Mr. Sherlock Holmes in the hood over there asks how the hell Kaiba ended up with Obelisk, and Marik postulates that Kaiba got his hands on the card and hosted the tournament with the intention to unite the god cards. Doesn't really answer the question Mr. SH asked, but Marik would much rather elaborate the answer to the question in his own brain by thinking that Ishizu (his sister, as it turns out, surprising no one) was the one to have the Obelisk card. Marik ruminates on a hypothesis that Ishizu must have seen a possible future in which giving the card to Kaiba would ensure a tournament, that and the gods guiding Yami and Marik's fates to intersect. He's certain that all the god cards will come together in HIS hands, though, as well as the title of king.
*SpoilerAlert for S7E5 of GoT* Well, it'll become a bit less assured of a win for you when a couple of your bannermen are burned alive by Kaiba's dragons and the rest of your army bows to him in order to avoid the same fate.
#ThronesYall
Mr. SH asks Marik if he should send the Rare Hunters out to get Kaiba in the North block he's still occupying, but Marik says that Kaiba is such an extraordinary duelist that even the Rare Hunters will have a difficult time taking him down with Obelisk against them. Smiling, Marik says that you need a god card to beat a god card, at which statement Mr. SH is taken aback and stammering that Marik wouldn't. What wouldn't he do that he's clearly GOING to do anyway? Why go with his Sun God Ra to Domino City himself, of course! Oh snap!
Mr. SH asks if it's really necessary for him to dirty his hands, only for Marik to point out that he will EVENTUALLY need to face Kaiba anyway. Still, now that they know he has Obelisk, they can just let him be for a while, because he may be useful later. So, Marik tells Mr. SH to put someone on Kaiba's tail, making sure not to lose track of him. Mr. SH agrees promptly, before Marik says that in the meantime, there is ONE person who can entertain him. According to Mr. SH, the word "entertain" only exits Marik's mouth when he's filled with hatred.
How does hating being entertained work? Just, on a conceptual level.
WHAT???
My confusion aside, Marik glances to his side and asks another of his hooded goons where Yuugi is at the moment. The guy falters a moment, then admits that they have information that he's heading from West B Block to E Block. Marik hums in contemplation, and Mr. SH stands dumbfounded at Marik's lack of priorities. They're supposed to be getting that third god card, and here Marik is, inexplicably after this Yuugi kid. The NERVE!
Marik thinks about the location he's been given and mutters that of course there is only one place Yuugi could be headed. He orders his goons to call up their Rare Hunter, Ordered the Second, Sir Pandora the Conjurer, Esq. At least, that's what I IMAGINE his full name to be. Marik wants Pandora to prepare himself for a duel, because he estimates that Yuugi will appear in front of him soon. And I thought PANDORA was supposed to be the conjurer.
His lackeys speechless, Marik continues to speak, saying it'll take him a bit of time to get ready to go to Domino. Have to reapply the eyeliner and all that jazz. He tells the goons that Yuugi should be occupied by playing around with Pandora a while as Marik gets his game-face on. Mr. SH says that he's ordered Pandora to keep tabs on Yuugi's friends, and Marik says they should get ready to make use of those pieces as well. Then he pushes himself to his feet and proceeds to go get himself ready.
The first step of this apparently consists of walking to a large table shaped like an upside-down pyramid, much like the Millennium Puzzle, except this has legs holding up each of the four corners to balance it and it looks pretty freaking awkward. On top of this table in the center of a glass slab in the middle is a card, which Marik picks up and examines, identifying it as the Sun Dragon Ra. We don't get a good look at he face of the card, only seeing the back of it as Marik mentally warns Yuugi to beware, because he's going to be taken care of by Marik's own hands. After this, the hood on Marik's cloak comes down so we can see his weird blond hair.
But I always appreciate shirtlessness. Yes I do.
Meanwhile, Yami hasn't taken off HIS cape/jacket, and it's flaring out behind him like there's a permanent wind in his face as he wanders East Section Domino City at 10:30 in the morning. He's glancing around, wondering where the Rare Hunters waiting to prey upon honest duelists are, getting a little broody about them using counterfeit cards to steal legit ones earned with blood, sweat and tears. Stop by a café and order a chamomile tea, boy. CHILL. But no, he's only got one think on his mind, finding a clue to get to one of those dirty bastards.
Yuugi pops up next to Yami in his mental state, wondering what Jonouchi is doing. He hangs his head when Yami recovers from his initial shock to ask if Yuugi is worried. Yuugi explains that Jonouchi doesn't have his trump card the Red Eyes Black Dragon, and the tournament is filled with really good duelists. Yami pulls the Red Eyes from the pocket he stowed it in on his belt, gazing at it a moment contemplatively. Smiling, he tells Yuugi that this card is the courage they're holding for Jonuchi. Yuugi looks uncertain at first, but then gets it as he remembers that Jonouchi is fighting to get his favorite card back, and thus he and Yami gave Jonouchi something to fight for. Yeah, because it's so essential he even BE in this tournament to begin with...
Yami and Yuugi both agree that this is why Jonouchi will show his true strength as a duelist, a strangely concise explanation for how complicated this concept of a true duelist is becoming. Yuugi happily declares Yami right, and that Jonouchi will survive Battle City. Notice how he didn't say "win". Regardless, Yami nods and smiles.
Yuugi thinks that it won't matter which of them wins this much-hyped duel between himself and Jonouchi, because it'll be a duel to remember either way, and a real good memory at that. Suddenly, Yuugi seems to have an epiphany about being an asshole, hanging his head and apologizing to Yami for forgetting that he doesn't have any memories from before they met. He looks over at Yami nervously, but Yami is staring down at the Red Eyes until it looks like HE also has an epiphany when he gasps. Yuugi asks what's wrong.
