Alrighty, I'm about 24 minutes in, so I'll try and comment on some things while they're fresh in my mind.
* Perhaps it's just me, but Anzu seemed a bit flirty with Yugi in this movie. Am I just reading into it?
* I'm kinda bummed Joey has nothing to do in this film. He's just kinda there! But he still probably gets off better than Bakura despite that.
* Aigami is... certainly a character that's in this movie. I'm going to be honest: I really don't remember anything about him at all because I wasn't interested in him or his Funny Ghost Cube. It didn't help that he brought a brand-new summoning system with him that felt like it wasn't explained very well in the film, which made even his duels a chore to watch. I feel like most of the characters in the movie don't even really give him the time of day either, which made him feel even more superfluous.
* Regarding Kaiba's negative development, I kind of get it. Atem is the closest thing that Kaiba has had to a friend, and then he died offscreen while Kaiba wasn't there. Up to this point, Kaiba has tried to kill Atem in Death-T, only for those plans to go awry. Then he sees an Ancient Egyptian mural saying that he and Atem are fated enemies who will have a grand clash. Kaiba's naturally competitive, so he wants Atem's title of Duel King. It's the kind of thing that filler tends to milk for all of its worth by having Kaiba continually want to butt heads with him all the time. But in this continuity, that filler didn't happen, nor did Kaiba witness the Ceremonial Duel. Instead, Atem just passes on quietly in the night and Kaiba's left with a void. The one person he could rely on to push him and give him some goal to push towards is now gone and it feels like he lost something important. It's kind of interesting, because Kaiba has become the very thing he criticized Atem for: a creature of the past! He even takes a page out of Pegasus' book and uses his Solid Vision system to recreate Atem, only to note how hollow it feels.
* Incidentally, while I personally don't buy into the shipping, the dub adds a line in here that paints Kaiba's obsession with Atem as borderline romantic: "It's true, I went through a great deal of trouble to recreate the Pharaoh's deck, his strategies, even his perfectly coiffed hair. In fact, that part is what took the longest." I'm sure that was meant to be a joke about Yugi's crazy hair, but it's not hard to read Kaiba painstakingly recreating his hair as accurately as possible as something else.
* Alright, the big Fake Atem vs. Kaiba duel. It, uh... it's a duel. That happens. A lot of the cards are new, which made following what was going on very confusing, particularly when things just kind of happen at a really breakneck pace compared to the older duels. The cost of having four 8000 Life Point duels in one movie, I suppose.
* I should also probably give a refresher on a few things since we have been talking about game mechanics over the span over several hundred chapters and it's probably easy to forget some things. 8000 Life Points is the standard amount in the real-life card game, and no doubt the result of power creep in-universe. Additionally, summoning multiple monsters per turn is not against the rules despite Little Kuriboh's meme! In fact, in the original episode, Kaiba summons each of his Blue-Eyes on separate turns, though I think 4Kids might have made a shortened version of that episode that aired originally. I know that Atem's duel with Weevil was two episodes in Japanese, but shortened into one in English with by turning half of the duel into an anime music video, for example. At any rate, while you typically only get one Normal Summon per turn, I don't believe there is a limit on Special Summoning. So you can fill your entire board with monsters on Turn 1 if you have the card effects that let you do so. And yes, the real life card game has gotten extremely out of hand!
I hope you're enjoying our ridiculous nonsense so far, and thanks so much for listening! Loving all of your comments so far!
- I think you're right about Anzu being flirty with Yuugi, but I also always kind of pegged them as an eventual couple. They seemed to me to be coded that way, as an end-game type deal.
- I agree! Jonouchi had a much more reactionary role in this one than he's had in the comic, and that's a bit disappointing, considering he was, by far, my favorite in the series by far.
- Total agreement on Aigami too. Guy was just underdeveloped and didn't really stand out as a person. I think they were trying to give him a bit of a conflicted set of goals, which might have been interesting, but they didn't pull it off at all in my opinion.
