Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 216 Judgment of the Gods

Oh pshaw! What kind of use is the judgment of GODS? Do you know how often I berate myself on a daily basis for the most minor of infractions? Did I step too heavily on a creaky floorboard? I'm a loud, obnoxious, inconsiderate piece of garbage who is disturbing my neighbors below. Did I accidentally leave leftovers in my fridge? I'm a wasteful, ungrateful whelp. Did I forget to use my turn signal when changing lanes? Clearly I'm a careless shit who is endangering the lives of everyone around me!

I mean, it's no wonder that most of us don't hear from gods like, EVER, considering we're perfectly content to do their jobs for them. And if it's not we that are willing to do the job on ourselves, it's always someone we're trying to impress. When Marik encourages Rishid to knock out Jonouchi with Ra by suggesting his control of the god card will prove he's a member of the family, Rishid's thoughts immediately turn to his adoptive father SCREAMING at him. If this, and his consequent action of raising the fake Ra card from the shrine box behind him to summon it, isn't a sick attempt at self-punishment, I don't know what is.

I'm not sure if I should be relieved that the translator has reduced the number of gods involved in this judgment to the singular - even one of these things has been known to fuck everything up for your average human, and this one looks PISSED.

Dwarfed by a single claw on this giant creature, stands in awe of it forming before him, jaw slack. The bystanders have a similar reaction, with Yami gritting his teeth in anxiety at the sight of this god card come to life. Kaiba, once again, is the only one whose amazement is tinged with an admiring smile at the up-and-coming god. He better not drool to hard over this thing, because his blue-eyed dragon might get super jealous.

Man, these are big fuckers, aren't they? Try to smack THAT with a flyswatter.

Rishid implores Jonouchi to look at the god's form, one that normally would have taken 3 monsters as a sacrifice whose attack and defense would add up to the final god's stats. Since Selket ate Jonouchi's monsters, though, it was able to take on the points from those as the necessary sacrifice instead. Handy. The final attack on Ra is 5225 points, and Rishid points out that it's more than enough to end this whole deal once it attacks. Jonouchi repeats the attack number in disbelief, while even YAMI is admitting that there can't be a way for his buddy to win this fight. Hanging his head, Jonouchi thinks it's all over.

Marik sends mental congratulations to Rishid for controlling that copy of a god, proving that he's a member of the guardian clan. What he's actually happy about is the fact that everyone will believe that Rishid is him now, and his shitty plans can keep chugging along. We still don't know the details of this plan, which will undoubtedly make it easier for Marik to pretend it's going swimmingly despite everything he attempts being an utter fail. Still, he's willing to divulge that his plan involves figuring out what Kaiba's deal is, as he gives Kaiba a serious side-eye. It's bothering the shit out of Marik that that ancient tablet depicting Yami is also depicting Kaiba, even more so that Kaiba's likeness seems to be carrying an approximation of the Millennium Rod. He wants to read Kaiba's memories for more information on what Kaiba's doing with HIS dildo artifact. It's HIS, dammit! No one else is or was allowed to have it!

Anyway, back to the game. Rishid is telling Jonouchi to prepare himself for impact. Jonouchi's supporters yell his name and wait tensely for the end. Kaiba's smile has only grown creepier as he thinks Jonouchi should be grateful to be a sacrifice for a god, a lab rat sacrifice, anyway. Would YOU be grateful for that, Kaiba? Somehow I think you would be rather upset about having to be a sacrifice, so maybe you should stop trying to dictate how other people should feel about losing their ass here. Elitist garbage mill.

Marik has a similar grin on his face as he urges Rishid to finish off Jonouchi with the god power, which is now Rishid's power too, just in case he needed the ego boost to get the deed done. Rishid calls out the order to attack on a groaning Jonouchi, but Marik drops his eyes in surprise at a distraction downward. No, it's not his boner, it's his Duel Disk, which has started to smoke from the deck slot. This is making Marik sweat and he draws his arm closer to his face to peer at the contraption on his arm. He wonders if this means the real god card in the machine has become angry.

It could be that, or it could be the water you poured all over it earlier.

Uh-oh, that doesn't look good.

All the little flying glowy things *shrug* appear to be zooming all around the blimp, while Ra hides in a swirling vortex of doom above. Rishid guards his face with an arm as he internally questions why the shadow of Ra is giving him and everything else the evil squint right now. Marik's eyes widen at the sight of Ra in comparison to his card, because this is not what he's supposed to look like. As the glowing streamers converge in the center of the vortex and flash inside of it dangerously, Marik knows Rishid using the fake card REALLY pissed off Ra. Like, REALLY.

Jonouchi is freaking out, stuttering out a demand for an explanation, but Rishid doesn't answer. Partly because he doesn't have one, partly because he's freaking out too in his own subdued bug-eyed way.

