Little bit late, isn't it? Halloween season has already come and gone, the jack-o-lanterns have done their jobs and chased the roaming malevolent spirits away, and they've returned to their tombs as per tradition. Now we're calling them back out to gather? Can't we just let the dead rest instead of insisting they entertain us for all eternity? Is this just a thinly veiled metaphor for my own tendency to drag out and painstakingly reread all my old favorite stories that have long since become irrelevant to the world's literary focus?
... Maybe?
At least these story-ghosts won't scream in my face in frustration over their limbo state, though.
We see again asshole!Bakura shielding his eyes against the explosion that reduces his life points to 2900, before Yuugi announces that it's not over yet. Asshole!Bakura grits his teeth as Yuugi informs his Marshmallon that his opponent is wide open at the moment. It opens that creepy upside down smile to reveal two rows of sharp teeth, flying at asshole!Bakura to chomp down on the guy's raised arm and take his points down to 2600. Asshole!Bakura looks... less than happy over this.
While some wisps of smoke clear (not digital in this particular case, since their Duel Disks are purely imaginary here), asshole!Bakura scowls about Yuugi putting up an awfully big fight for being a mere vessel. I have a feeling it's just NEVER going to hit him that his view of "vessels" is reductive, even when he loses this thing. Yuugi just glares at him back wordlessly, because there's clearly no point in trying to talk to the guy.
Jonouchi and Honda pump their fists in the air and cheer about Yuugi tearing that jerk apart, but Anzu is strangely silent. She's looking at Yuugi and thinking about how Yami was always the one who fought the duels before this moment, but now Yuugi is the one who has to fight to save Yami. Observing the determined glare on Yuugi's face, she assumes he must be thinking about how he has to be strong, has to help Yami back to the place he belongs, etc. It's not a bad assumption, just a little simplistic.
But not nearly as simplistic as the other boys - Jonouchi gushes over how Yuugi hasn't lost a single point yet, and is kicking butt... until Honda points out the evil grin that's spread across asshole!Bakura's face. Honda asks with suspicion what this guy is up to, a question he no doubt won't have to wait long for an answer to. Asshole!Bakura giggles that the vessel knows how to play cards too, as he now sees. Yuugi frowns, looking a little put-off by the epithet he's been given, as asshole!Bakura says that any duelist will get a high when facing a truly worthy opponent. But, too bad for Yuugi, asshole!Bakura characterizes himself as just a killer, prepared to get HIS high when he's watching Yuugi bleed to death. He then promises to show Yuugi a battle worse than anything he can imagine, but fails to specify in what way. I can't EASILY see asshole!Bakura giving Yuugi such a bad challenge that Yuugi ends this thing with all his point intact and bored as fuck, but the way he's been playing so far...
Jonouchi, of course, recoils, pointing and asking what the deal is with the creepy dolls with their red and black gift boxes. Asshole!Bakura asked Yuugi which of the boxes it'll be for him, since they both have to choose and he's going first, warning him with his despicable grin that one of the boxes is cursed. Yuugi thinks in alarm on this "cursed" business, asshole!Bakura thinking that the red box gives life to the player who chooses it while the black one casts a curse over the field of play. Thanks for reiterating what it says on the card, dude, appreciate your panel filler. Yuugi takes a moment to wonder which box he's going to choose, red or black, then comes to a decision on the red box, which he points out.
Asshole!Bakura must have been gunning for that curse to begin with, because his grin doesn't waver as he acknowledges the choice, and that the black box is his. Jonouchi grinds his teeth while he worries about what's going to happen with the red box Yuugi picked. Asshole!Bakura urges them all to just wait and see, with Yuugi regarding him in pure suspicion. The ribbon unwinds and the red box opens up of its own accord, blasting plumes of smoke into the air. Asshole!Bakura points at Yuugi with a gameshow host smile, saying he chose wisely, because every card placed in either of their graveyards henceforth gives him 200 life points, a permanent effect.
Jonouchi hoots in celebration that Yuugi hit the jackpot with that one, Honda joining him in his elation, but Yuugi is still looking VERY wary as he asks asshole!Bakura just exactly what the BLACK box does. Asshole!Bakura chuckles, thanking Yuugi for the curse, to which Yuugi responds with alarm. Unable to help himself, asshole!Bakura proceeds to let them all know that the black box destroys the player's graveyard.
