Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 185 Awaken the Gods!!

Oh good! Are we going full Lovecraft now? I've never read his stuff, but I hear it's spooky and full of insanity, so I think it might pair pretty well with this comic. At the very least it would be a hoot to see a tentacled elder god waltz into a duel at some point. I suppose it's a bit late for that, though, considering Ryota has left the picture now, unlikely to ever return. A shame too, since Cthulu would have gone hand-in-hand with his deck theme.

Well, I guess the phantom wannabes have it this round. Are there any Lovecraft stories featuring masks? Do I want to know for the sake of a joke?

Shorty spends the beginning of the chapter (after a three more pages of titles reminding you that this is a very special chapter for some reason) recapping his plan for a tag team match of death. In case you didn't remember, there's explosives on the panes of glass they're each standing on, and if a player loses all his life points, his footing shatters beneath him and he falls to his death several stories below. The first player to take out both his opponents in this despicable way is the winner of the match.

With all the memory refreshing over with, Shorty promises that he and his friend will blow Kaiba and Yami away, taking the god cards from their cold, dead corpses. Tallie says that even gods won't be able to stand up to their team of balanced light and dark, so there's no way Kaiba and Yami will win. Uhhhh, dude, do you know who you're talking to? The very representations of light and dark in this whole story? Your team of light and dark has got nothing on these little bastards.

Shorty declares that he's going first, and he says "got it?" after nearly every single thing that comes out of his mouth. Do people have trouble understanding him normally? Is this why he's in this annoying habit? Ugh, it's like watching someone chew on their nails. Luckily, he doesn't say it when he explains that in their tag team match, the turns will alternate between players on each team. The panel contains some helpful arrows bouncing from Shorty to Yami to Tallie and to Kaiba.

So, Shorty plays two cards face down and ends his turn on a lame note. As Yami ponders these face down cards, Shorty points and him, informing him that he's next. Yami draws a card, looks at it, and prepares to reveal his play.

Take a wild guess. Nearly everyone in this tournament has advertised their strategy with a stupid gimmick, so it's not like they aren't giving you a clue here.

Tallie makes his move, playing a card called "Shining Abyss" in defense. It's a robot angel type thing with sausage fingers? I don't know, but I can already feel the madness setting in. Same with Shorty, who starts giggling again, reveling in the reveal of one of his face down cards at the summon of the contradictory delight. It's a card called, you guessed it, "Mask of Brutality", and it increases a monster it's equipped to by 700 points.

Yami grits his teeth while Shorty names the card at Yami, still pointing for some reason. Tallie laughs that this mask will give his monster a nice power-up. The mask adheres itself to the Shining Abyss's tiny head, a grotesque thing with little clawed hands coming out where eye-holes should be, and it does its job well. Shining Abyss's attack raises to a whopping 2300 points. The fact that his opponents managed to get a monster out there with more than 2000 attack points right off the bat has Kaiba sweating something fierce.

Shorty is giggling again, about the power of light and darkness now, and Yami has figured out their strategy for this tag-team duel is appropriately one based on teamwork. No shit. Yami worries about whether or not he and Kaiba will be able to work together well without any prior planning. Kaiba doesn't actually look worried at all anymore. He scoffs, thinking that teamwork is only going to hold him back. He plans to use Yami for his own victory, growing a creepy grin as he vows to crush these ghouls all by himself. He's a big boy now, guys.

He slaps a face down card on his Duel Disk, then...

I don't know, but his poker face could really use some work. He continues smiling, planning to sacrifice his Vorse Raider to summon a powerful six-star monster in his hand during his next turn. Shorty reads him like a book, smelling a sacrificial lamb from Vorse Raider's direction, but he insists it won't be so easy.

He would know, because it's his turn, and he undoubtedly has a wrench somewhere in his deck to throw into the gears of Kaiba's plan. He draws a card, and giggles when he sees it. He reveals it as Mask of Accursed, a card Yami maybe recognizes by his wide-eyed expression and sheen of sweat. Shorty sure likes the look of it. He's about to play the fashion-forward one and give Yami's monster a bit of a makeover.

Annoyance leaks through Yami's panic when he realizes that Shorty has played yet another trap card. He hasn't played any monster cards, and Yami wonders if his plan is to just use them the whole duel to weaken his opponents. Shorty says this outright, I guess, since it appears that Yami's wonderings were out loud. His role is to soften up Yami and Kaiba for Tallie's monsters to finish them off later.

Shorty impatiently reminds Yami that it's his turn, and that he takes 500 points of damage from the mask on his monster. Yami groans, life points escaping him through some steam effects or something. He draws a card and identifies it as Archfiend of Gilfer, a six-star monster with a special ability. Kaiba side-eyes Yami, reading his mind like Shorty read his. He thinks that even if the Magnet Warrior can't attack, it can still be used for a sacrifice to summon a powerful monster. It looks as though Yami is hovering on the edge of that very move, even though he has a bad feeling about it. It might be the way Shorty is grinning at him across the way, actually.

