Yu-Gi-Oh Transcend Game: Part 2

Trepidation. My feelings going into this chapter are trepidation, all the way down. To be fair, I've been dealing with a series of physical ailments for the past month and a half, which has culminated in a frustrating bout of sciatica that keeps me up at night. I haven't been sleeping very well, and that CAN lead to a tad bit of paranoia about some of the most mundane things. BUT I do remember the horror tinge to the previous installment, that clearly wasn't MEANT to be horrifying, so I'm sort of dreading what other fucked-up shit is going to be in this one that is presented as innocuous. At the very least, I'm poised for some peak Kaiba cringe to come at some point, if nothing else.

Why are there crazy search lights pointing every which way around Kaiba's home? Is this another of those weird rich people things that I don't get?

Kaiba's seated in an elaborate rolling chair, at a big chunky work desk, bent over the top half of the egg-helmet with what looks like a soldering iron in one hand and a magnifying device mounted on an arm in the other. He narrates that he's cooped up in his home lab doing some final adjustments on the test model, and looks forward to the moment of completion. With a little smile, he plans on entering Duel Links himself when that happens and... ruling as its king. 

There it is, peak Kaiba cringe. First page. This bodes well.

Cut to some distance behind him, where a familiar little figure is shown from the back in her baggy dress and bangles, saying Kaiba CAN'T become king. After a panel showing Kaiba in some alarm at NOT being alone in his private lab, the little girl from the end of the previous installment adds dead straight "not EVER", just so we know how serious she is that Kaiba is NOT capable of becoming a king. Sorry buddy, you don't have the DIVINE RIGHT to rule a single thing.

Strangely, Kaiba is also smiling rather easily when he swivels in his chair, more lightly amused that someone is able to creep up behind him in there than upset. He's got composure HERE, but he can't hold onto his shit in less creepy situations? This boy... Anyway, the little girl chuckles, because there weren't quite ENOUGH indicators that she's a freaky ghost child. Why not comb her hair in front of her face while you're at it?

Kaiba recognizes her from the end of the last chapter just like we do, and says so, still wearing that "I'm humoring a little kid" smile. She bows her head and says she's the test subject whose duty it is to help shape his world - a duty I thought belonged to ALL of the test subjects, but that shows what I know. Kaiba has ditched the grin when he speaks again, asking seriously what she wants with him. She waves a hand, asking him not to make such a frightful face, and stating that she only came over to offer her thanks. He repeats this intention as a question, and she explains that Duel Links assembles the consciousness of duelists, a truly ground-breaking system that gives players a brand new field of battle. She then goes on to speculate about if an individual with superior consciousness that transcends human wisdom got mixed in there, only pausing to let Kaiba repeat "superior consciousness" in question too. Humble little thing, isn't she? 

Anyway, she says that in this dimension that's founded in disorder, high levels of consciousness gather and unite, and this allows access to ANOTHER unknown dimension. This is apparently a place that transcends the realm of the living, and she mutters about whether this is the netherworld or just a world of greater dimensions. It's mostly word salad, but you can tell where she's going with this. The girl claims to have heard the voice of someone SUPER DUPER important in the world of Duel Links, a person who no longer exists in THIS dimension, but is now a resident of the netherworld. 

This face is going to show up in my nightmares tonight, I just know it. 

The girl does not seem the least bit disturbed by this (despite being somewhat defensive about his "frightful" frown earlier), and suggests that he could totes sync up with this limited superior consciousness right now if he wanted. We just see his eyes in response, narrowed a bit this time, creepy grin thankfully out of frame. Right in front of his eyes, the little girl just up and vanishes. Kaiba bolts out of his chair, alarmed again that she disappeared. And she'd seemed so SOLID too!

Suddenly, Kaiba has to twist around again, because a monitor above the desk he was working at turns on to show Mokuba, yelling at him that they've got big trouble. Remotely, it appears Mokuba pulls up a hologram in a round projector somewhere in the room, panicking about some weird data they've never seen before coming up on the main branch lab's surveillance monitor, urging big brother to take a look for himself. Seto indeed peers at the globe that appears before him, trailing in an assessment about what it is, allowing Mokuba to fill in the blank with the statement that the Neurons signals are moving in an abnormal pattern. He says the test-subjects' neuro-signals are being drawn away by an unknown consciousness. An unknown consciousness that appears to be in space? The little data points and their connection lines are literally moving UPWARD off the globe, so I guess so. 