Yuugi's jaw is slack with shock at this pronouncement, Anzu wondering what that even MEANS. The black box at last opens to answer, plumes of smoke rising into the air before Yuugi's alarmed gaze.
But asshole!Bakura assures Yuugi that he doesn't have to be afraid, because these ghosts can't attack or defend at all, so they're not dangerous. It's no wonder Yuugi has a bad feeling about this, though, because there's not a chance in HELL that asshole!Bakura doesn't have a card handy that will change that "not dangerous" status around.
Asshole!Bakura places another card face down, and then plays a monster in defense called "Necrosoldier", which just looks like another toy tin soldier type with a popgun propped on its shoulder and a sword in the other hand. The only thing to distinguish it as mildly creepy is its beady black-ringed eyes, which honestly doesn't hold a candle to Marshmallon's upside down razor smile. How is ONE of Yuugi's monster's outperforming the entire spooky lineup of asshole!Bakura's themed deck on the horror front? He must feel so embarrassed right now...
Except that when he ends his turn, he's still pretty cocky as he thinks that he's going to rip the word "victory" from Yuugi's mental dictionary. He's just really good at hiding his embarrassment, I presume. Yuugi wonders what he's up to before he starts his own turn, but he doesn't get to utter another word before asshole!Bakura interrupts him to inform him that his declaration means he can activate Necrosoldier's special ability. Ugh, I'm beginning to see why asshole!Bakura and Zorc Necrophades are so chummy. Neither one of them can seem to shut their TRAPS for two seconds.
Anyway, asshole!Bakura explains that his Necrosoldier loves him some company. You know, like misery. Since there's only one of them out there during asshole!Bakura's standby phase, another one can appear - which it does. There are two of them now, much like the twin dolls, because asshole!Bakura's garbage always seems to come in twos. Yuugi notes that the attack and defense of these soldiers are both zero, but he's damn sure they're going to be trouble. On the other hand, he's able to announce that his Silent Swordsman advances to level 5 on this turn, raising its attack points to 3500. He knows that with those two shield monsters on asshole!Bakura's side, he can win this thing if he can manage to summon one more monster here.
Shit. He jinxed it.
He summons up Silent Magician, which is another of those neato leveling monsters that asshole!Bakura hates so much, a short little dude with a white robe outfit and a staff similar to the Dark Magician. Jonouchi and Honda express their excitement over Yuugi's upcoming monster combo attack that is TOTALLY gonna get asshole!Bakura. Totally. Asshole!Bakura responds to all of this with a flat expression, which should have been a tip-off, honestly. Instead of reading the signs that he was so good at doing before, Yuugi instructs his Marshmallon and Silent Magician to attack the Necrosoldiers, and Silent Swordsman to take down asshole!Bakura directly. The monsters advance rapidly, and disturbingly, in the case of Marshmallon.
Asshole!Bakura activates a trap card, stopping the sword falling on his head midair at the last moment, something that doesn't escape the gaping Yuugi. Grinning, asshole!Bakura adds that this is a permanent trap called The Narrow Corridor, negating a third attack from the opponent, should one occur, of course. While asshole!Bakura mocks how this is too bad for his enemy, Yuugi scoffs over how his third monster couldn't attack, and he won't be able to attack with more than two in the future, because this is a permanent trap.
Jonouchi curses over how close this was to being a victory for Yuugi, but Honda points out that asshole!Bakura has lost his shield monsters, predicting that Yuugi will definitely win on the next turn. Dammit Honda, stop jinxing this shit for us!! Yuugi ends his turn on a less than celebratory note. Asshole!Bakura's face is practically splitting for how wide his grin is, thinking that once he plays this next and final card in what he calls "the ceremony of death", there's no stopping it. Congratulations on finding the ONE situation in which that phrase would not be a gross and absurd over-exaggeration, well done you dork.
Yuugi sweats a little as he waits for asshole!Bakura to begin his turn, and he's not making it easy on him. Asshole!Bakura drags the start to his turn a little as he slowly pulls out a permanent spell card from his hand and pronounces that he's playing it directly.