Eventually, Yami decides on the risk, and starts to announce his monster's sacrifice.

Shorty giggles manically while Yami narrates the eerie mask's appearance on the field between them. Giddily, Shorty explains that this is a permanent trap and its presence means no sacrifices ever for Team Kaimi. I'm sure there's already a ship name the fandom has for Kaiba and Yami (ship names are the only things fandoms DO, after all), but I'm too lazy to look it up. So there.

Yami and Kaiba's eyes are wide with disbelief and shock that they won't be able to summon any high-level monsters in this duel. Tallie expresses doubt that they even have god cards (begging the question as to why this guy thinks Marik brought them in to begin with, but he may not be the brightest bulb in the box, so...), saying that Yami and Kaiba would need sacrifices to bring them out anyway. He then claims the gods he doubts they have are useless. If they even exist, I'm sure. What exactly is going on in this guy's head?

We know what's going on in Kaiba's head at least. He's sweating up a storm while he calls the wannabe phantoms scum. Yami meanwhile scours his hand, with the unfortunate knowledge that he and Kaiba will only be able to play four-star monsters. He plays Kuriboh in defense and puts another card face down.

And coming up straight ahead in another of KT's classic ambiguous dialogue/thought tags. You see, it looks like Yami is THINKING at Kaiba that they can't use their usual tactics in this duel, the only option being instead to combine their strengths. But, Kaiba glares at him and scoffs, responding to what I guess was dialogue with a declaration that this is absurd. By the way, this too is ambiguous. Fun.

Tallie announces his turn as he draws a card. We get to peek into his incomprehensible brain at last, where he knows he'd be a fool to attack the monster Yami will be drained of life points through anyway. He's bothered by Kaiba's face down card, though, to which worries Shorty replies that he'll take care of it. Wait, he was talking all along? Fuck, I give up!!

Tallie calls for his Shining Abyss to attack Vorse Raider and it goes straight for the monster opposite, creating a huge ball of energy between it's sausage fingers. Kaiba grins creepily again (honestly, this kid is going to give me nightmares...), daring Tallie to just try it. Um, he is, Kaiba. He's trying it right now. Luckily Kaiba noticed this, because he decides to activate the trap he set.

Kaiba laughs his dorky laugh, telling Tallie to enjoy his 2300 points of damage. Oooh, sick burn. But Shorty tells him not to celebrate too soon, activating a counter-trap. Kaiba's expression turns to shock in record time as Shorty reveals "Curse Transfer". I don't need Kaiba's gritted teeth and pants-shitting look to clue me into what it does, either. The ring of grenades is now around Vorse Raider's neck instead. A moment later, it explodes spectacularly, and Shorty announces Kaiba's damage equal to his monster's... well I think it's supposed to say attack points, but it says life points instead. Oops.

Kaiba growls at the misty effects taking away his life points, leaving him with just 2100. Yami calls his name, and Shorty giggles once more, again citing this as the power of light and dark. Tallie says their teamwork is unbeatable in a two-on-two duel, though it's about to be two-on-one. With no monsters left to defend himself, Kaiba's wide open for a new attack from Shining Abyss. At least it looks like a new one, even though it should just be the same one that wasn't used before. Whatevz. It charges up its giant ball of light between its sausage fingers, and just before Shining Abyss releases it at a frightened Kaiba, Tallie tells him to die.

I must point out, once again, that this guy is wishing literal death on a baby child.

Well, at least the other baby child was looking out for him. Not as good as an ADULT, but hey, you take what you can get.

So what did I think of this chapter overall? Particularly egregious in the ambiguous dialogue tag issue. It's especially noticeable here because whenever the skylight they're all standing on is shown, the panes appear about the same size for each of them, and they seem equidistant from one another. They should not be able to surreptitiously talk to a teammate without at least one of their opponents hearing it, and that seems unlikely to be the message KT is sending, what with the dialogue's somewhat understated appearance.

Especially in the the case of the two masked characters here. The tags around their tiny words seem to indicate a whisper, but a whisper probably couldn't carry between them. Now, this could be indicative of a microphone feed between the two of them instead, which would also explain the half-masks they're wearing as well. I've been making fun of their copying of Phantom of the Opera costume design, but the entire reason the Phantom of the Opera had the iconic half-mask anyway was because a full mask would make the stage microphone's performance impossible. Maybe it's the same deal with this?

Well, you know how I feel about headcanons. I'll wait to SEE a microphone before I assume there is one. In the meantime, I'll just marvel at how Kaiba's plan to use Yami has manifested in a way that he didn't quite expect. He was so sure he could do the whole thing by himself that he was convinced if Yami played any role in their victory, it would be a role Kaiba himself dictated. But here Yami is, being autonomous, and in being so, bailing Kaiba out of a deadly loss born out of a need to have a tightly controlled dominance of the match. Sounds like someone is going to learn a valuable lesson about how others won't be passive receptacles for your will whenever you want them to.

Teamwork. That shit'll sneak up on you.