Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 211 Trap World of Death!!

And here we have yet ANOTHER death trap setup. I've stopped being surprised when another threat of death comes up, despite this comic's topic of the least deadly hobby in existence. Our protagonist has acted as a living hallucinogen in to many an antag in the past, unilaterally passing objectively cruel and unusual punishments for crimes, and his friends have never called him on it. Thanks to current events, I'm well aware of what it's like to live in a perpetual surreal nightmare, and when I'm not wallowing in despair, I'm seething in rage. For a character that's not as lazy or privileged as I am, I could see how that might turn into violence.

Besides, gotta keep that tension up somehow.

Or, you could always amp things up by keeping the cards completely unreadable. That way, your audience has no way of figuring out what's going on! Brilliant strategy!

Jonouchi is disappointed that all three of his monsters had to be disappeared right when he summoned them. These are the risks you take, friend. Honda seems a bit more concerned by the fact that Jonouchi fell for "Marik's" trap. Mai yells at Jonouchi to just calm his shit as Yuugi starts to mansplain how trap cards not only have the ability to turn the tides of a duel, but also reek havoc on a duelist's psychology. Mai matches Yuugi's speech with her own assessment, that "Marik's" plan is to make Jonouchi afraid of traps to the point where he won't even want to attack. Yuugi is confident that Jonouchi won't lose his fighting spirit over a few trap cards, though. Kid's nine feet tall and bullet-proof, and he MIGHT have a head made of granite.

This is demonstrated by the next panel, where Jonouchi is directing an unearned smirk at "Marik". "Marik" continues to glare at Jonouchi wordlessly, while Jonouchi points and rants at him. Jonouchi tells the "tattoo freak" to listen up, because he wants to insist that the prior turn was just to test out "Marik's" abilities. That's right, Jonouchi is claiming to have purposefully fallen for the trap, and that he FELT like falling for it. This posturing and gum-flapping is SURE to convince "Marik" that his opponent is one step ahead. Furthermore, Jonouchi suggests that "Marik" should be happy, because he's the 21st person to get him serious about a duel.

He's been COUNTING???

Surrounded by spectral fire, Jonouchi insists that it's all for real now, and his duelist fighting spirit is at the maximum. Honda wears a look of combined skepticism and embarrassment while pondering Jonouchi's phrasing, but Yuugi praises Jonouchi's spirit. Head made of granite. Kaiba agrees, thinking that Jonouchi's idiot's brains can't recognize the greater ability of their opponent.

Is that really the WORST of the dramatic draws, though? I think you can do worse than that.

Arguably, he does. He just announces the placement of a new card face down on his side and ends his turn. Jonouchi grinds his teeth in frustration at another trap card, and Yuugi can't help but wonder whether "Marik" even HAS monsters in his deck. Asking if "Marik" is too scared to attack, Jonouchi demands he stop playing trap cards and slings around insults. At least, that's what I THINK the word "insults" in brackets means in the speech bubble.

"Marik" merely states that it's Jonouchi's turn in response, so with a disgusted groan, Jonouchi draws a card aggressively.

And with that, Jonouchi deflates slightly, lowering his eyes to his hand as he admits to himself that he can't attack. Another groan later, he pulls a card from his hand that he also puts face down on the field and ends his turn, trying not to come across as defeated. Yuugi praises this move, because Jonouchi would surely have fallen for a trap if he had attacked. According to Yuugi, Jonouchi must wait for his chance, but even Yuugi has to question if that chance will even come, or if there's a way to escape from this web of traps.

Whether or not this can be considered much of a "web", so much as a simple thread from boring the shit out of one's opponent until they attack to profit, is debatable. Regardless, Jonouchi points an impatient finger at "Marik" and reminds him that it's his turn. "Marik" plainly states that he's ending his turn without doing anything, causing Jonouchi to once more grind his teeth as he realizes that "Marik" is waiting for him to attack. Every moment makes Jonouchi all the more irritated by the inaction. Yuugi is worried that Jonouchi will lose his cool, because that's obviously part of "Marik's" plan.

Jonouchi draws his card and plays it, summoning Rocket Warrior.

Ho don't do it.

As expected, "Marik" activates one of his traps, Psyche of Ujat's Eye. Not only is it a mouthful, but "Marik" says it allows him to control the attacking monster. Jonouchi wears a dopey gape like this wasn't the most obvious consequence in the world, as "Marik" orders his Eye to target Jonouchi's monster. Yuugi takes up that all-important mantle of Captain Obvious by alerting us all to the fact that this will cause Jonouchi's monster to attack his other one. I guess KT wanted to switch it up from poor Honda this time. He needed a bit of a break.

But what's this I see on the horizon? Jonouchi's determined expression returned as his Rocket Warrior heads toward his Wyvern? He discourages "Marik" from even thinking about it, turning over his own trap card, Monster Box. "Marik" is stunned into silence, noting with surprise that a weird little Whack-A-Mole box has appeared surrounding the Wyvern, with its head popping out of one of the holes in the top.

Grinning and chuckling, Jonouchi informs "Marik" that Rocket Warrior has lost its target. Know-it-all Yuugi looks just as shocked as Rocket flies right at the hole that the Wyvern has ducked out of and collides with the box. For a moment, "Marik" dares to wonder if the attack landed.

