Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 330 The Guardian God!

Though I'm sure this is a completely different thing in the chapter below, I'm imagining those home or even community shrines with the protector/patron gods in them. The ones with the offerings and statuary, and the little trinkets that these spirit beings really like, so they'll be more inclined to like their charges in association. This is, of course, a practice in a LOT of different cultures and societies, and you can go just about ANYWHERE and find these if you look close enough. They're lovely little things too, not bad to look at, so visually you're never disappointed when you do come across them. The most beautiful I ever saw was one to Papa Legba in a little shop, with loose tobacco and colorful candies on it, a bottle of obscure rum, and lit up with candles. 

It makes me wonder, since I've seen a lot of people getting into pop culture magyk on the internet lately, if one day I'll come across one for the god cards or monster characters from THIS series. Might be interesting.

Oh yeah, I forgot Priest Seto's brain was breaking, just like all those palace walls around him.

Akhenaden says that the previous pharaoh was his older brother, and asks if Priest Seto knows what that means, only to quickly provide the answer himself - royal blood flows through Priest Seto's veins. Dude, I think he's still trying to wrap his head around the fact that you're his father. He's sweating as he repeats the "royal blood" phrase in his head. Akhenaden declares that the pharaoh's fate is to theirs as light is to shadow. NO. NO Akhenaden, this isn't the SATs, do not start spouting nonsensical analogies like you're a Pearson Vue proctor. Knock that shit off!

Akhenaden DOESN'T knock that shit off, though, and says that now the shadow power has awakened, the world will enter a new age. This is just as bad as all those terrible metaphors before, SPARE ME. Akhenaden invites Priest Seto to join him, kill the pharaoh, and rule the new shadow world. Priest Seto is so tensed up and jaw is so clenched that he could be made of stone. Meanwhile, the walls are still tumbling down around him. Taking their time, aren't they? All he's thinking about really is Kisara still inside. 

Once again, Akhenaden speaks of Kisara in terms of Priest Seto's possession, telling him to let her die, and then her god monster will take residence in HIS soul. Priest Seto closes his eyes as Akhenaden yells at him to use the white dragon to become king, repeating that he's his son. Starting out with a mumble and evolving into a roar, Priest Seto responds that even if Akhenaden WERE his father, he's not going to sell his soul to the darkness. 

Yeah, you tell that douchebag to go fuck himself!

The ground is cracking and shifting as Priest Seto runs into what's left of the palace, but even when he comes across some guards telling him it's too dangerous to be there and urging him to turn back, he just yells at them to get out of his way. He lifts an arm and grunts as he avoids falling debris when running down a corridor. At the end of it, there's a barred chamber that is so far still standing, which he sprints to in order to yell through the prison door a question if Kisara is okay. She's looking pretty frightened when she turns around in her crumbling cell, calling out to him in desperation. 

As he's unlocking the door, he informs her that the palace is about to collapse. As if she couldn't figure THAT out herself. She asks him why this is happening, but at first he just responds with a command to run quickly. 

Oh man, I don't know if that's the most REASSURING way of letting her know this isn't her fault... But he does add that she shouldn't worry, because what's inside her isn't a monster, so that's nice. 

A particularly threatening crack of the failing building reminds him that they're in danger of being buried alive, and he grabs Kisara's wrist to lead her along, ordering her to hurry and get going as well. As if HE wasn't the one who paused for a little rant. Once they're run out the door and escaped the palace just as it's getting serious about falling down, Priest Seto stops on the edge of the destruction and tells Kisara to get away from there as fast as she can to a place far away, where the fires of war won't reach her. I don't know if that's necessarily possible with this particular threat, but fine, I guess we can all indulge in the fantasy that she'll be able to outrun the end of the world for a moment. She hesitates, but Priest Seto yells at her to go again, so she turns to do as he suggests. But she directs thanks at him just before she starts fleeing again. 

As she's making her exit, Priest Seto mentally advises her to not be caught by the shadows and always look to the light. I feel like this is instruction she doesn't need, what with a cool light-oriented dragon hanging out inside her. In any case, Priest Seto glares ahead of him, because a wild douchebag has appeared. 

I guess it's never occurred to him that Priest Seto doesn't WANT to do that. 

Priest Seto inclines his head a little and closes his eyes, and it kind of looks like he's counting to ten, which amuses me. He looks back up to tell Akhenaden that he's NOT his father, that the best part of his father died on the battlefield long ago, giving his life bravely. Akhenaden remains silent a moment, the mask making it impossible to tell how he's taking this high-brow insult. Then dark arcs of electricity shoot out of his palms into the ground, and he promises to MAKE Priest Seto accept his "gift". Fucking BOOMER shit, I swear.

