After a page detailing who has made it to the next stage of the finals (Yami and Jonouchi), and who has yet to make their play for a spot (Marik, Mai, Kaiba and "Mystery 8th Duelist"), we take a break to visit the aftermath of the absolute chaos in the previous chapter.
Inside the medical room, Rishid is lying tucked into a cot, unconscious. Someone in the horseshoe of visitors around the doctor next to the bed asks how Rishid is, and the answer is some vague nonsense about his brainwaves being pretty normal and perhaps the shock was too much for him, blah, blah, blah. No doubt those kids wouldn't have any right to know how Rishid is anyway.
Hanging her head, Anzu voices some concern over how many people in this tournament have been hurt, because Bakura is still resting injured in another bed. Jonouchi wonders why Rishid is still under when the both of them got hit with the god lightning, and Honda disdainfully suggests that Jonouchi is just lucky. Ignoring this comment, Jonouchi says that they don't even know Rishid's real name, the only tidbit of information about him coming from Marik on the mysterious man being his shadow. Not a lot to go on, but Yami speculates this to mean, tentatively, that Rishid is Marik's partner.
Jonouchi grits his teeth, refusing to forgive Marik for being so cold as to not give a shit about his own shadow in addition to brainwashing people so often, even though no one asked him to. Mai mumbles that she feels bad for this guy who's all alone now that he's been betrayed by Marik. At the mention of Rishid being by himself now, Jonouchi looks like he has an epiphany. He realizes that he only won because he stood up before the time limit. Took him an awfully long time. Maybe becoming fully conscious is a bit of a process for him.
His friends give him inquiring looks when he tells them, cryptically, that he thinks he knows why he won the duel. Jonouchi reveals that he saw all of them in his dream.
While everyone else make noises of affirmation or otherwise stay silent and smiling, Honda says that it's no problem, but a free lunch as repayment might be nice. Jonouchi gets all flustered and upset at the suggestion, forgetting that HE threatened (jokingly) to blackmail one of his friends for free burgers not too terribly long ago. A friend that could easily remind him of said incident, given that she's standing only a short distance away at the moment.
This hypocrisy goes unremarked upon by anyone, however, and KT decides to focus in on a smiling Mai, who contemplates the concept of friends here. Like it's a novel thing that hadn't already been made perfectly clear back in Duelist Kingdom for her. Maybe it wasn't, though, in which case it's a tad strange that she would go to all the trouble of encouraging and delivering the sister of a guy whom she didn't even consider a friend.
Anyway, the doctor promises to take care of all the injuries piling up, and reminds the kiddos that they're going to be drawing the next two duelists to compete here pretty soon. *Hinthintgetthefuckoutofherehinthint* So, they all file out of the medical room, Jonouchi leading the way with Shizuka hanging admiringly at his elbow. Mai runs up to his other side, wanting to ask him a question. He looks somewhat alarmed when he asks what it is, and she questions if he saw her in his dream too.
... Well that came out of nowhere. Jonouchi clarifies that she means in the dream with "the others", then takes a moment to think about it and sweatdrop. When he's done, he grins and says that most of his dreams take place in the classroom, and he figures that's why she wasn't there, because she can't POSSIBLY be in high school. As Mai begins to blow a gasket in disbelief and anger, Jonouchi runs ahead of her, waving, and promising that she can be the teacher next time. Anzu looks upon the scene from behind the both of them with a measure of pity, while Mai starts considering the term "idiot" now.
Lesson: don't ask questions when at least one of the answers is going to seriously upset you.
Yami comes up behind Mai and says that she might be playing in the next match, and she's got to win. I'm sure this is supposed to be encouraging, but it doesn't receive a reply, just a wordless glance back at Yami. Yami looks a little put out by her cold reception. Meanwhile, Anzu somehow teleported ahead to intercept Jonouchi by the cheek, pulling him along as he yelps that he's in pain, and demanding to know how he can be such a moron. Face flushed, scratching his cheek meekly, Jonouchi doesn't have an answer any more than Mai did for Yami's statement to her.