OH MY GOD. The ho did it.

While "Marik" stares at the utter failure of his trap card, Jonouchi cackles with delight that his monster is unharmed. The next speech bubble is a little difficult to parse, because the bottom of the page has been cut off. Either Jonouchi is reminding "Marik" that it's his turn, OR he's gloating that this turn was where "Marik" got to fall for a trap. Either way, "Marik" glares at Jonouchi silently, as Jonouchi goes on and on, rambling about how he now knows the weakness of the trap strategy, the composition of "Marik's" deck being mostly trap and magic cards, and something about what he can do without monsters on the opposite side. Honda doesn't look too confident that he'll be able to do what that is, making a skeptical face at what he sees as a waste of energy. Whatever Yuugi says here, I don't even know.

Can't be too important, right?

I'm certainly less concerned once I see the next comment from "Marik", who seems to be asking when Jonouchi is going to realize he's STILL fallen for a trap. As Jonouchi widens his eyes in disbelief, the real Marik smirks assured that Rishid's game with Jonouchi is nearly done. Meanwhile Rishid explains that while Jonouchi is correct, his deck IS mostly composed of trap and magic cards, there's a monster in there summoning those cards. Uhhhhh, unless he's referring to himself (and given his past comments indicating he doesn't seem to be taking much pleasure in doing the nasty things he's doing, I could see that), I don't see how cards can summon other cards in this game. Doesn't seem to be how the game works.

He's not elaborating on that bit, though, so I'll have to continue scratching my head as he tells Jonouchi that his deck will be the ultimate once he overcomes the little limitation Jonouchi himself mentioned. Jonouchi also looks on the confused side of shocked as he considers this notion of a monster summoning cards. It looks like Yuugi has an idea what this is, but he's not spilling the beans, trailing off instead. Great, the ONE time I could have used a drawn-out explanation, and he seals his expository lips. Thanks.

Thankfully, "Marik" himself is activating his trap now, so I don't have to endure the round-about suspense anymore.

Uhhhh... come again?

It becomes just a tad more clear when "Marik" explains he's put three of these types of monster/trap cards on the field, so they all flip in response, allowing "Marik" to summon three monsters. Yuugi and Jonouchi stare in alarm as the hologram cards issue holographic smoke, responding to "Marik's" request that they come out. A tangle of twisting necks, heads and swords are cut off by the edge of the page that Jonouchi gapes at, astonished by the simple fact that "Marik" has summoned three monsters in a solitary turn. Yuugi, being oh so helpful once again, identifies this as "Marik's" true trap technique, and "Marik" himself declares Jonouchi has fallen into his hell-trap, that he refers to as "endless despair". Not only is this misspelled, but there's a strange part in parentheses that says something about not being able to win, "kinda".

Yeah, KINDA takes the bite out of this next image as I have to waste all my cognition trying to figure out what the fuck that means.

Which is a shame, because that is SUPER DOPE.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? A lot of things impacted my reading of this chapter that had nothing to do with it, which is a bit disappointing. Not only was the translation here a bit on the cryptic side, but I was sick over the weekend, and it took THAT much more energy to really try to figure out what it was saying. Between the dialogue being cut off at the bottom of that one page, and just the odd choice of words of the translator, I'm not sure I've been able to squeeze all of the meaningful content out of this chapter that I should have. The translator is obviously not fluent in English, and may not be fluent in Japanese either, so most lines had me cocking my head for several minutes trying to reason out what the hell was even being said.

The fact that this translation exists at all is far from a bad thing, and it's better than me having to buy the official translation plus a scanner at my own expense in order to analyze it for free on this dinky blog... but I have to point out that my own analysis is going to be rather limited due to the limited amount of content I've been able to get from it.

It also seemed so much LONGER for its unreadability. This is one of those chapters that covers barely more than a couple of moves, so I was already going to have a problem with how much the action was drowned in useless dialogue, mostly delivered by Yuugi. I feel that a lot of the time, just a reaction shot from the bystanders would have been enough to get across their presence WITH Jonouchi's struggle, along with your occasional word of encouragement or worry. Unfortunately, KT seems to have fallen back on his habit of providing TOO much supplementary explanation with his pictures, presumably because he doesn't trust his art to speak for itself. I might even argue this is part of the reason why the translator had so much trouble putting out a readable chapter, having to do a lot of unneeded and even reiterated translation for words they may not have necessarily have been able to easily understand. When you're squeezing so much bullshit into speech bubbles that a translator can't figure out what you're trying to say, it might be time to take a step back.

The good news about this chapter is that it is clear in ONE way, at least, and that's in how competent Jonouchi has become at anticipating an opponent's moves. He's not nearly up to scratch with Yami and Kaiba, but he's come a long way. The obstacle he faces at this point isn't so much a defect in strategy or intelligence as much as it is in patience. He's just naturally a more action-oriented guy, so it takes a lot more effort to overcome his nature and think several moves ahead like the other two focal duelists. His counter-trap was actually really good. He just didn't anticipate that counter-counter trap, so this is one of those growth-centered duels for him, encouraging the stretching of his skills.

It's always much more interesting to see than the peaked skills of Yami and Kaiba. That's what saved this monster of a read for me, personally.