Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 261 Beyond Hatred

Usually the titles are pretty straightforward, occasionally mysterious only due to the information in the chapter we don't know yet. This one is mysterious due to the potential fork in meaning. Have our characters moved past hatred to a new understanding of each other? Or have they moved instead onto pure LOATHING? Can't be sure, but I know which way this phrase would describe my feelings toward this cursed year. 

It's definitely not the former way. 

That last turn robbed Kaiba of his usual bite I see. He settles for dryly stating that Yami has two monsters on his side, and that he must be planning on playing out the rest of the duel in defense since the Blue Eyes White Dragons across from those monsters have superior attack. Kaiba does manage a smug little thought about cutting off Yami's escape with his next card, though, right before he plays two cards face down and ends his turn in a rush. Maybe if he's fast enough, the obvious trap will pass over Yami's poor slow head. 

Or maybe he'll glare more critically than ever at Kaiba and murmur that it's his turn instead, a small sweatdrop rolling down his cheek. He draws a card with the customary exclamation, which he peers at but we're not really given a good look at it. Yami notes that he's only got two cards in his hand as he adds his new one to the one already there, while keeping his glower directly on Kaiba. He wonders what Kaiba's next move will be, as though the loudmouth didn't just give him a pretty big clue already. Kaiba is done talking for now, though, eyeing him with a little smirk. 

Yami also plays two face down cards, but moves to switch the Red-Eyes into defense. Kaiba's smile widens into a creepy grin and breaks into mental giggles, thinking Yami can't run now. He reveals a face down card with splayed fingers, and somehow, some way, Yami seems alarmed that this was a trap. 

I know KT just discovered the magic of giving his main character struggle and a challenge, but someone should tell him that it doesn't really count if it's this obvious. 

Kaiba explains this is a permanent trap called Final Attack Orders, which compels all monsters to attack the opposing ones without restraint. Oh, and they also have to choose three cards from their decks and place the all the others in the graveyard. No, not hands, DECKS. Does that seem a bit extreme? It sure does to Yami, who stares at the Duel Disk locked on his wrist as he ponders discarding the entire rest of his deck in disbelief. 

Impatient as ever, Kaiba claims he doesn't need another three turns to win, but he invites Yami to place his futile hopes in whatever three cards he chooses. How magnanimous. He urges Yami to make his choices with a patronizing prompt, and Yami groans, sweating, hand hovering over the rest of his card fanned out in his hand. Kaiba's of course already got his cards picked out, or the one for his ultimate combo at least - Monster Reborn. It's already in his right hand ready to play. He chuckles that Yami is finished this time. Yami ends his turn hesitantly. 

Down in the blimp, Jonouchi's eyes still look a bit droopy while everyone cheers around him. Honda gives him a rough hair-tousle, exclaiming he's alive. Shizuka tearfully thanks the heavens that he's okay, and she's the first one Jonouchi notices, saying her name in a drowsy half-conscious daze. Anzu and Ryuji look on happily from the foreground. Jonouchi takes a moment to remember that he was fighting other!Marik before taking his very concerning nap, before Honda seizes him by fistfuls of his t-shirt, shaking him. He raves that Jonouchi makes him so mad, hardly willing to believe that he's really awake and that he's not faking it... somehow. Shizuka cries that she thought she missed her big brother. 

Honda pulls back one of his fists so he can hide his tears behind a forearm, sobbing that Jonouchi is a big jerk and demanding that he never die again because they were so worried. It's almost too cute for me. Jonouchi ignores the saccharine reaction to him waking up and pulls all the little electrode pads off his belly with a series of pops, wondering what in all the world this is. It's only now that the largely forgotten and useless doctor expresses his disbelief that Jonouchi is up and at 'em. 

Jonouchi says he's fine and not to mind him; he's far more interested in where Yami is. Anzu informs him that Yami is dueling Kaiba at the moment, for which he starts shouting at them like a maniac, demanding to know why they aren't up on that damn tower cheering for Yami. Anzu asks indignantly if they were supposed to just leave him by himself, and that incompetent doctor doesn't speak up, because he knows he wouldn't count for so much as a sponge. She says this is Jonouchi's fault for almost dying. Which totally isn't an insensitive thing to say when virtually no time has passed between this moment and the trauma of almost dying, ANZU.

But Jonouchi takes it in stride. Frustrated, he dismisses the whole argument and suggests they get going, to which Honda wholeheartedly agrees.

Back up top, Kaiba announces his turn, while Yami wonders desperately what those last three cards in Kaiba's Duel Disk are. He notes that Kaiba hasn't played Monster Reborn in this duel yet. Or, not his OWN Monster Reborn yet. But Yami probably doesn't have time to reference that right now. He's pretty sure Kaiba's strategy depends on his three Blue Eyes White Dragons as always, but he's ALSO pretty sure that's not the ultimate plan. With the hope he's wrong, Yami thinks Kaiba probably has Monster Reborn and Polymerization.

