Asshole!Bakura laughs like mad as Necrofear just floats there looking creepy, and Yami glares. He's staring at the monster that has been summoned by sacrificing the souls of three already dead monsters, admitting to himself that there's something VERY worrisome about this thing. Kaiba is watching from the side, internally articulating what Yami can't quite coherently reason out; asshole!Bakura spent an awful lot of his life points to summon this thing, so it stands to reason that Necrofear has a pretty devastating special effect. He mentally tells Yami to be careful.
Though their respective panels facing off show Yami with his full 4000 point and asshole!Bakura with a measly 750, Yami is the one sweating as asshole!Bakura grins deviously. It's still his turn, so he puts one card face down on his Duel Disk before he ends it. Yami stares, wary of the fact that asshole!Bakura isn't attacking at the moment. It could easily beat his current monsters, but asshole!Bakura has abstained for some reason. Yami wonders if it's because of his own face down card floating next to him, but asshole!Bakura continues to give him a wicked grin across the field. Yami sweats some more, trying to divine another reason for the lack of action. Nope, sorry Yami, you may have breezed right past your chance to take asshole!Bakura seriously.
Yami declares his turn and draws a card, watching it leave his deck in his hand. He knows he's still unscathed with his full 4000 life points and acknowledges "Ryo"'s 750 points left. I put quotes around the name because it seems a bit wrong to refer to the asshole with the normal one's name. But hey, I'm not the guy's supposed FRIEND or anything. Yami decides to keep attacking, and sacrifices Baphomet in order to summon a monster capable of the job, slapping her card on his Duel Disk.
Despite asshole!Bakura's insistence that DMG isn't going to be able to touch Necrofear, Yami says they'll see. He asks if asshole!Bakura has been watching his face down card that must have been assumed to be a trap. Asshole!Bakura is taken aback by the implication that it ISN'T a trap as Yami points, preparing to reveal the card.
It's a spell card, appropriately picturing a spell book on the cover, called Magic Formula. Asshole!Bakura seems rather bewildered and upset by this reveal, or the fact that DMG is hovering in front of the hologram version of the book, flipping its pages eagerly. Not sure what he's so offended by here, but whatevz. Yami explains that once DMG has finished reading the book, she will be even stronger than Necrofear. Knowledge is power, after all. Jonouchi calls for Yami's monster to crush the creepy one asshole!Bakura summoned while asshole!Bakura growls with anger and nervousness.
Yami commands DMG to attack Necrofear, and that's all folks.
Either way, asshole!Bakura launches into an explanation about how when Necrofear is sent to the graveyard, the soul residing in the doll it was holding is released, which has no parallel whatsoever to the Millennium Items and their owners, nope. The hateful, vengeance-seeking soul of the doll wanders the field looking for its next host, asshole!Bakura says. Following this tale as though it were instructions, a cloud wiggles out of the STILL dissolving doll and zips around the field. How long is this effing doll going to take to get out of here, huh??
No matter. The point of all this is that Yami isn't going to know which of his monsters this wayward souls possesses... until it's too late! Bwahahahaa! Sorry, I got caught up in the campfire tale mood here.
Meanwhile, Yami is on his side of the match assuming he had to have defeated Necrofear, and that there are no changes to his monsters. That he can SEE, anyway. He knows that if he can attack asshole!Bakura directly with his Magnet Warrior, he'll win. So, he does just that, the fool, commanding Gamma to get over there and slash the last of the life points out of asshole!Bakura with the Magnet Sword.
What could go wrong?
Yami hunches over with an arm up in front of his face, realizing that something had just popped out of Gamma to attack him. To top it off, he lowers his arm to see that Gamma has stayed exactly where he was before the order, having not attacked asshole!Bakura at all. Yami gapes as Bakura chuckles smugly, stating that Gamma is possessed by the spirit of the doll Necrofear was carrying around. It's only too happy to attack when its told, but it attacks the master rather than the appointed target. Yami is appalled that an invisible enemy has possessed his monster, but asshole!Bakura declares he's not done yet. He tells Yami that the attacked player loses half the attack points of the possessed monster.
Shown with some weird cracks or lines down the length of his face that I can't figure out, Yami is accompanied with a panel showing that his points have dropped to 3250. And asshole!Bakura is STILL not done, because there's one more piece to this that's the sweetest part for him personally - he absorbs the lost points from Yami to increase his own strength. 1200 isn't a ton, but better than 450, for sure, and he has a celebratory laugh for it.
Yami continues to be shocked at asshole!Bakura's absorption of his life, seeming to still be adjusting to the fact. But wait! There's more! Asshole!Bakura is now possessed by the spirit of Billy Mays, advertising his occult deck as so much more than what Yami has seen. He doesn't even have to call NOW, because Yami already called way back when he directed DMG to take down Necrofear. Turns out that he also activated a trap with that move that asshole!Bakura had yet to mention. Ugh, add-on items. Looks like asshole!Bakura has adopted the Amazon method of maximum profit.
Shock renewed and enhanced, Yami must watch in alarm as asshole!Bakura reveals said trap card with glee.
