Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 098 Choose Wisely!

That means no flipping coins, boys! Just because there are only two choices doesn't mean you can just play a game of Eenie-Meenie and get a fair result. But the most important rule to choosing wisely is not playing to expectations. "The Door of the Palace" might sound like the obvious choice, and that's exactly why you SHOULDN'T pick it. Never forget the mistake of that Nazi guy in Indiana Jones, kids.

He certainly did.

What a succinct summation! Thank you for that, chapter! The cheerleaders in the background add to this by shouting that Yami and Jonouchi did it and that teamwork prevails! Over other teamwork? They were against another team, not a lone wolf, so I don't know what distinction they're making here. Then Anzu, Honda and Bakura all hunch into a huddle and leap into the air, proclaiming that this means Yami and Jonouchi each have ten star chips now. Following this oddly choreographed move, Yami and Jonouchi collect the rest of their chips and snap them into their wristbands, Jonouchi happily stating that they've earned their right to go to the castle.

But the Meikyu Brothers are grinning again, reminding them that the game isn't over yet. Jonouchi is miffed that they're laughing even though they were beaten. Kyu is fully willing to give his respect to the pair who beat he and his brother in their own labyrinth and hand over those star chips, but Mei wonders aloud if they've forgotten that they haven't really won until they get out of the REAL maze.

Jonouchi HAD evidently forgotten, because he looks like someone punched him in the stomach. Yami, on the other hand, chuckles and says that they didn't forget. He recalls out loud that only one of the doors lead to the surface and the only one that can be opened is the one whose guardian whom they defeat, but reasons that since both Mei and Kyu were defeated at the same time, both doors should be opened.

Well, so much for the cocky approach. It appears that's all Yami had, because he remains silent and glaring while Jonouchi complains that this is totally unfair. Anzu follows suit, whining that there was no point to beating both brothers at once, and Honda worries that everything is for nought if the wrong door is chosen.

The Meikyu Brothers continue to taunt, saying they must choose either the Kyu door on the right or the Mei door on the left as their fate. Yami scoffs, but doesn't have an answer. Kyu offers the "hint" that the his door is the correct one, but Mei immediately jumps in with the apparent contradiction of his door. Jonouchi growls that he knows one of them is lying, but he doesn't know which one, and it pisses him off. The brothers chuckle, and Yami watches this contemplatively, thinking that they claim one of them is lying, and wondering if it's possible to figure out their riddle with everything they've said thus far.

He thinks back on when Jonouchi asked them to point out their door, and both of them pointed to the Kyu door. Mei appeared to be the liar, but didn't actually SAY anything, and therefore could have gotten around the spoken lies/truth dichotomy as a way to trick and confuse Jonouchi and Yami. Yami compares their words to a labyrinth without end, and tools of deceit, which I think is a tad over dramatic.

Jonouchi claims his head hurts from all this thinking and turns the riddle over to Yami as he leans so far back in his chair that Honda has to catch him, telling Jonouchi to pull himself together. The Meikyu Brothers see them thinking from the other side of the table, but they are confident that it is 100% impossible for the boys to choose the correct door. Yami finds this suspicious, since the chance of choosing between the doors SHOULD be fifty-fifty.

He pushes himself to think harder at all FOUR of the possible answers. The Kyu door is right, the Mei door is right, BOTH doors are right, or NEITHER are right and there's a third door hidden in the room. Kyu chuckles as Mei acknowledges Yami's suspicion that there's more than two doors in the room and tells Yami and company that they have five minutes to search the entirety of the hall. The formerly incapacitated Jonouchi leaps to his feet and starts barking orders to search from top to bottom, and the others agree, starting from various places.

Except Yami.

It seems like you're just lazily waiting for your friends to do all the work, but okay, Yami.

Honda supposes that the door they came in doesn't count, and goes elsewhere to look. Anzu and Bakura pat at the walls in search, when Bakura suddenly hears a voice.

He turns to Anzu and asks if she said something, but she's too engrossed in her search to reply. Bakura sweats, and then the voice comes again, chuckling that it's "me". Bakura holds up the Millennium Ring with its pointing needle and is utterly appalled that the voice seems to be coming from there. The voice says it's been a long time, but a lifetime wouldn't have been long ENOUGH if you ask me. The ring asks Bakura how long he plans on wasting his time here, playing card games, when there's another Millennium Item within reach. Doesn't he KNOW the ring has been leading him toward it the whole time?

The ring urges Bakura to put it on, so it can tell him where the door is, a piece of cake for a thief like it. Ho don't do it.

Anzu turns and asks the frozen Bakura what's wrong, but Bakura starts and stutters that nothing is wrong. The ring, meanwhile, keeps talking to him. It surmises that he's afraid of it because of what it did last time, but it swears it's a brand new person and it's just trying to help him save his friends. That's what all the abusive Millennium Items say! Bakura tells the ring to stop, mentally saying it won't listen to it anymore. It threatens that if he's serious, then his friends will be trapped in the caves forever.

Aaaaaaaand the Meikyu Brothers tell them that their five minutes are up.

Anyone gonna ask Bakura if he's feeling okay? Because he looks like shit right now.

