Yuugi indicates his Duel Monsters spread on his blanket as he announces that he'll sacrifice two monsters during this turn to summon his Dark Magician. Wait a moment there, he didn't have to do that before for anything but that Black Luster Bro. Why is he doing this for the Dark Magician now? This has Jonouchi just as bewildered as I am, plus up in arms, because he shouts an attack here too? This whole exchange is kind of confusing.
Jonouchi flails about, devastated that his monster was destroyed and his life points are down to zero. Yuugi throws up his arms and cheers that he beats Jonouchi continuously. How long have these two been playing? I don't know, but it's been a continuous time! Bakura quips that Jonouchi is super weak, which strangely isn't a statement about if he even lifts, bro. Head in palm, Jonouchi curses and wonders aloud why his hand is so unlucky. Anzu winks at him and tells him it's not that the luck of his hand. Jonouchi glares daggers at her, asking her what THAT'S supposed to mean, because he presumably realizes that the statement could very easily be turned into a masturbation joke. Anzu merely points out that his skill level is still far below par, and Jonouchi curses again.
He recovers from his disappointment and bad mood quickly, though, suggesting to Yuugi with a huge grin that they play again. Fiftieth time's a charm? Winking, Yuugi accepts this challenge, but Anzu has to be the mom who tells them to grow some self control and that Yuugi is at the hospital to rest. Yuugi insists he's not tired, and Honda backs him up by insisting Anzu not worry - Yuugi forgets all his troubles and pains when he plays cards. How this is not a sign Anzu should worry more in the absence of his own sense of well-being is beyond me, but Anzu is on board with this excuse to stop fussing. He's got a mama for that, after all. One with a ladle she's just dying to whack someone with.
That wasn't Anzu's assessment, by the way; I take ALL the credit. No, Anzu is too busy thinking about how great it is that Yuugi's wounds weren't too severe, and that's the REAL luck at play here. Her expression is morose when she recalls the flames shooting out of the Black Crown and a smoking Jonouchi emerging from those flames cradling the unconscious Yuugi. What's this, KT? No thought-dialogue telling us exactly what's going on? Are you unwell?
It turns out to be a one-off thing, because Anzu silently thanks Jonouchi for saving Yuugi in the next panel, watching them play their cards demurely. Jonouchi soon shouts in dismay that he lost AGAIN, and Anzu mocks him for being only slightly injured and dense. Not too dense to be a fucking HERO, I see.
Yuugi asks Jonouchi if he's still using the deck he used in Duelist Kingdom and Jonouchi answers that it has quite a few good monsters so he'd like to keep using it. Yuugi gently advises him that he should reorganize his deck instead, because Yuugi can tell exactly how Jonouchi is going to strategize with his current set of cards. Jonouchi is flabbergasted that he could be so obviously predictable, and is driven to being pissed off by Honda's comment that's Yuugi need not say more - Jonouchi is the kind of guy who is always stuck in a moment of glory. Jonouchi whines that Honda is mean, which just shows how far he is from the days when he would have punched someone for saying shit like that to him.
He asks Yuugi if he reorganized his deck, and Yuugi confirms this. Yuugi says he kept all his key monsters, but the rest of his cards are new. He believes that monsters shouldn't fight in duels forever, and besides, he and Yami have spent the last three boring days in the hospital reorganizing their deck so it's much stronger. Anzu looks a bit speechless and strangely bothered by this, for some reason, before she asks sunnily whether Yami is alright. Yuugi confirms he's just great, thanks, and Anzu blushes a bit as she looks at the puzzle pendant Yuugi cradles in his hands. He hums when she says his name again, and she recalls he said the Millennium Puzzle grants a wish when it's put together, asking what he wished for this second time he put it together.
Jonouchi starts to enthusiastically interrogate Yuugi, enchanted by the idea that the puzzle has benefits to its solution, and asking what Yuugi wished for the first time. A fabulous prize? Money? A small glimpse of Anzu's anatomy? Yuugi claims it would be embarrassing to say, and he would really like to keep that first wish a secret.
Yuugi continues to stare lovingly at the puzzle in his palms while Anzu smiles at him. He says that in the fire, he could only think about getting that puzzle together, not making wishes. However, his heart did have a deep desire to see Yami again, and now that he considers it, that must have been the wish he made at the time without even realizing it. He mutters that something is really unbelievable, and I wonder if that's the fact that he thought his FIRST wish was too embarrassing to reveal, but his second was not.
No, it's actually the fact that Yuugi put the puzzle together so much faster than the eight years it took him the first time, and he says it's almost as if it put ITSELF together. Honey, if it had done that, you wouldn't have those freaking BURNS. Anzu looks quite alarmed by Yuugi's statement before declaring that Yuugi's second wish came true as well. Yuugi makes a confused noise, so Anzu winks and elaborates that the puzzle might have been so much easier to put together BECAUSE of his wish, and if the puzzle has a conscience it must have also wanted to see Yuugi again. Yuugi holds the puzzle up before his eyes, looking pleased with this assessment, but Anzu looks strangely depressed again.