I thought at first that this wasn't great, but then Yuugi thinks about how this must include all the monsters floating around in homeless wandering about because asshole!Bakura got rid of his graveyard, and now it's dawning on me that this is DEVASTATING. Yuugi is sweating pretty hard when he realizes that this is a terrible combo for him.
Anzu looks to Jonouchi to explain why this is so bad, because she observes that asshole!Bakura has to be taking a big risk as well, since they both have to discard their decks. After a moment of speechlessness, Jonouchi tells her to trust him that this is particularly bad for Yuugi, because asshole!Bakura doesn't have a graveyard to discard his cards TO. She's suddenly hit with the reality that this means Yuugi is the ONLY one who will have to discard cards, and Jonouchi draws out an agreement with her new horror. He counts the "ghosts" on asshole!Bakura's side of the field for a total of six monsters out there, and six cards Yuugi will have to discard each turn, and it will be even MORE soon. Yuugi stares down at his Duel Disk in alarm, with the knowledge that asshole!Bakura is trying to destroy his deck.
Asshole!Bakura starts to pull a card from his hand, proclaiming he's going to move on with the game while all this shit sinks in. He summons another doll, a "Necromannequin" with its articulated limbs all misassembled limbs and two heads (one of which is sprouting another arm) sticking out at odd, vaguely horrifying angles. Asshole!Bakura informs Yuugi that it's his turn now, adding that another Necrosoldier shows up with the beginning of Yuugi's portion of the round. Yuugi recoils a little, since the new count is EIGHT monsters, EIGHT cards he'll have to discard every turn, and it'll get even worse if he summons more.
I know what I'D do, but it would probably involve me losing and dying, so... don't take advice from me. Ever.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? At first I was thinking the success of asshole!Bakura's strategy entirely depended on Yuugi picking the red box, which would be a bit of a gamble on his part. But I figured out a bit later than I should have that it doesn't ACTUALLY matter who's graveyard is destroyed, because it would fuck over Yuugi no matter what. If Yuugi had chosen the black box, and his graveyard was destroyed, he's not losing monsters at the rate that asshole!Bakura is. That means that asshole!Bakura would have fewer cards to discard by the end stage of his strategy, AND would be getting paid in life points when he discarded them, which would mean he would be racking up points while Yuugi couldn't touch him with his strongest monster due to The Narrow Corridor card. The only question here is what the cap on Silent Swordsman's leveling up is, but whatever it is, there's still plenty of opportunity for asshole!Bakura to get rid of it in various ways. It's a little more challenging for him, but only a little.
As it stands, all asshole!Bakura needs to do in this case is run out Yuugi's deck. By then it doesn't matter how many life points Yuugi has accumulated through the red box's gift, he automatically loses, as has precedent in Battle City.
This is... far more impressive a setup than I had assumed at first. Not just because BOTH choices of Yuugi's were clearly thought-out to some degree do solidify the legitimacy of this as a viable strategy. There's also the GREAT work of establishing Yuugi as a contender here, really showing off how good and competent he is, and making it look for all the world that he had this thing in the bag... and then pulling the rug out from under him. And US, as an audience! I'm in awe of how intense the struggle has become over the course of just this one chapter. I expected the tension to rise to a degree, but by showing how great Yuugi is at this game, showing how much asshole!Bakura seemed to underestimate him, and then showing that asshole!Bakura CAN adapt and is prepared to face a greater opponent than he had at first anticipated with an actually pretty firm strategy that could ultimately benefit him either way is damn near GENIUS.
I'm genuinely floored. This could be one of the greatest chapters in this story. I certainly LOVE it like it is.
Bakura certainly brought his A-Game this time around. None of that Battle City strategy that started off so terribly.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, Silent Magician is a lady! It's not immediately apparent, since her clothing and figure make her look androgynous, but she is very... let's say "top heavy" at Level 8.
Oh a female magician! Difficult to tell here for sure, what with the baggy robes and the childish appearance. It's mildly amusing that you would describe Silent Magician as "top heavy" in the higher levels - the implication that all that power might be stored in the breasts is just a LITTLE funny, lol.
DeleteIs... is it not true?
DeleteJokes aside, I only meant she's more apparently a woman as she levels up, as opposed to her present androgynous state.
