Inuyasha Manga: 106 Kohaku

What's a Kohaku? I recall hearing that word SOMEWHERE, but I can't quite remember where. RT doesn't mince words with her chapter titles, so you know it's got to be important, whatever it is. Man, this happens ALL THE TIME to me! I'll have the knowledge stored somewhere in my brain but it becomes temporarily inaccessible up until the moment it's not needed anymore! Now I'm going to look like a moron because I couldn't deliver a snappy derisive line about something in the title until it's too late!

Oh, oh no, wait! I know now! It's this guy!

Right?

No... No that's not it either...

But hey, look on the bright side. At least your counter-efforts were made a lot easier by the fact that Naraku's stupid bees led your ally straight to help. And you thought that the saimyoushou could only POISON you.

Inuyasha lowers his eyes, admitting that the youkai did fail to kill him, but recalls that Mushin restricted Miroku from using his Kazaana for at least a month. He tells Miroku that it was because he forced him to close the Kazaana before that the surgery was successful. Miroku gazes at the covered palm of his right hand contemplatively, speechless until he looks up again and says that Naraku will probably use this window of vulnerability for Miroku to set more traps.

Elsewhere, Shippou whispers to Kagome and Sango that the two young men appear to be having a conversation. Kagome fiddles with the front of her blouse (though it has no buttons or anything...?) while saying that she and Sango should take this opportunity to step into the nearby hot spring then. While removing a glove, Sango says she knows Miroku would jump to spy on them in the bath, but asks Kagome if Inuyasha would. Kagome is already wading chest-deep into the spring by the next panel flipping her hair and looking exasperated when she answers that Inuyasha wouldn't look because he likes to act like he doesn't give a shit. Sango peers over her shoulder at Kagome, wondering if she WANTS Inuyasha to look.

Because Sango has probably realized she already knows the answer to that question, so she doesn't ask out loud. Instead, she drops her kimono from her shoulders.

Sango notices the atmosphere under Kagome's speechless gaze and correctly guesses that it's about the scar she seems disappointed is still there. I don't know how you could expect otherwise of a wound created by a sickle to the damn spine, girl. Kagome haltingly asks if it was from a youkai, but Sango pauses again, remembering stumbling from the force of the blade thrown into her back. She tells Kagome that it was her younger brother who did the deed, right before he died. Over an image of his shadowed face while he wields a blood-spattered sickle, Sango tells Kagome that he was controlled by a youkai at Naraku's castle, killing their father and friends. She trails off of a description of the next image, an unpossessed little brother stumbling backward with several arrows in his chest and looking terrified.

Kagome meekly makes a noise like she's sorry she asked, as Sango looks blankly at the water between them. Sango describes him as a timid and kind child, and it's how she remembers his last admission of being scared to her just before he died. This must be why she has the slightest smile on her face when she says that he returned to being her regular old brother, Kohaku.

THAT'S who that is! Yeah, NOW I remember! #neverforgot

Another awkward moment of silence follows where Kagome stares at Sango staring at the water, until Kagome apologizes for bringing up such a painful memory for her. Sango's eyes are wide when she insists it's alright, because everyone else around her has a similarly painful story around their motivations for wanting Naraku to eat shit and die. She then narrows her eyes and glares in her periphery, whipping around to throw a rock into the nearby foliage and accuse it of coming to peep at her.

Sango and Kagome both crawl out of the spring to examine Sango's handiwork, which was knocking out a poor, defenseless monkey. They seem surprised that what was rustling in the bushes happened to be local wildlife, for some reason. When they look up from the unconscious monkey, who should they happen to see but Miroku and Inuyasha, the latter of which asks what all the commotion is about.

Ugh. These damn kids can just get off my lawn.

The following morning sees the group wide-eyed and curious as a scuffed man stumbles toward them. He mumbles about "villager" and "save" before collapsing onto his front so a fountain of blood can squirt from his back, making Kagome cringe and scream. Inuyasha and Miroku approach, Miroku kneeling at the man's head and determining that his heart has stopped. Somehow. Inuyasha suddenly picks up the scent of the blood of a lot more than just this poor villager; QUITE a lot more. He leaps off in the direction of the man's origin.

Hey now, I know the bed and breakfast was subpar, but that's no reason to get all homicidal!

Sango observes that everyone has been killed, and Kagome mutters into her palm about how cruel this is. Miroku is again kneeling at the head of a body, making another assumption about it and its fellows states by just looking. He claims they were all felled by one blow. What, like the one Inuyasha just accomplished last chapter? Sango is acting similar, though only thinking that the wounds aren't from a sword instead of voicing this assertion. Though, she might know a bit more about the look of wounds than the self-proclaimed hater of violence.

Inuyasha and Kagome simultaneously wonder aloud who would do such a thing, then Inuyasha angrily lunges for a guy he guesses should know the answer while drawing Tessaiga. He slices the roof of a nearby building clean off, because I suppose he thinks houses look like "guys" now. The shadow of a head and shoulders IS just visible behind a curtain of dust from the destruction of the roof, a shadow that Miroku and Sango only just have time to widen and narrow their eyes at respectively before a sickle and chain comes careening at them from it.

Sango glares and looks like she's doing some heavy thinking about that sickle on a chain as Inuyasha knocks it away with Tessaiga. Inuyasha starts to say that the weapon will never be good enough to leave a scratch or some similar trash talk, while sickle slaps back into its wielder's less-shadowed hand.

Dammit Kohaku! You been doing the sex, drugs and rock n' roll, haven't you! Now the devil's gotcha!

Inuyasha sweats, alarmed by the fact that his really short opponent was a child after all. Kagome gapes at his clothes, saying that they resemble Sango's exterminating outfit. Meanwhile, Kohaku turns tail to placidly run, and Inuyasha shouts at him to stop. Sango starts running after Kohaku, calling to Kirara running beside her. After Kirara transforms into her giant sabre-cat form, Sango hops on Kirara's back, all the while focusing on Kohaku, the boy running away from her.

Kagome, meanwhile, notices that there is a glowing Shikon shard in the boy's back as he's retreating. Inuyasha lunges forward, expressing his angry disbelief that such a little brat was the one who killed everyone in the village. Before he can even catch up to Sango, though, she and Kirara pass through a shimmering transparent field, disappearing from sighed. Inuyasha is perplexed, then shocked when he bumps up against the field and it repels him. He stares at the empty-looking forest beyond the barrier, mouth hanging open.

Sango continues flying through the trees at breakneck speed, yet not caught up to a small boy on foot at this point? How does THAT work? Anyway, she is in utter disbelief that Kohaku is still alive. So much so that she's managed to ignore all those dead people back there he must have murdered. Ain't sibling love grand?

It's about damn time. And he doesn't even look like he broke a sweat outrunning the massive cat-beast. Kirara must be WICKED out of shape.

Sango dismounts Kirara and takes a step or two toward Kohaku, before tentatively telling him to show her his face. He complies, fiddling with the strap holding on the gas mask. Once he's lowered it, Sango can see that it's him, freckles and all, if not a little listless. Tears fill her eyes and she realizes that he really did survive, unlike those poor people he killed.

A nearby voice asks Sango if she's happy to see her brother. Does a bear shit in the woods?

I guess Naraku's just planning on cycling through all the members of the group in trying to take them down instead of, you know, getting the one he's already weakened? Yeah, okay, let me know how that goes for you.

Moron.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? First and foremost, I think it's important to note that some of the bigger problems I had with the pacing in the chapter were not entirely avoidable. While I would have liked to get a little more lead-in into the scene where the man shambles up to them instead of just having it thrust at me, I do acknowledge that the scene before it with Kagome and Sango discussing her scar couldn't really have been cut any shorter. It was necessary to show the scar, show the discussion, and show the awkwardness in these two women getting to know each other. Even the silly part at the end showcasing the paranoia that Sango lives in now that she's traveling with two male acquaintances (barely) was a really good way of giving us a little bit more information on Sango's way of handling her emotions. She's understated, quietly determined, and doesn't like to overplay her own tragedy. Her hackles are up when her guard has been tripped though. It's pretty fascinating.