- I kinda get the whole "Kaiba has to process as well since he wasn't there for the ceremonial duel" thing as well, and my sister and I talk about it a bit later in the recording, but I just don't think they pulled THIS off very well either. It doesn't come across as him grieving Atem's passing so much as him, as you said, becoming a creature of the past just as he accused Atem of way back when. That sort of conflict might have been interesting to see, but it just didn't land, probably because it seems like they were much more interested in maintaining the status quo for the characters that they know people like to see rather than helping to advance them more with the new movie.
- I've gotta watch that dub again, I recall they gave Kaiba a lot of pretty funny lines and I found myself laughing a lot. I joke about the shipping aspect too, but I also don't really buy it, even if I do think it's an entirely valid interpretation of the text. It doesn't seem to be what KT intended at all, but these boys do say some rather saucy things about each other from time to time, lol!
- So glad we were NOT alone with that duel. It was both overwhelming (because of all the new cards and moves and such) and underwhelming (the point was just to show us the new cards and that Kaiba is still super obsessed, which seems so low-stakes) at the same time and was thus something of a drag watching it.
- And thank you for explaining that it is actually entirely possible to summon more than one monster given the right cards/move set! I think even Little Kuriboh mentioned in one of his many iterations of that first duel between Atem and Kaiba that there are actually many instances in which you can, if I recall, but the original joke is just so punchy, haha. But it's helpful to have someone who knows what they're talking about weigh in on the actual mechanics of this game, because at this point I can't make heads or tails of them!
Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear that you're having some trouble with seasonal depression! I hope you feel better soon, and that you're taking good care of yourself during this difficult time of the year. Don't push yourself to continue listening if it's too much right now - the review will still be here whenever you feel up for it!
An interesting thing to note in this movie — Kaiba manages to activate the effect of Obelisk the Tormentor despite Aigami’s Cubic Mandala (which negates the effects of the opponent’s monsters) still being live. Implication: the abilities of the god cards cannot be negated, something that was not ported over into the IRL card game alas.
It doesn't surprise me that the god cards can be negated in the real card game, since it has to actually function as an honest game, lol! We totally didn't notice that, though! It was hard for us to determine which of these moves were out of place or movie/anime only - we're so behind the curve when it comes to how this game works! XD
I already commented on how I felt about how Kaiba was handled, but a few other main points I wanted to touch on.
* Bakura, despite being the main antagonist's motivation, is somehow STILL wasted as a character. He's just kind of here to explain why Aigami is here, but ultimately Aigami winds up caring more about people trying to recreate the Millennium Puzzle and take away his cube powers than he does about his father's killer! The weird part is that with him getting possessed by the Millennium Ring at the story's conclusion, that could've led to a moment of understanding as to how Bakura ended up that way and maybe reconciliation. But it doesn't!
* Speaking of wasted characters, I kinda wish Joey got to do more. Granted, I don't really know what he would've done, but he just kinda felt like he was there the whole film.
* I don't like Yugi ditching Silent Magician and Silent Swordsman. Those were supposed to be his representative monsters!
* I also don't really like the fact that Atem comes back to win the duel for Yugi at the end. I wouldn't mind the idea of Atem reappearing to help Yugi up and Yugi playing the final card under his own power, but Atem coming back and solving the problem for Yugi just feels a bit too fanservice-y and undermines the whole "You are the only Yugi Moto" thing from the end of the series.
- Bakura has that scene where he tries to explain that the ring was an overpowering influence on his behavior there too, and with Aigami dismissing it in the way he did, it does seem like a wasted setup for when HE gets possessed at the end. He just... doesn't acknowledge that he was corrupted just as badly as little Bakura either, and that just makes him seem even LESS enlightened than the movie tries to claim he is with his Prana powers in the first place. And it was the least they could have done with these two, considering Bakura didn't get even a GLIMMER of development potential either. He was more a plot-device than a character, as usual. Poor Bakura. :( - I also don't know what Jonouchi would have done otherwise either, because he doesn't really have a lot of personal stakes in this plot, but it's weird that, even with as little as he did, he still got to do a LOT more than Bakura. I love Jonouchi, but I think I'd have preferred he played a more minor role if it meant that Bakura got a little more room to shine, since they really only have a limited amount of time for this movie. - Yeah, we just get a whole bunch of fruity varieties of DMGs instead, which is... a choice, to be sure, lol! - I think that was my sister's biggest issue too, because Atem coming back at the end kind just kind of negates the final duel in the original series that helps show how truly skilled at this game Yuugi is, and how he can even beat the best, as well as the assertion that Yuugi is unique as you pointed out. I think there's a weirdly significant portion of the fanbase that somehow thinks that Yuugi's win then was illegitimate somehow, I assume because Atem is one of those original comfort-characters that people REALLY cling to. But that's just my assumption, because I personally REALLY love Yuugi's win at the end of the series.