That is until she stands abruptly, announcing she's going to buy drinks. Wow, don't be so eager to find happiness at the bottom of a bottle, girl. Just kidding! She's headed for the vending machine soft drinks, and is barraged with requests to get Yuugi a Coke and Jonouchi iced tea. She appears somewhat annoyed with this, but what do you expect when you're heading to the vending machine anyway?
But Anzu thinks that Yami has been in Yuugi's heart from the very beginning, echoing what Shadi said about it back in his arc. She believes that it's only that Yami can appear through the puzzle, so assumes that the true Yuugi must be a combination of these two personalities. She tries to convince herself that she's not wrong, but she just becomes all the gloomier for it. Eventually she wonders if Yami is really the consciousness inside the puzzle, and comes to a rather unpalatable conclusion if it happens to be true while standing moping in the hall. If ancient Egypt is really where the puzzle belongs, then eventually Yami will have to return to it.
Back inside the hospital room, the crotchety old fart that clearly represents me glances over at Yuugi and co from the cover of his newspaper. He sees Yuugi giving Jonouchi advice on how hinging his whole strategy on a card that steals cards from the other player can be turned against him if that card is taken away, and Jonouchi dismayed at the fact. At this point, the old fart calls out to Yuugi and Yuugi points at himself in surprise that this stranger is talking to him. The old fart waffles at first about the thing Yuugi has, backtracking a bit and saying it doesn't matter before explaining that the eye on the necklace Yuugi is wearing is very similar to the one on an ad in the newspaper he's reading. Yeah, dude. It's the Eye of Horus. It's a really widely-used symbol in Egyptian-themed art.
Nonetheless, the old fart holds out the newspaper to show Yuugi.
Yuugi gapes at the small newspaper panel, and of course the number one Millennium fan Bakura is staring at it too in a hot second, trailing off in a statement of what that necklace must be. Yuugi already knows that he's not mistaken anyway as he looks closer at the picture of the necklace, as it's surely a Millennium Item. Yuugi scans the page for information on who the woman wearing it is, and finds the name "Isis" there. The old fart says that Isis is the curator for the Egyptian government's collection of artifacts being hosted at the Domino Museum. All Yuugi and Bakura really take from this information is the Egypt part, because who cares about all that other shit??
Speechless, Yuugi half gapes at his blanket a moment, getting the distinct impression that something is about to happen. I sure hope so, otherwise this wouldn't be much of a story.
Elsewhere, a black car speeds along the road, coming to a stop at which the shadowed driver says they've arrived. Where and when these mysterious folk have arrived is revealed in the next panel - Domino Art Museum at 10:00 pm. The mystery of who is stepping out of the car in the panel after that remains a mystery for scarcely longer.
Kaiba's security dude, who looks suspiciously similar to one of Pegasus's Secret Service Servants, recaps for him the fact that this meeting their having is very late and at an art museum. Honda might have some competition for his job of stating the obvious in here. The security dude asks Kaiba if the businessman they're meeting with is an important figure, and Kaiba immediately corrects him on the point that the person they're meeting is in fact a woman, followed by the information that she's important with the Egyptian government. Security Dude seems to have the same reaction to the word "Egypt" as Yuugi and Bakura just did, but I'm fairly certain he's more bewildered than shocked.
Kaiba is joined by yet another security dude as he climbs the steps to the museum, greeted at the doors by the woman whom Yuugi had identified in the paper as Isis. She says it's an honor to meet Kaiba, and praises him on how his business has developed the games industry incredibly fast. After this, she introduces herself as Isis Ishtar, the curator of the current Egyptian exhibition hosted at the museum behind her. Kaiba doesn't say anything, for once, and is invited into the building by a polite Isis.
As they walk the halls of the building, Isis informs Kaiba about the Ministry of Egyptian Archaeology, founded in 1858 to stop the looting of burial chambers by treasure hunters and robbers. However, now their scope has widened to monitoring all kinds of archaeology dig sites around the world. What kind of business they have monitoring digs outside of Egypt, Isis doesn't say, and Kaiba takes advantage of her NOT expositing this by asking her to talk to someone else if she's looking for a mummy-collector or something. He tells her his only interest is state-of-the-art technology, and several-thousand-year-old stuff don't strike his fancy any. Isis stays quiet a moment, before promising to show Kaiba the mysteries of Egypt in just this one night, because she's a gossip who just has to tell all of Egypt's dirty little secrets.
Like the fact that Kaiba's precious Duel Monsters cards actually originated there. Kaiba's reaction is crazy over-the-top alarm, which is just weird. He's a weird kid. Isis explains that though Pegasus was the designer of the card game, his inspiration for his invention was found in his trip to Egypt. She says she's about to show Kaiba some images on a mural from the tomb of the 18th dynasty pharaoh, wondering aloud what sort of reaction Kaiba will have to them and if it will be at all like Pegasus's. As she leads the way further into the exhibit, Kaiba ponders what she's on about. Isis gestures at a dark doorway, telling Kaiba that the images she mentioned are inside. He steps in because light is for babies, as Isis asks him to view the origin of Duel Monsters. She flips on the lightswitch, and Kaiba's expression turns to instant gaping awe.
