Has the spark died, Yu-Gi-Oh? Have we lost our fire? I swear, sometimes it feels like I need couples counseling for me and a favorite manga...
More good news: all FOUR doors for the cars to rise to at the top of the tower open at once now, so that the four competitors will arrive there together, and Jonouchi doesn't have to be alone with other!Marik for one measly second. And also we don't have to sit through another four chapters of Yami and Kaiba creeping slowly to the top of the tower through shaving points off one another. Plenty of time for that later, but this particularly convoluted interlude has now concluded. It's of particular relief to Jonouchi, who is MORE than ready for there to only be two duels left to go in this nightmare tournament. Other!Marik's mind isn't so much on the upcoming duels as it is on hoping Jonouchi enjoys his last look at the sunlight.
Because darkness. Get it?
His are the only thoughts that aren't focused on the upcoming finals, though. I can't tell if Yami is excited or unnerved by his prospects of facing Kaiba again, but it comes out as an exclamation in his head anyway. Kaiba just smugly believes that this is exactly how it SHOULD be; him and his fated rival. If it weren't for Kaiba's thoroughly un-smitten face, I would be convinced he's going to try to make out with Yami in the middle of their duel. I still won't be surprised if it happens, though, because KT's facial expressions can still, even at this late stage, be deceptive.
Moar Cards Guy demands that the pods be raised to the final stage, and that the rockets be launched. Wait, what?
The spectators below are super impressed with this super cool brain-melting stunt, and they all run for an elevator to catch up. Not one of you is worried about how rocketing up a tower might be bad for your friends? Yeah, alright. Go on up, the air's probably fine.
Other!Marik's pod zooms through the door in the platform's floor, and he swaggers out of it without the least bit of disorientation. Granted, he was already at the top, so that rocket propelling him up there probably wouldn't telescope him so bad. The others don't have such an advantage, those poor bastards.
Jonouchi's car is the next to dock at the top of the tower. He dismounts with a tad more difficulty, calling out to other!Marik like he's meeting a bro at a bar, and NOT a guy who wants him to go screaming into that good night. I swear, sometimes Jonouchi is a little TOO friendly, which is weird for a guy who spends so much time trying to posture as a tough guy. He even tries to initiate mild small-talk, "so this is the final arena" style. Possible nervous reflex in the midst of clear danger, I'm guessing. He walks around, hand on hip, commenting that this tower-top is a bit drab.
Other!Marik suggests that it might look a bit better decorated with Jonouchi's dismembered corpse, which wouldn't take long to do. This earns him a silent glare from Jonouchi, even though this is the MINIMUM level of aggression he could have expected for as little as a burp in other!Marik's direction. Surely he wasn't hoping for a pleasant conversation? Other!Marik yuks it up and shows Jonouchi his back, the subject of his mirth just glowering away at him.
This is the moment when Yami's car clangs into place at the top of the tower. He hops out of the pod too, not looking at all like an accordion like I expected. I would have accepted him being launched several feet into the air by the sudden stop too. Oh well, Yami's thoughts are not on how he managed to avoid being flattened, but how Jonouchi sacrificed the rest of his life points in the last duel to be matched with other!Marik in the next. Somehow, he wonders WHY. Come on, Yami, if you've thought about this for more than two seconds and can't come up with at least TWO viable reasons, that rocket-ride to the top of the tower must have damaged your cognition after all.
Jonouchi happens to turn his head just enough to spot Yami out of his periphery. Yami takes this opportunity to walk over, commenting that they've both made it to the finals, and telling Jonouchi he has to win this next duel. Jonouchi excitedly agrees, divulging plans to face him in the very final duel, but first to take Ra from other!Marik.
Kaiba, whose arrival was entirely unremarked before this moment, scoffs and says that Jonouchi WISHES he was worthy enough to touch GOD. Like many a priest of many a religion before him, Kaiba has the distinct impression that he's been chosen by the divine to lord over the unwashed masses with his privilege. In fact, he makes an honest-to-goodness EDICT at the frustrated, cursing Jonouchi, declaring (using this EXACT word) that Jonouchi will be killed instantly by other!Marik.
HEAR YE, HEAR YE! DRAMA KING KAIBA HAS SPOKEN! SIR JONOUCHI THE TRASH SHALL BE EXECUTED BY OTHER!MARIK BY ROYAL DECREE!