Wow, this one is even MORE horrifying! Wait, is he modeling the new murder grin? Is that what this is?

I changed my mind, I LOVE IT. I missed you, murder grin!

So he calls this thing he's been looking for "Project Neurons' final vision", and he's not making this sound any LESS ominous. He turns away from the monitor on which his brother is gaping at him, because he starts laughing like a fucking maniac. Also, he's making this weird pose/gesture as he's walking away toward some sort of open pod, his left elbow raised straight out and the corresponding fist over the center of his chest, his other hand over that - at first I thought he had done the classic "fist in palm" pose, but upon closer inspection, it doesn't look very similar. I don't know what he's doing here, it's weird. Everything he does is fucking strange. 

He sits in the pod, tapping buttons and lights, telling Mokuba that he's going to access Duel Links in response to his brother calling out to him in a panic. After he's done adjusting the settings, presumably, he lays back in the reclining position of the pod, which seems very closely tailored to his specific stick-like proportions. The door descends on him, sealing him in, and he yells, to no one in particular, here he goes, full speed ahead, etc. Of course, he's not ACTUALLY going anywhere, but from all the lights and shit I can safely assume that he's taking a virtual trip. 

He just immediately manifested himself in Duel Links in a Blue Eyes White Rocket so he could blow right on past the plebs. Shit, even in virtual space he's putting distance and metal plating between himself and everyone else. 

His test subjects, who are also apparently STILL in the Kaiba Corp labs LATE into the night (who is looking after these kids' physical needs???), point and gape at Kaiba's rocket, urging each other to look and calling it "Seto Kaiba-sama's Battleship". As he zooms up and out of range, he leaves behind a whole shit-ton of fanbrats begging him to duel with them, and some others pointing out how massive Kaiba's "consciousness" is and that they wouldn't even stand a chance at dueling him. Yeah, sure, it's his "consciousness" that's overinflated. So they set THAT aside and chatter about how he's ascending at breakneck speed, wondering where in the Duel World he could POSSIBLY be going. 

To hang out with the only kind of person he can stand. A dead one. 

He's got that murder grin on again as he's blasting off, a bunch of what look like the connection lines on a circuit board lit on the side of his face. He's thinking that by gathering the consciousness of Duel Links, the frequency will amplify infinitely. Oh shit, not this misuse of the concept of infinity again. I thought we were past that! Apparently that will evolve them into a superior consciousness, and that will ascend to a higher dimension beyond. More word salad, but with the added implication that he's USING the consciousness of his test subjects to catapult his stupid ass into the beyond. 

Clearly, the murder grin is aimed at himself. This becomes even more obvious when he appears on the OUTSIDE of this rocket ship, on the BEWD head if the lines of the logo/design insignia he's kneeling on and the perspective as he stares down the light burst he's advancing upon are any indication. As he glares and clenches his teeth at his presumed destination, the space chair from the previous chapter circles around his left, and he catches a glimpse of it out of his periphery, whipping around in alarm. 

The space chair approaches, the "woman" in the seat leaning forward to warn Kaiba that it's too dangerous for him to go on ahead. Kaiba scoffs, calling her Prana now, a slight translation inconsistency between this and the first part - it's an understandable one, but I wanted to point it out just in case there was some confusion, since from what I can tell, use of one or the other seem pretty evenly split between the "l" and "r". 

She says that the Duel Links he's created are part of a dangerous game, which was designed to gather the consciousness of neurons and access a higher dimension. Did Kaiba stumble his way into playing a very crucial role in heisting another dimension??? Prana continues to warn him that he's heading for a "world of evil" that transcends the boundaries of mortal man, which is ONE way to tell a guy he's going straight to Hell, lol. She asks if he's really prepared to set foot in such a place. 

