But, hey, at least we're back to an official translation again!
Due to Gilfer setting that Rocket Warrior on fire, it's been destroyed, because when all your fuel is burned early, you can't really launch anymore, you know? Possessed!Jonouchi grunts as his life points are reduced once again, this time to 2400. Teeth gritted, Yuugi stares in worry at his friend, who is soon grinning again, mocking the attack for not being strong enough to take out all of his life points. Yuugi's just concerned that even his Gilfer's fire didn't snap Jonouchi from Marik's mind control. Possessed!Jonouchi chuckles, because I guess he still hasn't figured out that Yuugi is, as he said, INCAPABLE of wiping out his life points?
Yuugi glances over his shoulder at the one monster he thinks still might be able to jar Jonouchi out of his brainwashed state, but it's just lying on the dock, helpless, unable to even stand, and only 900 attack points to spare. Sweating, Yuugi asks himself what he's supposed to do now. I never thought I would say this, but maaaaaaybe it would have been a good idea to keep Yami, for situations just like this. I mean, his habit of never shutting his mouth might have had some benefits here, I suppose.
Meanwhile, Kaiba's twisted to look at the duel behind him, noting that Yuugi is down to 700 life points, and there's less than ten minutes on that bomb on the anchor. Shit, these kids have PHENOMENAL eyesight if they can see the clock all the way up there. Kaiba especially, since he's quite a distance away. Either that or they all managed to start a stopwatch at the exact moment Marik started the duel.
Kaiba reminds himself (also the audience he's thinking at) that Yuugi can't drag the game out much longer, because he and Jonouchi will both be dragged into the ocean by the anchor when the timer reaches zero. He also turns back to Mokuba and curses the fact that HIS hands are tied too when it comes the Ghouls holding a knife to the little guy's throat. Mokuba calls for help, reaching out to Seto with a free hand as the Ghoul who has him in a headlock chuckles, but all Kaiba can do is growl and call the dudes wretched.
He's not going to take that gamble now, however! Nope, we have to go back to the dock proper first, where Jonouchi announces it's his turn and draws a card after a short pause where he and Yuugi stare at each other. Not like they're on a timer or anything. As he looks at the card he drew, Skull Dice, Marik comes to the realization that there isn't a lot of time left, and if he just has Jonouchi do nothing, both Jonouchi AND Yuugi will die. He thinks this will be amusing, because the thought of their dead bodies resting side by side on the ocean floor and yet their friendship never being restored is funny somehow. I guess it's funny in an Alanis Morissette definition of irony kind of way. But that's not even real irony.
Marik is giddy that in about eight minutes, his several-thousand-year grudge will finally be satisfied. Will it though? Seems to me if you spend THAT long hating somebody, any appeasement to the hatred might seem... anticlimactic, if you think about it. Marik DOESN'T think about it, however, and leaves possessed!Jonouchi to stand frozen, hand poised to pick out one of the cards in his hand. Marik provides Jonouchi an oddly soothing assurance that he can take a break. He doesn't HAVE to fight his friend anymore, or in fact do anything at all. Marik tells Jonouchi to be quiet and wait for the end to come. Anyone else got a chill, or is that just me?
Jonouchi's head tips forward and he appears to be prepared to take Marik's order quietly, arms going to rest at his sides. Yuugi sees this and asks Jonouchi if he remembers the promise they made in Duelist Kingdom. Well, I sure as hell don't. That was AGES ago. Jonouchi might not either, since it's hard to tell if the panel with his hair-shadowed eyes is supposed to indicate listening or tuning out. Yuugi presses on in his argument regardless, reminding Jonouchi fought hard for his sister Shizuka in Duelist Kingdom, like a real duelist, fair and square, and ultimately took home the prize to her. Jonouchi recognizes his sister's name and repeats it, in a broken way, in his mind. Yuugi tells him not to forget that he made a promise that day too.
I guess to bros, there's no difference, because Jonouchi looks utterly amazed at the memory. Yuugi asks Jonouchi if he didn't enter Battle City to keep that promise/bro-joke, while Jonouchi repeats Shizuka's name again, because he hasn't quite come to terms with the subject change yet. He remembers Shizuka lying in a hospital bed, head bandaged around the eyes, and telling her to hang in there. She asks meekly if it's him, and he doesn't bother to answer, assuring her that her operation is going to be a success, he promises. As the doctors rush her off to pre-op like she's suffering a gunshot wound or something, Jonouchi falls behind, shouting that he'll give her her sight back.
