Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 276 Than Curse the Darkness

 ... What? 

Listen, VIZ, I'm paying to access your official, PROFESSIONAL translations of this manga. Granted, I'm not paying very MUCH, but I don't have to be paying squat if I'm willing to put up with poor grammar. Unless you're suggesting cursing the darkness as an unfavorable to alternative to something else, I don't want to see you using this form of the word. Then again, I don't know what in the balls it would mean for it to be spelled with an "e" either. Is it the next in a list of weird ultimatums? Either way, if I wanted to be confused about the weird wording of a title, I could do that for free.

I love how everyone is absolutely horrified by other!Marik's screaming agony, except for Kaiba - maybe the pitch matches his own internal screams and he doesn't really notice. 

Ra is swept away in pieces by swirling digital winds, and Yami holds his arm up to protect his face from... pixels, I guess. Below the platform, an amazed Honda is in awe that Yami beat Ra, and wonders if that means Yami has won the entire match. Jonouchi explains that, no, that's not the case, because Ra converts all but ONE of the player's life points to attack points - Marik is still technically hanging on by one point. 

The virtual wind is at last starting to die down; Ra had to make a dramatic and over-extended exit. Yami and Yuugi both watch the dissipating tornado, both looking a bit tense. Yuugi recaps that Yami had believed in the viability of that final point left to Marik and went ahead and attacked other!Marik. They're on edge waiting to see if the one point was enough I suppose, Yami muttering Marik's name nervously. Interspersed with more shots of the digital smoke clearing are Rishid and Ishizu also worrying over Marik, until we get a close-up shot on one of Yami's eyes widening at a shape forming in the fog, which I'm sure will clear ANY MOMENT NOW.

FINALLY!

I mean, yay he's okay I'm so happyyyyyyy....

Actually I am rather glad to see that original recipe is back without the weird bulging veins or lolling tongue. So is Ishizu, who looks like she's ready to throw herself up on the platform, lunging the way she is toward her brother. I think it's a bit too high, though. Ryuji gets his first line in quite a while when he urges everyone to look at Marik's face, asking if the guy's dark side is gone. Rishid stands proud of Marik, thinking it was his strength to live that overcame his dark personality. 

Meanwhile, Marik whips that heavy-looking cape off his shoulders, reminding Yami that he's still got one point left and their duel isn't over. This is far from a threatening statement, though, and even if an exclamation point has appeared over Yami's head, he looks straight-faced and determined. But Yuugi urges him to look a bit harder at the scrap of nothing hovering next to Marik's shoulder.

It's other!Marik's bulging wild eye; Yuugi says that now regular sized Marik is back in control, other!Marik is in the sacrifice seat. Other!Marik's eye darts over to original recipe, wondering how he got control of their body, what Yami DID, and how he ended up the sacrifice in this shadow game. I wouldn't hold your breath for any coherent explanation, dude. Then again, I doubt other!Marik does much breathing at all in this form, so I guess he'd have an easier time of it anyway.

Gracious, for a guy without a mouth, he managed to DOUBLE his word output. And multiply the pathetic bullshit by a factor of about a million.

Marik states that other!Marik was created by his intense suffering, and that other!Marik can't control him anymore. He keeps his eyes stubbornly pointed forward as other!Marik responds with disbelief. Marik promises to destroy other!Marik with his own hands, which other!Marik decries as a lie, worrying if original recipe is planning on killing himself to die along with his evil counterpart. Regular sized Marik responds that he's not going to die; he says he's done some crimes that will never be forgiven, but he's going to live and bear his guilt just like the scars on his back, seeking the small spot of light in the darkness of life. A little dramatic, but fair enough, and inspiring Rishid's glowing pride by the look of admiration he's giving Marik at the moment. 