Also, even if I would liked to have seen a bit more detail in the scenes where she and Miroku were drawing conclusions based on looking, I know that's not always possible either. RT's art style doesn't lend to that kind of detailing to begin with, and it would just look inconsistent. I'm also not certain that Miroku would necessarily know how to take a pulse in the modern sense, so it's possible that an image of him doing so would take me out of the story a little. Not that this story is historically accurate in many other senses, but it at least doesn't break my immersion in any overt ways. I like that RT is trying to remain a bit on the ambiguous side of things she may not be able to depict with 100% accuracy.

With that done, I think I've blatantly pretended to be uninterested in Kohaku long enough. It'll be a while before he's the character I really ADMIRE later in the series, but I will say that his transformation is a testament to RT's character-building skills. Even when she's set a character down to be a brainless puppet in the beginning of the series, it's almost like she can't HELP but make them a fleshed-out badass by the end. Kohaku illustrates just how much she cares about making characters relatable PEOPLE rather than TOOLS to carry out her plot.

If you haven't gotten far in this manga before and hadn't had the pleasure of seeing Kohaku's transformation yet, boy are YOU in for a treat.

Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 164 The Magicians' Souls

Unless someone has another Monster Reborn card, I doubt those guys are going to show up again. Rather, that's my HOPE. It would be wise of Yami to use a different card and strategy, knowing that his opponent's strategy is DEPENDENT on him relying on the Dark Magician. I'm not sure Pandora would know what to do if Yami just said "fuck it" and played a game centered around Summoned Skull instead. This match would already be over if Yami had done that to begin with instead of playing right into Pandora's hands like he did.

Besides, Summoned Skull is my favorite card ever and I don't see it nearly enough. So there.

Though it's never been known to sacrifice itself by its own will, so I guess I can understand why the Dark Magician is always in the favorite card polls. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Yami makes a solemn and determined vow that his Dark Magician's soul sacrifice will not be in vain, glaring ahead. Pandora is grinding his teeth right back at Yami, fuming about how he threw away HIS Dark Magician's life for nothing. He grins again when he thinks of the bright side, though; at least Yami's Dark Magician is gone too, but Pandora still has two left. I'm sure you won't get much more out of them than the first, dude.

Pandora shouts at Yami that it's time to stop gawking and get on with their duel. He's still in the end-phase of his turn, and uses it to play one card face down. Then he proceeds to giggle at Yami while he says he knows Yami doesn't have any more Dark Magicians in his deck, but he's still got two left, so the title of MASTER is as good as his. Wait, didn't he already think this before? What's the point of having access to Pandora's thoughts if he's just going to blurt it out less than a page later?

Yami does not appear concerned about Pandora winning this "Master of Magicians" title he just made up anyway. In fact, Yami tells Pandora that if he were REALLY the master he claims to be, he would be haunted by the cries of the poor magician he sent to its death earlier. But monsters that are NOT magicians are TOTALLY fair game for senseless sacrifice! Especially if it's to SUMMON a magician in the first place, according to super expert rules that Kaiba invented and no one questions! Goodness me, Yami is a hypocrite.

Pandora cups his hand around his ear, mockingly saying he hears nothing but the sweet sound of the saw spinning so near Yami's legs, waiting to chop him up. You know, by this point I really shouldn't be shocked when grown-ass adults gleefully anticipate the orchestrated attempts to maim children, but I'm starting to think it will NEVER be normal to me. Maybe if I picture Pandora as Brittnay Matthews: Mercenary Cheerleader?

It IS a tad easier imagining her say to Yami that he's down to 700 life points and the moment they reach zero is when his legs get sawed through. Until, of course, I realize that Brittnay would just have taken a bat to Yami's face instead of playing a card game with him. So much for that bit of weird comfort.

Yami is expressionless as he looks at the saw so near. Gee, kid, could you emote or something? I'm not feeling your danger right now. Pandora reminds Yami that as he's being chopped, his opponent will perform the greatest escape act in the century. Yes, taking a key out of a box will be the greatest thing anyone in the last 100 years has ever seen. Ever. Pandora laughs, but Yami says stoically that only the cards know how this game will turn out. He then announces that it's his turn, because he definitely didn't forget until just this moment.

Drawing a card and placing it in his hand, Yami keeps his narrowed eyes on Pandora. He notes that Pandora has no monsters on his side, while the panel notes the life points left to both players. Pandora has 1500 while Yami has 700, in case anyone forgot. Yami sees this as a chance to attack, Pandora looking a little sweaty with nothing to protect him. Except that face down card, of course. Surely Yami hasn't forgotten?

He summons Gazelle The King of Mythical Beasts, even though my idea of a "gazelle" is VERY different from the unicorn/lion that erupts from the card Yami plays.

Oh no! A trap! No one could have seen this coming!

Growling, Yami acknowledges that since Pandora is lacking monsters on his side of the field, the Devil's Scales will destroy all monsters on the other side. First Pandora says that Yami's right, but then tells him to let the SCALES decide...? Decide what? Whether Yami's right? Goodness, does Pandora just sacrifice coherency for whatever the hell pops into his head that seems vaguely dramatic or cool?

... It's like the darkness is staring back at me.

Yami looks pretty disturbed by the fact that those scales ate his monsters, as Pandora laughs and points out that both of them are now monsterless. He offers a sarcastic apology for getting rid of one of those monsters right after its summoning before drawing a card and asking to be allowed to... start his turn, I guess. I swear, his dialogue is getting more and more nonsensical. Pandora holds up this new card to his face, assuming he can't lose now that he has it.

Meanwhile, Yami is the one sweating now that neither one of them have monsters and the first to summon and maintain a monster will be the winner. He's shocked when Pandora chuckles and says he played right into his hands. Pandora tells him that he now has a card that can summon a high-level monster in one go. Looks like Kaiba didn't just make up new rules as much as a whole new line of cards to go with them. Easy now that Pegasus bit the big one, I imagine.

According to Pandora, this is a card specifically for summoning the greatest spell-caster EVAR. Yeah, yeah, we get it, you have a major boner for the Dark Magician. Just masturbate to it like everyone else! Horror comes to Yami with the new realization that Pandora cleared the field of monsters specifically because he had a special summon card in his hand. Pandora asks Yami if he's ready, YET AGAIN, holding out his special card and saying that he's going to win with it. Never has anything been unlikelier, but that doesn't stop Yami from gaping like Pandora is about to give him a wedgie.

Instead, Pandora plays a card called "Dark Magic Curtain", which produces a skeleton sitting atop  a long black curtain with a great big upside-down pentacle on the front. Oooh, edgy. To anyone but a witch, anyway. Yami certainly seems taken aback as Pandora opens his arms to welcome Dark Magician #2. The skeleton pulls aside its curtain.

A super sexy reveal!

Yami lets out a half-grunt and recoils when the evil Dark Magician gives him a sadistic grin. Pandora asks Yami to tell him who has the perfect magician deck, citing his own speed of summoning, speed of attack, and spell cards. He comes to the conclusion on his own when he says his deck is superior in every way, and demands Yami admit that he is the true ultimate archmage master of magicians and all that jazz. Pandora laughs his ass off, presumably because Yami is looking pretty flustered and surly right now as he's growling at the guy mocking him.

And Pandora just keeps going. Seriously, you'd think the guy would have said everything he needs to by now, but he's starting to point out the obvious fact that Yami doesn't have any monsters out defending him right now, and that his Dark Magician only needs the word to destroy Yami and then it's all over. Yami is quiet, but still glaring when Pandora admits that the only thing protecting Yami are his face down cards. Pandora assumes these are traps that are triggered by an attack and ready to kill his monsters, a notion he doesn't like.
So, he decides he wants to get rid of them. He plays Anti-Magic Arrows, a trap-destroyer that cannot be negated or avoided, according to the card description. Well, so much for Yami pulling a save out of the fire for this one. I imagine he's pretty distressed knowing that his traps are going to get annihilated, but I can't tell for sure. All we really get is a hyper close-up on his wide eye.