Now THAT'S a promise.
Jonouchi continues his recollection festival, this time hearing Shizuka apologize for not being able to take the bandage off her eyes because of her fear. He asks her why she doesn't have the courage to open her eyes, as he tries to lean around a doctor shielding his sister from him. Whether or not this doctor thinks the over-emotional fuckhead Jonouchi is being right now is a danger to Shizuka isn't addressed, but Jonouchi is the one apologizing now. He says this is his fault for being weak and unable to pass any courage to her. Then he remembers asking Yami to duel him when he becomes a real duelist.
I think he's finally starting to realize that this just isn't his day when he starts insisting that his brainwashing couldn't have worn off YET. Then he wonders if Jonouchi is fighting purely by instinct, desperately trying to find some explanation as to why nothing he's doing is working out.
Meanwhile, Yuugi is newly fired up by Jonouchi's action, encouraging him to fight with him as he calls out his turn. Yuugi has finally found the only way to get back Jonouchi's heart, and it's by fighting his ass off! Gritting his teeth, he notes that there isn't much time left on that timer above, which reads just little over five minutes now. Wisely, he stops being wordy and draws a damn card, which turns out to be Mystical Rift Panel. Jonouchi urges Yuugi to get with the program so they can end this, and whether Yuugi can hear this or not, he throws a face down card on his Duel Disk and orders Gilfer to attack the greatly reduced Panther Warrior.
When Gilfer goes for PW, Jonouchi laughs, barking that he left PW in attack as a lure. But Yuugi doesn't look the least surprised, having known this all along. Gilfer throws his flame as Panther Warrior, and Jonouchi takes this very moment to reveal both a trap and spell card at the same time, the two cards he had placed before. Yuugi gapes at them as they are announced; Skull Dice and Graceful Dice, what Jonouchi describes as a double reverse combo. How does that work, you ask? Well, Jonouchi says that he'll use Skull Dice to weaken Gilfer, and Graceful Dice to strengthen Panther Warrior. Simple right? Jonouchi is convinced that he can now beat Yuugi easy peasy!
But just as each little dice-sprite begins to roll their respective dice, Yuugi informs Jonouchi that it actually won't be that easy at all. Zoom on Jonouchi's single widened eye while Yuugi reveals his OWN face down card, De-Spell, which he commands to get rid of Graceful Dice. Graceful Dice's hologram wisps away, and Jonouchi complains that he won't be able to make Panther Warrior stronger now. The black die representing Skull Dice clatters along, and the whole play is now dependent on which number it lands, to divide Gilfer's attack points thusly.
So Gilfer burns Panther Warrior to a crisp and Jonouchi's points are brought down level with Yuugi's 700. Now that this is the case, Yuugi wonders if there's a chance he could bring both their life points to zero at the same time, allowing both of them to escape. To twist the mechanics of a game where the whole point is to keep your own points but lower your opponent's is going to take some MAJOR creativity. But hey, wow me.
The timer on the bomb above shows under four minutes to go, and Kaiba growls about how Yuugi and Jonouchi are almost out of time. He holds his arm bearing the Duel Disk up to his chest almost possessively, and glances into his periphery where his brother is still being held hostage by the Ghoul behind him. Kaiba thinks that he only has one chance, one card, and prays to a goddess of duelists to let the card he draws from it be a common one. Oh, so it's a goddess now, is it? This religion is confusing, but I suppose not any more so than any other.
It looks like Kaiba's goddess isn't favoring him today because he wears a nasty look when he looks at the card as he swings around. Growling some more, he apologizes to the card before he makes a motion to... wait, what?
...
...
There are too many questions. Why is his card THAT sharp? What the fuck is it made out of anyway?? Did he do some sort of complicated calculation in his head accounting for air resistance and breeze in his head to be able to throw it that accurately??? Was this move of his directed by fucking GUY RITCHIE????