I know that a number of the earlier video games would tend to have Yugi as being the lesser of the two duelists. Usually, he'd have Dark Magician and a few other strong monsters, but his deck would be 500 ATK stuff on average and he'd be a super early game opponent. This is despite the fact that he was consistently giving advice on how to play the game to Joey and also was instrumental to beating Pegasus. The anime even gave him a filler duel where he beat Bandit Keith/Marik on his own! Granted, the anime also tended to jettison Yugi from the plot more often than not in favor of Atem getting to do things.
I feel like it's a bit more alleviated nowadays after the end of the series and DSOD showed that Yugi is actually good at the game. Even back then, I think there was a little pushback, where you had games like Nightmare Troubadour that had Yugi using decks that were similar to Atem's.
That would certainly go a long way to explaining where people might have gotten the notion that Yuugi was the lesser duelist for sure. But even though I agree that DSoD managed to show that Yuugi is competent in his own right at the game, there are still an awful lot of fans holding onto the idea that Atem is way better and must be the best. I mean, the movie having him return to the fix things at the end kind of cemented that weird perspective, I think.
Oh, I will have to find time to listen to this in full. I remember this movie being weird.
ReplyDeleteAlrighty, I'm about 24 minutes in, so I'll try and comment on some things while they're fresh in my mind.
Delete* Perhaps it's just me, but Anzu seemed a bit flirty with Yugi in this movie. Am I just reading into it?
* I'm kinda bummed Joey has nothing to do in this film. He's just kinda there! But he still probably gets off better than Bakura despite that.
* Aigami is... certainly a character that's in this movie. I'm going to be honest: I really don't remember anything about him at all because I wasn't interested in him or his Funny Ghost Cube. It didn't help that he brought a brand-new summoning system with him that felt like it wasn't explained very well in the film, which made even his duels a chore to watch. I feel like most of the characters in the movie don't even really give him the time of day either, which made him feel even more superfluous.
* Regarding Kaiba's negative development, I kind of get it. Atem is the closest thing that Kaiba has had to a friend, and then he died offscreen while Kaiba wasn't there. Up to this point, Kaiba has tried to kill Atem in Death-T, only for those plans to go awry. Then he sees an Ancient Egyptian mural saying that he and Atem are fated enemies who will have a grand clash. Kaiba's naturally competitive, so he wants Atem's title of Duel King. It's the kind of thing that filler tends to milk for all of its worth by having Kaiba continually want to butt heads with him all the time. But in this continuity, that filler didn't happen, nor did Kaiba witness the Ceremonial Duel. Instead, Atem just passes on quietly in the night and Kaiba's left with a void. The one person he could rely on to push him and give him some goal to push towards is now gone and it feels like he lost something important. It's kind of interesting, because Kaiba has become the very thing he criticized Atem for: a creature of the past! He even takes a page out of Pegasus' book and uses his Solid Vision system to recreate Atem, only to note how hollow it feels.
* Incidentally, while I personally don't buy into the shipping, the dub adds a line in here that paints Kaiba's obsession with Atem as borderline romantic: "It's true, I went through a great deal of trouble to recreate the Pharaoh's deck, his strategies, even his perfectly coiffed hair. In fact, that part is what took the longest." I'm sure that was meant to be a joke about Yugi's crazy hair, but it's not hard to read Kaiba painstakingly recreating his hair as accurately as possible as something else.
