Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 313 The Village of Ghosts!!

Sounds like one of those campy ghost shows I currently have a weird craving for. You know the ones - interviews with former "skeptics", overly-dramatic reenactments, psychics that won't go in a certain room because of the bad vibes, and the dead serious voice-over in that creepy timbre? This utterly ridiculous shit is what I prefer as entertainment right now (maybe it's the fact that it's as thorough a retreat from depressing reality I can get), I can't imagine complaining about this one. Bring on the spoops!

You think they'll bring in the pendulums and dowsing rods, or...?

Would you call it "hiding" if he's in the most obvious place ever?

Thief!Bakura is still sitting on the Millennium Item mold, apologizing to the spirits flying around, assuming that they're angry that the hated Millennium Item holders are getting all up in their space. It comes across as the kind of overly cutesy talk I use with my new kitten - a little condescending for ghosts that were supposed to be humans once. Eh, who am I to judge how people talk to ghosts anyway? I once threatened one with wrath if it didn't return my keys.

Oh thank goodness! I was concerned that my fave got disappeared by that asshole!Bakura, but he's just avoiding getting trampled instead. 

Not that he's actually in any danger of such, considering he can't actually be touched by them. Of course, he's forgotten this, again, still cringing on the ground as he babbles about how close the soldiers galloping through the city got to trampling him. Honda calls him a dummy and reminds him that the army would have just gone right through him before glancing out of his periphery in paranoia, asking where asshole!Bakura got off to. Jonouchi stands and scratches his head, admitting he doesn't get it, one minute dueling asshole!Bakura, and the next, everything went black. He says that when the lights came back on, he was in the exact same place, but asshole!Bakura had disappeared. 

 

Bobasa says that since this is a world based on the pharaoh's memories, something must have happened to him to make everything to be swallowed by darkness. Anzu asks for confirmation that the fact the lights came back on and they're all still there must mean that Yami is ultimately okay, which gets her a somewhat hesitant affirmative. This might be the reason Anzu insists on finding Yami right away, while Jonouchi agrees, clearly fed up with the dead-end they've reached in finding clues to his true name. 

 

As they begin their new objective, for which they ALSO have no clues by the way, Anzu wonders out loud where THEIR Yuugi is. Honda thrusts a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the bar he says Yuugi went into, logic being that bars are where you gather info in role-playing games. Though Jonouchi yells at him that this isn't a game, I can't help but recall their first encounter with both regular and asshole varieties of Bakura.

 

We get a look at the bar Yuugi entered, and go figure that it's the same one in which the fugitive criminal who first saw the White Dragon was drinking away his troubles! Inside, Yuugi wanders between the bar and the tables, wondering how he can gather intel if he can't ask any questions. Conveniently, a couple of guys (same ones who were chatting about the troops being stationed in the city while the fugitive downed his alcohol, incidentally) are gossiping about the soldiers again. The shifty one asks if the loud drunk one heard about the ones from before, and the drunk one proves he does by calling the ones who came to scold them for their drink. He then laughs that it'd take 100 of those idiots to grapple with his wife. All the time, Yuugi is passing the table without looking particularly invested in the conversation.

 

Until the shifty one calls his loud companion the idiot, and repeats the rumor that the soldiers found the pharaoh, and he's not lost anymore. Yuugi glances back at them, considering Yami, as the shifty one continues on to relay the rest of the rumor that the pharaoh is at the Village of Thieves, his drunk friend grunting and drooling in response.

 

If only it was as easy to find this guy's NAME as is to find HIM, huh? You might be out of here by now.  

 

As the rest of the priests lead the party galloping out of the city, we get a few of their urgent thoughts on their way. Siamun is thinking that they have to hurry, worrying that the pharaoh can't summon the three gods without his Millennium Puzzle. Priest Seto promises himself to kill thief!Bakura with his own hands this time. Akhenaden is internally whining about returning to the cursed Kul Elna. And Kalim just prays generically for the pharaoh. No word from Isis - is she even riding out there with them? It's impossible to tell by the far away shot showing the horseback party racing into the canyon. 

 

Yami is sure taking his time riding down this abandoned road while his guards cautiously check out the crumbling buildings on either side. He's watching the creepy spirits weave in and out the windows, thinking that he's had the feeling that he can't breathe since he got here, along with the sensation that something is tearing out his heart. Pretty violent stuff. Beyond one doorway, he sees a skeleton, noting these ruins have bodies in them. He wonders what happened here. 