While the Ghoul who was holding Mokuba groans on the ground, his Ghoul buddy gets whapped right in the face by Kaiba too, by the same Duel-Disked fist. Mokuba runs to him happily and Seto asks if he's okay. We don't see an answer, but we DO see Kaiba kneeling down to pluck the card out of the back of the first Ghoul's hand, who's still holding it up by the wrist and whimpering pathetically. It's the Blue Eyes White Dragon of course, and Kaiba thinks it's just his bad luck that his draw is too good. I guess it can be pretty confusing if you try to fail and succeed instead.
Kaiba growls at the Ghoul that it's HIS fault his blood got on the precious Blue Eyes White Dragon, and proceeds to tell him and his friend to die as he kicks and/or rolls them into the bay. The panel only shows the roof of the warehouse in the background accompanying the dialogue. Despite having plenty of time to make those Ghouls suffer just one panel before, Kaiba suddenly thinks that there's no time as he runs toward the two dueling on the dock.
Who are just staring at each other again, as it happens. Guess all eyes had to be on them before they continued, huh? Jonouchi says it's his turn and draws a new card, another Meteor of Destruction. Shit, with how little regard Marik has for the tournament rules, you'd think ALL the damn cards would be Meteor of Destruction. As Jonouchi regards it, Marik is grinning again, praising Jonouchi for drawing such a good card. It'll do the trick, if Jonouchi REALLY wants to beat Yuugi so badly. Jonouchi's eyes are narrowed as he looks past the card and at Yuugi, and Marik tells him that time is short. This will be the last turn, and if he can kill Yuugi, his life will be spared, guaranteed.
And if not...
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Two things. First, Jonouchi's linking of promising to duel Yuugi/Yami and his ability to instill courage in his sister. I suppose this is the answer to how Jonouchi's motivation to join Battle City is unique, though I'm not really sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it is very interesting to have Jonouchi face a new kind of insecurity in not being able to help Shizuka. Sure, he's ensured she's gotten back her eyesight, but she's too scared to use that power. Blaming himself for this comes from two things; the realization that being able to provide the funds for an operation doesn't fix his sister's problem as much as being able to convince her to be brave without bravery himself, and the knowledge that the money was actually a gift from someone he considers much stronger and braver than himself - Yami. Until he can face Yami in a fair duel, he can't say that he's earned the bravery OR the money, and that's eating at him. THIS is what he means by being a true duelist, and what I couldn't see before, which is kind of intriguing.
On the other hand it still feels a tad contrived. Forcing these two things to correspond still relies heavily on the idea that Shizuka HAS to be given courage and that Jonouchi doesn't believe she can find it herself. That's a little disheartening, considering she could be a great character in and of herself if she's allowed to show a little strength of her own. I hope Jonouchi is wrong. I like it when characters are wrong, especially about really stupid chauvinistic bullshit.
Second, there's Yuugi's beautiful revelation that the only way he can get through to Jonouchi is to duel like he means it. It was heartbreaking seeing how unwilling he was to be earnest in this duel, because he didn't think he could take Jonouchi's life points. He continuously put more value on his relationship to Jonouchi than on his own life, and while that may seem noble, it was more out of self -pity than anything. It was the idea that if he couldn't bring Jonouchi out of this brainwashing, than they weren't really friends, and life wasn't worth living because Yami was the only one anyone cared about.
But now he realizes that Jonouchi's condition requires more participation than that. Yuugi understands now that in order to prove that they're friends, he needs to do more than be willing to die for Jonouchi's sake. He needs to be willing to FIGHT TO LIVE. Relationships are reciprocal after all, neither one of them can be doing all the work, and that's what this duel is about. It's about working together to get each other in the range of freedom.
As for Kaiba's little card trick? I don't want to talk about it. That boy is and will always be ridiculous.
Kaiba doing improbable things with cards is the best thing ever. He's just so over the top about everything he does and it never stops being wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this is, what, the second time he's killed two people in a card game tournament by throwing them into the ocean? That we know of, at least.
I mentioned before that I've actually learned his improbable card trick is honest-to-goodness possible, and I'm STILL just blown away by that. How is he both the coolest and lamest dude in this manga at the same time? Because he has no chill? I will never know, lol!
DeleteI didn't even notice that, but you're absolutely right! Boy is always throwing people into the sea!