Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 321 The Dark God Awakes!

I suppose one could say that outside the comic too. As I'm writing this, we're approaching the autumnal equinox where I live, and after that, the hours of daylight will be fewer than those of nighttime. A couple of (mostly modern) spiritualities have translated this into a cyclical battle between light and dark gods in which the dark god is winning at this time of year. It's not exactly an ominous thing to those folks, though, rather a natural and normal thing that happens like clockwork. This metaphor probably can't really be appreciated in the event of an actual eldritch horror rising from its fitful slumber. 

Good thing WE don't have to worry about that kind of thing, right?

Only asshole!Bakura could make painful reminiscence even MORE painful. That takes some real shitty talent.

Yami looks understandably alarmed when asshole!Bakura adds that he's got all seven Millennium Items he needs to summon the evil god now. The mold tablet, in-game I presume, glows at the edges of each filled slot around the cradled items. Shit is about to go down.

Soooooo, I heard about this before, but I thought it was just hot-under-the-collar fans exaggerating a bit, and I have to apologize for that assumption now.

Because that is definitely a dragon(ish) penis. What would you even call that? "Penile dentata"? In any case, it sure looks like someone woke up with morning wood. Big yikes. 

ZN's demon god form kind of tucks that hog to the side and kneels, snorting at game!Yami way down below, whose eyes are practically popping out of his skull at the dark god's appearance. ZN the demon god asks who has awakened him, who desires the power of the shadows, etc. 

I've used this GIF before, but I'll be damned if that isn't the exact same energy.

Akhenaden admits that it was him that called ZN's demon god form here, and true to form, ZN leans over and starts a whole-ass soliloquy about how Akhenaden has opened the door of darkness and released his power in this world with the seven forbidden treasures, the heavens will turn black with clouds, the Earth will be crowned with terror, one beat of his wings will peel flesh from men's bones, a breath from his lungs will burn bones to dust, and so on. Not that this one isn't proper scary or anything; I much prefer it to the endless bullshit he spouted when he had Akhenaden's rotting corpse for a form. Anyway, ZN asks for verification that Akhenaden wants a piece of that action, and I kind of feel like that's a moot question at this point. Dude went to some crazy lengths to gather all the shitty items and arrange them in their beds, so I think he's had more than enough time to consider how much he wants this. As expected, Akhenaden prostrates himself before his dark god pretty much immediately and says yes, yes, a thousand times yes. 

Game!Yami still appears to be frozen in the background, and whether he's just thinking it or able to say it out loud, he begs Akhenaden not to do this thing. Unleashing Zorc's power will just doom the world and it's the path of darkness, per game!Yami's perspective. Clearly the point of the thing, but it's pretty shitty for everyone else on the planet, so I empathize with the impulse to try and reason Akhenaden out of it. Both he and player!Yami above think that they HAVE to stop him. 

Asshole!Bakura hums in question, informing Yami that Zorc is still talking at the moment, big fucking surprise, and asks if Yami would like to interrupt Zorc on this round in order to have game!Yami perform an action. He reminds Yami that this is, after all, an RPG, so all that's needed to make a character do something is to tell the GM. Yami wastes no time in holding a card over the diorama that looks like it has a picture of the Dark Magician on it, saying that by the imperial order of the pharaoh, he's commanding the priests to attack, and summoning Mahado's spirit to the field. Asshole!Bakura says that it's fair to use ka cards in battle if there's enough in one's ba gauge, AND declaring imperial order DOES make it possible to attack even when it's not Yami's turn, BUT he's not able to do so now. Yami of course is in irritated disbelief at this, sot asshole!Bakura reminds him that he and the priests are unable to move, all Yami's character cards being paralyzed for several rounds. Then why did he bother pretending that Yami was allowed to tell him when he had an action to perform? There's a reason I call him asshole!Bakura, and it's never been more fitting a name than right now.

Time powers are SO cheap. Emphasis on CHEAP, when asshole!Bakura continues to brag that he has the power to control time, borrowed from his mummy dark god behind him. Yami is tense as he considers this power, assumed to be one of many. At least it's apparently limited to three uses, though I can't wait to find out how asshole!Bakura worms one or two more into the game, because THAT seems like something he would do. 

Anyway, he points out how he's placed the second hourglass on its side to stop time, which allowed him to steal the rest of the Millennium Items. He says that's not all, citing the time he turned back time to stop Yami from teaming up with his friends in game as Zorc's power as well. Pretty easily deduced, but Yami looks shocked regardless. Asshole!Bakura suddenly shifts the subject of whether Yami can feel the evil aura coming from the corpse propped up behind him. 

Asshole!Bakura claims that Akhenaden's mummy is ALSO playing the game with him, because OF COURSE he is, and that his soul is one with Zorc's. Yami growls in impotent frustration, while asshole!Bakura warns him not to forget that he still has one hourglass yet.

Big bummer, buddy. 

ZN is indeed still talking, chuckling darkly (heh)that he knew Akhenaden would come there to complete the dark contract with him, begun by Akhenaden's own creation of the Millennium Items. Akhenaden agrees that this was all according to the dark god's will, which somehow spurs ZN into ANOTHER monologue wherein he recounts the order of events, from Akhenaden and company gaining the ability to summon monsters, to trafficking with demons willingly, to the ambitious ones beginning to fight amongst themselves. He says he knew that one day, one of them would gather the items all in one place to awaken the great darkness. Way to pat yourself on the back for the most predictable course of events in the WORLD, dude. It occurs to game!Yami this means ZN made Akhenaden create the Millennium Items so he could be released from the darkness eventually. I guess influencing dipshit morons to break you out of prison is a bit easier than doing it yourself, so that checks out. 

Anyway, ZN holds a glowing orb of light in his clawed palm, announcing that he's giving Akhenaden his power, calling him to become the slave of his soul, and to rule the world. How does a slave rule the world? I don't know, but check THIS out!

Oh, so that weird mask just kind of materialized on his face? Cool.

Reaching toward the glowing column coming out of the diorama, asshole!Bakura announces that Akhenaden became the High Priest of Darkness, gaining the skills of a black magician (not to be confused with a DARK Magician) and leveling up. Yami grunts as the light continues to splinter forth at him. In the game, High Priest Akhenaden and ZN both face game!Yami, and asshole!Bakura clarifies to player!Yami outside it that both his characters are at maximum ba, holding up their cards to show the fact. 

Somebody throw this guy a Mana potion, STAT!

Yami, from his game position, looks up at Zorc's towering form in front of him and knows it's over if an attack comes now. But asshole!Bakura acknowledges with a chuckle that a one-sided game isn't any fun at all, and offers Yami a hint to help even things out a bit. How magnanimous of him. He says that NPCs in the game wander around without input from either player that are pretty much without purpose, such as the city-dwellers, the soldiers that aren't with the pharaoh, and interestingly enough, Yami's FRIENDS as well. Yami sweatdrops, thinking of the group of them standing determined, reciting their names. Asshole!Bakura calls these particular NPCs strange, because they entered the game world without permission and don't fit the timeline or setting, but may in fact be the key to victory for Yami anyway. This phrase piques Yami's interest. 