Kaiba repeats her question back at her, asking in turn if she's really asking if he's AFRAID. He then declares that anyone who stands in his way will be eliminated, and she's the only one who needs to be PREPARED here. Dude, she's just trying to offer you a way out of certain suicide, okay? Prana stands, saying that if he can defeat HER, HOLDER OF SUPERIOR CONSCIOUSNESS, she'll let him pass, but if he can't beat her, then he'll die. Did I mention how humble she is? In any case, Kaiba is gonna die either way, so what does any of this even matter? 

Kaiba scoffs again, expressing how interesting he finds this challenge, speaking to how ridiculously BORING he is. 

Because it's essential we have a duel SOMEWHERE in this, even if it's a farce that makes no difference whatsoever. 

Prana again summons Meteor Directional World Device, Duja, with 8800 pulse attack points, precisely like when she went up against the little baby dragon pirates or whatevz. She clearly doesn't think Kaiba is any more capable than his child test subjects, and if I were him, I MIGHT be insulted. But he ain't got time for that, apparently, because all he does is announce his turn, summoning the obvious - Blue Eyes White Dragon. Shit, I forgot my Frank Sinatra joke doesn't work anymore. What's a female version of Frank Sinatra? Marilyn Monroe? Ella Fitzgerald? Peggy Lee? 

Oh fuck me, this is impossible. 

The way Prana says the name of the Blue Eyes, you can tell she's got mad respect, but she notes with an internal chuckle that it only has 3000 pulse points, and Duja totally trumps it in attack power. She declares the battle phase of play. 

That's a mean right hook. And the Blue Eyes White Dragon has quite a glass jaw, because in the next panel it's crumbling away while Kaiba braces against the shockwaves of the attack. He's using the arm on which his Duel Disk is, the other curled out behind him, which I guess confirms that there's no danger of it "breaking" as a mechanic of the virtual world. Prana says her opponent is "pulverized" and I wonder if she knows what that word means, really. Superior consciousness beyond regular human wisdom, everyone!

But Kaiba lifts his head, smiling, seeming a lot more confident than a guy whose monster got "pulverized" has any right to be. He smarms that if he were to give Prana any criticism on her dueling, it would be that she puts in no consideration, whatever that means. She seems to have cottoned onto the indication that she's fallen for some sort of trap, as Kaiba drawls on, speculating that it might be because she's a child and she should learn to control her consciousness better. Isn't this EXACTLY what I was saying in the previous chapter's analysis??? That expecting babies to be able to do this is... you know what, never mind.

Prana notices that the pulse points on the NOT pulverized, in fact completely recovered, Blue Eyes White Dragon are actively going up, at 5900 and counting at a single glance. With one of her large child-like eyes visible through her helmet and widened considerably, Prana realizes that Kaiba controlled his own thought frequency to raise the BEWD's attack power. I mean, isn't that what YOU'VE been doing? More important question: does this concept actually MEAN anything, or are you two talking out of your asses?

Cool?

Prana's life points hit zero and her exterior facade begins to crumble off her. The little girl inside pouts that she really liked the style of that avatar too. Her taste is questionable, but there's not a single one of us that DIDN'T have shitty taste as kids, so she gets a pass. Kaiba said he knew it was her, no points for managing to pick up on the obvious, but he says playtime is over. Prana says haltingly that she went through the effort of trying to stop him, but there's no turning back now if he really wants to go to his demise. Kaiba says he's well aware, but really all he's thinking about is facing "HIM" again, to deliver the final blow on the deceased king, as he turns his attention back to the bright light ahead. Prana stands to the side, smiling back at him and saying they're almost there, as though she DIDN'T make their destination out to be a land of evil and horror just a little while ago. 

They speed toward the light, and Kaiba holds out his hand with the Blue Eyes White Dragon card held firmly in his grasp, bidding the faithful dragon to come along with him on his journey into oblivion. Just as in the first few panels of the previous installment, Kaiba waxes poetic about illuminating the infinite darkness over there if that's where he's headed, which makes a tad more sense now that it's in context that he's talking about DEATH itself. The actual LIGHT he's hurtling towards seems to shape itself into Atem's form, head inclined, and this form is reflected in Kaiba's BULGING eyes. 