Well, except all those cards he still hasn't played yet. Yami has made quite the habit of drawing a new card that really fucks up his opponent just when it looks like he ain't got nothing left.

Regardless, Pandora calls his attack, and his Dark Magician launches itself at Yami wearing a twisted grin. Pandora is so sure he's won, and no one has EVER been wrong about that in this manga! It's not like that's a consistently wrong assumption by almost ALL of Yami's evil opponents or anything.

Yami smirks and chuckles, just when that robed skeleton pops back onto the field for a nice visit right in front of the evil Dark Magician. Pandora's eyes nearly pop out of his skull, flabbergasted when he realizes that the black curtain he used to summon his Dark Magician has also appeared to Yami. Yami explains that the effects of the curtain extend across the whole field, so he's can use the magic too. Dude, WHY can Pandora not seem to remember when the cards he plays affect his opponent as well? I thought I had a rotten memory, but at least I remember not to help out my enemies and shit.

Anyway,Yami informs Pandora that though it costs him half his life points, bringing him down to 350, he's also summoning a magician. Pandora thinks that can't be, protesting that he's studied Yami's deck, and he knows that Yami only has ONE Dark Magician in it. Yami confirms this, having never said he had more, but Pandora just can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that Yami didn't specify the magician he was summoning. He asks Yami what he's doing, so Yami busts out a fairy tale about the world of Duel Monsters, wherein the Dark Magician had an apprentice that inherited all his vast powers. Apparently, the self-proclaimed "Master of Magicians" didn't know this particular piece of lore, so Yami points to the curtain where Pandora can behold for himself that apprentice.

Not a g-g-girl! In Pandora's beloved card-magician lineage? She must be a new fake gamer girl honey-pot diversity hire here to infiltrate a traditionally male space for the cultural Marxists!!!

Shit. It hurt to TYPE that, even as a joke.

Pandora realizes the Dark Magician Girl only has 2000 attack points, though, and that his own Dark Magician can take her out no problem. I guess she didn't manage to inherit ALL those powers, huh Yami? Pandora orders his Dark Magician forward to kill them again, and it gladly goes for the Dark Magician Girl, which narrows its eyes in a "bring it on" expression. Dark Magician casts its usual Black Magic while Dark Magician Girl casts something back labeled "Black Burning". What it's burning, I'm not sure.

There's a swirl of energy and light between Pandora and Yami, and Pandora grins at it, shouting that he got that Dark Magician Girl. Yami is also smiling though, asking if Pandora actually did. Pandora's eyes widen at the question, and then at the scene now the virtual dust has settled: Dark Magician Girl standing solid and strong while evil Dark Magician is fading away into nothing. Pandora is floored, wondering how it can be that his Dark Magician was vaporized like that when it had 500 more attack points.

Awww, that's sweet. Unless he's just making sure she doesn't drown herself flooding the castle while trying to clean it like that one time...

Whoops, wrong sorcerer's apprentice.

But Pandora is still confused, because Yami only had one Dark Magician in his graveyard at the time of the attack, meaning that Dark Magician Girl should only have had 2500 attack points and would have been destroyed as well. Yami tells Pandora to take a closer look and see the truth if he's a TRUE master of magicians. Pandora does appear to see something that makes him gape.

Et tu, Brute? Well, you know what they say...

You have NO IDEA how long I've been waiting to use this gif, friends. NO IDEA.

Pandora recoils at the knowledge that HIS Dark Magician helped his opponent's Dark Magician Girl. What a white knighting beta cuck! Er, DARK knighting... no, no that doesn't work. Yami continues to lay some learning on Pandora when he tells him that Dark Magician Girl can draw power from any Dark Magician that died in the game, no matter where they're buried and whose so-called slave they are, or if they were abandoned heartlessly by their player.

Pandora's life points are down to 750, and Yami tells him to prepare himself, just before...

Nah, I think it's because he went up against you, Yami. I doubt very much that he became a Rare Hunter because he was constantly losing due to betraying his cards all the time.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Despite what I said in the cold open, I thought it was interesting that the Dark Magicians on both sides ended up backing the same monster at the end, as a sort of poetic middle finger to a traditional battle with SIDES to it. If you'll notice, we've had two magic/magician-specific modification cards in this game, the effects of which were universal to the field. Perhaps two isn't enough of a sample size to draw this conclusion, but they gave me the impression of magicians playing by their own rules and not giving a crap about sides so much as their own brethren. They'll defend another magician before an abusive asshole any day of the week.

And let's not forget that the one they played support for in this case was a girl. Female characters rarely get to be supported and usually play the support themselves, so it was refreshing to see KT give us a match where a female coded monster is getting support from her male counterparts instead of the other way around. Perhaps it's because she doesn't play a love-interest to the Dark Magician, but a student, someone he's passed his skills and knowledge down to. The condition of Dark Magician Girl having that extra support being that Dark Magician has to be in the graveyard is significant because it indicates that the only reason she isn't as powerful as he is because he died prematurely, unable to teach her everything. In fact, I get the feeling this is very significant lore, because this is the first LORE we've really gotten out of the game.

The fact that Dark Magician Girl is female also goes a long way towards explaining why Pandora so easily overlooked her. Again, female characters are usually just support, and Pandora, considering himself the "Master of Magicians" was unlikely to think he needed anything but the original magician in order to win. But "female" isn't the only thing he's likely to just pass over - he clearly has a habit of overlooking some of the effects of his own cards, and what they might do for the other player. He's so certain he's the only one who can use them effectively that he just totally fucking IGNORES any instances where that might not be the case, like, for instance, if Yami has changed up the cards in his deck since the last time he studied it. Because he's stuck in his own pattern of behavior and convinced it's the best way to do anything, he's convinced no one else changes up their strategy either.

I've met quite a few people like this in real life, and that puts my hopes for Pandora's LEARNING from his mistake here very low. Very low indeed.

Inuyasha Manga: 105 Miroku's Lifespan

I would have given him until 22, personally. All the regular hazards of life in Feudal Japan notwithstanding, I'm surprised he's not prematurely grey right now, given the stress of carrying around a mildly useful curse that will one day devour you. Hell, I found ONE grey hair a few mornings ago, and all I have to deal with stress-wise is managing my scant funds and driving on Virginia roads. Granted relying on a car everyday in a place where it's clear everyone wants to share a horrible fire-ball of a crash with you is PRETTY stressful, but it can't be nearly as stressful as knowing you'll be sucked into a void one day fairly soon.

I'm inappropriately imagining Kagome's tone as that exasperated irritation at one's child when they do something you told them not to AGAIN. For like, the FIFTH time.

Miroku grunts and groans through gritted teeth as the monsters funnel into his Kazaana, losing his footing at the force of their incoming. Inuyasha makes a noise of disgust and tells possessed!Mushin to get out of the way, knocking him back with a fist to the side of his face. The beads jingle out of possessed!Mushin's hands as he thuds to the ground. Miroku has landed against his father's memorial urn in the center of the crater, continuing to suck in the cloud of youkai, but the sound of a small spurt of blood can be heard. Miroku's small cut has just ripped open a little more, and Miroku notices this under a sheen of sweat.

"How dare you think that you might have been the only line of defense in an onslaught when the rest of your friends seemed otherwise incapable of handling it! Shame on you!"

Miroku stutters Inuyasha's name weakly while Inuyasha wraps the beads back around his wrist and calls him a moron again. He then warns Miroku that if that Kazaana is opened again, he'll break Miroku's arm. Yeah, that's the way to do it. Threaten a man already suffering a certain amount of incapacitation with MORE incapacitation if he continues to disregard his injuries.

Pshaw. MEN.

What remains of the cloud of youkai (which still happens to be quite a lot) have observed that Miroku's Kazaana is closed now and that there seems to be nothing to fear. SEEMS to be is the key phrase here. Inuyasha has drawn Tessaiga again, no longer purified so it can't transform, apparently, and tells those bastard monsters that from now on...