Unless they HAVE that name and can use it as a LITERAL shield against an attack from ZN, I don't see how that's a useful hint at the moment. Not that I actually expected asshole!Bakura to be HELPFUL at all, but still...

He continues to be the opposite of helpful when he speculates that it's probably too late for Yami's friends to help anyway. As the next panel starts a zoom in on the city streets, asshole!Bakura says that even if they managed to find the ancient pharaoh's name, Zorc is KINDA already here. We get closer to one street in particular, fully leaving the player perspective to get down at the level of the characters, where Yuugi and pals are standing, probably still a bit weirded out by all the frozen folks around them. Yuugi urges them all to look up, where a black vortex is forming overhead. Jonouchi suggests that the sky turning dark is an omen of some kind of danger. You think? Anzu says she has a bad feeling after observing that the townspeople are still not moving one iota, and Honda confirms with a wary glare around him that they're the only ones moving at all. 

Yuugi stares up at the sky, considering the implication of this being a game world as he suspects. He thinks if this is the case, there must be some special significance to their task of finding his counterpart's true name. He is convinced that they have to find it before something terrible happens regardless, barring of course the possibility that the sky's darkening is a sign that something terrible has ALREADY occurred. He starts running, urging his companions to join him, only just noticing that Bobasa (conspicuous in his absence until this moment yet again) has started groaning. Yuugi looks around to find him GLOWING too, alarmingly enough. 

If the vortex in the sky wasn't an omen, this DEFINITELY is.

Yuugi and Jonouchi look suddenly sick with horror at the mention of Zorc, and Anzu covers her mouth in alarm. Bobasa reiterates haltingly that he's one of the guards of the mold tablet, having protected it all these years, and then trails off a bit. Yuugi stutters at Bobasa, while Bobasa says with some difficulty that this must be some sort of sign that the Millennium Items have been returned to their designated slots in the tablet. Yuugi is less concerned with what Bobasa is saying than he is with the perception that he appears to be CHANGING. His face darkens and is surrounded with some sort of smoke, its profile completely changing in shape, as he calls to HIS other self, one he calls Hasan, the spirit of the stone tablet. 

That's right! Not only is there a spirit of the tablet as much as there are spirits of the items themselves... IT'S THAT BUFF GUY WITH THE MILLENNIUM ITEM TATTOOS AND THE GOLD MASK THAT FOUND YAMI IN THE CAVE!!!!!

Hasan here says he'll be the one to show the way to where the name of the pharaoh sleeps, having waited to carry out this task for a whole 3,000 years. Dude, and THEN some. I suppose you couldn't have offered anything more concrete than a suggestion of bed rest until this moment?

Nope, clearly had to wait until the damn dragon penis was in our faces. Thanks.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It was... A LOT. Where do I even begin? With the massive toothed dick, I guess. It's like one of those horsey sticks that kids ride around to pretend at riding a horse, but unnecessarily sexually threatening. Is this some sort of metaphor for how BONED everyone is right now? I really can't help but question the artistic decision to give this god creature a massive wang with its own mouth, given how fundamentally confusing and weird it is for a children's comic. I understand that what is considered appropriate for kids in Japan is a bit different, but this is taking a cultural comfort with the existence of genitalia to a whole new ODD level. My impulse is to just chalk it up to delirium from KT's known illness from this time, but I don't know if he ever spoke on the matter. 

Questionable character design decisions aside, it was a bit difficult to follow Yami's split consciousness in the game and outside of it - as is implied in the previous chapter, there really is no distinction between the character in-game and the player, so I'm not sure where Yami's perspective really is. It could be that Yami really is looking through both his player and character selves at the same time, but there is no real indication that this is the case. The depiction really seems to support the idea that he just switches between the perspectives to whichever one is the most dramatic depiction at the time. It's a somewhat confusing way to convey this split state of being, especially since Yami and Yuugi's coexistence in a split life has been so intricately portrayed until this point.

I'm getting more and more interested to know just what Yami's true name will do to help him win this game. One of the myths in the Kemetic religion concerns Isis gaining control over the sun god Ra by learning his true name through a trick, in one version of the tale making him back off from the Earth so he'd stop burninating all the people and animals with his intense heat, and in another, to get the power she needed so she could conceive Horus. This story speaks to how a true name contains the true ESSENCE of the named, a concept in a lot of different folklore and religions (precisely why one does not give their name to the fae folk). Now, the story I cited above describes a scenario where someone gains control over someone ELSE using that first someone's true name. Either Yami having access to his own name will give him access to his real and true essence/power, OR asshole!Bakura is trying to TRICK Yami and friends into revealing Yami's name so HE can have Yami's power. Either way, that name promises to add a WHOLE LOT more action to the game, perhaps giving a player more tight control of events or the ability to rival Zorc in power. I'm just speculating, and based entirely on material OUTSIDE of this story, so I wouldn't be very surprised if I was entirely wrong, but it's an interesting idea.

And as far as Zorc goes, I'm still trying to wrap my head around exactly how his identity is intertwined with the Bakuras and Akhenaden. They all appear to be some cross of puppets that do his bidding, vessels for his use, and alternate versions or forms of his. It's clear that thief!Bakura and Akhenaden started out as their own people with their own goals, but Zorc appears to almost ABSORB them and their selves through the Millennium Items, so that they become part of him in an almost hive-mind sort of way. But they all also still appear to have their own wills in some respect? I don't know, it's making my head hurt a little.

In any case, I wonder what horrible trauma is involved with the spirit of the tablet? Is he a former resident of Kul Elna or one of the priests that formed the original team to create the items? Not sure if this is going to be answered, but it's a curious thing regardless.

Inuyasha Manga: 262 Black Light

That's right, it's time to bust out those black lights again! The beginning of September heralded that pumpkin spice, costume isle, themed candy, and creepy decorations that mark the Halloween season over here. It seemed like the moment the 1st hit, there were signs of autumn spooky celebration popping up like the dandelions of the previous season. My local grocery store put out pumpkin carving kits and pumpkin spice cookies overnight, and it seems to have come earlier than ever, not just because it's a super popular time with a clear aesthetic that companies rush to capitalize on sooner and sooner, but also because it does NOT feel like autumn yet. Climate change has thrown off the timing of the season, so it's still summertime by nature's broken clock.

Come to think of it, wildfire might become a major theme of coming Halloweens, so maybe the humble black light is on its way out after all.

Sorry, Kikyou, I know being Miss Doom & Gloom is your thing. Carry on. 

Since she's been limping along due to the barrier causing her some serious discomfort, Kikyou has arrived a bit late to the scene where the children are still huddled next to the medical hut. They call out to Kikyou when she approaches, a greeting she doesn't return, since she's a bit distracted by the adult corpses with deep gouge-marks in them laying about. She suggests tentatively that this is Suikotsu's doing, to which an older girl responds that Suikotsu did return with a kind face, and trails off for the boy next to her to pick up the thread with the beginning of a statement that Suikotsu has already fucked off, which he also almost immediately abandoned. Kikyou gets the message despite the kids' trauma-driven incomplete statements, thinking that Suikotsu did indeed kill the villagers as she had thought. Wasn't a very pleasant conclusion to draw, but an obvious one, for sure. Kikyou regards the mountain, and thinks that its barrier is no longer effecting Suikotsu, wondering if this means his Shikon shard is even further corrupted than before. Also a pretty obvious conclusion to draw, even if not so great to think about.

