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.