Meanwhile, the Immaculate Facial Hair Guy shouts about Kaiba-sama as he hunches in front of a computer screen. Mokuba turns to him, asking what's wrong, and Immaculate Facial Hair Guy whirls around to panic at Mokuba about how it's too dangerous for the elder Kaiba, his brainwaves are ascending at a rate above human limits, and at this rate Seto Kaiba's life is in danger. Wait, I thought the "ascending" brain waves were just a few minutes ago a data anomaly that you'd never seen before, and now all of a sudden Kaiba's R&D department is the fucking EXPERT on how fast human brain waves should be going up? How does THAT track?

Express rocket to Hell, right there.

Oh, you know you're on a bad path when your moral support nopes the fuck out of there. Kisara is like, "Nah son, I'm out."

Mokuba pulls down a big knife/guillotine switch, broken safety glass surrounding it, yelling that he's tolerating NO MORE of his brother's elaborate un-aliving. Kids, don't try this at home without the proper safety wear - there's a reason there's a big-ass "DANGER" label on this switch. The power in the lab and in the giant room where all those test subjects are sitting goes dark, and they take of their helmets, looking around in confusion. Mokuba is still hanging off the handle of the switch, his eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched, thinking at Seto that he can't handle anymore, that he'll die. 

The good news is that Mokuba managed to flip the switch in time to save his brother, and the bad news is it looks like the elder Kaiba is literally getting the shock of his life. His torso is raised right off the reclining pod, muscles seizing and jaw grinding, the tendons standing out in his neck. His eyes are bulging again too. When the fit subsides, he hunches over in his seat, sweating and panting. He raises a palm to his forehead and asks himself if that was a hallucination. As he stumbles out of the pod, he decides that it's not, and chuckles a little. 

Well, at least you believe SOMETHING. 

Cut to a set of stairs leading down from the larger city area filled with tall buildings to a park if the swing set in the corner of the panel is any indication. The Prana little girl is sitting on a little round seat with a book open on her lap, people wandering around her, going about their leisure time. A boy clutching the string of a clown balloon approaches her, asking her what she's reading. She indicates the book and asks if it's what he means, and, uh, yeah, I'd imagine so, since that's the only thing around that he COULD be referring to. Superior consciousness, everybody!

The boy accidentally let's go of the string, and his clown balloon starts to float up and out of his reach, both kiddos gaping at it. A woman pushing a stroller with a toddler in it ahead of him, presumably his mother, scolds him for doing EXACTLY what she told him not to, and let go of that fucking balloon. Kid probably BEGGED her for it too, lol. Long-suffering parents, poor folks. The boy grunts in frustration as he tries to jump for the rapidly retreating string. 

The Prana girl has lost interest in the boy and his balloon troubles bending her head over her book again. Someone off-panel says that "Sera" was awfully close to something. A tall guy in a long vest-like getup over a shirt with rolled sleeves, cuffs on his wrists, and SEVERE bedhead at the back and longer locks of hair on the sides of his head just behind his ears has retrieved the boy's balloon and kindly hands it to him. The Prana girl immediately patronizingly calls the kid such a good boy, then offers him the book he was so interested in, since she's finished with it. How fucking SICK would it be if it were the final volume of the original Yu-Gi-Oh? That's too meta for me not to headcanon. In reality, we have no idea what this book is, it's probably not important. The boy thanks the both of them, and the Prana girl stands in front of the tall guy, waving at the boy as he leaves with a weird chuckle.

Not surprising, you can't even eliminate your fucking cowlicks.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I had to start with looking up the word "Prana", since the name this Sera girl has chosen for her Duel Links alias seemed to have a fair amount of significance. From what I can gather, from a MINIMAL amount of research, to be fair, is that it is a Sanskrit word for "breath" and refers to the Hindu version of the cross-cultural concept of a "life energy" that inhabits all things. It's one of five "Vayus" that are specific breaths that are related to different parts of the body and systems in that body, exercises that can bring a sort of active meditative high. "Prana" is the main one, and the one from which all the others are derived, originating or located in the head, lungs, and heart. Kind of a related concept to chakras, although where I am in the West, this complex idea has been watered down pretty significantly and miscommunicated a lot to white women in yoga gear, so I very much doubt I have even an inkling about what "Prana" really means in its cultural context. The way many of the sources I've read put it, it's kind of similar to chi, or a "subtle body", an energetic self, if you will. 