Narrow sky transition panel!

How did you guess? 

With a swing of his sword, Jakotsu speculates that Sesshoumaru is actually just barely managing to stand because of the barrier. Sesshoumaru gives him a sharp look, and raises Tokijin into the air for the blades of Jakotsu's sword to wrap around, wordlessly. Before he knows it, Jakotsu is being yanked forward. 

If Rin wasn't being used as a shield over there, wouldn't it have been funny if Sesshoumaru had performed a throwback and thrown Jakotsu at Suikotsu? I would have DIED laughing.

Jakotsu barely manages to land kneeling on the ground while Sesshoumaru swings around to face him, rushing at him to swing Tokijin violently down on him, prompting a just-in-time leap backward from Jakotsu. Resenting Sesshoumaru's smooth moves and calm face, Jakotsu realizes pretty quickly that he's slowly being forced AWAY from the barrier. With the conclusion that the barrier must truly be hard on Sesshoumaru, Jakotsu yells at Suikotsu not to move away from the mountain. Suikotsu says he doesn't need to be told this extremely obvious thing.

I do NOT see. Not even a LITTLE do I understand why you would want to murder a cinnamon roll like Rin. Completely incomprehensible. 

Suikotsu is frustrated that he couldn't kill the brats in the village because of his good-guy-doctor persona stopping, but he's pretty sure that he'll be able to now. Even though he's closer to the purifying barrier than ever before. Makes as little sense as Suikotsu wanting to kill Rin like she cut him off in traffic and he's got uncontrollable road rage. Rin herself whimpers out Sesshoumaru's name in an almost pleading way, eyes pointed toward him in her periphery because she can't quite turn her head without serious injury. Jakotsu asks cockily if Sesshoumaru understands that Rin's life is literally over if he slips up. Not sure if it's native to the original Japanese or is a translation choice, but I don't think I like his use of the word "wench" here in reference to Rin. I feel like the more bawdy interpretation of it is how we get SUPER SUS sequels that promote child grooming.

Jakotsu swings that sword yet again, saying that that life being over thing will happen sooner or later anyway, of course. Like a life ended at eight years old is the same as one ended at eighty. Sesshoumaru blandly notes that Jakotsu is using precisely the same style as before. Then he swiftly throws Tokijin behind him as the interconnected blades fly outward, and Jakotsu somehow has time to question this action. There's a "whacking" sound, and...

Whoops, clearly Sesshoumaru doesn't know that the reanimation agent isn't in Suikotsu's chest. Nor in Jakotsu's, which is his next target.

Yeah, it's a little disappointing that a double-attack so cool just WON'T work.

Without the slightest indication by his expression above, Suikotsu has collapsed to his knees like he's truly been felled by the blow, and Rin frantically starts to crawl away from him. She has just gotten back to her feet, arms reaching for Sesshoumaru as she calls for him, when a hand on her back flattens her right back into the dirt, face first. It looks like it STINGS something fierce. Suikotsu holds her down as she turns her head in horror to see him hovering over her, Tokijin still sticking out of his chest. His face is just about as pleasant as is possible to be when he insists that she's not getting away. Sesshoumaru glares over his shoulder, the closest he will ever come to showing the alarm no doubt coursing through him. 

The masculine urge to randomly blurt how attractive or not random folks are around you at the most inappropriate times, lol.

He chuckles that Sesshoumaru's aim is off, and that they won't die from these NORMAL mortal wounds. I mean, to be fair, Sesshoumaru probably should have figured that a walking corpse would probably not be killable in the conventional sense. Suikotsu eagerly asks from behind Sesshoumaru if he can kill the brat he's pinning down yet, speculating that it's possibly because he's wounded that his doctor alter ego is afraid to come out at the moment. It's now or never by this evaluation. 

Sesshoumaru rips his hand from the hole he put in Jakotsu's torso as he turns, but Jakotsu calls him a fool, elatedly declaring he's too late. Suikotsu informs the flinching Rin that she's about to die as he thrusts his not!Wolverine claws down at her... 

He's getting poked ALL full of holes today. 

The figure of Kikyou on a horse with a twanging bow sits in the distance, brow knitted as she considers how Suikotsu's Shikon fragment light has been polluted black. She trails in a thought about something he can no longer do, never finishing. Kikyou is clearly having a little difficulty stringing these thoughts together, honestly. 

After a moment of glancing back at Suikotsu, knocked backward into a supine position, Rin jumps to her feet again and runs to Sesshoumaru, calling out to him once more as she can be reasonably sure that she's not going to get flattened this time. Jakotsu beats a hasty retreat, freaking out a little at how scary he find Kikyou. Kikyou herself staggers past Sesshoumaru and Rin, who watch her approach Suikotsu with passing interest. She kneels down next to Suikotsu, who addresses her gently by name.

Better be certain this time. Wouldn't want to get shanked by a discount mutant. How fucking EMBARRASSING would that be?

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Sesshoumaru acquiring a helpless little person who is ABSOLUTELY incapable of protecting herself has put him in an increasing number of situations where he has very little control, and I think this is interesting for him as a character. He still has a superior attitude that gives him no interest in "proving" anything to an opponent, as evidenced by his complete silence in the face of all Jakotsu's implications as to how he's feeling near the barrier. BUT, he's still uncomfortably aware of being hamstringed by having to PRESERVE a life where he would before have just slaughtered carelessly without regard for collateral damage, as well as having to deal with his own body being affected by the nearby barrier. These have given him a level of creativity and strategy that was absent before (as I recalled above, he could just sling whole people around before with little to no consequence), which I appreciate, despite how ineffective it was in THIS particular circumstance. It's also given him more of a stake in the overall situation, even though I still think it's a small one in comparison to the others - it's so obvious how ridiculously out of place he is in this conflict with Naraku, especially with the appearance of KIKYOU, who's actually LOST shit because of Naraku's garbage. My appreciation of Sesshoumaru's fight in spite of the disadvantages he's afforded in this chapter is bumping up against my irritation over the fact that he's here AT ALL. 

Speaking of Kikyou, it seems she's allowed to show some vulnerability here, limping and so clearly in pain. The portrayal of her as ill and uncomfortable from the barrier is typically very well-done - the expressions she's given LOOK like the nausea you get during the flu, where it's difficult to move for fear of blowing chunks. They could have done with a little more of the sweats showing, but perhaps it's also unfair for me to expect her stoneware body to have sweat glands. 

