I mean, I get it. It's called Alcatraz because it's a monument to the prison of Kaiba's past that he will be "escaping" through the effigy's destruction of it coming up, etc. It's not exactly a subtle metaphor. But I see the name of a prison famous for many celebrity criminals, human rights abuses, executions, ghost tours, and a Native American occupation in the mid-60's, and I just... can't associate it with Kaiba's manufactured drama. Sure, on its own, Kaiba's history and motivations are compelling, but they're kind of overshadowed by Alcatraz's real legacy. Sorry, not sorry.
Yami happens to have his other two god cards in his other hand and places Ra alongside Obelisk and Slifer. Yuugi's spirit looks over his shoulder at the cards as Yami gazes at them too, thinking they're all three FINALLY in his hands. He's telling ME. I've been waiting for this moment for literal YEARS. Yuugi recalls that the three cards supposedly hold the secrets of Yami's memory, of which he has to wonder.
Marik crosses his arms to take hold of the hem of his shirt, explaining that THIS is the key to those pharaoh memories his family has protected for centuries, advising Yami to look closely. He lifts his shirt off of his ripped chest, and suddenly I realize why this guy has fangirls despite his ineptitude at being a bad-boy or decent duelist. Yami, Jonouchi and Ryuji all look SUPER uncomfortable about this guy stripping, though, which it HILARIOUS. Yami is even objecting, and whether it's in his head out out loud, I am LIVING for the awkwardness.
Yet Yami's face is all the more horrified from just the view of Marik's scarified back - it's a cruel tattoo carved into his back, a painful tradition carried over so many generations, and Yami can't help but be put off by THIS being how his memories have been "protected" all this time. Anzu, too, is alarmed by the awful nature of the scars, a hand covering her trembling mouth. Only Marik could make a girl unhappy when exposing his naked torso.
Ishizu explains that these hieroglyphs contain a prophesy passed down from the very first tomb guardian who served under the royal family three thousand years before - in the very time of the pharaoh in question. According to Ishizu, the prophesy is thus: "In the future, one will come who will wield the stone slabs of the three gods... By the gods you shall know him... for it is he in whom the pharaoh's soul resides." Ishizu puts in plain terms to Yami that the god CARDS are the modern equivalent of the stone slabs, and him possessing them proves he's the king. Not the most useful of prophesies, considering it's not telling the characters here anything they didn't already know.
Flustered, Jonouchi asks if Yami can read and understand that Egyptian stuff on Marik's back. Peering at the pictographs, Yami slowly says that he can; not in the literal sense, but more in a vague feeling sense, like those gods in his hand are sending him a vision. He spends a moment quiet, then is shocked when he finally gets that vision he was expecting.
Yami wonders if his memories are sealed in the block of stone back in the museum, a reason to have a stern word with Ishizu if that's the case. Meanwhile, Marik lifts the Millennium Ring from around his neck and says his duty isn't QUITE done yet. No, he's not taking his pants off after all, even if he may as well with his next line - he offers Yami his rod (heh), as well as the ring, the former item his family has treasured three thousand years. That's no news, knowing how intent Marik's dad was on making himself a son to inherit his generational burdens.
Marik says that now the Millennium Rod is Yami's, and Yami peers down at it in his hand, not giving nearly that scrutiny to the ring in clutched in his opposite. He DOES wonder all of a sudden where the hell Bakura got to, sweatdropping. Ah, the face of a guy who just realized that he spent the better part of an hour staring at a dude suspiciously wearing one of his unconscious friend's magical accessories and DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.
The Ishtars stand tall, Ishizu declaring that the three of them will take a new path, and rebuild their family a shining future. Just... maybe think about starting with a good foundation of therapy, okay? Don't rush headlong into this thing when it's clear none of you are clear on how to function outside your tomb. Marik addresses both Yuugi and Yami when he invites them to see him again as a friend this time if they ever find themselves in Egypt. Yami assures him that they will with a smile.
In the background, Anzu recalls something Ishizu said about the souls of mortals all having a place to return too, wondering if this means that the pharaoh is meant to return to Egypt in the end. Maybe if the pharaoh was considered a mortal, but considering he was actually supposed to be a god incarnate, that's probably not what Ishizu meant. Assuming she believes ALL the tenets of ancient Egyptian mythology, of course. Anyway, Anzu holds a fist over her chest, getting the feeling there's not much time left, and looking sadly over in Yami's direction.
How magnanimous of you. The picture of graciousness.