Nope. No one notices, even Yami, who thinks that there's only one way for the brothers to stop them from choosing the correct door, and this is his final gamble. The Meikyu Brothers continue to urge him to choose a door, Mei or Kyu.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING I SAID IN THE COLD OPEN YAMI?

Kyu laughs as he ALSO assumes Yami is going to make his decision based on a coin toss. Yami tells him to shut up and watch him, because he has TWO coins, one in each his right and left hands. Then he puts them on the table, a finger over each of their faces. Yami tells the brothers that whichever coin he leaves under his finger is the one he chooses. They tell him that's a-okay with them and urge him to move one of his hands. All Yami's friends stare at him, caught between confusion and nervousness.

Kyu identifies his own symbol, and surmises that Yami must be choosing the Mei door. Bakura is immediately critical of this decision, telling Yami that he's wrong and the correct door is actually the other one, much to Anzu's surprise. She stutters out his name in shock, and Yami finally takes notice of Bakura as well, likely wondering how the fuck he would know.

Kyu says it's too late to amend his answer and that Yami already chose the Mei door. He chuckles that Yami should have listened to his friend instead of taking a chance. Mei dramatically begins the announcement that the correct door is Kyu, Kyu himself finishing by opening his own tabletop door and revealing a key with Kyu written on it. It's the only key that can open the exit, according to him.  Suspicious, considering Kyu opened the OPPOSITE door that Yami supposedly chose. I say supposedly because I wouldn't be surprised if Yami wrote both symbols on each side of each coin in order to test out whether they would just say that the correct door was whichever one he didn't choose. It's what I would do, anyway.

Yami looks mildly perplexed while Jonouchi looks horrified in the background. ALSO in the background, Bakura is smirking evilly, which if it wasn't obvious before that he gave into the ring's suggestion before with his little outburst, you should be convinced now. Kyu laughs at Yami for choosing incorrectly and having to remain in this hall for as long as Pegasus would like.

As per usual, Yami puts back on his smirk and chuckles, saying he knew it. The brothers are taken aback by this attitude, glaring. Yami tells them that their faces gave away their game, wearing their confidence that he could never choose correctly because there was no right answer. He says that if they thought he had chosen Kyu, then the correct door would have been Mei, just as the opposite was true in this instance. Bakura reiterates that the brothers choose which door is the correct one after knowing what the player's decision is, and hails it as the perfect swindle while Anzu says his name again, I guess surprised that he's talking so much.

Kyu's sweating as he says it doesn't matter, because he couldn't answer correctly, and that means he and his brother win the game. Contrary to Kyu's assertion, Yami says it's really too bad for him.

I fuckin' knew it! The brothers are blown away that both coins had Kyu written on them, and Yami explains that one of the coins only had Kyu written on the one side, but on the other coin he wrote Mei on the other side. Snarky bastard that he is, Yami wags a finger at the Meikyu Brothers and admits he forgot to tell them that one of his hands doesn't play fair, essentially throwing their dumb riddle back at them and telling them to shove it up their asses.

The brothers grind their teeth at the fact that their opponents actually beat their shitty labyrinth. Then, suddenly, Bakura gasps and blinks, asking what just happened. He asks Yami if he just won while Anzu FINALLY questions him about how he's feeling. Yami wonders if Bakura figured out the trap, because his outburst distracted the brothers enough to keep them finding out about his double-sided coin.

No matter, the door opens for them and they proceed through it, on their way to Pegasus's castle from the labyrinth. The finals await at LONG LAST!

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The level of irony was just delicious in this one. Yami's approach to determining the truth of the matter wasn't just scientific, but depended on the same tricks the Meikyu Brothers used to try and confuse the matter. Obviously, he snarked at them that one of his hands doesn't play fair like one of THEM always tells lies, but there's more to it than that. When the Meikyu Brothers pointed out their door in response to Jonouchi's question, they didn't say a thing, and that must have given Yami the idea to avoid SPEAKING his decision too, until the brothers revealed which door they were calling correct.

Although, the most interesting part of the chapter wasn't actually the above. It was Bakura's conversation with the ring that really struck me as a pivotal part. I often talk about how Yami's victories are foregone conclusions, and we just watch for HOW he does it and the ultimate payoff of getting his grandfather back in his body. Bakura's struggle with the ring, on the other hand, is so much more compelling because the last time the spirit of the ring came out, Bakura literally DIED. He has more reason to distrust the ring than anyone, considering how much physical damage it did him in the past. He knows this, but he put the ring on anyway, believing that he and his friends wouldn't be able to leave the labyrinth without the spirit.

And it looks like that might have been true, to a degree. Yami thinks so, at least, because the distraction that Bakura provided seemed pretty valuable to him at the time to the purpose of keeping his coin trick under wraps until the brothers named a door. Yami may have been able to hide it until the right moment, but Other Bakura's interference here definitely ensured that the brothers didn't notice Yami kept his fingers on the coin until after it would have been useless. Did Regular Bakura act on fear alone, or did he consider the possibility that the Other Bakura wouldn't have anything to gain from staying in the labyrinth, and EVERYTHING to gain from getting out and getting to that other Millennium Item?

More importantly, why has Yami been carrying a marker to draw on coins with?