What REALLY struck me about her role in this chapter is that despite how visibly uncomfortable and impaired she is, despite Jakotsu having seen Sesshoumaru before RIPPING into one of his own, she fires one arrow and it strikes absolute TERROR into Jakotsu, who turns tail and RUNS. He's certainly had his moments of fear in battle with Sesshoumaru, but that guy doesn't even BEGIN to freak out Jakotsu the way Kikyou just has, inducing to him to flee the moment he first catches sight of her, and she didn't even attack HIM. It gives Kikyou an air of badassery that surpasses all of the other characters, including the darling Sesshoumaru, and you all can fight me if you think otherwise. Kikyou could kick everyone's ass, change my mind. 

Finally, the fact that not!Wolverine Suikotsu is never allowed to be right about not changing back for more than two seconds is becoming a little funny. Dipshit should have learned after the last time to keep his mouth shut about his assessments that his good half isn't coming out any time soon lest he jinx himself. He must be full to BURSTING for how often he's had to eat those fucking words of his.

Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 320 The Ultimate Shadow RPG!

No no, I can't. I can't make mildly snarky commentary on the nature of this title when there's this racket going on over my head. Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited to have a new roof on the house; we chose a dark green metal one to replace our shingles, which are apparently about 20 years old and are liable to be punctured fairly easily when the surrounding forest drops its branches in heavy winds during fall/winter. With a metal roof, there is VERY little chance we'll have to pay for repairs over the next 30 years, and it's far more environmentally friendly. But right at the moment, I'm getting a bit of a headache from all the banging and clanging above, and I have to frequently comfort poor little Grimalkin, who is huddled in a high corner looking every which way nervously. Who knows what she thinks of all this, probably something akin to the end of the world.

At least this might be a welcome distraction. Slight as that may be. 

As Yami and asshole!Bakura glare at each other over the game table, asshole!Bakura wonders how Yami likes the setting of ancient Egypt for their game, a setting he recreated painstakingly from Yami's own world of reign as pharaoh 3,000 years before. He monologues about how the Millennium Items are artifacts that transcend time, or an eternal vessel for the wielder's memories and soul. As has been demonstrated throughout the comic, I suppose. Asshole!Bakura reiterates that two souls were sealed into the Millennium Puzzle, and both have been released into the little game world he created. They are representatives of light and dark, these souls, with two sets of memories guiding them and the game. 

And given how ZN has already been referred to as the dark evil god, I think our cute symbol-reversal of light being bad and dark being good toward the beginning of the story has been fully flipped now. A shame, really.

Asshole!Bakura asks sardonically who will win the game and survive the World of Memories. Yami is convinced that this has been a trap, a shadow game devised by asshole!Bakura to discover the secrets sealed in the puzzle. He recalls being in the museum with his friends and the moment they were all surrounded by a bright light when he held up the god cards in front of the stone slab. An image of Yuugi falling through a black void is followed by his assertion that he was separated from Yuugi in that second and placed at this table. His hand appears semi-transparent against its edge, so as to make clear that he's not actually in a BODY right now. Free-floating, but there's not really an explanation as to how or why. 

See how massive this place is, and how elaborate its setup? Asshole!Bakura claims this is a hidden room behind the Egyptian exhibit at Domino City Museum. I call BULLSHIT, man. There is no way that this museum is hiding THIS MUCH space behind a single exhibit that can allow for a weird inverted pyramid table over a dark hole in the floor attached to weird throned platforms! I've WORKED in museums, pal, you can't pull this shit on me!

Okay, now that Writch has finished having an apoplectic fit over this impossible space issue, we can move onto the next panel where asshole!Bakura adds that his host's father owns the museum outright. Alright, so daddy bought a museum in which he built a massive room with a strange pit in the center for... reasons? I guess rich people ARE in the habit of doing the weirdest shit, so this isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. Still...

Asshole!Bakura also explains that this diorama they're playing over was created for the ancient Egypt exhibit in the OTHER room, and just when I'm thinking none of this is any handiwork of his as I had supposed before, he amends his statement to say that he'd actually had his host make the diorama in anticipation of their little game here. I guess regular-sized Bakura just THOUGHT he was doing it for the exhibit. Asshole!Bakura encourages some praise of what a good job his host did, as the DESTINED HOST of their thousand-year battle. 

Yeah, I don't know either.

Yami grimaces at asshole!Bakura, calling him a fiend with his accursed ring and asking how much he's going to abuse Bakura before he's finally satisfied. Asshole!Bakura ignores the question, asking Yami if he remembers the little "warm-up" game they'd played together a while back. Yami says he does remember, and puts on something very similar to that shit-eating grin of his I missed so much when he adds that he also recalls the utter humiliation asshole!Bakura faced when he and his friends joined forces to defeat this evil spirit. Chuckling, asshole!Bakura seems to not be bothered at all by this version of events, and says his next explanation should be fairly simple. When he's opened his eyes from his good-natured laugh again, they're wild and psychotic, and he asks Yami if he ALSO remembers how he trapped his friends in the RPG game world before. Yami responds with disbelief, and asshole!Bakura invites him to look off to the side.

I swear, this fucking room just keeps getting bigger. 

And yes, those ARE the bodies of Yami's friends, including Yuugi, in those coffins. We've discussed this in the comments of the previous chapter's review, and I think we're all scratching our heads a bit as to how this works. Yami isn't quite so concerned with the HOW of the matter, though, just the fact that it's happening. Perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances. He stares at his partner and friends in shock and horror, while asshole!Bakura says with a sneer that these bodies in coffins are just soulless vessels. Not sure that needed to be clarified, dude. After all, that's generally the idea of coffins, right? Receptacles for the body after the soul has left?

I guess we can thank him for not completing the NEXT common step, and put these coffins in the ground too.

Asshole!Bakura tells Yami that his friends' spirits are wandering the World of Memories, forever lost. That grips Yami in even MORE panic, while asshole!Bakura points up at the puzzle hanging over them, explaining further that the gang transcended the maze in the puzzle and went into the game world looking for YAMI himself. Yami remembers the images he saw of his friends when he was helped to summon Ra, realizing these weren't just his usual daydreams of support at critical moments, but the ACTUAL HONEST-TO-GOODNESS SOULS of his friends, who risked their lives to enter the game world. He recalls Jonouchi giving him a thumbs-up, promising to recover his true name for him.

He's got that William Shatner rage going on now.

Indeed, he yells asshole!Bakura's name in this exact manner on the next page, which tickles asshole!Bakura greatly. He just responds airily that the only way to save Yami's friends' souls is to defeat Zorc. Good to know that that whole "lost forever" bit above was just hyperbole. Yami growls in fury, fist shaking, while asshole!Bakura deigns to introduce the final player and his personal partner in the game. 

You didn't fail to notice that thing looming in the background, did you Yami? Hell, it's the FIRST thing I noticed at the end of the last chapter!

Asshole!Bakura launches into another explanation: this game is a simulation, based in truth of the real occurrences they've been playing this whole time, with some MINOR changes. While Akhenaden is currently just a corpse on display, he really did place the Millennium Items in the mold tablet 3,000 years before and became the High Priest of Darkness (TM) through the evil god Zorc's power. And asshole!Bakura admits that his goal here is to kill Yami now, in accordance with the will of the high priest, bringing the game to a painful end. Sweatdropping, Yami isn't really in a position to refuse, caught between many a rock and hard place.