Somehow, the irritated mom voice I can't get out of my head is now attached to Sango, and it's even funnier.

Inuyasha gapes at Tessaiga's glittery glowy blade as pieces of all the youkai he slayed at once litter the ground around him. In fact, ALL of the youkai were torn to bits, a fact reiterated by Shippou and the tanuki in their awe. Inuyasha makes a questioning noise toward his sword, as though it can somehow answer for what it did back there, but if it could, Kagome beats it to haltingly saying that Inuyasha must have used the true power of Tessaiga for the first time. Sango only has one word for the obliteration of 100 youkai in a single blow: amazing.

What she doesn't find so amazing is the movement of that tsubo-pot user leaping out of the building behind her. How she caught that when it was out of her line of sight entirely is beyond me. Maybe he has a slayer-sense for these things. She narrows her eyes at the creature upon identifying it, and makes quick work of throwing her boomerang at it and slicing it right in half. It lands with a thump.

Kagome worries that Mushin isn't alive when she kneels next to him with the pot in hand, but Sango assures her that he was just knocked out. Still not great, but he's alive at least. The stringy strands poke out of his mouth again, to Kagome's alarm, even further so when they swim through the air right back into that blasted pot they came from. Sango and Kagome peer at Mushin, but they don't hear a sound from him. Kagome begins to grow concerned again now that he's not waking up, and even Sango is sweating about him not reviving though the Kokochuu are gone from his body.

Suddenly he lets out a big snore and Kagome announces that he seems okay. Inuyasha kicks him in the head and demands he get up. All is right with the world.

Morning arrives with chirping birds and Miroku's friends all sitting in a line on the porch outside the temple. Shippou says it's been quite a while, and Kagome tells him that Mushin was going to take some time to sew up that wound for Miroku. Just then, the door beside them slides open and Mushin emerges with a bottle of liquor, muttering about how reckless Miroku is. Not as reckless as someone preforming a medical procedure while intoxicated, you have to admit.

Inuyasha twists to look askance at Mushin while Kagome stands with an eager Shippou on her shoulder to ask how Miroku is. Mushin says that Miroku is asleep before turning to Inuyasha and ask him to follow for a bit. Inuyasha's face is a little uncertain, but by the next panel he and Mushin are standing on a corner of the porch away from the others, asking if Mushin has treated Miroku properly. Mushin pauses to take a swig of liquor.

Sounds a bit too soon... How about in approximately 450 more chapters?

Inuyasha pauses too, then asks Mushin what he means by telling him that. Sighing, Mushin admits that though he treated Miroku to the best of his ability, the Kazaana has already widened. Inuyasha's eyes do the same for a moment, and then soften when he asks if this means Miroku's lifespan has already gotten shorter.

Inside the temple, Kagome and Sango sit on either side of Miroku while he lays supine, supposedly asleep. Shippou and the tanuki do the same, respectively, except Shippou has taken a seat right at Miroku's elbow instead of keeping a respectful distance. Man, the little guy got SUPER attached to Miroku in the short time he's known him. If I weren't certain Miroku were going to teach Shippou some awful stuff, I'd call this kind of adorable. Oh what the hell, it's STILL adorable.

Hanging her head, Sango mutters a question about Miroku being strong in the mind, citing the fact that he kept a cheerful expression the entire time they had hung out before. Kagome agrees, thinking Miroku probably found every day depressing in all actuality. Outside, Inuyasha asks Mushin how long Miroku will live, and Mushin says he hasn't got a clue, but...

Well, that was what Inuyasha was planning on doing anyway, so no conflict there.

Inside again, because RT is secretly a cat, Miroku opens his eyes. Kagome and Sango lean forward in excitement, that he's awake, and Shippou hugs his arm happily. I can't help but love it, it's so cute! Miroku speaks about still being alive like he's trying to make small talk with estranged relatives. Kagome is a little more emotional, tears in her eyes as she informs him that Mushin gave him a little medical attention and he's fine now.

A nice delusion that Inuyasha won't get to engage in now. THANKS MUSHIN.

I guess all the happiness that Miroku was okay was too uncomfortable for him to handle. He much prefers it when people are annoyed and pissed off at him.

Sango has smacked Miroku upside the head with a small bucket from his bedside, and this surprises and upsets no one. The tanuki indicates with a long-suffering sigh that this is par for the course, Kagome stiffly reprimands Miroku for his sexual harassment even at a time like this, and Inuyasha and Mushin walk in on this scene only to adopt the indignant expression of everyone except the twitching and giggling Miroku. Inuyasha says he knew Miroku wouldn't die quietly, and Mushin hums his agreement.

Among the rustle of trees, a saimyoushou buzzes through the sky and lands on the waiting finger of Disney Princess Naraku. He notes that this is the only one to return, assuming the rest are dead. A small pause for wasp buzzing later, Naraku's face turns to shock when he marvels at the notion that Inuyasha killed all his minions with a single swing. Naraku contemplates Inuyasha's increase in strength, having sent more that 100 youkai for only one to have come back alive.

"And do you know how to go in the OPPOSITE direction of help for your intended murder victim? That's very important."

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I don't mean to sound like a broken record about a consistent flaw I see in this work, especially since it's my favorite, but again with the hopping BACK AND FORTH between locations. I can only imagine that this is to drive home the fact that the conversations inside and outside are happening simultaneously, but it's unnecessary to do so. I don't see any point in it because if the two conversations happen one after the other, it doesn't change the impact of Inuyasha knowing a grim fact about Miroku's shortened life before anyone else does. RT thinks she's increasing the drama by closely following two conversations about the same thing as near to simultaneously as she can, but all she's doing is giving me whiplash.

That aside, Inuyasha's discovery of Tessaiga's ability to kill so many youkai with one swing was awesome. It was close enough to Sesshoumaru's mention of it that we (and Kagome) can recall it as pretty easily, but far enough away from that moment that we're not rolling our eyes at how convenient it is that Inuyasha just HAPPENED to learn it immediately after it's introduced. When she wants to, RT knows how to pace reveals so that they seem natural and not forced for the sake of plot or her own impatience. And I should just mention here that Inuyasha still hasn't LEARNED this technique, just used it accidentally without realizing how and why it worked. So, both characters and audience have to wait a while for more than the little taste we just got. It's a masterful way to keep the reader moving through the story in anticipation of that sweet payoff.

A similarly great technique RT has demonstrated she's a master of in this chapter is that suspense. She's introduced another ticking time-bomb with Miroku's Kazaana and its effect on his life here. Miroku had talked before about how it would eventually consume his body, but it was only talk until we SAW just how much danger using it put him in. It's more real to us now that we've seen just how the Kazaana can widen and bring Miroku closer to death, while we also get a sense of increased urgency knowing that Miroku still has an indeterminate amount of time left, but it's undoubtedly less than it was.

An urgency that might not be helped by the length of the series as a whole, if we're all honest.

Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 163 The Nightmare Chains!

We already had a nightmare chain not too long ago, chapter, don't you remember? It was that time that Yuugi got trapped in that room with the clown!dad and the chain he attached to the Millennium Puzzle was pegged into a table during a raging inferno. Surely this can't be any MORE of a nightmare than that. I mean, given that we're dealing with a buzz-saw designed to creep steadily toward both opponents in this match as they lose points, it can't be any LESS. But it can't be WORSE, right?

It's a little weird seeing Yami congratulate a dude on how well he's matched his moves while taking on a little of that old-time Yami murder-face, but in a good way. Maybe it would be even better if KT would bring back the full-on shit-eating grin Yami used to wear. I miss it.

The next panels show Pandora's grimace accompanied with his 1500 life points, then Yami's face collapsed back into a brooding frown for no reason, because he has his full 4000 points. Cheer the fuck up, you little asshole. He's not inclined toward celebration just yet, however, because though he's managed to evade Pandora's attacks so far, he still has no idea what Pandora's next move will be. Yami thinks that Pandora is a tough magic-user, but he's still got faith in his own (light) Dark Magician. Said magician looks down at Yami and smiles reassuringly, because holograms are not only sentient here, but can also read minds. Dark Magician is the perfect waifu.