No, sorry to say, all giant breasts mean is more back pain and unwanted attention, lol!
DeleteMostly, I do try NOT to gender the monsters in my recaps, even if they are VERY obviously in male/female bodies. It just seems somewhat weird to me for some reason, giving a picture on a card a definite gender. The exception to this is The Dark Magician at this moment in the story, but thinking on this policy of mine, I might have a hang-up about this for no reason.
I usually don't think of monster genders unless it's explicitly something like Mai using female monsters, so that's fair.
DeleteThough, I will admit I always thought of BEWD as male as a kid, so Kisara threw my preconceived notion for a loop!
I think there was a part of me that thought of the Blue Eyes White Dragon as male too, even though I knew about Kisara, since I gave them male nicknames way back in the early days of the blog. Then again, they were joke names based on the "Ol' Blue Eyes" deal, so I chose them more for comedic value than anything.
DeleteAsshole!Bakura's strategy is pretty brilliant as you've outlined and what's even cooler is that it also meshes well with his Battle City strategy. As you pointed out, for example, in the event Yugi selects the black box, Yugi's not losing monsters at the rate asshole!Bakura is for his All-Killing Death Card to be worrisome for a deck out loss, plus asshole!Bakura would be gaining life points. What's even more interesting however, is that Bakura could summon Dark Necrofear without having to leave monsters in attack mode for Yugi to destroy; he would only have to discard several cards at the end of his turn via the All-Killing Death Card and so could easily get 3 fiend-type monsters into his graveyard within the 5 turn limit OR even better, Dark Necrofear itself gets discarded by the All-Killing Death Card without having to summon it first and asshole!Bakura can do the Destiny Board combo, possessing Yugi's monsters, with his All-Killing Death card suppling life points and the Narrow Corridor controlling Yugi's attack options. In the event asshole!Bakura loses any important spell cards, we've seen that there are plenty of cards to retrieve spells from the graveyard thanks to Marik (assuming asshole!Bakura has access to those cards, they are pretty rare to be fair) and fiends generally are known to have effects that go off in the graveyard (though this is me applying my real life card game sensibilities to the manga, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume asshole!Bakura has fiend cards like that, after all Dark Necrofear is certainly one).
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, I think it's safe to say that asshole!Bakura intended to fuck Yugi over no matter WHAT he chose. It's a viable and flexible strategy that actually feeds well into his previous strategy, making it even better.
In the manga, Silent Magician's breasts aren't really noticeable; I mean yeah, they're there when she levels up but it's not really an obvious feature of her design like with Dark Magician Girl; Silent Magician wears a long robe like Dark Magician (only with a lighter color scheme than Dark Magician's darker colors). Honestly, Silent Magician leveled up gives me Dark Magician vibes more than anything else with her appearance and demeanor. Her robes are actually interesting because if you look closely, there's an ankh (which symbolizes life in Egypt) on the robe and her color motif is primarily white which represents death and mourning in Japan. Plus the "Silent" part of her name can have a dual meaning; it can relate to Yugi's silent development but it can also have death connotations to it. Silent Magician is going to be VERY important later but I'm keeping mum. :^)
Also, fun fact, Silent Magician appears on the cover of the volume where Yugi plays Otogi in DDD; further indicating KT had some of this planned out.
I had completely forgotten about Necrofear! That would indeed begin to help the alternate path in this strategy take a more definite shape, and help to retroactively give his Battle City strategy more meaning. I don't mind the real life card game knowledge being applied here, because even if KT had made all this stuff up on the spot while writing it, knowing it can work in a PRACTICAL way certainly can help to add a ton of believability to the scenario as a whole.
DeleteNeat info on the Silent Magician, and a really neat interpretation - I should take a bit of a closer look at the design when I go over the next chapter. I tend to overlook character design when I'm reading these comics, despite that being a MAJOR part of interpreting the character, because I always feel woefully lacking in knowledge on the subject. I'm very impressed with some of the designs I see in this and other stories, because it shows an amazing attention to visual shorthand and understanding of what makes a character visually striking, but I have very little understanding of that kind of skill myself.
And thanks for alerting me to the fact that Silent Magician was on the cover of that volume - I went back to check and sure enough, right there in the corner! A little more blue than white, though, including in the skin, lol!