Question: aren't games supposed to be FUN? This whole thing is very decidedly NOT fun to me. 

No time to worry about that, I suppose - we're launching into the rules that PROBZ should have been given a while ago at the very beginning of the game. Asshole!Bakura following the noble precedent of his predecessors once again. Basic rules are thus: Yami is represented by the "Pharaoh" card, while asshole!Bakura is represented by TWO cards, "Bakura King of Thieves" and "High Priest Akhenaden". So... one card then, considering that first guy turned to sand. Characters can act independently within the game world, which I assume means that they don't need direction from the players to go about their business. 

Each player has a deck of cards, the face of every one of which is blank, so that the image of someone or something from the player's memory can appear there when said player does some reminiscence. A blank card is shown in hand for demonstration purposes, while asshole!Bakura gives his example of the pharaoh thinking of a priest and that priest's stats appearing on the card. Shada appears upon the card in this case, and asshole!Bakura makes sure to point out the most important statistic to pay attention to, the "Ba Gauge" at the bottom which, once depleted, will take the character out of the game by way of graveyard. As was demonstrated many times before this moment, asshole!Bakura says that priests can summon ka by paying from their Ba Gauge to engage in battle. The little characters on the table stand with their cards next to them, and asshole!Bakura confirms my assumption from before; the characters will behave autonomously when not being directed by the players according to whatever motivations they had in their actual life. Or, whatever motivations that asshole!Bakura perceives them to have had through his own perspective. But we no doubt won't be commenting on personal lenses in this children's comic, lol.

Asshole!Bakura almost makes an AFTERTHOUGHT of the seven Millennium Item cards, which started the game in the hands of the pharaoh and his priests, but, as the bloodied Akhenaden having pulled out his eye demonstrated before, this isn't really relevant anymore. Asshole!Bakura waves a hand over the cards all in a line on the invisible barrier over the table, and his eyes bulge at the little Akhenaden standing over the tablet mold, announcing that all the items have fallen into Akhenaden's hands and he places them in their respective slots. Yami, much like his pharaoh representation in the game, stares helplessly in shock.

He's certainly going to be the biggest pain in everyone's ass. 

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The big question here, as discussed a little in the comments of the previous chapter's review, is how this whole setup WORKS. It is explicit in the chapter that Yami is not currently in a body, as was confirmed in both the fact that he's been presented (briefly) as semi-transparent at the table, and Yuugi's body is currently laying in a coffin. BUT asshole!Bakura, the room, the table, Akhenaden's mummy, etc, is all suggested in multiple ways to be solid and part of the real world. The Millennium Puzzle is also hanging above the game, an accessory which has been removed from Yuugi's person before in games and has PREVENTED the manifestation of Yami in those cases. WHAT is making him appear right now? Why not just have him manifest through Yuugi's body as per usual? Wouldn't that be easier and more consistent than creating this whole new presentation of Yami that simply doesn't follow any of the old rules of how he showed up before, and implying that there are NEW rules that are not being elaborated upon? Or is the visual of Yuugi lying soullessly next to his equally soulless friends in coffins worth the complete break in logic from before?

Another related issue brought up in the previous review's comments was how Yami appears to have his consciousness split between the pharaoh in the game world and his ghostly presence outside of it. It's established at this point that there can be multiple Bakura consciousnesses within and outside the game because the Millennium Ring has the ability to split one's soul, but there was no such setup for asshole!Bakura doing the same to anyone else at any point, let alone Yami specifically at THIS point. I WOULD have thought it possible that the Yami we've been following up until this point was merely the character in the game, since it's established now that these game pieces/cards have their own autonomy according to how they behaved in the past... except that the character in the game had memories of Yuugi and friends from the future, interacted with them in the game world familiarly, and Yami at the table recalls seeing them WITHIN the game world. It might have been interesting if, in following Yami's facsimile in the Memory World, he came across Yuugi and friends only to be confused as to who and what they are, because that would have clued us in that there's something odd going on here. Then Yuugi's little revelation at the end there that this might be a game world would have just a TAD more reason behind it too. But as it stands, it just seems like Yami is both outside the game world and within it, on some sort of consciousness split screen, and it's VERY incomprehensible. 

And the SIZE of this room, the setup, is just straight up BRAIN-BREAKING for me. I can't make heads or tails of it, which is a very uncomfortable position for me to be in.

Though the mechanics of all this seem highly wonky to me, I do LIKE a couple of the finer points of the chapter. It's really good to get clarification that this isn't supposed to reflect the real events of the past exactly, and that our characters have some autonomy to adjust to whatever crazy shit happens in the game that isn't necessarily true to their lives. I like to speculate, as I implied above, about how ACCURATE these approximations of the motivations and personalities of third parties are, and the implications that can have on how the perspective of events from one or two sources color the broader picture and its recollection. Recreating these people from hazy memory of an outside perspective could explain why the some of the replays in the game seem a little hazy as well. There might be a statement in there about how one can never have the COMPLETE picture of historical events, or even the events happening around us at the moment. Then again, it could also just be a statement about how big a time-crunch KT was under that he couldn't really remain consistent or reasonable in characterization of the side characters toward the end. As I said in the comments of the previous review, I prefer the former interpretation, but there is no real way of knowing one way or the other, which is probably the best illustration of the point of my view on the matter, fittingly enough.

I'm also glad that we got to return to the RPG as a game to examine in the comic, since it was so obvious that this was REALLY what KT wanted to highlight in the beginning of the comic. Since the idea of a spirit possession directing a young boy to carry out judicious actions is so uniquely suited to the mechanic of an RPG, there's SO much you can do with this concept. I am really looking forward to seeing how Yami is able to use game strategies to defeat an ancient evil god, because I think there's a lot of potential for some satisfying plays in that respect. 

And the reaffirmation that regular-sized Bakura is just the "host" to asshole!Bakura is heartbreaking. You feel bad for the guy, being made to do all this work for a spirit that will call a MUMMY his fucking partner in the big culmination of the plot. Not that regular-sized Bakura seems like he would be interested in being partner to ushering in a dark age, but considering he HAS to be, the least asshole!Bakura could do is refer to him as more than a machine that pumps out game-tables for him. That guy can eat a whole bag of dicks.

Inuyasha Manga: 261 Suikotsu's Village

You mean the one that got burned out when the Shichinin-tai came to get him a few chapters ago? Is there anything LEFT of the thing to act as a setting? Probably not the best place to take Rin if he wants her to continue thinking he's probably a fine and dandy guy. Even if it looks okay and not at all fire-damaged, somehow, there are going to be a fair amount of people there who remember him being a total nutjob when he left. If he wants a "Cheers" sort of vibe, it'll have to be in the negative sense. 

Because everybody definitely knows his name, but they're NOT so glad he came. 

Rin is probably the only child at any time who could have benefited from all that "never talk to/listen to strangers" messaging that was flying around in the '90's when I was growing up. Everyone I knew just rolled their eyes at it, but at least this girl would have been the better for hearing it a few times. Just a tad too late for her, sadly.