Yami wonders which one between he and Pandora will trust his cards and himself more, because that will be the key to victory. If it's not, you know, actually playing the game or something. I don't know.

Meanwhile, Pandora has found his smug grin again while contemplating how the legends about Yami being skilled in magic were all true. Note that "magic" is neither capitalized nor copyrighted, despite the fact that the makers of Magic: The Gathering should maybe be getting SOME royalties here. Anyway, Pandora thinks he's got the upper hand here, but I'm not sure why. He's lost over half his points where Yami has lost none, and there's no indication this game is going to turn around. That is a massive case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect he's got going on there.

But see, he's PREPARED to go up against Yami, because he knew Yami uses the Dark Magician, and that's why he put the ultimate anti-spell-caster card in his deck prior to this duel! So, Pandora thinks that he's sufficiently prepared to go up against a LEGENDARY player of this game by putting ONE card in his deck to counteract the ONE card his opponent has that's a spell-caster. That is a special kind of stupid right there.

Pandora finally decides that he's done reassuring himself that he's totally on top of this, yessiree, and shouts at Yami that the last turn was a fierce exchange to be sure, but it's his turn now. He draws a card and slaps it down on his Duel Disk with flourish, but otherwise ending his turn on an unremarkable note. Yami is eager to use his turn to draw dramatically as well, and end his turn with just face down cards to show for it. Here we go again, folks.

With his evil Dark Magician smirking in the background, Pandora asks Yami if he's ready, before revealing a card called Beckon to the Dark. Well that can't be good.

Hold on. Dark is right in the Dark Magician's name. Is this really a bad thing? Isn't this a little like sending your child to their room for being naughty?

Still, the Dark Magician seems genuinely horrified at the prospect of going to a place that's DARK as the clawed hand reaches for it. However, because Yami's not a regular mom (he's a cool mom), he refuses to let Pandora imprison his Dark Magician. Yami reveals a trap he laid, Mystical Rift Panel, intending to make that arm turn to the evil Dark Magician instead, which it does briefly. Until, of course, Pandora chuckles and says this is exactly as he planned. Yami gapes and sweats, disbelievingly asking what that means.

Pandora explains that the arm was a decoy to make Yami play a trap card, then laughs maniacally about how Yami fell for it. He yells the reveal of his counter-trap...

So... did Pandora get his idea for his and Yami's deathmatch setup from this card? Because there's a little buzz-saw at the top and everything...

An extreme close-up of Yami's sweating face and wide eyes shows how disturbed he is that his magician is chained up to the torture device. As the Dark Magician grits its teeth and sweats, Pandora laughs that it can only watch as Yami is tortured now. Yami growls, knowing that since the Dark Magician is out of the picture, his life points can be attacked directly.

This is exactly the moment that Pandora has been waiting for, asking Yami if he's ready again with gleeful malice. Without waiting for an answer, Pandora directs his "slave" Dark Magician (yes, he really calls evil Dark Magician a slave here) to go forth and blast Yami to bits. It launches at Yami and casts its 2500 point Black Magic on the boy bracing himself. It doesn't appear to help much:

That's an expression I can't help but find a little comical from my years of being an Invader Zim fan. Sorry Yami, but yes, I am laughing pretty hard at you right now.

Yami doubles over and pants under the horrified gape of his bound Dark Magician. Pandora shouts that it's showtime now, claiming it's just like a slaughter house Yami's saw travels closer to his legs. I guess this means that Pandora goes to slaughter houses instead of theaters for his entertainment? Yami watches the saw come ever nearer to his legs and stop with the blade just on the edge of the 1000 mark, sweating the whole time.

Pandora is jubilant and raising his arms in triumph when he asks Yami if he's ready to be dismembered. Dude, what is it with you and asking your victims if they're comfortable with how things are progressing? He mockingly inquires if Yami cares for a little body modification. Hardy har. Then he goes on to rant about how when Yami's life points reach zero, his great escape will be complete, and Yami will bring down the curtain with his blood. He tells Yami its his last turn now, failing to cover a bloodthirsty grin with his splayed fingers.

With Yami and his Dark Magician all tied up and threatened with buzz-saws, Yami knows that if he can't block the next attack from the evil Dark Magician, it's all over. He plays a card from his hand in a more subdued manner than he has before in this game, Big Shield Guardna in defense. It appears in front of him kneeling behind a curved kite shield, ready to play its role in saving Yami until his next turn.

Pandora observes aloud that Yami has played a wall monster, characterizing it as cowering behind the shield to avoid evil Dark Magician's next attack. According to Pandora, this is not going to work, insisting that Yami's legs will be coming off at the end of his next turn. He challenges Yami to try dueling THEN, which is kind of hilarious. Hey, Pandora, Yami doesn't duel with his FEET, so I'd like to know how you think this is going to STOP him from dueling.

Yet Yami looks worried as Pandora pulls a card from his hand and informs him that a monster will be played for now.

I'm guessing Chucky was unavailable, huh?

Pandora pulls another card from his hand, his second to last, and claims it's the spell card that will bring Yami down. It's a card called Ectoplasmer, which affects the entire field. Yami's wide-eyed stare is voicing all the mental begging for this not to be reality right now. Pandora, though he assumes Yami knows what the card does, explains to him anyway that Ectoplasmer extracts soul energy from a monster to use as a weapon. It also has the added bonus of being able to go right around Yami's wall.

But, Yami realizes with some disbelief that Pandora would have to sacrifice his monsters' souls to do that. Pandora appears to read Yami's mind when he laughs and confirms that the monster he uses with Ectoplasmer will die, and his evil Dark Magician shoots him a terrified look from behind. It does not like the sound of that AT ALL. Of course, Pandora just prattles on about how it's a small price to pay in order to win. You can just SEE the evil Dark Magician thinking what a raw deal this d-bag is giving him, and it's just a hologram.

With a devilish smile, Pandora condemns Dark Magician and Doll of Demise to the fate of becoming ectoplasm to fuel his next attack on Yami. Yami growls before Doll of Demise's soul floats up out of its puppet body and points itself at Yami. Pandora orders an ectoplasm blast on his opponent.

Well, if Pandora had just used his evil Dark Magician to do that right up front, he would have gotten that shit done in just the one hit instead. However, hubris is afoot, and Pandora can't help but smugly ask Yami if he wants to know why he lost despite all his prodigious skills.

Didn't your mama ever tell you not to count your chickens before their hatched, Pandora?

Yami doesn't give any indication of wanting to hear Pandora's thoughts on a defeat that hasn't happened, but that doesn't stop Pandora's typically long-winded monologue about how Yami lacks the ruthlessness for being a true master of magicians. Clearly, Pandora has not read the beginning of this manga. Big mistake. Maybe he should have done THAT instead of putting a single anti-spell-caster card in his deck to prepare for this duel. Just saying.

Pandora goes on and on about how Yami can't win duels with trust or coddling his slaves, and this is the reason with the good Dark Magician is currently tied to a weird torture grid. Apparently it was because Yami tried so hard to protect it. Pandora insists that Yami was a fool harboring that mindset, because monsters are nothing but tools, pawns that must be sacrificed. Okay, KT, you're laying it on a bit thick there. Reign it in, alright? You don't want to get into George RR Martin levels of "look at me, I'm a villain! Do you hate me enough yet?"

Although this lack of subtlety seems to be working quite well on Yami. His nose is wrinkled, eyes are narrowed, and he's growling that Pandora is scum. Pandora laughs, then barks at the evil Dark Magician behind him that its master commands it give him the soul energy required to win. The evil Dark Magician hesitates, a pained, almost tearful look on its face. It has no choice, though, and hunches over listlessly while its soul rises up out of its body. Pandora tells the resulting ectoplasm to fire at Yami, and Yami asks Pandora if he can't hear his servant crying. Pandora just tells Yami to die, directing the soul blast straight at Yami around the Big Shield Guardna, which looks back at Yami with silent scream.