Wide-eyed and sweating, Kaiba stutters questions in his head about how these appearing to be Duel Monsters cards. Yeah. Isis said Pegasus got his inspiration here, didn't she? Why is this a big deal?
Isis continues to gossip away, about how the ancient Egyptians believed natural disasters were caused by evil monsters living in the hearts of men. Priests apparently sculpted the likeness of these monsters onto stone tablets in order to seal them away and keep the world at peace. The monsters pictured in the tablet possessed evil powers, and the priests would unleash them on each other and fight behind the pharaoh's back. These guys sound like total dicks, so... glad they're dead?
Drawing Kaiba's attention to another tablet, Isis says it's the one she wanted him to see, and one that depicts one of these fights. Kaiba is REALLY freaking out now, because he believes he recognizes one of the actual people depicted on the tablet.
Isis identifies the young pharaoh as the one controlling the Dark Magician, who apparently decided to fight someone behind his own back. She also points out the high priest standing opposite this self-defying pharaoh, controlling a white beast. Kaiba continues to gape, realizing that this white beast she speaks of is actually the Blue Eyes White Dragon, his own signature beast. Though I'm not sure Kaiba's really hearing her at this point, Isis's lecture goes on to impart that this mural is "The Engraved Stamp of the Duelists' War" passed down through the generations. She creepily concludes that the battle continues.
Spoopy.
So, what did I think about this chapter overall? It had an introduction of a new character and two major revelations for two side characters, giving us readers quite a bit to think about. Isis is definitely an interesting addition to the cast, seeing as she's the first foreign person to show up who's not a complete ass. Although she does have that kind of "mystical brown person" narrative going on so far, so I can't say I'm too stoked about that. Still, she doesn't appear to be particularly antagonistic, just smug and a bit on the preachy side. That I can deal with.
The first revelation kind of killed one of my pet hypotheses about this series, that Anzu put quite nicely, as a matter of fact. She's worried about Yami one day having to go away, trying and failing to convince herself that he won't because he's an intricate part of Yuugi. She's unwillingly realized that if Yami is actually a part of the puzzle instead of Yuugi, then he and the puzzle will have to go back to Egypt eventually, which breaks her heart. These emotions are conveyed pretty well for how she appeared in the previous chapter, and I'm impressed with how natural it felt for her to be swinging from happiness for Yuugi to sorrow at the possibility of losing Yami for good one day. It was understandable and relatable.
Not sure how she's the only one considering this, given how Yuugi is far closer to Yami and this issue than she is. Perhaps he's just TOO close? Yeah, let's go with that.
Then Kaiba has his revelation about his favorite card game coming from Egypt and maybe there's some connection to Yuugi there. This one was a bit of a let-down, because it's obvious that a lot of this information isn't actually for Kaiba's benefit. It's for the benefit of us readers. Clearly Kaiba was approached by Isis, and he doesn't appear to have any interest in anything she has to say at first, so why did he even show up to this meeting without a clear motivator? It was pure plot-contrivance, because for as selfish a character Kaiba is, he really has no reason to be here other than be a conduit for information to the reader. Even after he starts listening to Isis, he gets too excited too soon and I had a moment of mirth at how protracted and ridiculous his reaction was to a tablet that showed what Isis had said about Pegasus getting his inspiration from Egypt was true. I mean, why should he be surprised when the tablet pretty much showed him exactly what it was supposed to?
Yes, his involvement in the past will become somewhat important to him as a character, but as of this chapter, he's really doing nothing but overacting his alarm at information Isis is REALLY conveying to the reader. In particular, the ancient inspiration for Duel Monsters being a real magical battle technique in which priests would seal monsters from men's hearts into tablets and use them to duel each other. It's a fairly interesting concept to be sure, and it strikes me as very much like the idea of a spirit guide or spirit animal that grows from you and helps you. Or hurts and hinders you, depending on how it's nurtured, of course.
My only question is: why doesn't this sort of thing happen in the present day, now that priests are no longer sealing away peoples' evil spirits?
Well, I don't know if I'd say the information was for the reader given that Pegasus mentioned the Egypt connection at the end of Duelist Kingdom and Bakura alluded to Atem being a Pharaoh. The only new info given is Yugi and Kaiba's ancient rivalry.
ReplyDeleteFair, we knew a lot of the general sense of connection to ancient Egypt through other characters before, but the part of this that's intriguing to the reader - the specifics of priests sealing away monsters in peoples' souls to duel against one another - isn't necessarily useful to Kaiba as a character yet. In fact, Ishizu really should have known that Kaiba would be skeptical and even reject it outright, so her telling this to HIM of all people just seems like an info-dump to the reader by proxy of the character who's least likely to benefit from it at the moment. Framing the tournament proposal in terms of the god cards should have been more than enough to get Kaiba to comply with her plan.
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