Suikotsu informs Rin that he has a lot of other children about her age at his place who don't have relatives like here. Rin hums, still looking a bit wary, then asks about his village doctor status. He doesn't really elaborate on this for her, and instead tells her that she can see it now, the collection of buildings that make up his village below. I'm surprised that he seems a little shy about outright lying to Rin about his village doctor status NOT being revoked recently, since it's not like that should matter much in the long run.

Elsewhere, Kikyou is viewing the misty Mt. Hakurei from a nearby distant cliff, but she's apparently close ENOUGH to the village to perceive the aura of a Shikon fragment moving toward it. She seems a bit concerned about the feeling of this aura, but we get a narrow sky transition panel again before Kiykou can really give away more details. Sneaky sneaky RT doesn't want us learning too early what's going on behind the normal Suikotsu face. Except it's not so sneaky, because just from her abrupt cut to and from Kikyou, that draws up even more suspicions that things aren't what they seem.

As if there's weren't plenty of them to begin with.

At the medical hut where Suikotsu had been collecting the babies...

"Remember me? The guy who went absolutely bonkers on you a few days ago?" 

The girl sitting on the grass says Suikotsu's name in question, drawing a couple more familiar little faces from the hut door beyond, who look out at the former doctor warily. Suikotsu says he's sorry, specifically for being away. Not the whole "Mr. Hyde" transformation immediately preceding his leaving. The kids find themselves asking in caution if this guy is really the Suikotsu they knew. They're certainly not running to him in glee at his return. Suikotsu asks them what's happened, dumb to the tense atmosphere he's created as dumb can be.

A distance away, Jakotsu is crouching in the tall grass, SUPER annoyed with what he sees as a hopeless situation. He thinks Suikotsu has returned to being a fucking nice guy, and that he was right to wait for him here in case that happened. He moves to pull his sword from his back, preparing to "wake him" through those violent means so expected of his mercenary band. He pauses with a hum, though, when he sees a dark shape emerging over the crest of the hill, a group of village men with torches (no pitchforks, unfortunately), led by the old man who had come by before to tell of how he himself had vouched for the poor doctor when everyone was afraid he was a zombie. 

No doubt he regrets his generosity at this point. 

They mumble among themselves that they THOUGHT it had been Suikotsu they saw approaching the village, that he's come back, implying they had a lookout or two posted on the chance the dude would show back up. Suikotsu himself remains silent until they get closer, then ask what's with this whole group of them marching up there like that. The old man at the front pleads with Suikotsu to leave the village, citing him as the reason the Shichinin-tai attacked the settlement in the first place, and his face's demonic qualities at the time. Rin looks up at Suikotsu with a worried expression, and Suikotsu scoffs, before a spurt of blood arcs across the next panel.

Oh no, you don't say, he's still a piece of shit, how could we have ever seen this coming?

Rin watches the man collapse with another arc of blood with something like blank disbelief, while Jakotsu blinks in surprise from the tall grass and the other children recoil in horror. Smiling easy, Suikotsu labels the villagers as ungrateful for all the good care his doctor counterpart gave them. Yeah, they should totally turn the other way when you tromp back into town to kill some kids because someone who looks like you mended their sprained ankles and nursed them through colds one time. Sure, sounds fair.

The rest of the village men shriek with fear and turn to run, to which Suikotsu responds with a mild request for them to wait up. He holds up his not!Wolverine claws and runs after them, more blood flying off-panel. Rin is also recoiling now, at last coming to the realization that this guy IS the same psycho who attacked her and Jaken on the bridge. 

So freaked out she turned into a Peanuts character.

With the villagers lying in a bloody dead heap on the ground, Jakotsu finally approaches the nonchalant Suikotsu asking what happened with him. Viscera dripping from his off-brand claws and face, he greets Jakotsu with mild surprise, asking if he was here all along. Jakotsu claims that Suikotsu wouldn't kill so much as a bug when he was wearing his nice-guy mien, so he has to know which Suikotsu the one in front of him is. Suikotsu launches into a bit of a monologue, saying at first he doesn't really know, but he feels better than ever, smiling. He tries to explain that half his head was always blank before, and he was always worried about when he might turn into someone else, but he feels different now, declaring he is himself. Must have jarred himself into the opposite of an existential crisis in the fall from the bridge if you ask me.

Jakotsu admits he really doesn't get it, but he DOES want to know if this means Suikotsu won't turn into the nice version of himself, even when they get near the barrier. Suikotsu puts out a tentative yes, reasoning that even here at the base of the mountain, the doctor hasn't come out, so he thinks he's fine now. Not likely a mental illness like this one can just go away like that on a whim, but okay.

One of the village orphans says Suikotsu's name in a whimper, but the older boy at their head says this guy isn't Suikotsu, though the face is the same. Suikotsu glares over at the kids wordlessly a moment, Rin staring at the inevitable disaster helplessly while she dangles from Jakotsu's fist, the only thing she can do being to cry for them to run away. Suikotsu raises the off-brand claws again, offering a going-away present for them? It's a weird line that doesn't really go with his next one that he'll send them to hell along with their elders, thrusting the claws at them in a punch-like manner. The kids recoil once more as a group, but their chances of running are slim.

Until a burst of pain wracks Suikotsu.

Proof above that it certainly wasn't Sesshoumaru; HE'S still on his way over, finally picking back up the scent of zombies from the base of Mt. Hakurei. Note Jaken, barely clinging to Sesshoumaru's furry accessory, because he's feeling VERY unwell at the moment - he mumbles and stutters that though it might just be his imagination, the barrier around the mountain appears to have gotten a lot stronger, more intense. Sesshoumaru doesn't respond to this, but there's a crackle of energy up near his face, and it seems to indicate that in fact, Jaken DOESN'T just have an overactive imagination. At least not in this case. 

On the ground again, the group of village orphans continue to cringe from Suikotsu, who seems a bit STUCK - he's standing there with his off-brand claws raised, leaning into a swing that just WON'T follow through for him, and stuttering a curse. Jakotsu flatly asks him if he's going to kill these kids or not, and Suikotsu yells at him to shut it, no doubt a little embarrassed that his "I'm fine now" statement turned out to be pretty inaccurate so fast. A Saimyoushou buzzes onto the scene, and after a moment of looking up at it, Jakotsu turns to Suikotsu with a serious expression, warning him that Sesshoumaru is on his way. Excited, Rin asks for confirmation, but we don't stay long enough to see if Jakotsu bothers to answer her.

Because after a narrow sky transition featuring the crescent moon (real subtle there), we're back with Sesshoumaru and Jaken. Now that they're on solid ground, Jaken is on his own two feet, and frantically trying to reason with Sesshoumaru to wait; he says this is a trap, that the zombie dudes are using Rin as a lure to bring Sesshoumaru to the barrier. He's about to describe what will happen if Sesshoumaru goes any farther, but Sesshoumaru keeps on ignoring him, lifting off into the sky again without heed for the final desperate call from the the servant he's leaving behind.

