief. It takes him a moment to look down and realize that his left hand is still typing on his keyboard, and has been since his brain has been breaking from the survival of the players. He's now freaking out, not knowing what's going on.

Well if that isn't the most polite middle finger I've ever seen. Asshole Bakura thought he had locked Regular Bakura away pretty deep down, and is now wondering how he managed to come back to the surface. Asshole Bakura realizes that since his soul is linked with the Zork figure on the field that had its left hand cut off earlier, Regular Bakura must have taken back control of that lost hand. Asshole Bakura thinks this should be impossible, but I think it's AWESOME. This is such a GREAT use of the past event of the adventurers cutting off that hand, I'm STOKED.

Yami calls out his roll as he throws the dice, and rolls a critical of 05. Jonouchi's piece leaps up and stabs Zork in the eye, causing a disgruntled Asshole Bakura to squeeze his corresponding eye shut and growl. Yami says it louder for those in the back, "it's not over yet!"

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? This was probably one of the best ones of the series so far. It had everything: the kids making a series of quick surprise attacks on Zork, Zork recovering from the attacks with little damage, hopelessness as Zork's counterattack devastated the party, heartbreak as the players appeared dead, and an amazing, triumphant comeback by the players as well as Ryou Bakura sticking it to his ruthless possessor. Nearly every part of this chapter was action-oriented, and those parts that weren't had compelling information to hold them up. I LOVED this chapter.

As if all of that wasn't enough, the most conclusive information about the relationship between Yuugi and Yami was dropped. It was only the one line, but it was so significant because now we know that they're so entwined that if one of them was gone, the other would die too. It's not a mere possession, but much more complicated than that. They are mutually dependent on each other, and though they're NOT the same person, they are undoubtedly a necessary part of each other. Neither one can be without the other.

And because of Ryou Bakura's rebellion in this part, I have to wonder if the case is the same with him and his other self. Sure, the Other Bakura is a spirit of the ring, like Yami is a spirit of the puzzle, but is his relationship with Ryou similar to Yami's relationship to Yuugi? Well, Ryou's other self wasn't able to take over his host body like Yami was at the beginning, and I assumed that was because he was weaker, but now I'm not so sure. It could also be because the spirit in the ring doesn't have an intimate relationship with Ryou.

Either way, we don't have enough information about the two of them to draw conclusions yet. But we do have Ryou taking over the lost hand there, and that was BRILLIANT. It's great to see how Takahashi can intelligently use information from past chapters and incorporate it back into the present narrative as it not only follows all the rules already laid down, but reinforces them. Thumbs up on that development and A+!