As far as how this relates to the content of the chapter, I can only make a very WEAK connection to it regarding its "location" in the head, leading to a calm mind, among other things. Getting a handle on one's Prana could be interpreted as in connection to "higher consciousness", it is after all a spiritual idea. But other than that, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of levels of reality, different dimensions and such, like the chapter is leaning heavily on. Just the idea tied to another separate one that control of one's consciousness in tandem with a collectively raising consciousness can lead to access to other dimensions. Kaiba's consciousness was described as huge by the test subjects in Duel Links, and he implies that he's able to control his consciousness better than Sera while he's lecturing her, but I have no idea WHY. Hell, I don't even know what that MEANS. How does Kaiba, or ANYONE, train their consciousness? Was Kaiba able to do some sort of mental exercise in order to beef it up for the game, or is he just naturally a bigger, badder consciousness because he's such an "enlightened genius"? Without meaningful definitions and a proper explanation of these concepts of "superior consciousness", "ascending consciousness", or "consciousness" in general, it all amounts to vague nonsense. 

I'm struck by all the visual representations of "ascension" as LITERALLY going up. It's clear that the characters and the audience wouldn't have any reason to believe something weird is happening with the collective conscious of Duel Links if there weren't some sort of pattern you could SEE and could link to the concept of "rising". This is after all a visual medium, and there's only so many ways you can SHOW an audience what's happening with INVISIBLE concepts. But this is really the only part of the whole that gets this treatment, almost as if a general collective trend of a consciousness in this game rising to other dimensions or realities was the HUB of the content of this story, and the spokes that fan out from it that are supposed to follow from or explain this aren't constructed from anything but smoke. Reading some of the lines above gives me pause because I get the impression that I'm supposed to THINK there's something profound being said, something about the incorporeal base of reality and the ability of human consciousness to look behind the curtain and see so many other worlds that our awareness could perceive under certain stimuli, but at a second glance, it's just a trick that's meant to superficially make the main character look clever. Ironically, a good majority of the dialog in this chapter in particular is missing the substance necessary to make the mechanics of what Duel Links, Kaiba, and the chapter itself is trying to pull off comprehensible. It doesn't just not do a good job of explaining the HOWS, but deliberately AVOIDS doing it entirely at every turn, because the idea behind this wasn't really thought out in any way other than a brief foray into a pop understanding of half-remembered esoteric spirituality and what I have to assume is a large dose of mangled quantum physics.

And I've got to say, even if I grant that there could be a bit of translation fuckery, and the dialog could make much more sense than I'm seeing in this particular version, I have trouble buying that Spaz-Boy up there has THIS much of a grasp on HIS consciousness. He's a wacky motherfucker for this whole two-part fiasco, singularly focused on dueling a DEAD KING. Doesn't seem particularly "enlightened" to me. In fact, it seems to me that his character has kind of regressed since we last saw him. I know that there's a split among fans on this point, some saying Kaiba needs closure since he wasn't there for the ceremonial duel so this makes sense for his character, and some saying that his character took a step backward to get back to this level of insane obsession with dueling Atem. I understand the former point of view - Kaiba had a relationship with Atem too, largely adversarial, but intimate in a way. I can see why someone in his position might feel a range of upset and hurt by the disappearance without a goodbye of not just a rival, but someone he felt so connected to. The relationship was so interestingly complicated that it seems a little odd that he would just shrug after going to pick up Yuugi and gang from the desert to find that Atem was gone into the light. 