This thought is cut off by Kaiba drawing a card, and giggling when he looks at it like the lame-o he is. He uses the Monster Reborn he was so eager to play a couple of pages ago, dreams really DO come true, which somehow surprises Yami, even though he was just speculating about it? Perhaps that hope he had was so convincing that it overrode his logic circuits. Kaiba reminds him smugly that he probably CAN guess which monster he's going to use it on, and proceeds to throw his third Blue Eyes White Dragon on his Duel Disk with a perfectly sinister laugh. Yami is still catching up? He looks on at the new/old dragon, gaping in the knowledge that Kaiba has all his crooners once more.

I

Someone should REALLY tell KT it doesn't count if it's THIS obvious.

The ultimate dragon heads all roar at Yami like the shiniest of hydras, and Yami is in terrified awe. He identifies it as the strongest monster in existence, with points that surpass even Obelisk's. No word yet on what the exact count is yet, though. Fists ready for triumphant pumping, Mokuba cheers that this duel is almost over, because even Yami can't beat the Ultimate Blue Eyes. Other!Marik seems to have fully recovered from his enraged confusion over the Millennium Rod's transfer of memories to the current competitors. He's got a smug smile on over the appearance of the ultimate dragon and muses that he never thought Kaiba would win. He supposes that it never really mattered, because he was planning to kill both of them anyway, regardless of who won. Kinda makes you wonder why the guy is going through the trouble of meandering through this tournament. We briefly visit the blimp again, where Ishizu is still looking through the window at the the top of the tower. She silently addresses Kaiba, who defeated her and became the master of his own fate, and who must now face the truth hidden in this battle, carved so many centuries ago.

The truth that they're all being manipulated by creepy cursed relics of ancient Egypt, I'm sure.

Kaiba announces he's about to beat Yami, and achieve something great. No, not simple revenge; that can't possibly be the motivation of such a COMPLEX character. I might be projecting right now, but Yami's expression looks just a tad exasperated by that pathetic denial. Kaiba's full-on monologuing now, rhetorically asking why he's been fixated on defeating Yami for so very long. He fought his way to the castle beyond the Goblin City through Battle City to find out, and now he thinks he's finally found the answer. I'm guessing it's NOT because you're an obsessive personality with addictive tendencies?

 

Yami recalls that recurring theme of answers Kaiba has brought up before. Kaiba now says the stone tablet shown to him by Ishizu was behind Battle City when the curtain rose on the tournament, and that's where the answer lies. He identifies Yami's struggle as one of pursuing the memories carved on that tablet, and condemns it as foolish, chasing a past that's gone. Yami contemplates Kaiba's mention of the past, but doesn't appear to do so too deeply. 

What is that thing people say? About protesting too much?

Kaiba thinks on Mokuba on the sideline, and the jerkwad adults who made them live in the living hell called an orphanage after losing their parents. Then, upon being adopted by Gozaburo, Seto himself was abused in the name of "education", and he does use that word ABUSED. He thinks of that monster of a father the only family he had, until he performed a hostile takeover, ousting Gozaburo as president of the company and becoming a master of the world of backstabbing and treachery. Kaiba Corp was born again out of the carnage, but Seto's revenge didn't satisfy him - he was still angry. Back in the present, Kaiba yells at Yami that his past is ALL hatred and anger, nothing like Yami's stupid little fantasy world. Said with an unhinged grin, by the way, because I guess we needed a reminder in the middle of Kaiba delving into his own trauma that THIS BOY HAS NO CHILL.

 

He's raving that he only cares about the future, and tramples over the past, because it means nothing. Never mind that he just admitted it means quite a lot. Ignore that. Kaiba accuses Yami of being a creature of the past, and threatens to destroy him along with the past he represents. Fists raised in determination, Kaiba insists that he will shine light down the apparently already bright corridors of his future and become the king of duelists. The metaphor got a little crazy there for a moment, but I think I get the point. Yami is glaring, contemplating Kaiba.

 

Below the platform, Mokuba has lost a bit of steam, and is in fact hanging his head in a clear depression. He ruminates on Kaiba's long statement that his motivation to beat Yami is rooted in his desire to forget their past. Mokuba picks up the locket pendant hanging around his neck and presses the button to open it, revealing a younger Seto smiling at him with chess piece in his hand. Mokuba wonders if his brother intends to also forget that smile he gave him then. 