She's hanging her head sadly until she looks up, wondering what it was she was doing. Mai reminds herself that she was fighting along before she met these babies, winning by herself and not asking anyone for help. You also weren't depending on being in the dreams of other people for your happiness, which I think is the real issue here. Mai starts to go into what really makes her proud as she shoves her Duel Disk on her arm, and it's not entirely clear here - something about how one is only truly safe when they're by themselves, because in this ruthless world, things that hurt others can't hurt them? There's a bit of guess-work in the interpretation, forgive me. The translation and I haven't come to an understanding.
One thing IS perfectly clear, though.
Mai looks around and notices that neither Marik nor the eighth duelist are present, and is annoyed at their apparent lack of bother to so much as show up. She's not going to forgive duelists like them. Before, she was totally willing to overlook the fact that Marik was a brainwashing prick, I guess. Kaiba stands nearby, as usual smirking over his fantasies of defeating Marik, getting that Ra card, and eventually beating Yami at long last. One track MIND, that boy.
Moar Cards Guy announces that the lucky draw of numbers begins now, as the machine starts to bounce the numbers around inside it. We're reminded that MARIK (not Namu) is number 1, Kaiba is 3, Mai is 6 and the "mystery" eighth duelist is 8. Mokuba shouts that it should be his big brother up there dueling this time, as though the bingo machine gives two shits what he thinks about it. Jonouchi says that this will also determine the last two duelists for the fourth round, which must be something of a relief to everyone. No more goofy Blue Eyes White Dragon themed bingo machine.
Mai stares, Kaiba reiterates that his only target is Marik and his god card at this point, and the numbers pop around in the machine.
Mai glares, but when Moar Cards Guy announces that the machine is starting up to determine her opponent, she begins to walk the fuck off. Jonouchi twists to remind her that whoever she's dueling hasn't come up yet, but she states that she'll beat him or her regardless, and that the next time she and Yami or Jonouchi meet, it'll be on that platform in the next stage of the finals. Yami says her name again, and Jonouchi starts jogging after Mai, offering to come and cheer her on. She glares at him out of her periphery and snaps at him not to even THINK about coming, because she's a fighter who fights alone, and she doesn't need the cheers of others.
Jonouchi is of course cowed, flushed and sweatdropping once more, with Anzu standing there watching the whole scene with the same pity as before. Mai continues on her little tangent, suggesting that it makes her laugh that duelists like Jonouchi need others to help win their battles.
The child she's insulting is certainly taking it hard, even though he's trying to brush it off with a teeth-grinding "whatever" in the next panel. Mai just keeps walking, and it's a bit difficult to read her expression in profile. Is she as ashamed of herself as she should be? Who knows? Anyway, hey, Moar Cards Guy is still drawing out the selection of Mai's opponent. Big surprise there.
The real surprise is of course where Marik happens to be instead of watching that bingo machine. He's next to Rishid's hospital bed in the medical room, putting back together the Millennium Rod to reveal that the handle is actually a sheath for a small hidden dagger at the end of the top. Where's that doctor that promised to take care of everything while the kids went to find out who was dueling in the next round? Slumped over in the corner where Marik stabbed him with his tiny dagger.
Shit, this tournament just took a fucking TURN. At least a person can come back from brainwashing, but murder is murder, bro.
Marik mutters about having to send each of "them" to the darkness, and it's not immediately clear who's included in this group, but my guess is it's a pretty wide net. He turns to Rishid and begins addressing him as though he can hear, talking about the symbols carved in his face being a seal for his hatred, and as long as he's alive, his "other self" is sealed up forever. I'm sure you can see where this is going.
Marik and Mai are pretty in alliteration as they face off on the platform atop the blimp. Mai thinks about the rumors saying Marik's the one with the god card Ra, probably spread by Kaiba, because he can't even THINK about anything else, let alone TALK about another topic. Marik is just thinking that the darkness is hungry. Whatever. Mai's continued thoughts aren't too much more complex, just centering around having to use her deck to beat Marik and gain his ultimate god card. Goooooood luck, especially when Marik is over there planning to sacrifice you to the darkness, girlfriend.