The streamers are coming back down now, resembling long arrows as they dart down to the platform below. They hit multiple spots around Jonouchi, and he's frozen in place, gritting his teeth. Marik calls this the anger of Ra manifesting on the offending players. Uncharacteristically, Marik is not pleased with this, and is actually looking quite horrified. Jonouchi's supporters call out to him in anxiety. Rishid stands stock still on his side of the platform.

Yeah, in addition to being shouted at and threatened by your shitty dad, you clearly deserve being struck by lightning as well. That seems fair. /sarcasm

Marik stares open-mouthed at Rishid, screaming his name internally, as he falls forward onto his face, unconscious. But those light spear/arrows aren't done shooting down at the platform. They're still going for Jonouchi as well, whose only crime was being present. He flinches away from the light spears, sweating and groaning, while all his friends can do is shout his name.

"Aaaaaaaand fuck this guy too! This is giant bird JUSTICE, dammit!!!"

Jonouchi falls to his knees to the tune of his name being shouted by Honda as well, and then on his face as the light spears stop falling and the vortex begins to dissipate. Both Jonouchi and Rishid lay there on the smoking platform. When Yami and the rest of the peanut gallery run to his aid, Moar Cards Guy intercepts them, holding his arms out to bar them from rushing the platform. He says the duel isn't over yet. I don't know, dude, it looks pretty fucking OVER to me when both opponents are laying inert in the middle of the ring.

Honda calls Moar Cards Guy an idiot, pointing out that very fact, but Moar Cards Guy insists that since they both have life points left, since the weird light show was only an attack on the players and not on their points. And you're not questioning this because...? Seems rather funny to me that an attack on the players would not affect their points in the game, but what the fuck do I know? I'm not even a referee in a nonsensical tournament!

Mai asks how the winner will be decided then, presumably so she can know when she's ALLOWED to go and assist her friend with the lightning strike to his belly. Moar Cards Guy says the first person to stand and continue dueling is the winner. Okay, another question: what about that five-minute rule? If neither of them stand by the end of that, can you let someone fucking HELP THEM??? Or will we ignore that and just stand here with our thumbs up our asses while these dudes just lay there in agony INDEFINITELY?

Man, this tournament is FUCKED.

Jonouchi's friends and family scream at him, trying to get him to get up. Meanwhile...

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Rishid's explanation isn't exactly helpful, full of holes, just like the one that lightning burned through his middle. Something about him sleeping, and Marik's true hatred within... It all seems to come down to some dark personality being awakened when he falls. You mean he's not going to be just a weird asshole anymore? Not sure how it could get much worse than that, but carry on, I guess.

So, Rishid lays his head down again, in a motion that looks like full unconsciousness. Marik holds his head and grinds his teeth in response. Jonouchi's supporters shout at him some more, and Moar Cards Guy announces that the two duelists have one more minute to rise before they're both disqualified. Oh thank goodness there's SOME reason in this dipshit.

You're two hundred chapters late to the cool-Millennium-personality-switch scene, Marik. I would say sorry, but I'm not.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It's reminded me that I will probably never get over the fact that this manga just doesn't have adult characters that can DO anything, you know, ADULT. I'm just consistently amazed by how adults are conspicuous in their absence in the story, and when they're not, they're conspicuous in the fact that they refuse to act in a responsible manner. There has not been a SINGLE adult in this entire story who has taken charge of a precarious situation, insisting that the kiddos get the care they need for various injuries and such, when they exist at all of course. KT just writes them like the kids, and it's so obvious that he only made them adults because he HAD to. He has enough of a sense of realism that he realizes the police, the teachers, and most of the employees of this child billionaire are going to be grown people, but he just can't write them as adults, because that would disallow a lot of the events playing out the way he wants them to.

Now, I understand the irony of a 31-year-old woman complaining about the lack of adult presence in a story written for children, but I can't help talking about how much anxiety this is producing in me right now. I'm knee-deep in the stuff, I swear.

It was profoundly sad to see Rishid realize that this god was trying to punish him, and his assumption that it was because he wasn't really a member of his clan. The image of his adoptive father screaming at him in memory at that moment just drove the point further home; Rishid's rejection has been divinely confirmed, at least to his own mind right now, and that is just heartbreaking. We all have to deal with feelings of insecurity and wondering if we belong, and I'm even willing to bet that most of us have felt at one point or another that there was some god out there punishing us, designating us as unlovable.

But the thing that Rishid seems to have forgotten here is that he was using a fake card, the very kind that Marik had conducted his experiments with and described the results being of this very sort. If Rishid had been using the real card, this whole situation might have turned out differently. The issue here seems to me to be about using a copy, not using the card altogether, but there hardly seems to be much of a control group here. The only other two who are using god cards are special ancient Egyptian avatars or something, so I don't know what would happen to a normal everyday Joe if he tried.

Regardless, of why the punishment is taking place, it's a severe overreaction and Ra needs to stop throwing tantrums over nothing. Like that thing has any idea what it's like to be a human living in the world.

Oh, and I have very little sympathy for Marik's little headache there. It's the least he should get for being a jerkass. Peace!