Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 286 Diabound vs. Galestgoras

A new acquaintance on the way, I see. I'm already overloaded with all the human players in the throne room; I have to keep looking up everyone's names every time I cover a chapter here, and not mix them up with the future counterparts they so resemble. Putting them in a new costume and environment doesn't seem to distinguish them enough in my mind, which is a pretty big issue in real life too, unfortunately. Without a huge degree of genetic variation in the species like in some others, we're pretty uniform in general. 

With the monster types, there's not much danger in mixing them up with anyone else with their unique and varied designs. Maybe if KT put some monster heads on these people, I wouldn't keep forgetting their names every five seconds...

I could snark here, but I honestly don't blame him for questioning where they ended up. It's kinda hard to believe the inside of Yuugi's soul looks like THIS:

Yuugi says this is his other self's "maze of the soul", and Jonouchi expresses the understandable disbelief just mentioned that all this is his soul. Well, at least Yami's part, anyway. Honda is still rubbing his eyes and yawning in the background, as though he's just woken from a nap. Since I'm pretty sure they can't physically be in Yuugi/Yami's soul and are passed out on the floor of the museum exhibit (awkward), I'm wondering how bad Honda's sleeping habits have to be if he's tired in a dream-state. No one else is questioning this, though, so I guess I'll just back up off that nonsensical visual. 

Bobasa says Yuugi and Jonouchi are correct, and that they have entered the room of the pharaoh's soul, by the power of the Millennium Key. A perfectly succinct summary of where they are and how they got there, but Honda remains befuddled, looking every which way and asking the questions Bobasa just answered. I assume he's just several steps behind everyone else due to being inexplicably groggy in here. Yuugi acknowledges Bobasa, and Jonouchi asks if that means the door is somewhere in here. Bobasa confirms that it is, and they must find the true door, as it's the only way out of this dimension - no going back the way they came. Jonouchi reacts with shocked disbelief, he, Yuugi and Anzu staring around at the endless staircases and doorways.  

Because they're optimistic kiddos, and we can't break the pacing for natural doubt now and have to push that plot forward, Jonouchi declares they have to find it, Anzu echoes the sentiment, and Honda (having at last caught up to everyone else) says it's on. Yuugi silently asks Yami to wait for them, promising to find the door and follow him into the world of memories. 

There doesn't appear to be TIME to wait around for Yami, though. Those memories he's hanging out in keep marching on, with this guy at the pacing reins. 

Yami sits in speechless horror, Siamun expressing his utter disbelief that a lowly thief could have a "good" holy type of ka that's so strong to boot. I know challenges to one's worldview were rather scarce before the anonymity of the internet, especially for a sheltered higher class, but how has this dinosaur NOT encountered any reason to question this shaky-ass bullshit yet? Yami himself is belatedly putting all the pieces of the puzzle together (heh): a thief after the Millennium Items named Bakura? He thinks there's no mistake, it's definitely him. Welcome to the obvious, Yami. I hope you enjoy your visit. 

Priest Seto is beside himself, asking how this heretical imbecile dared to enter the palace. I mean, besides just walking in the front door and tossing around your shitty guards? He promises to show thief!Bakura the true power of the priests and their Millennium Items, and thief!Bakura says that sounds like a fine time, urging ALL of them to fight him like a drunkard in a bar. 

Akhenaden tries to advise Piest Seto that the enemy is strong, and they should join forces, but that dramatic kook throws out his hand and yells at Akhenaden to stay back, insisting he's MORE than enough for the likes of thief!Bakura. He holds up a couple of fingers and mutters a chant, summoning a new stone tablet to stand up from the floor behind him. Siamun explains to a shocked Yami that Priest Seto's servant monster will counter the thief's ka; a demon to fight a spirit, which Siamun praises as a very wise decision. Yami considers with curiosity the concept of Priest Seto's servant monster. 

Siamun exposits the location of the "Shrine of Wedju", west of the palace at the end of the ceremonial boulevard, where the stone tablets of the gods and the monsters extracted from the sinners are sealed. Why he would be doing so to someone he has no reason to believe needs this information is beyond me, of course. The image of it that he's speaking over is a pyramidal structure surrounded by obelisk-spires and a stocky pillar replacing the point of the pyramid covered in hieroglyphs. Inside, it looks as though every single wall is COVERED in tablets, including the surfaces of another smaller pyramid in the center, with a staircase leading up like a narrow channel to a torch-lit altar at the flattened top. Back at the palace, Siamun says that every holder of a Millennium Item can command three monsters from the many thousands in the shrine. Yami passes him a shell-shocked look.

This is a STRANGE spectator sport. 