I assume Moar Cards Guy is the one to announce the start of the duel and the names of the competitors, because he's off-panel, the feature being Mai from Marik's side of the platform. Marik holds out his arm, his cape flutters around him in the wind, and his "third eye" glows. When he's finished trying to look cool, he holds the Millennium Rod out in front of him and bids the shadow game to begin, which prompts a swirl of dark tendrils to extend out from the rod. Mai is alarmed being enveloped by the blanket of darkness, and how it covers everything. She's sweating, unable to breathe, a line of figures hurrying into the spectator pit below going unnoticed by her. She has to admit she's pretty scared of this duel, and who can blame her? She's the first to get the "shadow game" treatment, after all.
But she's got support in her pioneering predicament, whether she wants it or not.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I really liked the explanation of how Jonouchi's dream tied into why he was able to wake up to begin with. It seems almost obvious now for how simple it is, but I suppose I needed someone to actually SAY that he had something, a group of someONES to return to, and that it stood in stark contrast with Rishid's situation. The imagery was pretty clear too, in Rishid's vision as he was on the edge of consciousness - the in-group he was trying so desperately to gain access to just dismissing him and walking off into the darkness. It was poignant, and I'm surprised I missed it.
Almost as surprising was Mai's complete tantrum here, though in a way I suppose it had to be done. Mai's defeat here is inevitable. She's only in the finals because there had to be someone along that the audience was already familiar with, and there's no way Marik will be eliminated by anyone BUT Yami, so she's toast, story wise. But we still need to be able to relate to her in order for the duel not to be boring and a bit of a slog, so KT gave her an emotional issue to conflict her during the meat-and-potatoes of the match.
The reasons for this are solid, and I totally understand why this decision was made for Mai's character, but boy do I HATE it. It's not that I think she shouldn't be upset as an adult, because smaller issues have made me upset, and I'm older than she's supposed to be. And it's been a while since she's been in contact with the group, so she's bound to feel like the odd one out, not being around near constantly like the others in Jonouchi's dream. No matter how friendly everyone is with her, she's just not part of the core group, and insecurity is just about certain in a situation like that. I know from experience.
No, my real issue with this is the cliche easily cleared-up misunderstanding it evokes. There are so many ways that this just wouldn't have been an issue that it came off as contrived. While it makes sense that Jonouchi wouldn't think it a big deal, and come across as even a bit callous, his explanation still tried to justify WHY she wasn't there. It was clear he was a bit confused about her absence from the dream when his attention was drawn to it, so that in and of itself suggests that he didn't understand at first why one of his friends WOULDN'T have been present.
And if he had thought about it a tad more, he might have mentioned that Shizuka wasn't there either, but Kaiba WAS, and Kaiba's not a friend to anyone. He's just a bag of dicks.
I suppose what I'm getting at here is that both Jonouchi AND Mai were doing just enough idiocy to drive the next mini-arc, because if they had gone over that very fine threshold, it might not have happened at all.
In the anime, Mai IS in Joey's dream for some reason. At any rate, I get that Mai is seeking reassurance of the idea that she has friends, particularly since they haven't been together in a good while, but taking offense to the idea that Joey didn't have a dream about her while STRUCK BY DIVINE LIGHTNING is more than an overreaction.
ReplyDeleteGranted, the official line she has is "I'm not a duelist that's soft like you!", which is a lot less harsh than calling him useless.
Regarding Crazier!Marik not killing Odion, I'll just post the Abridged Series' take on this scene: "Oh no, I'm late for a children's card game. This somehow prevents me from simply lowering my arm and murdering you. Punctuality, my Achilles' heel."
Too true; her pettiness about what happened in his head while he was unconscious because of a horrible injury is more than a little over-the-top. I kind of feel like KT could have gotten across the insecurity she was feeling without her having to resort even to the official line you mentioned there. But Yu-Gi-Oh isn't exactly subtle, so...
DeleteAt least the abridged line is an explanation! lol!