It doesn't necessarily mean THAT, but there's a much more obvious conclusion you could draw for him dropping you off on the ground before continuing on. 

Suikotsu and Jakotsu have climbed a little onto the base of Mt. Hakurei, Jakotsu pausing to look back and predict that that bastard Sesshoumaru won't be coming at all, by the logic that this area of the mountain would be too intense for him. Suikotsu is now the one dangling Rin by her sash, a little ways ahead of Jakotsu when he pauses in their climb and tells Jakotsu it doesn't seem like he's correct in that assessment. Sesshoumaru is emerging from the fog IN FRONT of them, even farther on the path than they are. 

What, like your moves are so difficult to figure out, Jakotsu? You literally miscounted your own companions a little while ago, for fuck's sake. 

Sesshoumaru lunges for them wordlessly, Tokijin drawn with a swish, and a LOT more crackles of energy surrounding him. Jakotsu swings his sword at the incoming enemy, wondering in alarm if the barrier doesn't actually affect this guy, since Sesshoumaru doesn't react at all to that energy trying to fry him out of existence. Sesshoumaru swats away the line of connected blades trying to curl around him again, striking a defensive stance as Jakotsu's weapon is deflected. 

Yeah, maybe a fraction of a second, dude. My CAT has drawn more blood on me than that. 

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Another whiplash-inducing one, unfortunately. There were a lot of very short abrupt changes in scene that I think could have been reduced by a little rearranging. The only one of these I really agree needed to be where it was and as short as it turned out to be was the one with Kikyou. It helps to set up her entrance into the conflict later on, but it doesn't dwell long enough to make it super obvious. 

The chapter doesn't dwell very long on Suikotsu's perceived unification of identity either, but I'm not sure it's a good thing in this case. He barely has time to get really cocky about his supposed freedom from his goody-two-shoes other half before it's proven the doctor isn't as gone as he'd hoped. The false line of thinking was so brief that it didn't have the opportunity to turn into a downfall for him, which is the kind of purpose a turn-around like that should serve. As it stands, he just wasn't able to kill those kids like he wanted. Less a "downfall", more a mild inconvenience. Anticlimactic, honestly.

Sesshoumaru manages to make me laugh again in this one, in a much more subtle way than usual. We get TWO characters who assume at first that Sesshoumaru's silence on the affect the barrier is having on him means it just DOESN'T affect him at all. Jaken will no doubt continue to think this; I suspect that Sesshoumaru dropped him off long before the destination for this reason, in addition to not having Jaken underfoot and complaining about how much the barrier hurts the whole fight, and Jaken's own safety of course. Sesshoumaru clearly doesn't want anyone to really know that he's vulnerable in any manner, for practical reasons as well as prideful. A guy like him who isn't as friendly as his brother (and that's saying something) can't really afford to show a lot of weakness even to allies. 

I assume the only reason he's doing so in front of Rin here is because it's necessary and her tiny child status isn't liable to lend her any credibility if an enemy is looking to interview a close ally for vulnerabilities. As for Jakotsu and Suikotsu, Sesshoumaru is probz planning on them being too dead to say anything soon anyway.

Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 319 The Pawns of Memory!

Sometimes I feel like I'm a pawn of my own memory, and judging by a lot of the memes floating around, I'd say I'm not the only one. Finding yourself lying awake at night replaying some moment of intense embarrassment or loss in your  life seems to be a pretty pervasive experience, one which makes people wonder why their brains hate them so much. In my advanced age (exaggeration, but still...), I've gotten to the point where I can do that a bit less, because I've had time to train myself MOSTLY out of the habit of dwelling on shit I can't change, emphasis on the MOSTLY. Of course I still have those moments where I just can't stop thinking about that moment ten years ago when I said something stupid and spent the rest of the night hiding my bright red face in shame. 

It begs the question: if I'm the pawn, what larger game are my memories playing here? What's the strategy behind these painful trips down the proverbial lane?

*fingers crossed* Oh PLEASE don't be a fake-out, PLEASE...

Surprisingly, thief!Bakura still has some blood in him to spit up through his gritted teeth. He mumbles that Diabound, his spirit, is fading, and it does indeed seem to finally be dissipating into thin curls of smoke. I am SO relieved right now, I cannot even express it. Through blurred vision, thief!Bakura regards Yami and insists to himself that he MUST kill the pharaoh, increasing his grip on two of his greatly increased collection of Millennium Items as he continues to urge himself that he must stop the pharaoh now. 

An echo of his promise to steal the items and acquire that dark power he wants so bad appears over an image of the mold tablet, and thief!Bakura collapses to his knees next to it gurgling in barely conscious pain. He inserts the Millennium Puzzle into its slot, grinning an thinking there's nothing he can't steal, being the king of thieves and all. In short, the dude's finally lost it. Yami and the priests look on at this rapid descent into madness, Priest Seto vocalizing that it's no good to thief!Bakura, because as long as they have the last Millennium Items, this "great evil god" thief!Bakura keeps referencing won't ever be set free.

At long last, Akhenaden stumbles the rest of the way into the chamber. I'd say better late that never, but I don't think that's true in this case. Especially since when he observes thief!Bakura groaning and putting each item into its designated slot, what began as labored anxious breaths morphs into a quiet sinister laugh as he leans on a pillar for support. That horrible sleep paralysis demon of mine, Zorc Necrophades, looms behind him like the terrifying apparition it is, thinking that everything is at last in place for his ceremony to resurrect his soul. The seven Millennium Items and their wielders are all there, and apparently thief!Bakura didn't really need to get ALL of them in his possession after all. Pawn that he was the whole time, ZN dismissively says thief!Bakura has served his purpose.

Yeah, that'll happen in those sleep paralysis fits.

Thief!Bakura screams as his whole body dissolves into sand, Yami staring in disbelief and horror at him disappearing in the worst way possible. Behind Yami, most of the priests are gathered around Kalim's inert form, yelling his name in shock as he too starts turning into sand. Siamun stutters, questioning what magic this is that has him literally collapsing into grains of sand. I guess he was living in an hourglass, and his time was up. Are my jokes getting worse? Probably.

Anyway, farewell Kalim. I'm sorry that I had to repeatedly look your name up so often. 

The screaming from thief!Bakura has ceased, simply because his mouth has completely dissolved, but his wide, horror-stricken eyes are still wide with the slow existential agony to which he's been subjected. This is pure fucking nightmare fuel guys, no lie. Someone off-panel advises Yami that this is actually a RULE of this world - when a pawn is no longer required, it disappears from the game. Yami is even further shocked by the new voice, and by the it addressing him by Yuugi's name.

Because this is actual Hell? I don't know. 