 

Oh no, no no no, not this bullshit again! I won't make the mistake of having any level of empathy for these little shits ever again! They'll just do something unforgivable again right afterward, I KNOW IT!

 

Yeeeeeaaaaaah, scoffing is the natural reaction to the CEO of a giant successful company implying he's not ALREADY at the top. 

Cluelessly, Kaiba chuckles his surprise that Yami can laugh at this point. Yami responds that Kaiba is one of the few his high, high gatekeeping standards has deemed a duelist, but he says he's a bit disappointed in him. Kaiba is of course a little ruffled by this, a bit short when he expresses disbelief, and Yami offers to be blunt: hatred and anger aren't enough to beat him, no matter how much of either Kaiba has. 

Kaiba asks for clarification again, fuming. Yami explains that Kaiba's mind is like the tower they're on, standing tall in the rubble, piling hate on top of hate to try to reach the peak, but never quite getting there. Yami suggests that Kaiba won't ever achieve victory, just keep looking for the next thing to hate. Yami, on the other hand, wants to always fight for those who believe, like his friends, who are shown sprinting in his direction, and himself, who is represented as the specter of Yuugi lingering behind him wearing his best poop-face. Of course, Yami also fights to become a true duelist, because he totally didn't JUST stand there talking about the judgments he's made on others regarding their status in this regard.

Now it's Kaiba who's scoffing, and Yami on the defensive, yelling that he's going to show Kaiba what he means. He reveals his face down card, Double Spell, which says on its face that Yami can play whatever spell card his opponent has played this turn. Kaiba is in disbelief and freaked the fuck out by this, but there's very little he's NOT freaked the fuck out by, so that's no surprise. Yami reiterates that his card allows him to use Monster Reborn and Polymerization, the spell cards Kaiba just used. He brings Buster Blader out with Monster Reborn in all its angled-armored glory, and then uses Polymerization to fuse it with his Dark Magician in the center of a virtual windstorm so we don't have to see all the weird details of how this combination would happen. 

Is dueling Yami all it takes for someone to get all their hate wiped out? Because I can think of a few people who might benefit from that. Can they schedule appointments? 

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Getting to see Jonouchi wake up and how relieved everyone is by him being conscious is a treasure. I think perhaps it was a little too short and punchy of a scene, and didn't fully explore the rich emotions that could have been expressed by all of the characters, but what we did get to see was pretty good. It was both hilarious and heartbreaking how Honda cast his joy at Jonouchi being alive in these aggressive, angry terms, only to genuinely cry. The fact that Shizuka, as Jonouchi's sister and kin, didn't get a comparable focus, and that Anzu and Ryuji just didn't get a focus on their emotions at all, is a bit of a disappointment to me. I think the chapter should have spent just a little longer on them.

Because it wasn't doing much more with the slower pace. Kaiba's core motivations seemed to be the center of this chapter, but I'm unimpressed. Yes, Kaiba's abuse and trauma provide a LOT of context and explanation as to why he basically wants to DESTROY his past at this point and not just run away from it. And it makes sense that Yami has become something of a representation of that traumatic past, not only in how Yami searches for knowledge of the past, but also in how Yami has actively broken Kaiba several ways before. I made fun, but I totally believe that this isn't just about revenge - it's about taking back control from the various forces in his life (of which Yami is the latest) that has damaged him and made him into the monster who stands at the top of the Duel Tower at present. This would be compelling...

... if it weren't also meant to stand as the reason Kaiba is meant to lose. Within the context of the whole tournament, these motivations are very weak. Not because they're bad or wrong; it's more than understandable when a character wants to beat their trauma and throw it into the void. But Jonouchi's motivations were (eventually) to save Mai, and Yami's are to regain his memories, and they're both trying to figure out who the hell they are, and these goals are intricately tied to winning the duels in the tournament. Yami is right, winning the duel, the tournament, will never give Kaiba victory over his past or his anger, and he'll always just be looking for the next thing to hate. There is NOTHING that winning this duel will do to help his condition, he'll get no real prize or satisfaction from it. So, he can lose without anything valuable being lost in the process; the same before and after. He's going to be okay no matter what.

Ultimately, I think Kaiba's stated motivations in this chapter, though incredibly relatable and accessible for such a normally INaccessible character, are a justification for his upcoming loss. It actually bothers me, because the horrible trauma Kaiba desperately wants to decouple from himself is dissonant in the relatively low stakes it represents, and his inability to change and evolve in the arc he's designed for himself. It's kind of ironically tragic, in that KT refuses to actually develop this character toward real healing, because Kaiba's painful struggle against past abuse both defines him and is constantly cast in the shadow of importance cast by the struggles of the other characters. 

Kaiba, I'm sorry man. You deserve a creator who would give you what you really need - THERAPY.