But THIS, Transcend Game, doesn't ADDRESS that, in my perspective. In fact, it reduces Kaiba's motivations to defeating the king so he can be crowned instead. This is diametrically opposed to the conclusion he came to while he was preparing to destroy Alcatraz Island back at the end of Battle City - there's a reason it's named after a prison. He realized that he was holding onto grudges and anger that was keeping him from moving forward, primarily against his stepfather, but it manifested in his matches against Atem as a desperate need to be the best, the duel king.  His and Atem's conversation during their last duel articulated why this wasn't conducive to reaching for a future he wanted, and Atem spells out for him IMMEDIATELY after the duel that Kaiba's opponent wasn't even HIM, it was Kaiba's uncontrollable, obsessive hatred. Let's not forget it was the attitude of his stepfather ingrained in him since he was adopted that really kept him gunning for winning every duel over the course of the series; the attitude that losing was the same as death. It was why he felt like losing against Atem was killing him every time, and he couldn't move on UNTIL he took back the life stolen from him. But Atem helps him to realize that it was all a lie, implanted by Gozaburo's mental colonization, creating the inner demons that he was ACTUALLY struggling against the entire time. After the end of Yuugi's duel with Marik, he remembers that he had dreams and ambitions before Gozaburo, and he could still pursue them, because he's actually STILL ALIVE. All he had to do was decide to shift his focus. And he did. 

Kaiba's character arc, in my mind, was about letting the fuck go. About not embodying the very criticism he gave to Atem about being a creature of the past, unable to move ahead because he's stuck on whatever happened back in the day. Kaiba's obsession with winning against Atem was presented as unambiguously unproductive, stunting, and futile, and he acknowledges at the end that he has other, better things to do with his time. Transcend Game walks all that back, yanks him back into the abyss of endlessly dwelling on defeating a dead guy. It's depressing. No wonder he wants to die so badly.

I think the Blue Eyes White Dragon dissolving there toward the end is a pretty big indication that Kaiba's direction is going backwards. I joked about Kisara noping out, but it does bear a HIGH resemblance to the other times she has refused to carry out attacks, disappearing from the field because she doesn't think her participation is right or good. It's always on the cusp of "victory" right? Kaiba would have "won" the first time if BEWD hadn't disappeared at a critical moment in his first appearance. The Conical Hat Weirdo would have "won" if it hadn't disappeared before the end of the turn. Priest Seto would have "won" if it hadn't disappeared, while Kisara appeared before him to insist he can't be consumed by shadows. In all of these matches, technically the wielders of BEWD lost the battle, but it was for the wider benefit of everyone involved. Except Conical Hat Weirdo, of course, fuck that guy. The point is that there's circumstances in which a technical win actually makes things worse, and the Blue Eyes White Dragon has been crucial in putting a stop to that shit. KT seemed to be admitting here that not only were Kaiba's actions self-destructive, they were also a regressive pattern of behavior that even his fave monster has to call the fuck out. But hey, when you're compelled to write a prologue and movie about characters that were SUPPOSED to have moved on with their lives a long time ago because the owners of your work have noticed that it's gotten really popular again and the they wanna cash in...

Anyway, this two-parter was a downer on the whole. While the new murder grin is something I can feel excited about (I'm holding onto this interpretation for dear life because otherwise I feel like it's genuinely terrifying), the "duel" that Kaiba and Sera/Prana fought here wasn't much of a duel at all despite the impressive visuals, and I feel BAD for Kaiba. I don't wanna feel bad for HIM. He's a dickbag. Granted, I was joking pretty heavily about his potential death, but that's only because I'm currently reading The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett right now, and I was imagining the scene with Twoflower teaching the four horsemen of the apocalypse bridge, except with Kaiba and Duel Monsters/Magic and Wizards. Tell me that wouldn't be entertaining. I'll call you a liar.

So, Dark Side of Dimensions is next, folks! I don't know when the post for that one is going to be on the blog. There's something specific that I want to do with the movie, but getting together the proper... resources might be challenging. I can't say more than that, I really want it to be a surprise! It might be mid-August before I can get it up, maybe a bit later, I'll let you know. Until then, the Inuyasha reviews SHOULD continue. It depends on how busy things get for me in the upcoming month because it's been somewhat chaotic at the moment. We'll see!