Not that this is an option or anything. There's just some things you HAVE to do, damn near unbearable tasks that are nonetheless necessary for life to go on. For most of us, these are adulting things like vacuuming and sending out all those emails you've been avoiding for work. I just spent the better part of an HOUR doing the almost impossible puzzle of sticking hours on viable projects with enough funding for my fucking timesheet. How I managed to finish the damn thing, I have no idea, not when I wanted to throw up my hands at every turn and simply quit. I guess I just wanted to get paid more.
Yuugi's goal of helping Yami with all that unfinished business of his is similarly overriding whatever urge to step back from the fight he might have. And similarly scaled for the higher stakes, of course.
I gotta admit, me not getting one paycheck would be a little bit less devastating than this.
Of course, Yuugi adds the part about black box asshole!Bakura chose eliminating his graveyard, which means he's the only on who has to discard anything, a pretty terrible combo by his estimation. He wonders in desperation if there's any way to get out of this, as Asshole!Bakura reminds him it's his turn. Without acknowledgement of this, Yuugi announces that he draws, looking sheepishly at his new card, Magic Barrier. Thankfully, asshole!Bakura doesn't open his fucking mouth to declare yet ANOTHER effect of his strategy, like he's done the last couple of turns. Still, Yuugi broods on what it is he should do.
From the sidelines, Anzu despairs over the fact that Yuugi has to discard even more cards if he plays another monster. Jonouchi adds that The Narrow Corridor on asshole!Bakura's side means that he really only needs two monsters to defend his whole side of the field, no matter HOW many monsters Yuugi plays. As I pointed out in the last chapter, Honda also draws attention to the fact that asshole!Bakura only has to wait for Yuugi to run out of cards in his deck. Then he wins by default.
Yuugi declares he's placing a card face down, then says he's attacking two of asshole!Bakura's shield monsters, using his Silent Swordsman and Magician monsters. While they lunge forward to fulfill the command, Jonouchi shouts at Yuugi not to do it, since asshole!Bakura will just summon more when they're taken out. Asshole!Bakura grins wickedly, asserting that actually, it's about to get even WORSE for Yuugi.
His monsters having hacked, slashed, and blasted the shit out of asshole!Bakura's shields, Yuugi asks aloud if he got them, like it would really make much of a difference there. With a card held out triumphantly, asshole!Bakura tells him he'll "get it" all right, saying he activated the spell card he's brandishing before Yuugi's attack landed. Yuugi stares in horror.
Appalled that there are TEN of these awful mannequins now, gaping in alarm. Jonouchi grinds his teeth with horrified frustration, fretting over how bad this is because there's twelve monsters on asshole!Bakura's side of the field now whether Yuugi defeats two of them or not, and with the three on Yuugi's side, that's a whole 15 monsters in total. Anzu asks if he means that Yuugi has to discard fifteen cards at the end of this turn, like she even NEEDS to, but Jonouchi goes ahead and answers her in the affirmative. Honda exclaims is disbelief that Yuugi's deck will be obliterated by the next turn at this rate.
Yuugi hangs his head, staring at the floor with an expression of hopelessness. Asshole!Bakura asks if Yuugi is done with his turn, telling him he knows what to do if it is. Asshole!Bakura demands that Yuugi take 15 cards from his deck and put them in the graveyard, his grin that much more vile. Yuugi sweats BULLETS.
Bummer bro. Confidence pretty much decimated, Yuugi peeps after a small pause that this is the end of his turn. Asshole!Bakura chuckles that Yuugi can't break through his weird fence of mannequins, and he doesn't need to to a single thing to win, just sit back and wait. Still, he expresses a desire to drive his metaphorical knife deeper into Yuugi's heart, and maybe twist it a little, for the lulz. So, he summons another doll, this time just the head, but with gross tentacles and a lump of metastasized flesh on it, called "Necroface". It's just in defense, and asshole!Bakura does nothing further before ending his turn. He gloats to Yuugi that this is it, and the precious cinnamon roll has just one more turn to look back on his life before he takes a dirt nap in this shitty game. Asshole!Bakura laughs at Yuugi, whose expression is downcast and unnerved.
Anzu calls out to Yuugi in disbelief and concern, Jonouchi mumbling a curse and asking how Yuugi's supposed to climb out of this hole. Yuugi himself squeezes his eyes shut, the knowledge of what losing this shadow game will mean weighing on him; he'll disappear and won't be able to help Yami anymore. That second part seems to be worse than the first to him, honestly. As he stands motionless against the horde of dolls tangled on asshole!Bakura's side, face downcast, Jonouchi shouts at him that he's a duelist and that he's not to give up until he draws his last card. Yuugi's eyes spring open at the identification as a duelist, looking back up with renewed determination. He recalls that his other self never gave up until the very end, no matter what happened.