Yami asks why the Rare Hunters were after Jonouchi's Red Eyes Black Dragon in the first place, recalling that Jonouchi was attacked the night before the tournament even started. They had come at him with a Duel Disk knowing that he was a tournament participant and knew Jonouchi had a Red Eyes Black Dragon. Yuugi gasps as well, remembering the game shop where they got the Duel Disks. The clerk had looked them up in the database for information on cards and levels before he gave them the machine. Yami is sure that's it, and starts running as he concludes that the store is a front for Rare Hunters. He internally urges those scum not to move while he's heading for them.
When he arrives at the door, he stands dramatically in front of a "closed" sign. But if you think a little thing like THAT is going to stop Yami...
Backlit by the light streaming through the glass door behind him, Yami stands in the middle of the dark shop. He approaches a computer monitor on the counter which has been curiously turned toward where a customer would see, rather than the clerk. He hears a small beep issue from it, and looks alarmed when it lights up. He notes with some wariness that it turned itself on while it's still whirring to life. It eventually displays Yami's data from Kaiba's database, and I can only assume Yami is unnerved by it because the close-up on his eyes aren't really selling anything but angry here. He's probably still preoccupied with those dirty Rare Hunter bastards and their cheating here to really realize the full implications, because I would have been out of this horror movie trick in a flash if I were in his shoes right now.
But because Yami is a little slow on the uptake, some even MORE spooky shit is going down, like the Dark Magician card on the screen starting to issue physical smoke, and the face of that magician turning to a twisted grin and beady eyes. Yami stares agape at it until...
Just me?
The evil!Dark Magician tells Yami that its master Pandora will be dueling him this evening, to which gracious greeting Yami frowns as he wonders about this "Pandora" person. So it really IS just me... Evil!Dark Magician vows to show Yami that there is only one true user of the ultimate spell-caster card, and that's Pandora the Conjurer. Yami smirks, telling the Rare Hunter to get his butt out there and cut out the silly little tricks. In response, a spotlight shines in a previously dark spot where a silhouette of a man has appeared.
This possessiveness looks like it amuses Yami, who repeats this alias as a question. Sir Pandora says that he knows Yami has used the Dark Magician to defeat many before, be insists he is the TRUE master of the magician and no one can beat HIS Dark Magician specifically. Evil!Dark Magician smirks and I'm rolling my eyes SO HARD right now. Yami says they'll see if he's unbeatable, holding his Duel Disk arm up at the ready. He monologues about how duelists build their decks by choosing out of all the thousands of cards existing that they trust the most, but cards also choose duelists as well. As Yami puts his cards into the Duel Disk, he says that the hearts of both cards and duelist must be one in order for the former to show their true power.
I guess by THAT logic, anyone playing any card can say it chose them and make up some secret previously unknown power to beat them, huh?
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Mad love for the horror elements there toward the end, which will never not be my cup of tea. I did rather miss all of that creepiness from the first few chapters of this manga, so it's nice to see it make a comeback, even if it's only in a small way. And in a way that the main character didn't really have much of a real reaction to. I understand that KT wants to make his hero cool in the face of danger, but there's a point at which that becomes unrelatable and distances the audience from that hero.
I also want to address the name of our new Rare Hunter here, because I don't think it's accidental. Something I never addressed back in the Duelist Kingdom arc is Pegasus's name (given name in the original Japanese and family name in the English translation). Pegasus isn't part of Egyptian mythology, but Greek, representing a whole slew of different things depending on who's looking. It was difficult to really pin down what KT was going for by naming Pegasus after the creature of Greek cosmology, so I didn't really want to cover it way back when.
Now I wish I had, because here we have yet another character named after a Greek mythical figure: Pandora. She's a bit more simple in her symbolic representation, being a fairly straightforward explanation as to why evil exists in the world, so by the time this duel is over, I should be able to determine if this is more than a naming fluke. My hunch is that Mr. Pandora here is going to closely resemble the original Pandora's purpose in her myth, because I've come to realize that KT doesn't just slap a myth-related characteristic on his characters for no reason.
Additionally, Yami and Yuugi solving the mystery of how Jonouchi got targeted for his card, and how to find the Rare Hunters, was somewhat intriguing for a few reasons. It was nice seeing them start to really question the circumstances of what happened at what seemed like a natural time. There wasn't much of an opportunity to look too closely at the odd way the drama played out before now, given that Yami only just learned that Jonouchi had been robbed the night before in the morning. The deduction instead came when he was thinking about how Jonouchi's card ended up with him in the first place, organically leading to a revelation that the Rare Hunters MUST have tracked them that shop.
Now, if this extremely unnecessary event had never happened, Yami would have never gone LOOKING for Rare Hunters and would have never had a reason to revisit the card shop, so that renders the spooky scene unnecessary as well.
Damn.
Oddly enough, Yugi and Atem thinking to check out the card shop as a front for the Ghouls only happens in the manga. In the anime, they're just lured into some weird circus tent instead. I don't know why, but I guess it's to make the idea of Yugi being lured seem more reasonable rather than Pandora conveniently being where Yugi showed up.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of Pandora, that reminds me that first Rare Hunter/Ghoul never got a name. In the video games, though, he's referred to as Seeker. Pretty much everyone just refers to him as Rare Hunter or Exodia Guy, though, especially given that "Seeker" is probably just shorthand for Rare Hunter in the older games that don't have a lot of character slots for names anyway.
I appreciate an attempt to make things LESS convenient for the main character, lol! But getting lured into a circus tent isn't much better. XD
DeleteYeah, what makes it all the more odd is that he make a joke out of asking Yami's name then claiming he didn't actually care. Joke's on him - Yami's name is central to the plot's resolution and no one actually cares what Mr. "Seeker"s name really is, haha!