Jonouchi is falling for it, though, looking ill as he wonders if it really IS that scary. Don't be so gullible, sweetie. Yami comes out and asks Kaiba if HE knows what Ra's power is, and Kaiba confirms that he's almost decoded it. Yami jumps to the conclusion that Kaiba means he's almost completely translated the text on the card, even if he shouldn't be aware that Kaiba has even gotten a glimpse of the face of it, because of COURSE Kaiba is taking pictures of cards with satellites all the time.
Through a smirk, Kaiba says that even YAMI has no chance against other!Marik's Ra deck. Yami glares, and Jonouchi shakes his fist, just beside himself about this ungenerous assessment. Kaiba rambles on through both reactions, stating that Ra's ability far surpasses both Obelisk and Slifer's abilities, but on a slightly hopeful note, he adds that this doesn't mean there's no way to win. He's convinced that if he watches other!Marik duel one more time, Ra included hopefully, he should be more than capable of figuring out a strategy to fight the evil fucker. Kaiba concludes by laughing that Jonouchi turned out to be his bait for drawing out other!Marik.
Understandably, Jonouchi grinds his teeth and spits the half-formed question of why Kaiba has to be such a fill-in-the-blank. Half-formed, but entirely good. Kaiba ignores this entirely good question, addressing Yami with the hypothetical of he and other!Marik facing each other in these here semi-finals. If that had happened, there was a chance that other!Marik could have gotten his hands [back] on Slifer, and Kaiba might have had to face TWO god cards. He would have had to face two god cards no matter WHO would have won in his hypothetical, but since he's the smartest smart boy ever, no one will point this out to him.
While Jonouchi growls with indignation, Yami just smirks and informs Kaiba he made one mistake. Kaiba just smirks right back.
Kaiba turns his back, chuckling, but not refuting the claim that he may have messed up a bit. Granted, there were no consequence-free choices as far as opponents go at this stage, so he was pretty much screwed no matter what. Kaiba says he's looking forward to their fated duel, and finally fucks off to another corner of the roof. He didn't put any doors up here for the sole purpose of making sure no one could tell him not to let them hit him on the way out. That bastard.
Jonouchi seethes there next to an impassive Yami, grumbling silently that Kaiba is just trying to intimidate him before his duel. He scoffs, and though he's sure the god cards are pretty good, he's also confident in all the cards he gathered during his time in Battle City, with the spirits of the duelists who gave them to him. All their images (even that of bug-boy) cluster around him as he poses in typical dramatic fashion. But above all, he's more than aware that he can't save Mai unless he beats other!Marik, who stands across from him again, sneering as if he knows what's on Jonouchi's mind. Come to think of it, it's very possible that he DOES. Regardless, Jonouchi thinks he can't realize his dream
I guess this is supposed to be a serious moment that warrants no comment from anyone around, because no one so much as gives him a funny look. But it reads as some kind of gag? I don't know, it's confusing.
Sorry about the tangent. Yami thinks at Jonouchi to defeat that son of a bitch, the kind of wishful thinking that is somewhat unbecoming of a grounded hero. He should be well aware that if Kaiba's narrative function has run out, so has Jonouchi's, so he's not going to be making it to the final duel either. Still, Jonouchi has all of the support, his other friends running past the stoic Yami to shout at him that he can do it, and his sister wishing him luck. All while the ring rises up above the spectators, much like the platform on the blimp. I don't know why this is necessary for every single arena Kaiba commissions, but there you have it.
Both competitors stare down each other seriously as their panels display 4000 points for each of them, and Moar Cards Guy yells at them to duel now with a raised arm. Jonouchi asks if other!Marik is ready, because he's going first. Not that he waits for an answer before drawing a card. Rude. He puts a card face down and summons Panther Warrior in attack, about to state the end of his turn when he trails off in alarm and confusion.
Dark clouds swirl into view overhead, staining the sky an inky hue. Jonouchi is startled by how sudden the darkness came around, and Yami looks downright horrified, gaping at the sky in recognition. We all know what this means. Other!Marik is predictably standing with his arm outstretched in front of him, the Millennium Rod clutched in his fist parallel with the floor.
It looks like Jonouchi doesn't much like them either, clenching his teeth in anxiety over this shadow game. Other!Marik is right on the money when he guesses that Jonouchi wants to see Mai again, and magnanimously offers to LET him see her again, in the dark world of death she now inhabits when Jonouchi loses. Jonouchi calls out in disbelief, and other!Marik starts spreading on a thick layer of gross as he describes how he can FEEL it ring through his body, like the sweetest music, the sound of her agonized screams while trapped in that flesh-eating bug infested hourglass. His laugher starts low and threatening, then he amps it up to full-on maniacal.