From the top of the Shrine of Wedju, a ball of light shoots in an arc over to the palace, alarming the many men walking in between. One of them exclaims that a ka has been transferred from the shrine to the palace, and something important must be going on. The ball of light slams into the tablet standing behind Priest Seto, and thief!Bakura sarcastically heralds the arrival of the great big priest ka at last. Priest Seto ignores the sarcasm and summons, loudly and emphatically, Galestgoras.

It looks like Kaiba's Duel Disk enhanced version of Duel Monsters, anyway. 

The two beasts face off with a cry of "diaha" which is apparently "duel start" in Egyptian. Gratuitous use of foreign language isn't just for fanfiction writers, folks! Thief!Bakura guesses that Priest Seto got his Galestgoras out of a sinner, but asserts none of the monsters they drew from the standard criminal can stand up to his spirit beast. He declares himself the King of Thieves again, and much more than any other "sinner" or anything the priests can imagine. Priest Seto just smirks and says he doesn't need to summon his personal guardian spirit to defeat the likes of him. Thief!Bakura interprets this as Priest Seto's fear that his life would be in danger if his own spirit were injured in the fight.

It's a good thing they're about to shut it and fight, or I might start to think that they're BOTH just full of hot air. 

Go figure, without all these boisterous commands and explanations of attacks, this is actually pretty intense!

For a moment, it looks like Diabound manages to wrench its arm from Galestgoras's jaws and strike it in the back with its tail, but after a couple of panels showing thief!Bakura looking shocked and taken aback, and Priest Seto chuckling smugly, Galestgoras is shown pinning down the snake end of Diabound. Thief!Bakura bemoans the fact that his monster has been successfully grappled into submission, Priest Seto announcing that it will end on this one move. Galestgoras yanks Diabound into a prone position and leaps into the air, preparing to, as Priest Seto screams on the ground, stomp Diabound flat. As Galestgoras rockets to the floor on top of Diabound, thief!Bakura scoffs, suddenly smug himself.

Did he reveal a trap card tablet? Close - thief!Bakura says he activated Diabound's special ability. Of course he did. This phrase is questioned by Priest Seto, and this prompts thief!Bakura to launch into a long-winded explanation; when a person has a ka in their soul, it develops the powers that person wishes they had, reflecting their most secret desires. Sounds like there is LITERALLY no downside to this soul monster, where the hell do I sign up? Thief!Bakura uses himself as an example, and the fact that he's a thief gives him a desire for a power that helps him steal treasure. He playfully asks what it could be like the host of a Blue's Clue before he announces it's the power to move through solid stone. 

Someone repeats this claim that his monster can move through walls with disbelief, but thief!Bakura isn't done yet. He asks sardonically for confirmation that a monster summoned from a stone slab will vanish when that slab is destroyed. One of the priests, though I'm not quite sure which because their speech bubble is obscuring them, picks up what thief!Bakura is putting down and warns Priest Seto to protect the slab. Thief!Bakura sneers that it's too late, though, as Priest Seto turns around to find that the spirit beast Diabound's image is starting to appear on the stone. Priest Seto is floored by the fact that this monster can hide in the ground and other monsters' slabs. Once the stone is filled with Diabound's picture, it begins to crack.

Would I be a complete shitbird if I were to admit that I totally agree with thief!Bakura and want to see him go head-to-head with Yami over proto-Kaiba?

Yeah. Probably.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm glad KT kept the lead with Yuugi and friends in Yami's soul room a bit shorter than the last couple. As much as I appreciate his move to keep them working toward supporting Yami to keep the tension high, there's not much he can do to make the details of a scavenger hunt among the kiddos comparatively interesting to literal actual monster fights on the other side of this. Attempts were made to insert some humor into the situation, with Honda lagging a bit behind everyone else in terms of understanding and immersion in it, but it kind of fell a little flat in how it made me scratch my head. Seemed like more a device to fill space than anything else. At least KT didn't make Jonouchi the punching bag this time. 

The fight in this chapter between the ka monsters was really engaging, and I genuinely think it's because all the card game structure was pulled out of it and it was just pure fight, so KT didn't have an excuse to insert more than its fair share of narration by bystanders. It was mostly just clean art depicting the moves of the monsters, aided by minimal description when needed. It's strange, because immediately preceding this fight, there is an example of the exact OPPOSITE of this: Siamun giving a long-winded expository speech about where the tablets are and how they're accessed, down to literal DIRECTIONS between the buildings. This could have been just as minimal in description, and it would have been better, especially considering it wouldn't have given the audience the uncomfortable story-breaking impression that Siamun was talking directly to THEM.

Sometimes, I think KT is getting better at letting his art speak for itself, and then at other times, I think he's supplementing it too much with redundant narration and speech bubbles. It's weird when both of these thoughts could occur to me in the SAME CHAPTER. But I'll tell you what not weird: the villain brushing past proto-Kaiba on their mad dash to face Yami, thoroughly leaving him in a cloud of loser dust. THAT part is entirely expected. 😂