Asshole!Bakura tells Yami to take a good look and watch what letter it chooses, as it's pushed around by Necrofear's burning spirit. After a short journey over the board the planchette comes to a stop over the letter "D". So, not "butt", but we're not out of the dirty words woods yet. A grinning skeleton appears over the board, holding up a spectral paper with "D" written on it. Yami notes the letter's materialization in the air, sweating.
Smug, asshole!Bakura spells out the rest of the word that is to be spelled: DEATH. He says that after five turns the rest of the word will be hanging in the air, and that's when Yami will be eliminated. So, this is like the OPPOSITE of hangman? While asshole!Bakura giggles, Yami is taken aback by this news. Anzu asks if this means that Yami only has four turns left, and Jonouchi freaks out about the implication that Yami could lose even if he has points left once the planchette spells its ominous word.
Kaiba has stoically revised his opinion of the guy he very recently thought of as a weakling. He's now impressed that asshole!Bakura managed to possess Yami's monsters, steal his life points, AND put a time limit on the game, all at once. Before you make asshole!Bakura your new crushemy, Kaiba, do consider that it only took the playing of TWO overpowered cards to do all of this crap, not even combined in a complicated or unexpected way. It's just kind of cheap. But Marik supposes it's a strategy that asshole!Bakura had all along, so I guess I'm the only one who isn't all that impressed with this.
Maybe asshole!Bakura's next play will move me over to the tentative approval club. He's saying, once again, that he's not done and there's much more to his occult combo, after all. He slaps down a spell card called The Dark Door, which widens Yami's gape. It means that he can only attack one monster per turn, much to his dismay. Asshole!Bakura doesn't pause to mock, playing a zombie type crawling up through the floor called Earthbound Spirit in defense, ending his turn.
Yami is less enthusiastic, in fact rather slow, in announcing his turn. He takes stock of the situation, that there's only one monster he can attack and that Gamma is currently possessed by the doll spirit, and all this leaves him with only one choice. Yami begins by summoning Kuriboh in defense, then moves to commanding DMG to attack the Earthbound Spirit with Black burning. Asshole!Bakura has stopped putting on his poker face at this point. I guess there's no point in pretending that this will go well for Yami.
Yami doubles over and stares wide-eyed at the life points leaving him (looking more and more like actual life the further we get in this story, mind). He's down to 2000 points now. Asshole!Bakura chuckles that he "forgot" to tell Yami the doll's spirit changes hosts every turn. With a grin, he warns Yami to choose his attacking monsters carefully if he doesn't want them to tear him apart. Ah, all this withholding of critical rules really takes me back to the beginning of the manga. Nostalgia.
Clenching his teeth, Yami stares with wide eyes at asshole!Bakura, who draws attention to how his life points have grown again - they're at 2450 now. Another spectral paper held up by a grinning skeleton emerges in the air, displaying the letter "E", which asshole!Bakura also directs Yami to notice. He points at Yami, declaring that Yami's life ends in three turns, and all Yami can do is growl.
Moral of the story? Try not to underestimate people who make it into the finals of a tournament you know through personal experience takes a lot of shit to get to.
And don't trust Bakura. That fucker never leaves his fucking posses jewelry at home.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? As I indicated above, there's something really cheap about how much asshole!Bakura can do with this central card. It follows the established pattern for the villains in this story, which is an over-specialization, relying on one card that seems to do it all for them. The obvious problem with this, of course, is what I've already mentioned - the card is just overpowered and doesn't represent much balance in the rest of the game. Granted, this one has a significant cost tacked onto it, and a strict condition, but that in itself should make it impossible to summon. If asshole!Bakura draws it later than the first five turns in any duel, it becomes a space-hogger and doesn't do anything. And then, when he does draw it at the right time, his strategy is so transparent that there's no way that anyone NOT following a script wouldn't have realized something was up with him summoning all these weak-ass monsters and not allow him to summon it anyway.
But since everyone is following a script in this case, we get an unrealistic propulsion of a villain like asshole!Bakura into the finals.
Because here's the second issue I have with the pattern KT continues to propagate: these bad guys are too dependent on one card and its minor supplements that only work with IT. I seem to recall a time (don't ask me when, my memory isn't THAT accurate) when I talked about how Yami's success comes in part from his adaptability. His strategy can go in many different ways, depending on the situation. That's what makes it fun watching him win over and over again, since the fun isn't dependent on if but HOW he wins. Not giving him opponents that are JUST as adaptable, that consistently rely on one card that Yami will eventually figure out how to destroy is a little limited in how they can impress me. Perhaps that's the reason why I'm still not joining that tentative approval club.
But the horror imagery isn't bad. I thought it was fun.
That is all.
Bakura's cards here are more overpowered than their actual TCG counterparts, of course. Dark Necrofear can possess an opponent's monster, but only one and there's no Spirit Burn effect + LP absorption. Destiny Board (which spells out Final in English) is a very gimmicky set of cards that basically require you to have no other Spells or Traps on the field to work since you need room for all five letters. They are also PAINFULLY vulnerable to any kind of Spell/Trap destruction!
ReplyDeleteAlso, give Pegasus some credit. He had a backup strategy for when Toon World was destroyed!
DeleteOf course. The game in the manga is after all PERFECTLY balanced with no exploits. Cue the Spliffing Brit.
DeleteAnd I give Pegasus NO credit! He can BUY himself some credit if he needs some!
I mean, he could if he wasn't dead, of course. o.O