Correcting his initial call to Yami as a call the the spirit of the pharaoh, he announces that their duel is done now. I guess he was just bullshitting when he said it WASN'T over earlier, but we already knew this guy was a liar. Anyway, Marik thanks Yami for saving him, and Yami looks on with alarm. Not as much as the frantic other!Marik, though, who tries to deny original recipe is going to do what's coming next. 

... Anticlimactic much?

Other!Marik's scrunched-up eye is sure wound up over it. He stutters that Marik can't, couldn't, do this incredibly passive thing, and screams out his refusal like it's not going to just make Marik all the more glad he's finally getting rid of other!Marik's constantly babbling ass. Marik commands his dark self to be gone, renouncing it. With a final drawn-out scream, other!Marik's eye stretches, shrinks, and pops out of existence. Ah, at long last, he can be united with his precious darkness. Just as he always wanted... for OTHER people, somehow. 

Marik lifts his hand from his Duel Disk, the panel reminding us that his life points are now at zero. As the last of other!Marik, and the rest of the holograms, disappear in wisps of digital smoke, Marik admits to Yami that he's lost everything, and the game is the pharaoh's. Ishizu stares up at her brother in some awe, a tear escaping her eye while she silently assures Marik that their future is not lost, and thanking the great pharaoh. Rishid also stares up at his master, but with a slightly sad expression. 

Yami thinks that Marik may have lost the game, but he was victorious in a different way. Probably a better way, when it comes down to it. After all, what's better than NOT having to surrender your body to a maniac personality born of your hatred and anger for the rest of your miserable existence? At least now Marik's miserable existence is autonomous. Congratz, kid. Yami and Yuugi smile amicably at the guy who has just confessed that he's done crimes that can never be forgiven. 

But then again, who the hell HASN'T in this comic?

THAT'S OUR CUE! POP THOSE BOTTLES, BOYS!!!

I'm not the only one stoked about it. Yami's friends leap and cheer, screaming their elation, and reiterating that Yami won. Yami holds his arm with the Duel Disk strapped to it close to his chest, thanking the deck of cards inside helping him, then looks at the group of wild animals stampeding toward him to bury him in an avalanche of congratulations and thanks them as friends too. It's a very subdued acceptance speech. 

Them and KT, anyway. 

Jonouchi excitedly calls Yami the greatest duelist in the world for his victory, while Honda crosses his arms in the background and nods sagely, talking about how long a road it's been to victory in hindsight. I can't help but agree; I have several hundred blog entries to look back on to that end. Yami looks at Anzu and asks her if she has her mind back now, casual as can be, considering how often Anzu's brain is taken over by random spirits. Eyes crossed, Anzu points at her head and says she has a few memories missing, then immediately assures him she's okay now. 

... Somebody take this girl to a neurologist, please. She needs help.

Jonouchi appears to be looking past Yami at something, so Yami glances over his shoulder to see the cozy group of three Ishtars formed with Marik hanging his head as the center. Ishizu begins to address him, and he says her name too, possibly the start of an apology. Ishizu cuts him off to assure him that though their family lived in darkness for generations under the fate of the Tomb Guardians, it was Marik's destiny to end that. She monologues a bit about darkness not being eternal, how revenge shouldn't last thousands of years or even a single lifetime, and that maybe they were assigned the duty of guarding their king's memories so their king himself could teach them that lesson. GENERATIONS of a family lived and died underground and suffered horrible abuse so that you and your brothers could have a nice little classroom session with Yami? That sounds like a serious miscarriage of justice to me, but I'M not the damn justice dispensing spirit of the Millennium Puzzle here. Wanna weigh in here, Yami?

Nah, Marik just asks Ishizu if she thinks their family can still live outside of the dark. She affirms that yes, they're Tomb Guardians, and that doesn't change no matter where they live. Wish your ancestors had the same attitude, Ishizu. She declares that they're family, and Marik seems to agree that they can overcome any obstacle as long as they have that bond. Rishid gapes in astonishment at first, then looks down and sheds a single tear. Rishid, my dude, you deserve all of this validation and more. 