 

A guard approaches Yami and Shada, reporting that they've found a trapdoor a few buildings ahead, that leads underground, and several of their number have gone down to check it out. Yami exclaims at this mention of a trapdoor, Shada also looking surprised. Shada advises caution, warning the guard that thief!Bakura may be hiding down there. Yami just thinks about stopping thief!Bakura as if he's trying to convince himself or something. 

 

Meanwhile, the guards that split off to go beneath the trapdoor are reaching the bottom of a staircase with their torches raised high, a ghostly mist zipping past them back up. As the others make their way downstairs behind him, the first one inside stares up at the vaulted ceiling in apprehension, saying it looks like a giant temple, underground. Another asks hesitantly if there's anyone here, other than the spirits zipping around, of course. 

 

Thief!Bakura's scarred eye is shown in the shadows as he tells the ghosts not to eat TOO much and get full, since the party is just beginning. We don't have to wait long to find out what THAT means - one of the guards gasps in horror to begin...

 

These ghosts aren't as... harmless as the pests I see on my campy programs...

Yami, Shada and their informant guard stand around the trapdoor, a scream issuing from its depths. Shada begins to ask what in the world is going on down there, shocked, when the answer comes in the form of a guard who is struggling to climb the stairs toward them, a hand held out. Instead of asking for help, though, the guard urges the pharaoh to stay out of there for his life's sake, stuttering that this place is filled with evil spirits. No sooner has he gotten this message out does a spirit (his own or an evil one? Both?) bursts from his mouth like in the previous page, perhaps in his attempt to call out and repeat his warning. 

Thief!Bakura hears this and his eyes bulge in his disbelief that the pharaoh is still alive. After he went to all that trouble to murder him and everything! In the midst of this mini freak-out, Yami growls in anger, thinking on thief!Bakura, no doubt all the more annoyed that yet another of his subjects has been killed by this piece of shit. He's pissed.

 

In no time flat, thief!Bakura is back to being maliciously jovial, yelling an invitation for Yami to come on in amidst the guards still screaming from spirit... I don't know, possession and devouring? Kinda difficult to know what's going on here. Thief!Bakura calls this the Temple of the Dead, and taunts Yami with the statement that the Millenium Puzzle is around his neck down there, if the great pharaoh wants it back. 

Yami growls again, as Shada barks that he CAN'T fight thief!Bakura as long as he has the puzzle, trying to assure his pharaoh that the priests will be here any moment to fight with their Millenium Items in tact. Yami protests that the soldiers will all die in the meantime, recalling something his father told him when he was given the Millennium Puzzle - "Never turn your back on what you believe is right". We must have missed that little memory resurfacing. 

A sound of a step ventured down the stairs later:

Guy survived a fall into a giant yawning canyon. I think it's safe to remove the scare-quotes, buddy.

 

When Shada catches up to Yami in the chamber, calling out to him, Yami is trying to help up a slumped guard and shouting generic platitudes at the dude. He then yells at thief!Bakura, who tells him to cool his balls and issues yet another invitation to take a look at the tablet on the floor behind him. Yami is taken aback by the sight of the giant mold, its holes shaped like the Millennium Items, identifying it as the tablet of the pharaoh's memories. 

With a grimace, thief!Bakura says this cursed tablet connects this world to the next, adding that the Millennium Items fit into all these holes, and asking Yami if he knows why. Because they were MADE FOR THEM?

Since we're talking about over-the-top horror.

Thief!Bakura informs Yami that this is where the items were forged, and when Yami gapes at him over it, he elaborates that it was his royal family that used shadow alchemy to make these little jewelry numbers out of a lust for power. A disgusted thief!Bakura reports that the small price for this was the lives of every man, woman, and child in this village. 

Oh, sweetie, didn't you know that monarchies are BUILT on shit like this? 

Thief!Bakura starts heckling Yami, mocking him for being unable to summon the gods without his Millennium Puzzle. He brags that HE doesn't even need to summon Diabound to destroy the "great" pharaoh, ordering his ghosts to tear Yami apart. The wispy skulls flying through the air fly around Yami, flanking him, as Yami stares at his trembling hand, clearly freaking out. Shada calls out to him, rushing to his aid, greeted by his own angry skull flying toward him. Thief!Bakura tells them to give it up, saying through his sadistic grin that the ghosts have a SPECIAL kind of hatred for people who have Millennium Items. Shada groans, then screams while a couple of spirits swirl around him, one flying into his open mouth. 