* Alright, the big Fake Atem vs. Kaiba duel. It, uh... it's a duel. That happens. A lot of the cards are new, which made following what was going on very confusing, particularly when things just kind of happen at a really breakneck pace compared to the older duels. The cost of having four 8000 Life Point duels in one movie, I suppose.
* I should also probably give a refresher on a few things since we have been talking about game mechanics over the span over several hundred chapters and it's probably easy to forget some things. 8000 Life Points is the standard amount in the real-life card game, and no doubt the result of power creep in-universe. Additionally, summoning multiple monsters per turn is not against the rules despite Little Kuriboh's meme! In fact, in the original episode, Kaiba summons each of his Blue-Eyes on separate turns, though I think 4Kids might have made a shortened version of that episode that aired originally. I know that Atem's duel with Weevil was two episodes in Japanese, but shortened into one in English with by turning half of the duel into an anime music video, for example. At any rate, while you typically only get one Normal Summon per turn, I don't believe there is a limit on Special Summoning. So you can fill your entire board with monsters on Turn 1 if you have the card effects that let you do so. And yes, the real life card game has gotten extremely out of hand!
I hope you're enjoying our ridiculous nonsense so far, and thanks so much for listening! Loving all of your comments so far!
Delete- I think you're right about Anzu being flirty with Yuugi, but I also always kind of pegged them as an eventual couple. They seemed to me to be coded that way, as an end-game type deal.
- I agree! Jonouchi had a much more reactionary role in this one than he's had in the comic, and that's a bit disappointing, considering he was, by far, my favorite in the series by far.
- Total agreement on Aigami too. Guy was just underdeveloped and didn't really stand out as a person. I think they were trying to give him a bit of a conflicted set of goals, which might have been interesting, but they didn't pull it off at all in my opinion.
- I kinda get the whole "Kaiba has to process as well since he wasn't there for the ceremonial duel" thing as well, and my sister and I talk about it a bit later in the recording, but I just don't think they pulled THIS off very well either. It doesn't come across as him grieving Atem's passing so much as him, as you said, becoming a creature of the past just as he accused Atem of way back when. That sort of conflict might have been interesting to see, but it just didn't land, probably because it seems like they were much more interested in maintaining the status quo for the characters that they know people like to see rather than helping to advance them more with the new movie.
- I've gotta watch that dub again, I recall they gave Kaiba a lot of pretty funny lines and I found myself laughing a lot. I joke about the shipping aspect too, but I also don't really buy it, even if I do think it's an entirely valid interpretation of the text. It doesn't seem to be what KT intended at all, but these boys do say some rather saucy things about each other from time to time, lol!
- So glad we were NOT alone with that duel. It was both overwhelming (because of all the new cards and moves and such) and underwhelming (the point was just to show us the new cards and that Kaiba is still super obsessed, which seems so low-stakes) at the same time and was thus something of a drag watching it.
- And thank you for explaining that it is actually entirely possible to summon more than one monster given the right cards/move set! I think even Little Kuriboh mentioned in one of his many iterations of that first duel between Atem and Kaiba that there are actually many instances in which you can, if I recall, but the original joke is just so punchy, haha. But it's helpful to have someone who knows what they're talking about weigh in on the actual mechanics of this game, because at this point I can't make heads or tails of them!
Oof, it's been a while. Seasonal depression hit me hard. I'm going to try and get back to listening to the rest of this very soon, though!
DeleteOh no! I'm so sorry to hear that you're having some trouble with seasonal depression! I hope you feel better soon, and that you're taking good care of yourself during this difficult time of the year. Don't push yourself to continue listening if it's too much right now - the review will still be here whenever you feel up for it!
DeleteAn interesting thing to note in this movie — Kaiba manages to activate the effect of Obelisk the Tormentor despite Aigami’s Cubic Mandala (which negates the effects of the opponent’s monsters) still being live. Implication: the abilities of the god cards cannot be negated, something that was not ported over into the IRL card game alas.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that the god cards can be negated in the real card game, since it has to actually function as an honest game, lol! We totally didn't notice that, though! It was hard for us to determine which of these moves were out of place or movie/anime only - we're so behind the curve when it comes to how this game works! XD
DeleteI already commented on how I felt about how Kaiba was handled, but a few other main points I wanted to touch on.