Yami puts back on his smile for Kaiba too, and to my eternal disappointment, it's not the shit-eating murder-grin I miss so much. Kaiba yells that the Duel Tower, as the final stage of Battle City, has outlived its usefulness. He announces at last that in approximately an hour, the whole structure is going to blow up. Jonouchi and Honda are beside themselves, in indignant disbelief that Kaiba is going to explode the tower, and that he is, in fact, NUTS. Congratulations on coming to the conclusion that everyone else already reached, boys!
Kaiba informs them all with a sweeping gesture that the self-destruct sequence has already been activated, and that everyone is to be evacuated from the doomed trash-heap by blimp. When Kaiba concludes with an abrupt statement that this is all he has to say, Moar Cards Guy looks rather ill, mumbling that no one told HIM this was going to happen. Must have missed all the OTHER warning signs that he should choose another career, including the clone-ish dress code right down to their haircuts. I could have sworn the dude who set up the self-destruct sequence WAS Moar Cards Guy.
Ordering Mokuba to come along, Seto says they're leaving. Jonouchi flails in place, in a panic, shouting that they can't just stand there. Honda agrees that they should hurry up and get on that damn blimp. As they run for the exit, Jonouchi growls at Kaiba's back that there's a limit to being a sore loser. How can you continue to estimate how EXTRA Kaiba is? He is a bottomless pit of NO CHILL.
Back down at the blimp, 46 minutes until detonation, according to an informational panel, the friends all run at full speed down a corridor. Anzu expresses some concern that Mai won't be okay enough to travel, and Jonouchi praises her good thinking, suggesting they head for her room. He throws open the door, demanding to know if she's alright.
Sure kid, go with casual "bumped into you at a coffeeshop" vibe. That is TOTALLY appropriate.
Everyone gapes at Bakura, asking if this is where he's been hanging out this whole time, and if not, WHERE he's been. Bakura laughs, flushed and scratching the back of his head, as he explains that it's the darnedest thing - he woke up buried in all that rubble outside the blimp, with no earthly idea how he got out there! He had just gotten back and cleaned himself up.
Clearly not giving too shits about the implications of that weird statement, Jonouchi pushes past Bakura to hover over Mai, demanding to know how she is. Bakura apologizes somberly and says she's stopped breathing. Jonouchi's expression freezes into wide-eyed alarm. His disbelief is quiet at first, then he yells a denial, grabbing fistfuls of her sheets in impotent anger, shouting her name. Shizuka shrieks in the background, hands covering her mouth, refusing the notion that Mai could be dead. Jonouchi gets right up in her face, where he should be able to detect breath, and yells at her not to die on him, and her name again a couple of times for good measure. He's got actual tears in his eyes as he begs her to wake up.
I'm sure you can tell where this is going.
... What are you going to fake next, Mai? A pregnancy???
Bakura claps happily at the very horrible joke they collaborated on, laughing as Mai throws him a mirthful "I told you it would work", claiming the blockhead she tricked into thinking she was dead for a few seconds will believe anything. Said blockhead is fuming with grinding teeth and clenched fists in the background. Jonouchi just growls about them for a moment, then rightfully screams at them that they suck, asking what the hell is wrong with them. They just laugh in response.
You'd think someone who's so sensitive about whether people like her would be a bit more careful about what insensitive pranks she pulls on her "friends", but hey, what the fuck do I know? I'm just someone with friends I don't put through the emotional ringer.
Eyes crossed and sweatdropping, Anzu forces a laugh about how hard Mai had them worried. Shizuka is fully recovered from her horror, though, grinning and gushing about how glad she is that Mai got better. Mai has Jonouchi's head under her arm to give him a classic noogie while she congratulates Yami on winning the tournament, saying she knew he could do it. Yami just responds with a simple yes, no doubt unwilling to get too involved in conversation with this lunatic.
Bakura asks Yami if he's seen his Millennium Ring anywhere, since he's been unable to find it after waking up in the rubble. Yami looks slightly surprised, and Honda leans down to whisper that he SHOULDN'T give that ring back; everyone's well acquainted with how he gets with it on his person. Yami takes this advice, unconvincingly saying he hasn't seen it, but airhead that Bakura is, he gets up and dreamily walks to the door, wondering if it's in the tower. Honda has to lunge after him and insist he not go out to the tower that's about to be demolished.