Yuugi announces his turn with renewed vigor, drawing a card. We get a clear look at it before even he does, some dragon or something, I'm sure it won't be important. Asshole!Bakura is giggling as usual, but when Yuugi throws his phrase of "this is it" back at him, asshole!Bakura's eyes snap open in time to see Yuugi sacrificing two of his monsters, Silent Magician (we hardly knew ye) and Marshmallon.
Is this the long lost sibling of those god cards, or WHAT?
As the 4th god card up there leans down and snarls at asshole!Bakura, his bloodshot eyes bulge at it in turn, in disbelief that it's really there. Jonouchi exclaims in awe that he's never seen that dragon before, while Yuugi tells asshole!Bakura that the ONE thing that could break this "undead locked" strategy happened to be sleeping in his deck, conveniently enough. Hunched and looking oh-so frazzled, asshole!Bakura repeats this phrasing about the one card that can defeat his strategy weakly. Yuugi confirms that this is indeed the end of their little match, declaring Gandora's special magic attack - for half of Yuugi's life points, Gandora will destroy all monsters on the field, and it will head on out to the graveyard after it's done. At least, that's what it says on the card we're shown.
The jewel-like bubbles in Gandora's hide start glowing, surely a sign it's powering up. A sweating asshole!Bakura stutters that this can't happen, citing that it would even destroy Yuugi's monsters (the remaining ones anyway), but Yuugi appears unconcerned by this. Rather smug, actually.
Suicide dragon activated.
Asshole!Bakura shields his eyes from the brilliant explosion, and the flying pieces of mannequin being flung about, grunting about all his shield monsters being gone. Honda worries from the sidelines that Yuugi's monsters have been destroyed too, but Jonouchi points to a tall figure moving in the cloud after the destruction, completely awed.
Silent Sword, level 7, slashes up asshole!Bakura, who spits blood between clenched teeth as his life points drop to zero. He just barely manages to get out half the question as to WHY Silent Sword was still out on the field and not destroyed like the other monsters, so Yuugi explains to him that he used a little spell card he placed in wait ages ago, Magic Barrier, to make Silent Sword immune to any magical effect.
With this, asshole!Bakura dissolves into wisps of smoke with a defeated growl. One soul fragment gone, about a zillion left to get rid of. *sigh*
Ah yes, the kind of smile that says "I murdered an asshole today and have no regrets". Just another glorious achievement that will make Yami proud.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It felt so... short. Not just the chapter, but the little "duel for the name" sub-game it caps off. I expected this duel to last so much longer than it did, but that's really only because the others before this one tended to drag on a bit, and have a bit more padding than needed. I think, in KT's haste toward the end of the story, he managed to pare this match down to a lean size, keeping the meaningful bits and trimming that fat. As a result, though it feels UNEXPECTEDLY short, it still feels as long as it NEEDED to be to get its point across and still be entertaining/tense. I very much enjoyed it.
I only have a couple of minor criticisms about the chapter's prompt termination of the duel. The first is that Gandora seems just a tad too conveniently OP for this particular purpose. Considering that Yuugi had the ENTIRE Duel Monsters collection at his disposal to put into his dream deck here, it's just a little on the unrealistic side that he would happen imagine that one to fill out one of the 40 cards he's allowed here. Too much unrestricted choice could have easily led him to make the wrong decision and leave that one out. One COULD of course make the argument that he was paying attention during asshole!Bakura's Battle City duel and imagined this strategy as a possibility when choosing his cards for this one, since he had the advantage of hindsight where asshole!Bakura did not, and we've discussed in the comments of the previous chapter how asshole!Bakura's strategy in the past tournament meshed really well with the one he used in this match. To me, that breaks my suspension of disbelief just SLIGHTLY, but it would lend even more credit to Yuugi's dueling chops. After all, he really trounced asshole!Bakura early in the duel, proving that he was NO stranger to how his opponent played the game.
The second criticism is just a missed opportunity: When Yuugi is discarding a stack of cards, we can clearly see the one on top of the pile. This didn't HAVE to be anything special, but I just think it would have been a really cool setup for bringing Gandora back from the graveyard at the end of the game. What can I say? I love my setups and payoffs.
