Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 254 Secret Plan to Call God!

Calls to mind an inexplicably desperate and dangerous journey to a confessional booth. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be very surprised if that was actually a movie, considering some of the media the religious right comes out with in general, but I can't be certain because it's been a while since I've seen one of those films. If I had to be cooped up in quarantine for too much longer and I might discover this gem, just by trawling through Netflix all day every day. Thankfully I'm on my way back into the office full time due to a recent promotion in a couple-three weeks, so the danger of this travesty on my sanity is rather low.

Not sure how to judge the level of danger in the contents of this chapter, though.

I mean the kids holding out cards to their opponents is pretty typical. It could mean anything.

As if the two of them hadn't just met in the center of the platform to perform the action mere seconds earlier, Yami announces that he's added Slifer to his hand through his use of the Exchange card. He then thanks Kaiba condescendingly, but Kaiba doesn't seem to mind too terribly much. He's smiling when he metaphorically shrugs it off; He doesn't think much of Yami having the card in his hand and wishes him luck playing it silently. Obelisk is still pinned by Lightforce Sword at his feet for two more turns, as he notes with a glance down. But Kaiba's back to glaring ahead, confident that his XY-Dragon Cannon will wipe out all of Yami's monsters, thereby not allowing the three necessary sacrifices to summon Slifer to be gathered for purpose. Kaiba thinks he has the numerical advantage - two turns being plenty of time for him to get his little lambs in order for the moment when Lightforce Sword is gone.

As unimpressed as Yami looks here, I prefer this expression to the lying liar face of his phony shock in the previous chapter. I like the realism of the exasperation  Kaiba inspires.

Also, Yami is internally admitting that Exchange was a rather dangerous gamble, even if it DID get Slifer into his hand. It allowed both players to take a card from the other's hand, and Kaiba took a card that could really stick it to his rival: Life Shaver. Kaiba is putting on a pretty convincing impassive look, but there's still a ghost of a smirk there while Yami continues to calculate the damage he could do. Since Slifer's attack points are determined by the number of cards in Yami's hand, Kaiba using Life Shaver could render Slifer almost powerless.

Impatiently, Kaiba urges Yami to hurry up, given it's his turn, and Yami agrees slowly. He thinks there's no doubt now that Kaiba will play Life Shaver this turn, drawing a card. Though Kaiba's life points are halved by his poor spending habits, he's not sweating in the least.

There's playing it safe. Kaiba scoffs at this and asks if defending himself is all Yami can do - if that's the case, Kaiba declares he doesn't even NEED Obelisk to defeat Yami. Yami is too busy worrying how long his shield monster can stand up to XY-Dragon Cannon to respond. I'm not even sure he HEARD Kaiba.

Other!Marik is still hanging out, ready to give us more inane commentary. Not that I'm one to talk, of course... He's thinking on the fact that there's only two more turns until Kaiba will summon Obelisk, because there's no point in questioning whether he'll have what he needs by that time. It's practically a certainty. When that happens, other!Marik is certain that Yami won't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. This pprospect appears to displease other!Marik, judging by his wrinkled nose and frowning sneer. He thinks at Yami not to disappoint him, because he wants Yami to grow and grow in preparation for slaughter like a cow. Other!Marik licks his lips, silently insisting that it's just no fun crushing someone who's already half-dead. Says the guy who just expressed the desire for his rival to be more like a meek cow bred to be butchered. He further complicates this mess of metaphor and raw murderous prose by asserting that Yami must suffer and writhe in the ultimate pain before he's sacrificed to the darkness. 

Gracious, KAREN couldn't demand more modifications to a mother fucking Starbucks order.

Having politely waited for other!Marik to finish his inner monologue, Kaiba at last announces that it's his turn, drawing a card. He holds his up off to the side so that he can glance at it out of the corner of his eye and Yami can watch him do that dorky smug chuckle of his in all its terrible glory. Also, he's counting down the turns again until Obelisk is freed, only one solitary turn to go now. One more turn until he intends to crush Yami with his god card. A euphemism if there ever was one. He urges Yami to get ready for this inevitability and plays a card face down. Yami is sure this has to be the Life Shaver card Kaiba exchanged Slifer for.

With the air of a ring leader at the circus, albeit a very serious one, Kaiba prepares to introduce his new card.