Oh snap, what's this?

The good Dark Magician's soul energy moves to intercept the evil's, while Yami looks on with wide-eyed alarm. Pandora is even more flabbergasted by the fact that the good Dark Magician seemed to have turned itself to ectoplasm all by itself. It reforms into a smoky-looking ghost in front of Yami and holds out its arms, the other ectoplasm blast coming straight for it. The impact makes an arc around Yami in a thousand different directions, exploding before it can hit him.

Yami sorrowfully acknowledges that his Dark Magician killed itself to save him. Pandora, in shock, realizes that when he designated "Dark Magician" as the target of his Ectoplasmer, it affected ALL the Dark Magicians there, and not just his. Still, the fact that Yami never TOLD his good Dark Magician to protect him has Pandora stunned. Then he's downright horrified by the appearance that the card had its own will in protecting its player. He's got some sort of silent scream going on here.

Yami, surrounded by spectral fire, tells Pandora through gritted teeth that it takes more than ruthlessness to win, and not to worry because he's going to get some ruthlessness right back at him.

This is what Pandora gets for monologuing Yami's best card friend into suicide.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Despite a couple of points of wordiness here and there, I think KT is finally starting to grasp the idea that his artwork should speak for itself. I didn't see nearly as many examples of pointless elaborations on the panels as I usually do, and there was a good balance of talking to action. I spent a lot less time slogging through the dialogue, meaning I got to get through the chapter a whole lot quicker this time around than I usually do. I'm really hoping this isn't a fluke and that KT is starting to trust his artwork to speak for itself more, because I think it's a fantastic style. He NEEDS to give it a chance to talk on its own every once in a while. When he does, I get a lot more satisfaction of reading the characters as well as their speech bubbles. If he would just do with the human characters what he does with the monsters and their expressions, I think he could cut down his excessive dialogue by more than half.

And speaking of the monsters and their expressions, let's talk about something I haven't really addressed up until this point: the autonomy of the monsters and their holograms' effects on reality. I've jokingly mentioned in the past the ridiculousness of the physical impact these holograms seem to have on the players, but the introduction of direct attacks coincided with the holograms having a physical effect on duelists. It's obvious to me that this isn't one of KT's little physics flubs, because it's consistently demonstrated with the duels we've seen in the tournament. Something interesting is going on here, something that the characters aren't mentioning explicitly, which is an interesting thing to note in itself.

My guess is that the Duel Disk technology has bridged a gap between the actual monsters and the players. Kaiba's created a summoning system that closer resembles those systems of the past that allowed those in Yami's "ancient pharaoh" time to summon them. Which would mean, of course, that these monsters are ACTUALLY being summoned right now. They're real, which is pretty wacky to think about, but I'm not coming to this conclusion from nothing here.

First of all, the realism of the system was EXACTLY what Kaiba was aiming for here. Remember that when he created the dueling boxes in Death T, his goal had been to recreate the experience he had inside Yami's penalty game for him: being in a world populated by Duel Monsters. Regardless of the fact that it was also a means of instilling madness in the players, it was a way of getting closer to those fantastical creatures in the game Kaiba loves. I imagine he went a bit further in that goal than he first anticipated, or even knows about right now.

Second, Ishizu mentioned that Pegasus got his inspiration for his monsters from tablets depicting their likeness in Egypt. The tablets we saw etched into the carving Kaiba and Yami saw in the museum resembled trading cards quite a bit, which suggests to me that the trading cards nowadays provide a similar conduit for the monsters' powers to channel through. For example, if one were to create an image of an ancient monster and perform the correct ritual, one might be able to channel that monster through to the plane of reality in which one resides.

Which brings me to the simple conclusion that I like the idea that not only are science and magic not mutually exclusive in this story (Kaiba's whining be damned), but also that they can riff off one another to create unique relationships between beings of different realities. It's an interesting thought, and I'm sure KT will continue to have fun with the concept throughout the rest of the story.

Inuyasha Manga: 104 Kokochuu

*It is with great sorrow that I observe the anniversary of 9/11, the victims of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and the victims of fires on and around the west coast. If you are able, please visit www.redcross.org to donate to relief today, https://www.911memorial.org/make-monetary-donation-now to donate to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, and www.350.org in order to donate or volunteer to help fight climate change. Thank you.*

Bless you, chapter. I've been sneezing a lot myself, since I've spent the past two weeks packing up all my garbage to move to a new apartment. Some of that garbage has collected a LOT of dust over the past year, and that's just in my tiny little one-bedroom hovel. I can't imagine what the upkeep on an entire TEMPLE would have to be, but I'm guessing that Mushin wasn't really bothering with even the small amount I was laboring over.

That's probably why it got infested with a demon that took over his body. Gotta dust regularly, kids.

Yeah, that was awfully convenient, wasn't it? But RT put a pretty little lampshade on it, at least.

Inuyasha starts to bust out a lecture at that bastard Miroku, likely about running off without telling anyone and inconveniencing them all with his drama, but Miroku appears to be too listless and limp to care. Also, Inuyasha's rant is cut off by Shippou using his head as a springboard to launch himself at Miroku, wailing his name. Kagome elbows her way past Inuyasha to get to Miroku as well. Miroku weakly acknowledges them before Shippou latches onto his chest and calls him a dope, asking why he kept all this to himself and disappeared.

Kagome also chastises him for being cold and worrying them. Sango flies by to express her relief that he's alright. He looks somewhat ashamed, hanging his head while he trails a thought about what everyone is doing there. Kagome turns to demand that Inuyasha say something too, I guess because she forgot that Inuyasha WAS going to say something before she and Shippou cut him off. Rude. Inuyasha pauses and then with a slight flush shouts that that's enough. He's miffed that everyone else already said what he wanted to.

When he hears footsteps behind him, Inuyasha twists around.

Possessed!Mushin's dialogue is a little tautological here - is that supposed to be "WHO are you..."? Or is this a saying I'm not familiar with?

Regardless, possessed!Mushin says he'll punish Inuyasha, which Inuyasha says sounds fun. Kagome, girl, you got a KINKY one on your hands, further proven by Inuyasha urging possessed!Mushin to try it if he wants him. Miroku interjects, still weak and being supported by his tanuki buddy. Miroku begs Inuyasha not to kill Mushin. Possessed!Mushin chuckles and mockingly says the same, citing the fact that he's the one who raised Miroku. Inuyasha sweats, recoiling and looking irritated. Then he charges forward with Tessaiga resting on his shoulder, shouting that he has no choice but to hold back on that crooked priest.

As he throws his giant string of beads, possessed!Mushin gives Inuyasha thanks for that reduced effort. When the beads make contact with Tessaiga's blade, now down and in front of Inuyasha, even though he said he'd hold back, they flash and send a powerful wind blowing in his face. That's what he gets for swinging a sword at a guy he said he'd keep alive. And, of course, Tessaiga's transformation being rolled back so it's all rusty and chipped again. Peeking over the nearby lip of the crater are Kagome, Miroku, the tanuki, and Shippou, the last of which states with shock that the beads have undone Tessaiga's transformation.

They go on to wrap themselves tightly around Inuyasha with possessed!Mushin calls out some sort of incantation, to his alarm. He's dropped Tessaiga before he even tips over to land in the grass with a thump. Kagome calls out his name in shock as a whole slew of the surrounding snake-like youkai come flying at Inuyasha, intending to kill him in various horrible ways. Inuyasha groans, pushing up from the ground to whack a youkai's open jaw clean off with his Sankon Tessou. Possessed!Mushin is already sitting on the edge of a nearby porch with a bottle of wine (I'm guessing), chugging that shit and watching the show like he's tuned into HBO.

When he's done guzzling, possessed!Mushin says Inuyasha is doing pretty good for being tied up in his Houriki beads. He steeples the index and middle fingers on both his hands, asking Inuyasha how long he can keep it up. Suddenly, Inuyasha is hit with a hard shock, setting his teeth on edge. As this happens, the silky protrusion from possessed!Mushin's mouth makes another appearance, which Kagome can't help but wonder what the hell it is in a panicky way. A voice from her shoulder (right, I forgot Myouga was there) tells her that it's Kokochuu.