So I actually have a bit of a harsher criticism of this duel than you do; it's regarding Gandora's ability. So in the real game, Gandora more-or-less has the same ability: pay half your life points to destroy as many card on the field as possible except Gandora and any cards that are destroyed via this effect are banished from the game. Then Gandora gets 300 attack points per card destroyed and at the end phase, goes to the graveyard itself. So (loosly) applying Gandora's real effect to the manga allows for this situation to play out the way it did since the cards destroyed are not sent to the graveyard but are banished entirely instead. As an aside, and I know I'm about to sound like I'm contradicting myself, but in the real game Gandora's effect WOULDN'T work because by definition cards that are destroyed must go to the graveyard, meaning in order to be banished, the cards have to go the graveyard FIRST (being destroyed) THEN must be banished from the game entirely; since asshole!Bakura has no graveyard, it's IMPOSSIBLE to destroy those cards which means they cannot be banished either by Gandora's effect (asshole!Bakura's Accursed Necrotwins card would be a ruling nightmare for any tournament judge if it were real lmao).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the whole reason I'm bringing this up is because both Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: the Gathering have banishing mechanics: card effects that banish themselves or other cards in the game and KT was inspired by Magic initially when he created his card game in the manga. Banishing effects in the manga are virtually non-existent (the closest I can recall off the top of my head is Pandora's Beckon to the Dark but I was never clear o0n whether it banishes or destroys) so I wonder if banishing is a game mechanic in the manga? I don't see why it wouldn't be but if not, then Gandora's card effect in the English manga where it only says it DESTROYS all monsters on the field shouldn't have worked since asshole!Bakura doesn't have a graveyard anymore to send any cards to. Is this a case of the English manga messing up the translation for Gandora's effect and the Japanese text is closer to the effect of the real card such that Gandora's banishing other cards on the field from the game entirely in the manga or is there outright no banishing mechanic in the manga and the English manga effect of Gandora is accurate to the original Japanese? I really really hope it's the former because I love this duel, it's one of my favorites in the series and I don't want it's conclusion to possibly be game-breakingly invalid. :^(
Chances are that this card predates the actual TCG card and had its real world variant changed for balance purposes. Kinda like how GX has two ace monsters for Chazz that became Synchro monsters in the real life game.
DeleteI'll address your second question first since it's easier. The Yugioh Wikia has the translated Japanese text as follows:
Delete"At the end of the turn Gandora the Dragon of Destruction is Summoned, it goes to the Graveyard. By paying half of the player's Life, all monsters on the field are destroyed by a magical attack, and removed from the game."
As far as I'm aware, this is the only card in the manga that references removing cards from the game. It's especially strange when neither Yugi nor Bakura talk about this, and it's not shown visually either.
Having said that, I don't think it matters if it removes them or not. Your first paragraph is a bit off: cards don't need to go to the graveyard in order to be destroyed. Whether it's by battle or by card effect, destroying a card can be done with or without a graveyard. (e.g. you can use Raigeki while the card Macro Cosmos is active, which removes from play everything that would be sent to the graveyard, or how Gandora can kill Tokens, which can't exist in the graveyard at all.) In addition, while Gandora's effect in the TCG is destruction by card effect, in the manga it's considered to be an attack, and we already know that attacks are perfectly fine against Bakura's monsters.
Regarding Necro Twin Dolls, in the manga it appears to stop any card effect that specifically references the graveyard. We can only guess how it might work in the TCG, since you'd have to consider cost vs effect (which I won't get into) in these types of situations, and I don't think cost vs effect is a thing in the manga, so adapting it to the TCG might be a bit tricky, even without getting into "destroying your graveyard".
Ah, I see! Okay thank you John, that answers my question! :^)
DeleteI thought cards that were destroyed had to go to the graveyard first by definition of the term destroyed, but I realize that you are correct and that I am mistaken. It's been a long time since I've played Yu-Gi-Oh! at all (let alone competitively lol) so I think I got too hung up on the exact wording of the terminology.
The way I wrote my initial comment was a bit obtuse but my overall main concern was for Yugi's duel with asshole!Bakura in the manga whether or not they had a banishing mechanic because I was never clear on that exactly. The official English translation of manga card effects is sometimes not super reliable and banishing effects are almost non-existent in the manga, so I wondered if the manga had a banishing mechanic at all (which if it didn't, presented problems to the resolution of Yugi's duel).
Thank you again John, you cleared things up for me and I'm happy to know Gandora DOES banish in the manga. I love this duel in the manga, it's one of my favorites so I'm happy that the resolution was a legitimate one.
John to the rescue again! I agree, I really wanted to feel like this card could be valid in the actual game too, because I LOVE this duel. It's so clean, so punchy, and it really emphasizes Yuugi's badassery and growth as a character. It's really good to know that this isn't a game breaker.
DeleteThose Necro Twins on the other hand...
There's a bit of fun symbolism with Yugi's deck. A bunch of child-like monsters that gradually grow up, and his big monster he brings out at the end required him to give up half of himself and destroy the present status quo so he could progress.
ReplyDeleteOooh, I didn't even think about that "giving up half himself to progress" aspect! That pretty much sums up his inevitable separation from Yami and their ultimate need to "move on" mutually. Great observation!
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