Besides, Summoned Skull is my favorite card ever and I don't see it nearly enough. So there.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
The actual Black Magic Curtain doesn't let both players use it, so that's another instance of Atem cheating his way out of a loss. Good thing his opponents can't read.
ReplyDeleteDark Magician Girl! Needless to say, she wound up being super popular. And her actual effect only gives her +300 for each Dark Magician (and Magician of Black Chaos, for some reason) in the Graveyard.
I'd be surprised if YAMI could read either, for how often Yami/Yuugi skip out on school! A "very special episode" is in order, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteKill your Dark Magicians to power up your Dark Magician Girls! It's like the opposite of the regular motivation dynamics in stories, lol!