Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 306 Time Rewound!!

Meh, I'd rather fast-forward at this point, to a time when I don't have to worry about all the crap that's happening at the moment. I find myself constantly tense these days and wondering why, before recalling that everything from little personal issues all the way to global catastrophes are bearing down on me and I'm a complete wreck. I know there's more than enough stories about time travel that warn against such journeys into the future, but I'm real tempted by the concept right now. No doubt I'm not the only one who wishes the spring forward allowed us to wake up in a world where everyone was saner, safer, and not facing existential threats every five seconds. 

One of the rare instances I need to be told what the picture represents, because otherwise, I couldn't make heads or tails of that.

Diabound reappears in the sky, fully formed and looking intimidating again. From the ground, Kalim protests that the madness of the fact that Diabound has come back to life when it was just dead, but Shada recognizes that Diabound hasn't come back to life - Ra's attack never even happened. He's super confused by this, mind, but he does RECOGNIZE it, to give him a little credit. Someone among the guards urges everyone to observe how Ra is now flying away backwards into the sky, rising back up from whence it came. 

It's sliding out of here like Homer Simpson.

ZN reminds Yami out of nowhere that this world is made up of their combined memories, the after-image of their souls trapped in the Millennium Puzzle. He rambles that their battle left off 3,000 years before isn't done yet, and as long as their desire to finish it lingers, Yami's soul will never be at rest, and he won't be able to be reborn in the modern world. For a guy claiming he wants to move on from this so badly, I feel like someone should remind HIM that HE'S the one hitting the rewind button here. He describes this as a war of memories, the puzzle being a stage for their second fight, where they'll fight to the end. 

"I just want to perpetually re-roll the dice until I like what I see, and I'm making it everyone else's problem." There, FTFY, ZN.

Yami is taking this "War of Memory" phrase a lot more seriously than I am, but that's probz because he's in the thick of things and can't afford NOT to. Then ZN has to flap his mummified gums SOME MORE, saying that death leads to a void of shadows in this world, not the modern world or afterlife, heaven or hell, just eternal darkness. Sooooooo, just DEATH, then? Sounds perfectly natural. Anyway, he insists that he's going to defeat Yami again and return to life in the modern world. Just filling panel space, honestly.

Yuugi and crew are looking pretty surly at ZN's speech, Jonouchi raising a fist and asking rhetorically if he's trying to kill Yami. Honda growls in the back as Yuugi declares that ZN is the REAL villain, not Bakura. Meanwhile, ZN is STILL FUCKING TALKING. Good GOD CARDS, and I thought other!Marik liked the sound of his own voice. ZN admits he miscalculated in not accounting for Yami's modern friends showing up where they don't belong, their appearance introducing a bit of a random element into the mix. He announces the reunion between them ends now, and with an extra stretch of his arms, a great wind starts to blow against Yuugi and friends. They raise their arms against it and brace themselves, trying to keep their footing, Yuugi suddenly gaping in horror. 

Oh shit, THAT can't be good. 

To add insult to injury, ZN KEEPS TALKING - he reiterates that he has the power to turn back time on this memory play-back, and that Yami used his friends to summon Ra and defeat thief!Bakura/Diabound, but now that's all been reversed and his friends aren't here. He asks sardonically if Yami knows what that means, but Yami is a bit too busy choking on his own blood and clutching at his chest to answer with anything other than a gurgle. Since thief!Bakura is an important tool for him later, ZN says he can't let him die now. Then he clenches his fist and draws it back, declaring this a good spot to restart the memory, that it's time for time to march forward once again. According to his own interests, of course.

Dude, I know Yami cheated with his invisible friends, but couldn't you have just turned back time WITHOUT talking him to death? Seems overly cruel.

He's still revving the motor on his mouth, by the way. He repeats that he'll defeat the pharaoh in the final battle, because he can't be sealed into the Millennium Puzzle this time, since they're... you know... already in there. Stellar logic, bro. Downright galaxy-brained. He says he and the pharaoh will meet again and at LONG last, disappears from the sky. 

Nothing left of Slifer but its spiky tail flailing in the air, thief!Bakura is jubilant that he's killed the god of the heavens, ordering Diabound to kill the priests' ka and attack the city again. Down below, Priest Seto utters a statement of disbelief and dismay at Slifer's defeat. Elsewhere, far away, Yuugi and Jonouchi stare up at Slifer's fading form too. Jonouchi yells the obvious, that Slifer is down, while Yuugi lunges forward and shouts that they have to help the other him. He silently urges Yami to wait for them as they go to assist him again (read: CHEAT), when he halts in alarm. 