OOOOOH, that WASN'T a sneeze. My bad.

Kagome says Myouga's name, and he continues to explain that Mushin has been mind-controlled with them. Miroku asks if Mushin can't be saved, Myouga answering that pointing the tsubo-pot with the Kokochuu inside is the answer, as long as they can steal this pot from the user hiding somewhere nearby. Once the pot is pointed at Mushin, the Kokochuu will return to the pot and leave his body. Miroku and Kagome stare intently absorbing the information, then Kagome jumps up to go find that tsubo-pot, telling Myouga to join her in the search. Myouga doesn't seem too keen on this, but Miroku marvels at Kagome's spring to action. She only pauses to look back at Inuyasha, who's swinging at youkai left and right, fighting his binding beads. She silently urges him to do his best until she comes back.

On her way running in a random direction, Sango flies low on Kirara and lets her know that she's gotten rid of the lot in the air and asks what Inuyasha is getting up to over there. Before explanations can be given, Myouga jumps up onto Sango's shoulder, saying he's glad she's arrived. She look mystified by this, but Kagome immediately realizes with tears in her eyes that Myouga thinks it's safer with Sango. He is conspicuously speechless at this accusation.

Inside the temple, a rumbling is issuing from deep inside that storeroom from earlier, where the nightmare creature with the tsubo-pot is whispering some weird incantations into it or something. I don't know, it's bizarre. He's distracted from this by being surrounded by smoke all of a sudden.

You guys sure found this thing super quick. I can't decide if this is another plot convenience or if this weirdo is just super bad at hiding.

Sango tells Kagome that it'll be a problem if the tsubo-user leaves the compound, so they'd better get after him while they can. Kagome prepares to draw another arrow from her quiver, eagerly agreeing.

Back outside, in the midst of a pile of youkai corpses...

And that's like 90% of your fighting style, dude. Just pure brute strength.

Shippou is still hiding with Miroku and the tanuki behind the lip of the crater, commenting that Inuyasha's body won't be able to take much more at this rate. Miroku silently curses himself, wishing he could do something with HIS currently useless body. Those painkillers Mushin gave him must be the real deal...

Possessed!Mushin steeples his middle and forefingers again, saying that it's about time he twists off Inuyasha's head. Inuyasha groans, but musters enough energy to leap at possessed!Mushin, with fist drawn back and advice not to get his hopes up. Shippou gasps while Miroku and the tanuki stare in shock.

I think Inuyasha exaggerated how much his strength was being sapped earlier.

He says that he's been putting up with all this nonsense per Miroku's request until now, though he still hasn't gone as far as actually taking possessed!Mushin out yet. Possessed!Mushin even encourages Inuyasha to go ahead and kill him, but to also keep in mind that if he does, Miroku will lose the only person who can possibly repair the damage to the Kazaana. Miroku is propped on an elbow over the lip of the crater, looking desperate to be able to move, while Inuyasha stares at possessed!Mushin in alarm.

Inuyasha loosens his grip on Possessed!Mushin, and is promptly shocked by those beads again for his release. Possessed!Mushin calls Inuyasha a damn fool for the mercy call, as Miroku and Shippou gape at the scene with horror. Inuyasha has gone limp, being held up by possessed!Mushin grasping a giant bead and advising Inuyasha to just give it up, since everyone at this temple will be dead soon. Inuyasha seems confused by this statement, and by the subsequent burst of light and stir of power in the sky just visible behind possessed!Mushin's head.

Yeah, that'll certainly do it.

Shippou and the tanuki freak right the fuck out about the fresh wave of crazy monsters while Miroku continues to gape. Elsewhere, Kagome squeaks at the new onslaught and Sango curses it, though how she can see through the thick layer of smoke she's made around the storeroom is beyond me. Inuyasha groans again, and possessed!Mushin reasons that he won't have strength enough to contend with this new hoard. Man, those Kokochuu may look like gross stupid worms, but you can't deny when they have logic on their side.

But what their logic doesn't account for is MIROKU being the one to take action, ripping the beads off his Kazaana in haste, much to his tanuki buddy's alarm. Kagome and Sango are close enough that they can see this action unfold, with a mixture of disbelief and plain terror.

Uh, Miroku, it DOES matter. They came to help you so this SPECIFICALLY would not be necessary.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The reactions of the tanuki and Shippou were a bit difficult to cover here, being commentary that isn't necessary. The only things they had to say were reiterations of what was happening, just breaking up the flow of the action itself. I know that RT was trying to find a way to include them in a chapter that really had no place for them despite their HAVING to be there, so it's not as though I'm not sympathetic. Still, it manages to be really irksome when we keep going back to these characters and their reactions every five seconds because they're next to Miroku.

I think the irritation might have been reduced if Shippou had gone with Kagome and Sango to obtain the tsubo pot, but that also ruins the point of Shippou staying with Miroku. Since the beginning of the chapter, Shippou, being a sensitive child, was clinging to Miroku like he'd just found him after hours of being lost in a department store. The kid was so worried that he'd never see Miroku again that he's now loathe to let him out of his sight anymore. If the other members of the group didn't have some job attached to saving Miroku's life to be getting on with, I'm sure they'd be staying close too.

Not least of all Inuyasha. All of his bluster is a poor cover-up for the fact that he's really relieved that they made it before Miroku got torn apart, and he's doing everything in his power to make sure that he continues to be in working order far beyond this incident. It's clearly not just because Miroku is a strong and valuable member of the team, either, otherwise he wouldn't have instinctually heeded Miroku's request not to hurt Mushin before he even knew that Mushin was the only one who could heal the Kazaana. He's protecting Miroku out of pure affection, and you can interpret that how you will.

However you do, there's no denying that it helps the new development what comes at the end of this arc.

Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 162 Magic vs. Magic

Magic always has been rife with internal conflict, so it seems only natural that Yami goes up against someone who uses a similar kind of fighting strategy. I'm not sure if it'll be as punchy as all those times that he faced Millennium Item holders, but it brings up a fair question about how much two decks built around the same central card could really differ. The forty card limit ensures that neither can have all the Dark Magician themed cards, so they're bound to have picked and chosen different ones, but to what extent? Will they find a lot of their efforts just cancel each other out, or will how they use the cards be that much different from one another to tip the scales one clear way? More importantly, what does that say about the wider theme of playing with magic?

Let's just hope that the chapter doesn't end up like THIS duel:

I think that was plenty disappointing for all of us.

Even though Pandora still has all his life points and the saw isn't any closer to him, he still gulps nervously about Yami summoning a Dark Magician before him. Yami points at him and declares that he'll play any game, no matter how dangerous. Don't let that get back to General Zaroff, Yami. He follows up by warning Pandora that if he wants to kill him, then he'll need to prepare to pay the price. Alliteration.

Yami orders his Dark Magician to land a direct attack on Pandora, and it lunges at him to comply.

That imaginary attack by a hologram even has Pandora's eyes bloodshot and teeth grinding as it takes his life points down to 1500. He's really playing this up, huh? Yami points out that Pandora's points are over half-gone with that one attack, but never mind that, because Yami wants to see that show of the century Pandora was talking about before. Pandora groans, looking down at the saw spinning ever closer to his right leg with pants-shitting terror.

The saw clicks to a stop before reaching him, obvi, but Pandora still lets out a scream that is a little something like this:

Yami points and asks if Pandora is really SURPRISED. He says that since Pandora thinks shaving down his cards is a legitimate tactic, Yami is justified in shaving a few inches off of HIM as well. I'm tempted to call this a false equivalency, but Yami don't give a shit about logical fallacies. Pandora is still squealing and clawing at his silly mask when Yami tells him that if he wants to give up, now is the time.