Great observation. Superb. He's also cottoned onto the fact by now that the moment one of Kaiba's magnetic monsters is summoned, their special ability is activated, namely to combine in a totem-pole like configuration. This new, with its tank treads, naturally affixes itself to the belly of the metal wyvern after it tucks its legs away as Kaiba demands with entirely too much manic enthusiasm that they combine and fuse into XYZ-Dragon Cannon.

Yami notes this monstrosity's whopping 2800 attack points, along with its ability to separate into three separate sacrifices for Obelisk when the time speedily comes along. Other!Marik just reiterates Kaiba's plan to focus on the god card, using a power deck of support monsters to maximize its effectiveness, blah blah blah. The point of the matter is, other!Marik has judged this duel to be all but over now. Because his opinion is the most valuable thing I could take from this entire duel, clearly.

Big Shield Guardna is indeed blown apart by the attack, and Yami flinches behind an upheld arm, hanging his head in a suspiciously eye-hiding manner afterward. Uh-oh, I think one of KT's famous (read: annoying) fake-outs is playing out. Kaiba doesn't notice, laughing obnoxiously as he claims that he's just beaten Yami's last monster (poor Queen's Knight appears to be summarily ignored here, for some reason) and threatens to smash his SOUL as well. What a guy.

Yami looks up with a smirk on his face, scoffing that Kaiba sure does LOVE an easy target. This is probably the truest thing anyone has ever said in this whole manga so far and I love it. Yami says he knew Kaiba couldn't resist killing Big Shield Guardna, and as Kaiba's face goes slack in sudden disbelief, Yami declares he's handed him a chance to win.

Yami basically recites what's on the card above as he chooses a card from his hand; the lucky monster he's going to play next. Here's hoping Kaiba can't just railroad over that one too. Smugly, Yami announces his choice as "King's Knight". Why does this seem so familiar? Oh yeah, because the queen Kaiba refused to acknowledge just a couple of pages ago has a similar name, and Yami begins to imply something happens when the king and queen are both out and about together. Kaiba grits his teeth, having already guessed from personal experience what's going to go down, but not really wanting to hear it.

Of course, Yami tells him anyway that he's now perfectly within his rights to summon Jack's Knight to the field as well. Kaiba is just alarmed by this three-monster combo, as though he honestly believed he was the only one who thought to do that kind of thing. Yami draws the parallel outright himself - he's got monsters to help him summon a god card too, doncha know? Kaiba growls, watching Yami slap his third "knight" on his Duel Disk.

And he did it using pretty much the same strategy as you did. Man, that's gotta sting.

Yami announces it's his turn, scarcely drawing a card before he offers king, queen and jack to the heavens, or the swirly whirlwind, as sacrifices. He holds a card high into the air, and a column of light surrounded by a vortex towers in the center of the platform and coliseum. This card is revealed to be Slifer (big surprise) and Kaiba grits his teeth at it while Yami calls forth the dragon god of the sky. When Yami slaps that card onto his Duel Disk, a web of lightning arcs above them.

I can't tell if Kaiba has a plan there, or if he's just happy in his pants to see a god-dragon. I'm kind of afraid to find out either way.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It's always an impressive visual when a god card gets summoned, though not in an exclusively "powerful" way. Sure, the creature is intimidating and looks like it could really fuck your shit up, but I'm almost more fascinated with the sense of FUN I get from the design of Slifer here, like KT was just having a blast drawing it. The intense amount of detail in it LOOKS like a labor of love, and it's one of the things I look forward to the most when I see them. I'm not suggesting these are the ONLY designs KT has a lot of fun with, but the fun is almost PALPABLE with the god monsters.

I can't get over how Yami pulled the rug out from under Kaiba by doing almost EXACTLY the same thing as him. There's an element of "great minds think alike" implied behind the shared strategy, and the notion that this is why they're true rivals; so perfectly matched as they are. But we probably shouldn't forget the so rarely remembered next part of the adage that puts things in a slightly different perspective: "but fools rarely differ". Both players have basically built their decks entirely around their use of the god cards, and it hearkens back to all of those villains of the past whose strategies were rigidly constructed around a single card, contrasted by Yami's fluid strategy. Now, I'm not sure if this is a subversion of a sort, or perhaps revealing how these god cards tend to be more of a liability in the long run for how they hamstring the player, requiring them to place the god card at the very center of play. I can only really say that there's not a big chance that either god card is going to be part of the resolution of this duel. That's too obvious of an ending, and I have more faith in KT than that. He's not THAT cheap.

Cheap enough to keep that jerk other!Marik hanging around to take up panel space he doesn't know what to do with though...