Oh balls, what is that asshole in the ring up to NOW????

No time to get into it now, apparently. Kaiba has appeared to yell at Yami, who turns from his eavesdropping to give Kaiba some kind of questioning glance. Kaiba shouts that, by defeating Marik, Yami has earned the title of Duel King. He claims that he applauds this achievement as the host of this event, but Kaiba's stiff posture definitely does NOT allow for any clapping. Nor does his sour expression, really. Still, in the glow of victory, Yami thinks on Kaiba warmly as well, knowing he couldn't have won without that card thrown at him in the beginning of the duel. 

Mokuba appears much more genial when he announces the ante; that the champion will accept a rare card from the loser. Ishizu encourages Marik to fulfill his final duty, like the good older sister she should have been the whole time. Marik obeys her with a simple affirmation, walking toward Yami silently until they are face-to-face, where he assures him that the spells cast on his friends have all been broken and they'll all be conscious again soon. Yami remains emotionally neutral when thinking of Mai, but Jonouchi and Honda share another round of joyous grins. News just keeps getting better!

Ugh, the asshole has returned in full form, I see. Can't wait for him to be a dildo again and then leave without doing anything substantial.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? You know I'm grabbing some nice wine tomorrow at the store to celebrate the end of this tournament. More than that, I feel like I need to celebrate the end of other!Marik, who can shut up forever more in his hell of choice. Watching him devolve almost immediately into a sniveling coward begging to be accommodated the moment he loses the control he so heavily abused every second he had it over the past hundred chapters or so was cathartic as hell. The adage that anger and hate are just fear puffing itself up is really potent in other!Marik's defeat. And defeat through nothing more than the original Marik's acceptance of the pain he's endured, the pain he's CAUSED, and the courage to face life in spite of all that, no less! It doesn't make a lot of "logical" sense, which is why other!Marik doesn't really understand how Marik took control again and put HIM up as the sacrifice. But as anyone who has suffered through life's hardships and their own follies knows, it takes a lot of strength to get back up, dust oneself off, and face their mistakes. It really is as simple as Marik deciding that he wanted to take responsibility for himself again and not let his fear and hate drive him anymore. That's a powerful message, and I appreciate that KT made it so clear. 

I only have a couple of issues with how it was executed. The first is that the mere affirmation that other!Marik was disowned just got rid of him. I understand that it was a condition of the game that the loser lost their "other self" so to speak, and that there's still another nasty spirit lurking on Marik at the end of the chapter. I am also by no means saying that I wish other!Marik had stuck around - I have never been so happy to see a character disappear in my life! But DISOWNING those horrible parts of our lives and ourselves isn't really possible. We can acknowledge them, make amends for when they hurt people, and be conscious of expressing them in healthier, more manageable ways, but they are nonetheless parts of us regardless, and they don't disappear when we bid them. Perhaps if there was some indication that a small SILENT piece of other!Marik continued to hang around Marik afterward, that would be a better analogy to dealing with darker, more unhappy aspects of our existences. Especially in the context of the conversation the Ishtars were having after the duel, it would have driven home the point of living life despite the unpleasant bits.

Also, as stated above, I feel like the forfeit Marik performed was rather anticlimactic. At the very least, Marik shouldn't have led his return to control by claiming his and Yami's duel wasn't over, only to take that back in a couple of pages. I think I might have preferred, however, a more symbolic loss, where Marik plays a card that is inferior in points but represents his will to carry on as a final ACTION in the match, as opposed to just calling it quits. That would be a far more assertive move for someone who just declared their intention to continue living, in my opinion. But I also understand that Yami's points were rather precarious as well, and this whole thing needed to be wrapped up, so maybe what I suggested wasn't so possible with the final setup. 

All-in-all, though, I very much enjoyed the end to the duel and the tournament, and I'm really looking forward to the final two chapters of the arc as well! Falling action, here we come!