But Pandora bursts out into laughter. Nervous laughter, but laughter nonetheless. He rejects the notion of quitting, and lets out a couple of unconvincing exclamations about how much fun he's having and how great this is. Pandora says he wishes Yami could taste the death, tension and frisson that he feels right now. Yami glares under the exclamation point over his head and I have a feeling that he suspects this is the precursor to some serious shit for him.

Pandora tells Yami that HE'S the conjurer here, and therefore in charge of this whole show that Yami is just the powerless audience to. He thinks he wouldn't be a real magician if he didn't have some tricks up his sleeve, giggling and shadowed all creepily. Pandora smiles pleasantly while he's insisting that he will be the one to win and live, then suddenly screams that YAMI will be the one to be chopped into tiny pieces. Yami doesn't look intimidated by this display though, despite his moment of speechlessness. He says that his audience sympathy is nonexistent at this point, and tells Pandora he wants to get this game over with. Yami shouts that they're on, which may be in reference to the stage show Pandora is so obsessed with putting on, but it still makes me think of making dates or other plans with friends.

Moving on, Pandora realizes that he can't get hit by that Dark Magician Yami has unleashed, otherwise he is literally dead. So...

Ahhh, the synchronicity of autumnal references. Even this chapter knows the 22nd is approaching fast, and that I got a pumpkin cream cheese muffin from Starbucks today and it was BRILLIANT.

Yami notes that Mr. Pumpkin Head is the only monster on Pandora's side of the field, so Yami reasons that he can summon a new monster, do a double attack, and win on this turn. Pandora appears to know exactly what's going on in Yami's head, because he's mentally urging Yami to go ahead and summon that monster with a wry smile. He's convinced that when Yami does this, his own Dark Magician will return.

Yami draws a card and announces he's going there, slapping Beta the Magnet Warrior on his Duel Disk. The stout little magnet dude with either ends of a horseshoe magnet protruding from his head like horns is so cute that I want to squeeze him. Pandora has his teeth gritted in a grimace at the thought that Yami fell for his trap, which seems like the OPPOSITE face he should have, but that's just my opinion, maaaaaaan. He reveals his trap card, the Coffin of Dark Resurrection, which Yami has a similar grimace reaction to, only this time it's appropriate.

He watches as the coffin that appeared between him and Pandora opens up and likens it to a black hole sucking in his B Mag and Pandora's Mr. Pumpkin Head. That's great Yami, except BLACK HOLES DON'T SUCK THINGS IN. If you and your friends had proper schooling from time to time, you might KNOW this. But NOOOOOO, you and your friends have to wander off on card game tournaments all the time, because school is apparently someplace you just go every day to play games anyway so what does it matter?

Sorry. Confusing black holes and vacuums is one of my pet peeves, and it gets me all... shouty.

Anyhow, the two monsters are sucked in there and the doors of the coffin slam shut on them with a bang. It floats there in the middle of the field while Pandora explains that the coffin brings back the Dark Magician in exchange for two monsters - one of Pandora's and one of Yami's. Sweating and wide-eyed, Yami is not liking this reveal that Pandora is bringing back his Dark Magician, it seems. It's far too late, though, because Pandora invites his magician to come out of the opening coffin with flourish.

Is that a tiny patch of pointy facial hair there on evil Dark Magician? I can't really tell, but what I CAN tell is the notably darker skin the evil Dark Magician has compared to the good one on Yami's side in the next panel as they face each other. That's not racist at ALL. /sarcasm

Pandora growls at Yami while Yami frowns at him, and it appears someone else is commentating on the match, stating that both players have Dark Magicians on their sides. Where is this third wheel? I haven't seen him up to now. What's he doing butting in on MY unnecessary yammering about this game?? This is MY turf, you poser!

Pandora thinks that this is the start of the REAL game, as Yami ponders what having two of the same monsters with the same attack points means. They can't just recklessly attack one another, because both monsters will be destroyed. Yami thinks that summoning other monsters is a risk as well, citing the super expert rules dictating one can only attack during the battle phase of one's turn. Since they both have such high-level monsters, the player who summons a new monster is at a disadvantage, because it will be an easy target for the other player's magician until the next turn. Except when that's NOT the case, what with the other times a monster has been summoned and attacked within the same turn during this tournament.

Yami is sure that Pandora should also know that the only way out of their little stalemate is to attack each other with spells and traps. What more magician-y thing is there, I ask you? After what seems like an eternity of these two twats glaring at one another around their magicians, Yami breaks the silence by throwing two face down cards on his Duel Disk. Grinning, Pandora mentally acknowledges that Yami isn't totally ignorant on how to fight a Dark Magician. Well, he USES one, doesn't he? That should put him in a good position to know what its weaknesses are, considering there are bound to be people who have exploited those weaknesses before, right?

Pandora says he's going to follow Yami's example before playing two face down cards himself and ending his turn. Yami decides to play one more, and so does Pandora, and a close-up on Yami's narrowed eyes make it a little hard to tell if he's annoyed yet. Although, come to think of it, it might not be easy to tell anyway, considering how annoyance seems to be his default expression.

They're all stocked up, and Pandora is sick of waiting, so he shouts that he's going to attack now. He reveals one of his face down cards, which plops a Mystic Guillotine right between himself and Yami. What makes it so mystical? Your guess is as good as mine, considering it looks like a regular old guillotine to me. Yami looks pretty shocked by it, though, especially when it grabs his Dark Magician with some chains and pulls it onto the slab right beneath its blade. Yami sweats nervously as Pandora makes the bloodthirsty command for the good Dark Magician to die.

The blade on the guillotine begins to drop, but Yami calls for it to slow its ass down. He plays one of his face down cards as well, the spell Magical Hats. Pandora is surprised by this for some reason? Despite the fact that he saw Yami had a lot of different face down cards as well and it would have been reasonable to assume something in there would go toward counteracting his? Whatever. The hat that managed to cover the good Dark Magician under the guillotine blade is cut in half, but the good Dark Magician itself is safely concealed under the remaining three. This is endlessly frustrating to Pandora who grinds his teeth, cursing the Magical Hats.

He rapidly plays another of his cards, insisting that Yami won't be able to get away so easily as he reveals Thousand Knives. It's just what it says on the tin, with evil Dark Magician sending a number of knives blade-first at Yami's hats with a sweep of his arms. Pandora thinks he's got Yami now that the knives are hurtling toward the hats, but Yami is smirking. He thrusts out his hand and calls out the name of his next face down card, which is De-Spell. It makes the knives disappear, much to Pandora's continued vexation, and the good Dark Magician is revealed from beneath the hats wearing a little smug smirk of his own.

Well that was a huge waste of t-

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

An exercise in futility if I ever saw one.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I think we're finally getting an idea of what the deal with Pandora's name is, though this is probably only a small part of the bigger picture with his symbolic identification with the woman of Greek myth. Here he is, throwing everything he has at Yami, every nasty trick in his box, so to speak, and it's not even scratching his opponent. What's more, Yami already dealt considerable damage to Pandora before. The only thing Pandora is lacking is hope, something he ruled out as a possibility in the beginning by locking it away from both players. This is why HE'S the one who's scowling at the end of the chapter while Yami seems amused. All of Pandora's attempts are easily countered, leaving him with nothing but the optimism he has no access to of his own accord.

I'm curious as to what that hope he's suppressed consists of, though. My money is still on a woman somewhere or sometime. If there's one thing that these Pandora/Eve/evil woman storied tend to want to drill into our skulls, it's the notion that women are the cause of all woes in the world.

If, of course, we're not implicitly blaming people of color for them instead. Yes, the evil Dark Magician's coloring may have been incidental, but it's still a little irritating knowing that one of the central themes of this manga is the flipping of traditional polarities (instead of black equaling evil and white equaling good, it's the other way around here). Sticking with this simple reversal, the original Dark Magician Yami uses should have been the darker one, and the one opposing it here should have been light. That would have negated the irksome stereotypes invoked by this duel.

But I doubt KT had thought far enough ahead of creating the original Dark Magician to realize that he might have it fighting a more evil version of itself later on, so there's that.