ReplyDelete* Bakura, despite being the main antagonist's motivation, is somehow STILL wasted as a character. He's just kind of here to explain why Aigami is here, but ultimately Aigami winds up caring more about people trying to recreate the Millennium Puzzle and take away his cube powers than he does about his father's killer! The weird part is that with him getting possessed by the Millennium Ring at the story's conclusion, that could've led to a moment of understanding as to how Bakura ended up that way and maybe reconciliation. But it doesn't!
* Speaking of wasted characters, I kinda wish Joey got to do more. Granted, I don't really know what he would've done, but he just kinda felt like he was there the whole film.
* I don't like Yugi ditching Silent Magician and Silent Swordsman. Those were supposed to be his representative monsters!
* I also don't really like the fact that Atem comes back to win the duel for Yugi at the end. I wouldn't mind the idea of Atem reappearing to help Yugi up and Yugi playing the final card under his own power, but Atem coming back and solving the problem for Yugi just feels a bit too fanservice-y and undermines the whole "You are the only Yugi Moto" thing from the end of the series.
Totally agree on pretty much all of these points!
Delete- Bakura has that scene where he tries to explain that the ring was an overpowering influence on his behavior there too, and with Aigami dismissing it in the way he did, it does seem like a wasted setup for when HE gets possessed at the end. He just... doesn't acknowledge that he was corrupted just as badly as little Bakura either, and that just makes him seem even LESS enlightened than the movie tries to claim he is with his Prana powers in the first place. And it was the least they could have done with these two, considering Bakura didn't get even a GLIMMER of development potential either. He was more a plot-device than a character, as usual. Poor Bakura. :(
- I also don't know what Jonouchi would have done otherwise either, because he doesn't really have a lot of personal stakes in this plot, but it's weird that, even with as little as he did, he still got to do a LOT more than Bakura. I love Jonouchi, but I think I'd have preferred he played a more minor role if it meant that Bakura got a little more room to shine, since they really only have a limited amount of time for this movie.
- Yeah, we just get a whole bunch of fruity varieties of DMGs instead, which is... a choice, to be sure, lol!
- I think that was my sister's biggest issue too, because Atem coming back at the end kind just kind of negates the final duel in the original series that helps show how truly skilled at this game Yuugi is, and how he can even beat the best, as well as the assertion that Yuugi is unique as you pointed out. I think there's a weirdly significant portion of the fanbase that somehow thinks that Yuugi's win then was illegitimate somehow, I assume because Atem is one of those original comfort-characters that people REALLY cling to. But that's just my assumption, because I personally REALLY love Yuugi's win at the end of the series.
I know that a number of the earlier video games would tend to have Yugi as being the lesser of the two duelists. Usually, he'd have Dark Magician and a few other strong monsters, but his deck would be 500 ATK stuff on average and he'd be a super early game opponent. This is despite the fact that he was consistently giving advice on how to play the game to Joey and also was instrumental to beating Pegasus. The anime even gave him a filler duel where he beat Bandit Keith/Marik on his own! Granted, the anime also tended to jettison Yugi from the plot more often than not in favor of Atem getting to do things.
DeleteI feel like it's a bit more alleviated nowadays after the end of the series and DSOD showed that Yugi is actually good at the game. Even back then, I think there was a little pushback, where you had games like Nightmare Troubadour that had Yugi using decks that were similar to Atem's.
https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yugi_Muto_(Nightmare_Troubadour)
https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yami_Yugi_(Nightmare_Troubadour)
That would certainly go a long way to explaining where people might have gotten the notion that Yuugi was the lesser duelist for sure. But even though I agree that DSoD managed to show that Yuugi is competent in his own right at the game, there are still an awful lot of fans holding onto the idea that Atem is way better and must be the best. I mean, the movie having him return to the fix things at the end kind of cemented that weird perspective, I think.
Delete