Yuugi takes this opportunity to pop up and suggest, rather late, that they shouldn't tell Bakura they have the Millennium Ring. Smiling over his shoulder at Bakura being a big ditz, Yami agrees that there's a danger of his asshole side showing up. We certainly don't need THAT headache. Then Yuugi lists out all four Millennium Items that they've collected over the course of this tournament: they started with the puzzle, then got the necklace, followed now by the rod and ring. Still unclear what collecting so many is supposed to mean, but I'm sure we'll meander on over to where we're supposed to eventually.
An request sounds from the blimp, echoing over the island to reach anyone still wandering around out there, asking for everyone to board the blimp immediately. The crew announces that they will take off once they can confirm everyone is aboard. Jonouchi is tensed and doubled up, sweating because the island is going to be blowing up in 20 minutes; he urges the men behind the speaker to hurry up and take off already. He would be all the more nervous if he were to see the crew running about the ship, asking one another if they've found them yet, and the answer coming back from more sprinting men being that they're not on the ship. Moar Cards Guy checks the watch on his wrist, sweating bullets, wondering out loud whatever happened to those Kaiba brothers. Another of the suited Kaiba men with a van dyke styled beard laments that they'll have to take off without the Kaibas if they don't show up soon.
Close-up on a panel of windows at the base of the tower, hidden behind the hills of junk surrounding the structure:
That must be one hell of a long password, because Kaiba has time to look around and muse about how this will be the last view of the remains of Kaiba Corp as an arms dealer they'll have. Though he lets out a little chuckle about this, he hardly looks HAPPY when he says this symbol of their stepfather Gozaburo will sink to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe he's at least a LITTLE remorseful about how much pollution this is, because I KNOW he don't give a shit about his actual stepfather, let alone a symbol of the man.
Mokuba announces he's put in that long-ass password, but Kaiba continues to be locked in his own head, thinking of how he lost to Yami on this tower. He tries to recall what Yami said during their duel, something about hatred being a dead end and the power of friendship, then hangs his head and scoffs with a smirk. The password is at last accepted per the computer controlling a door the Kaiba's are facing, which opens slowly. Mokuba urges his brother to proceed while he runs through the door, and Seto continues to turn things over in his head.
He thinks on Yami having fought all the people connected with the Millennium Items, contrasting this with how he himself has been fighting his grudge against Gozaburo buried deep in his heart. He asserts that this too has been a shadow game. He wonders if he was able to defeat those feelings that were holding him back, and where he goes from here when he destroys this tower. Kaiba holds up his Duel Monsters card locket and snaps it open, revealing the picture of Mokuba inside.
Seto thinks back on a sand-structure, with castle-like spires and undulating paths, even cars crafted out of sand; on the day this was made, he remembers telling Mokuba his dream. The tinier baby Kaibas are shown sitting in a sandbox on either side of this structure, which also includes a sand teacup ride from this angle. Mokuba announces with exuberance that their sand park is finished, while Seto has his wrist bent up by his face like maybe he's trying to wipe sand from his chin? Or something? The way he's drawn here is kind of bizarre and disproportionate overall, but whatevz.
Seto seems genuinely excited to tell Mokuba that when he grows up, he wants to build amusement parks all over the world. Mokuba declares that he wants to do that too, no doubt his baby impulse to imitate his big brother. Seto clarifies that he's not talking about parks made out of sand like this one, but real ones where kids without parents like them and the others in the orphanage can play for free. Mokuba asks if that means they can all play together, and Seto confirms this, both of them grinning happily in the moment of childish fantasy. Present Kaiba continues to stare at the picture of Mokuba in his locket.
Kaiba compares his heart to the island, buried in its own ruins, and suggests that somewhere under the rubble is the road to his dreams, yadda yadda. I hope he takes that road far, FAR away from me.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? So, there is A LOT stuffed into this one chapter, as far as emotional resolutions is concerned, all against the backdrop of a literal ticking time bomb, so I kind of feel like I've been put into some sort of literary centrifuge. We're pulling some serious Gs with this installment, and there are quite a few components that are being separated out as a result.
The chapter starts with the Ishtars, whose resolution thankfully happened for the most part in the previous chapter. All that's really left is for Marik to show his back to Yami, both literally and metaphorically. Now that he doesn't have to spend his time guarding the tattoo on his back (from whom, I'm not sure), he can put this whole situation behind him and live the rest of his days the way he wants. They all can, they have all expressed their desire to, and I love that for them.