Asshole!Bakura, of the Distance Police apparently, chuckles at them as Yuugi blurts his name in surprise and Honda demands to know what he's doing here. Being a nuisance, as usual. Bobasa - who I just noticed has not said a single word for several chapters now - recognizes asshole!Bakura as the boy he barred from getting in their travel circle before, and wonders just how he got in here. Thankfully, asshole!Bakura isn't an incoherent exposition machine like his boss, and he doesn't launch into an explanation of how he got here after a clueless Jonouchi yells at him that they'll talk later and that they're in a hurry. 

Instead, asshole!Bakura calls them fools that can't win this war, asking if they want to die in here and be cast into eternal night. Sweating, Yuugi begins to ask asshole!Bakura what he means, but asshole!Bakura interrupts him to assert that he only hung out with them to resurrect Zorc Necrophades. The name echoes in Yuugi's mind as he stares, but Jonouchi has no patience for any of this shit. He lunges forward, warning asshole!Bakura to shut his face and move before he gets his behind kicked, Yuugi shouting Jonouchi's name in warning from behind. The Millennium Ring around asshole!Bakura's neck glows and floats a little.

Are you offering an alternative? Because...

Meanwhile, Priest Seto announces he's not letting Slifer's sacrifice be in vain, and calls for Duos to pierce the darkness. Again. When Duos's sword embeds in that weird floating eyeball instead of Diabound, he's once again affronted by the fact that his attack hit a different monster. As all the ka hang out in the sky, thief!Bakura chuckles at his distance, demanding that the ka of the priests die. Diabound's Magic Blast wipes out Kalim's winged lion, causing him to cough up blood below. Priest Seto yells his name in alarm while Kalim chokes out a warning not to let his guard down, since Diabound is still hiding in the dark somewhere. Duos hovers seemingly alone, and Priest Seto puzzles over where Diabound is hiding, and how they can counter its attacks when they don't know where they're coming from.

Yami's doubled over in his saddle, convinced that his life force has almost run out. He looks up with a groan, determined to follow thief!Bakura, thinking that the only way to stop all this killing is to stop HIM in particular. When he gallops off, Shada yells at him to wait, but he presses on, thinking only of thief!Bakura. 

ZN is WAY too gleeful for my comfort.

So, what do I think of this chapter overall? The fannish part of me is angered by the giant mummy splitting back up the dream team after they JUST got back together; the writer part of me is DELIGHTED by this. Yami and Yuugi, along with their gaggle of friends, has acted as a finger on the scale for a long time, and it has genuinely come across as almost unfair in some places. "Cheating" is a word I used a little liberally throughout the recap, but I don't think it's wrong to think of it in those terms when Yami is the only one who gets a little pick-me-up in a battle he would have lost otherwise if not for his buddies sneaking into the place. In that respect, I think ZN kind has a point in waving Yami's support team away. He can't dismiss them as a negligible advantage when Yuugi changed the outcome he remembers with a small gesture.

The fact that he doesn't just BANISH them from the Memory World is an interesting thing to note. He must be unable to do so, otherwise he surely would have. Since they're not native to this world, it would make sense that he can't really do much more than push them as far away as he can (which doesn't seem to be very far at all). In this light, his talk about anyone dying in here being unrecoverable for the afterlife and reincarnation seems to be a threat tailored specifically for them - he clearly wants to scare them into trying to get out of here of their own accord so they're not resigned to oblivion after dying in the Memory World. Not that I think he was lying about that. It makes sense that this little self-contained world removed from the wider time stream wouldn't be able to pick up spirits/souls lost inside it. I just think he's using this little fact as a big stick in case they keep messing around, which also just points to how little control he must have over them.

As I'm sure was obvious above, I was a bit annoyed with how WORDY ZN was when he was describing his whole reasoning for this setup. All it really comes down to is that he figures if Yami can't seal them both away somewhere in the final battle between them, he'll ultimately lose because he has no other options. The rest is panel-filler, and particularly long-winded filler at that. It's pretty clear this chapter was a bit under-done in that way, which might be an indication for how stressed KT getting over the project at this point. He's filled chapters with little more than chatter between characters before this, put duels on virtual hold while everyone monologed, but none of those previous examples have been quite so... repetitive as this one. ZN restated several points multiple times and he wasn't doing anything but holding his arms up while he did it too. The lack of ability to effectively represent time moving backward and having to go back over a scene he already covered must have left him with very little else NEW to put in the chapter. 

Kind of wrote himself into a corner with this one, I think. But despite all that, I'm fond of Yami and friends getting some genuine struggle here. The whole Memory World is designed against their success, and it FEELS like it. Not sure how finding Yami's name is going to turn this sucker around, but I'm eager to find out!