Asshole!Bakura asks Yami sarcastically how it's going, because he's clearly reveling in how absurd a struggle Yami has been engaging in this entire arc. He says Yami seems to have gotten into character pretty easily, only to acknowledge this whole world is based on Yami's memories and his own life 3000 years before, so it's not all that surprising really. Yami repeats the term "World of Memory" as a question, asking asshole!Bakura if he really means that thief!Bakura and Kalim are turning to sand because the world they're in right now isn't real. Not sure if he doesn't remember ZN already kind of revealing this before because he turned back time, OR if ZN's whole long-winded exposition session wasn't really out loud. Either way, or BOTH, Yami appears to be confused all over again, but asshole!Bakura isn't in a particularly communicative mood to fix that. Instead of directly confirming what he means, asshole!Bakura indicates that people turning to sand isn't the only strange thing that is going on, drawing Yami's attention to what's happening behind him.

Or what's NOT happening. Yami turns to see, shockingly, that all the priests are gathered around the half-dissolved Kalim, noting that they're all frozen and that time has stopped. 

Wait, did I say ALL the priests were frozen?

Yami notices right away that, in addition to still being mobile, Akhenaden has taken two of the remaining three Millennium Items off the frozen priests. Oh, so Yami and Yuugi combining their energy to summon Ra before isn't allowed because it isn't what happened back in the day, but THIS is fair game? Does ZN expect me to believe that he had enough power over the real world at this point in the real course of events to freeze time and have Akhenaden just pilfer those last Millennium Items? Or can I just conclude that the metaphor is dead and he just doesn't give a shit about whatever perimeters he set up before?

Akhenaden mumbles to Yami that the time has finally come, while Yami asks in horror what he's doing with those Millennium Items, in deliberate disbelief over what this probably means. Suddenly, Yami tenses with a groan, hyper aware of the fact that he can't move now, just like the priests. Thief!Bakura chuckles in the knowledge that the almighty Zorc Necrophades stopped time so that only Akhenaden can move now. More like almighty DICK Zorc Necrophades, supreme hypocrite. 

Yami groans again, watching helplessly as Akhenaden just walks right on past. Akhenaden reaches up toward his face while he makes his way across the chamber, indicating there's one last item to "get".

... Ew.

Akhenaden is still taking his time getting over to the tablet as asshole!Bakura encourages him to become their key to victory and raising up the great evil god. He might even be getting slower, what with all that blood-loss. As Yami can do nothing but watch Akhenaden get closer to the mold tablet, asshole!Bakura tells Yami that in no uncertain terms, he's just a pawn in this world driven by his own memories. Yami gapes over this description of "pawn".

What, thank you for informing him that this is another of those "what if we lived in a simulation?" black holes of thought? I would thank you for NOT telling me that, personally. Clearly he's aware that he's not really doing Yami a favor right now, given how much sardonic mirth he's drawing from it. Still frozen, Yami stares impotently as asshole!Bakura just laughs darkly at him. 

Meanwhile, in a city center that is just as immobile as Yami, its inhabitants still as statues in the middle of running and walking, the sky is swirled and darkened above them. Jonouchi is still moving about, though, urging the others to look at the new weird shit that's going on. The dart around looking at the frozen denizens of the city, Yuugi declaring after more deliberate observation that everyone has stopped dead. He wonders aloud what's happened to the busy city around them, Jonouchi waving his hand in front of a child with a ball mid toss in an attempt to get his paused attention (still not grasping that the kid wouldn't have paid him any mind if he WAS still moving). Honda wiggles his fingers in front of his OWN face, stating that THEY'RE still moving normally though. 

Jonouchi reiterates that everyone is frozen, and describes them as looking like a bunch of dolls, to which Anzu replies that it reminds her of when they were turned into figurines in Bakura's tabletop RPG game, way back in the beginning of their association. This gives Yuugi shocked pause, and he looks around at all the statues surrounding them, thinking on this word "figurines" until the epiphany actualizes after a moment. He looks up, with horror dawning on him, wondering about the nature of this world. With each new panel, we get a little more zoomed out, until the people below including Yuugi and company are pinpricks, the buildings are mere featureless boxes, and even the gate to the palace looks a bit dwarfed.

Just little sims experiencing the notorious 3 AM frame-rate tank.

OH! THAT'S why Bakura had to be excluded from the adventure in the puzzle. Well-played, KT.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The battle preceding this felt like it was taking an awful long time to resolve, so I'm tremendously relieved that it's over now. It was by no means awful, and had a lot of interesting points to it that I've already mentioned in previous entries, but it did drag on a bit. After the ghosts started behaving like a collective "get out of jail free" card for thief!Bakura, that's about when the mini arc started to lose quite a bit of luster. I understand really pushing your protagonist in the tension department and not letting up, but when the device for such starts to seem more like a cheap excuse with NO rules, and unanswerable questions start popping up in a reader's head, the whole situation might be living beyond its natural existence.

While I'm on the tangent of cheap excuses with no rules, can I just piss and moan over this time-freeze for a moment? The last time our protagonists experienced this time-fuckery, as I briefly referred to above, is when ZN turned back time to correct the flow of events and prevent Yuugi from interfering in the true course of events. I didn't LIKE this, but I did understand that this was fair if ZN wanted the natural timeline to be followed as closely as possible, especially if that would lead to the conditions he needed in order to redo that ritual to bring him back into the world. With the time-freeze, though, it seems there are one of two possibilities for it. The first is that this is how things actually went in the original iteration of events; somehow ZN had enough power and influence over the actual real world to freeze time and have Akhenaden steal the rest of the Millennium Items to put them in their designated slots. But if asshole!Bakura's dialog is to be trusted, two of our characters are only turning into sand because they're no longer needed for the larger game at play here within the Memory World, which is not following too closely the rules of reality because of its RPG status. It follows the rules dictated by ZN, and ZN seems to be making those determinations as he goes along.

Because the second possibility is that ZN is pausing time to his own benefit, regardless of his declaration that he cared so much about the integrity of the true events before. He's cheating, because he doesn't actually give a shit about how things actually went, using it only as an excuse when Yami manages to pull one over on him. Which actually makes sense, considering the stakes for him are rather high. His whole aim is to be reborn into the actual world, and not be trapped in the puzzle anymore. Much as it makes me bristle that he's being so hypocritical right now, it does make sense that he would do anything possible to tip the scales, so to speak, in his favor.

He's certainly got much more at stake in this than any of the other cheating villains, especially in the early chapters, and I can respect that. Better than Shadi, low as a bar that is to clear and all.

I'm kind of tickled by the shot of the game setup at the end there, I've got to say. I might have mentioned before how I thought it was a little odd that Bakura wasn't allowed to come along on their quest in the Millennium Puzzle, because it seemed like asshole!Bakura had already infiltrated the damn thing, so it shouldn't have made that much of a difference. It's clear now that Bakura, and his asshole counterpart OUTSIDE the puzzle, had to be out in the museum to put together the whole game board with these elaborate components. Given that Bakura doubtlessly has access to all kinds of shit with his father being an administrator of the museum, it makes sense that he could get into a conference room and get everything all set up in there, including the unconscious bodies of at least one of his buddies, with relative ease. I say "relative" because I don't know if I would believe a high school kid would be able to realistically do such a thing in reality, but kiddo has a bit of power behind him with the Millennium Ring and all.

The big-ass ZN mummy in the background awaiting its resurrection must have been a BITCH to move in there, regardless.