My issue, however, is with this prophecy on Marik's back and how it condenses the resolution to this arc for Yami. Mostly, I'm irritated that, as I said above, this doesn't actually SAY anything we didn't already know. Whether reader or character, this is information that we were already well aware of from the very beginning of this tournament, if not LONG before that point. Ishizu herself heavily hinted and implied that she knew Yami was her long lost pharaoh in the museum. It feels like nothing has been GAINED from this reveal of Marik's back, and we're just reaffirming knowledge we already had.
But it's even WORSE than that, because I keep getting stuck on the specific part of this prophecy that says the pharaoh would be known by the gods' slabs he possesses. Yami only just got all three of those god cards, and everyone was perfectly sure that he was the pharaoh before he even got his first one, including himself, by appearance on the memory tablet at the museum. The prophecy actively CONTRADICTS the story as we know it, and in a way that really makes me wonder how it would have been if KT had actually written the arc in accordance with this prophecy. Imagine if Ishizu had proposed the tournament idea to Kaiba in order to draw out a Duel Monsters champ that could possibly be the pharaoh, not knowing who it is. Imagine if Marik had gotten it in his head not that the pharaoh caused his pain, but that he IS the reincarnated pharaoh, and tries to take possession of the god cards to prove it. Imagine if none of the Ishtars even knew about Yuugi's existence as a contender until they saw that puzzle around his neck and were a little in denial about his partnership with the spirit inside at first.
I don't know, just something to think about.
Next I want to talk about Bakura and how utterly SAD I find his line about how he was buried in the rubble outside the blimp. It's played off as a funny joke, but it unintentionally draws a lazer focus on how much neglect went into him being put in that position in the first place. His very entrance into the tournament was marked by a horrible injury that bled through its bandage multiple times, he was outright IGNORED by supposed allies the moment that he lost consciousness in the tournament and his loss to other!Marik was completely overlooked, and the only time anyone remembered him at all was at the very end when Yami was given the Millennium Ring - he didn't even notice other!Marik WEARING the damn thing throughout their duel! I'll tell you, I've never felt so bad for a fictional character. Even when he's not a hollow shell that the asshole of the ring uses for his own purposes, when he gets the chance to function on his own without the ring's influence, he's made to joke about his own pain and discarding in the rubble like he accidentally took the wrong turn at Albuquerque. It's a little disturbing, and if Mai wants to see what it REALLY looks like to be alone and not have people genuinely give a shit about you, she might take a long look at the guy she enlisted in her little "prank".
And I don't really have much else to say about Mai's super fucked stunt - it's very manipulative and rubs me the wrong way, obviously. Making a joke of faking a serious condition or death, and using that "joke" to elicit a painful emotional reaction from a supposed friend, is just hurtful. It suggests that she cares more about proof that Jonouchi likes her than his feelings, and the idea that making him feel like shit for a few moments gave her more confidence in their relationship is twisted. Do I have to keep pointing out that this is supposed to be a grown-ass woman? Please, her brain needs to catch up with her body already.
Finally, we come to the Kaibas, and the elder brother's reminiscence at the end of the chapter. It's neat to see his younger self dreaming about something outside of Duel Monsters, something that would ultimately contribute the the overall happiness of other kids like himself. I'm also intrigued by the irony KT has built for Kaiba here: young Seto dreamt of being able to built fun theme parks all over the world that orphans could play in for free, and when he finds himself in the position to actually make good on that dream, with the capital to make it easy, it came at the price of his own happiness. It's clear that, since he's going to go through with blowing up the island, he's still got some aggression to work out, but it's a relief that he's at least CONSIDERING not being such a dick to Yami/Yuugi anymore and letting go of that grudge so he can get back to what really made him smile back in the day.
Alright, I'll admit it, I like the guy. He's a miserable piece of shit, and he will always do something to piss me off, but he's sympathetic in a way that can't be denied. The dickbag broke me down for the last time.
Yeah, Mai and Bakura are definitely not winning any friend of the year awards for that stunt.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Kaiba's ability to evoke your sympathy and hatred simultaneously continues to make me laugh.
I'll tell you something; I've seen good characters who were BAD people I would not get along with in real life, and I've even really liked those characters before for their arcs, but Kaiba is in a class all his own - he is a character that I am simultaneously drawn to for his genuinely sympathetic breakthroughs, and repulsed by for his unforgivable relapses. I am so ridiculously torn on how I feel about him that it's legitimately hard to explain. KT really got me confused about my own feelings about a character, I CAN'T EVEN.
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