Yami falls to a knee, face and fingers seizing up and contorting in pure agony, a groan/scream issuing from between his clenched teeth as thief!Bakura laughs at his pain. Wiggling his upturned fingers in a creepy kind of gesture, thief!Bakura details how the hatred of the ghosts surrounds and crushes one like a vice, and promises that Yami will regret that he survived that fall into the canyon. I'd say he already seems like he is regretting it, even if he's not SAYING as much, curled into a ball on the floor and moaning. 

He's not even thinking about the hate-ghosts surrounding him, though! He's begging his dead father to confirm whether or not thief!Bakura is telling the truth. I sure hope he doesn't think his DAD is one of the hate-ghosts, because that would just make this all the more sad. Thief!Bakura tells Yami he'll pay for the sins of the father with his death, which doesn't seem any more fair than his village being murdered way back when, but I guess he never claimed to be FAIR, so...

Suddenly, an image of the tablet holding Mahado's ka appears, a hate-ghost swirling in front of it. I'm not the only one who doesn't know what the hell that's about, because thief!Bakura makes a dumbfounded noise. Yami's still crouched on the floor, ringed by ghosts, but he's not groaning anymore.

Traveled at the speed of light from the palace to do it, too. THAT'S dedication.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I didn't realize how much I missed the rest of the Yuugi crew until the beginning of this chapter! I'm kind of ashamed to admit that, but I suppose I did get a little too wrapped up in the drama around Priest Seto/Kisara and Akhenaden, even if I didn't quite LIKE a lot of it. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing; on the one hand, I'm kind of impressed at the slight of hand KT has performed here to make me effectively FORGET about the characters we've been following a majority of the time thus far. On the other hand, I'm not certain that he didn't also just FORGET about them for a time. The exposition around Jonouchi finding asshole!Bakura gone when the lights came back on could have been a little more impactful and eerie if we'd SEEN it happening at the time. This MIGHT be the first place where KT could have organically fit them in, but I'm more than sure that he could have squeezed an actual scene in before the drama I mentioned before. It might have taken a page, MAYBE two. 

Other than that, Yuugi learning about Yami's location through a couple of gossips we've seen before. That one got me chuckling.

I make fun of Yami being shocked that his father was the one to order the creation of the Millennium Items, but it is a little tragic - he specifically came down there to face thief!Bakura on his own because he remembered some noble (if a little generic) advice his father had given him. To then be told that this guy who urged you never to back down from your own moral fortitude had the DEPRAVITY to order a whole village killed to make his cursed artifacts, that has got to be a little disturbing, at the very least. The dramatic irony is uncomfortable as well, because the audience is aware that BOTH Yami and thief!Bakura do not and cannot know the whole story here. WE were shown that Akhenaden hadn't elaborated on what the dark alchemical process was to create these items to the then pharaoh. It's also clear that the situation was desperate enough for an enemy army to ride RIGHT up to the palace unopposed before they were defeated with the help of the items they created. Whether or not making those artifacts was justified when it necessitated the murder of a whole village, when they were make to SAVE the rest of the kingdom, isn't obvious. In my opinion, it's not, but then again, I think a utilitarian philosophy is deeply flawed and based on hypothetical trolley problems that ignore the incalculable variables of reality. But I also think that the perspective of both villain and hero in this scenario are flawed, and based on fragmented information that isn't likely to be supplemented by the knowledge of the guy who benefits from them being at each others' throats rather than his own.

Speaking of which, I do find it fascinating how the creation of this Zorc demon character from a few chapters ago is a team effort of fuckery. Akhenaden decision to sacrifice the whole village of Kul Elna in his crafting of the Millennium Items created thief!Bakura. Then, years later, thief!Bakura put a piece of his soul into the Millennium Eye through his violent part-ruse of pretending to take it. Because of this, Akhenaden is faced with a specter of himself that is something of a combination of his own dark ambitions for his son and thief!Bakura's impulse toward destroying the current legacy of pharaoh, which will eventually enter the ultimate confrontation with who we know as Yami. Akhenaden and thief!Bakura ended up co-creating their final combined form, which is a level of complexity I didn't expect from this manga, if I'm honest.

Especially when there are awkward moments like the end of the chapter, in which I cannot for the life of me figure out how Mahado/Magus of Illusion was activated or got to the vicinity. There's ONE unclear panel that shows the Magus's tablet, and it's not much of an explanation. Hopefully the next chapter fills in the holes.