With a look of horror, Priest Seto seems to notice that Kisara has not ACTUALLY run away, and is still standing awkwardly a distance behind him. She looks a cross between confused and mournful, as he twists to view her with a terrified gape. Akhenaden asserts that a god is born.

RIP Kisara. You were too naturally fucking cool for the role that this story stuck you in, and I'm tempted to just completely rewrite the whole thing so you can be the badass you were clearly meant to be. 

Don't hold your breath for that, though, because there is NO time in my life for a fix-it fic right now. 

Anyway, as you can see in the lower left hand corner of the double-page spread up there, we're back in the thick of the main battle with Zorc, and ka monsters are fighting the undead soldiers in the air, while the normal living soldiers are fighting them on the ground. One of these normal soldiers shouts back at the knot of #importantPeople that they've lost too many men and their enemy is WAY too strong. Yami scoffs in frustration, watching Hasan square-off against several of the undead above. He thinks there's too many of them, wondering how they can fight an army of the dead like this. 

Siamun steps forward and moves to remove the cloth mask he's had over his face this entire time, suggesting that the great pharaoh leave this to him. He's holding up the Millennium Key with his other hand simultaneously. As the mask flutters away from his jaw, we can see he genuinely looks just like a more serious Sugoroku. Siamun asserts that there's still power in these old bones, and he's fixing to use it to protect the pharaoh. Holding up the key even higher, Siamun begins appealing to the "demon god of the palace" with its five sacred parts sealed into stone, declaring that he is releasing it to assist in their hour of need. SOMEHOW, that shrine is still standing, and a collection of five tablets on the wall are lit up by Siamun's call. With a final plea for his sacred spirit to come on down...

And boy, DOES it burn those foes. A wide bast nearly obscures Exodia's whole torso is expelled from its massive hands that instantly incinerates a whole slew of the undead soldiers. Siamun watches the ghostly bones of the undead dissolve into nothing with a heavy serious frown. 

Zorc, I think I speak for everyone when I say - we've seen enough. 

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Once again, we have a problem with the representation of time. The palace seems to take FAR too long to collapse, and at times it even appears to PAUSE in its destruction just so that Priest Seto can have a little monologue about the monstrosity of man. It really does file down the urgency of the scene to a nub and at times takes the tension RIGHT OUT altogether. Just too many pauses for musings or gapes and not enough near misses to give the impression that there's no time to waste. And I can't lie, seeing later on in the chapter that the Shrine of Wedju is still standing in the backyard when the whole palace was collapsing around Priest Seto and Kisara just further entrenched the plot convenience function of all that destruction. While I understand that the priests and pharaoh's resistance to Zorc DEPENDS on them being able to summon from it, it's just a tad janky that it would remain intact when everything else is going to shit.

And can I just say, Priest Seto's rant was not only inappropriate for the moment, but also struck me as kind of misplaced altogether. He's expressing a disgust for how his father was led down a destructive path, but then applies it to all of humanity as if there aren't specific players. He should know this isn't necessarily a "human" problem in using himself as an example - he's resisting his father's wishes for him to become the king of a shadow world turned inside-out pretty adamantly. It just seems like an extrapolation that Priest Seto has no business making. If anything, this is another indictment of the system that we've seen multiple corruptions manifest in how it persuades the people in charge of it to abuse and take from the people at the bottom, to the point that the whole world is modified to preserve the structure of power.

But Yu-Gi-Oh isn't ready to have THAT conversation. So we get a lame-ass "man is the real monster" mini-rant instead.

I really liked seeing Exodia again - I always did love a good retro callback. The sheer size of Exodia kind of gives you a TINY bit of hope that it might be able to match Zorc in power as well. The final line of the chapter really took the wind out of my sails, though, because it sounds like that blow is probably not even going to TOUCH Zorc. But I have to at least agree with the living soldiers at the scene, since watching the zombie army get incinerated into nothing was so super cool. 

Lastly, I won't go too deep into my thoughts on Kisara's fall; you already know pretty much all my opinions on how disappointing I found her writing and role, so I'd just largely be repeating myself. I will say that I mourn the character she COULD have been more than the character she was, sad as that may be. I just really wish she had been given a LITTLE agency, but even at the end, she's just standing there, not even putting some distance between her and the threat. 

What a waste.