Down below, Honda calls to Jonouchi not to let this creep get to him, failing to notice Yami's grinding teeth next to him. He thinks on how other!Marik has turned this into a shadow game, something I was SURE he would have expected after what happened to Mai, but hey, this isn't the first time Yami has had his head stuck firmly up his ass.
Anzu turns to him and apologizes, because Jonouchi made her promise not to tell anyone, but the reason he's fighting other!Marik is to save Mai from his mind prison. Jonouchi said he had to beat other!Marik to keep his promise to Yami as well. Redundant information, but okay. Yami gapes in utter shock, like he's a spelunker surfacing from his deepest exploration of the cavern of his own asshole ever, and discovered that several years have passed in his absence.
Yami stares up at Jonouchi, thinking his name, and Jonouchi seems to respond that this is his battle, asking Yami to wait for him at the end of it. Meanwhile, other!Marik summons one of his mutant beasts, an eyeless man with several other half-formed screaming faces growing out of its chest that he calls the poet of Hell, or Helpoemer. I refer you back to the GIF above for my real reaction. Other!Marik internally enthuses about Jonouchi's upcoming trip into a world of eternal torment. Does he just want to travel to his favorite Hell-destination vicariously through others? Is that what this is about?
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The official translation definitely made everything a bit more comprehensible to me, even if Kaiba never really makes much sense in any language, and appears to be making LESS sense as time goes on. He just thinks more on a dramatic level than a logical one, even though he tries to come across as highly rational, and no matter how much I may complain about it, I do find it very entertaining. The lengths he went to in order to make his tournament a thing of awe, a grand and awesome spectacle in an aesthetic sense, is almost comical. Very campy, giving a "pro-wrestling" more style than substance kind of vibe. It goes a long way to explain why everything they do has to be so ridiculously over-complicated too, because Kaiba had to build the practical parts AROUND the aesthetics, and not the other way around. His flashy vision came first, and the mechanics followed. Which makes a certain amount of sense in a visual format such as this. The rockets were a bit much, yet another example of how little KT understands physics, but it was fun to look at.
I do think Kaiba's being a bit more antagonistic toward Jonouchi than he should be at this point, though. I know I mentioned this before, but I find it very strange he acknowledged Jonouchi before they all headed for the location of the blimp, and then started jabbing at him every five seconds again within the last few chapters. Sure, KT could have had Kaiba taking pot-shots at Jonouchi as a person, because it's pretty clear those two are never going to consider each other anything but garbage, but to have Kaiba specifically making derogatory comments about Jonouchi's dueling when it's been clear to him in particular for a long time that Jonouchi deserves to be there seems a bit regressive to me. A few too many steps backward, considering Kaiba even suggested he believed Jonouchi was good ENOUGH that he might be able to force Marik (or the guy they believed to be Marik at the time) to play Ra. Now he's just out-and-out saying Jonouchi's going to eat it immediately. Granted, he knows about the "one turn kill" ability of Ra now where he didn't before, but that doesn't have much to do with JONOUCHI'S skill, since any one of them could end up a victim of it according to Kaiba's dramatized telling. I could understand Kaiba's animosity toward Jonouchi in the previous duel as general trash-talk and an attempt at intimidation without much meaning behind it, but now it's just kind of useless.
Speaking of intimidation, other!Marik is back to his old, scary self again. He's managed to regain a bit of his creep-factor now, with his description of how he views Mai's screams as beautiful music, so I'm beginning to remember why he was frightening before. Referencing when he put Mai in the mind prison before helps, but at this point he's still not back up to the level at which that event happened. To me, he's only back at the mildly perturbing edgy teen obsessed with the great equalizer stage. I might be more freaked out if I were in the same fresh frame of reference as the characters, to whom all of other!Marik's terrible deeds have taken place over the course of a mere two days. As it stands, I'm a busy adult in the real world who has only a scant amount of time in the past TWO YEARS to read over and recap these fictional events. And that makes all the difference.
Hey, did anyone else get the feeling that Yami was especially DENSE in this chapter? I genuinely don't know what to make of him just not DEDUCING Jonouchi's goal of freeing Mai from other!Marik's influence. Is this an indication of Yami being a bit self-centered and selfish, for so long being the very heart of everyone else's motivations that it never even occurred to him that Jonouchi has other friends that he might need to care for above their little bullshit promise? Or was this some weird attempt by KT at somehow renewing the shock-factor on Jonouchi's selfLESS considerations?
Maybe both?
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