#✧˖*°࿐ Yami Yugi // yo what’s up DANGER.

[voidfell]

Trips comically and spills my Yugioh Playlists all over the floor:

Gotcha! - Judai Yuki Playlist

You Can't Run from Destiny - Edo Phoenix Playlist

Crystal Protector - Johan Andersen Playlist

It's Time to Duel! - Yami Yugi / Atem Playlist

[voidfcllen]

Start Call for my Original Yugioh boys since I’m Hyperfixating on them today. Be sure to specify your muse and mine!

[vivinightingale]

Got another request for you darling! May I request headcanons for the Yu-Gi-Oh guys reacting to their female S/O getting attacked by a dangerous stalker?

Why we out here getting attacked so much?? 👀

!WARNING! THIS FIC CONTAINS MANETIONS OF VIOLENCE, AND STALKING IF THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORATBLE PLEASE TURN AWAY NOW. I LOVE YOU ALL BE SAFE

Yugi Muto

it all started when the you were walking home. You had a feeling that you were being followed, but assumed it was your mind playing tricks on you.

now as you laid on the ground the stalker above you and a couple of bruises adoring your skin, you wished you listened to your instincts.

Luckily for you, your stalker isn't the brightest.

So with a swift kick to where the sun doesn't shine was them rolling on the ground, and you running home as fast as you could.

when you finally got home Yugi turned his head to greet you, but was met with your scared, bruised, and crying face.

He was immediately at your side, and his hands on your face asking what had happened. When you told him he pulled you close , and brushed your hair down.

"Its okay doll....I promise your safe. I wont let anyone lay their hands on you again."

though he will never admit it he may or may not have under the table paid Bakura to have Yami take out the "trash"

Yami/Atem

The two of you were on a picnic date when it happened. He had left to get your surprise out of the car when unknown man approached.

You tried to stall and talk to the man till Atem came back, but the man decided other wise.

in one swift motion the man was on top of you, his phone in hand the camera pointing at you, and his trying to rip off the cloths you had on.

you tried kicking and screaming to get ones attention, and luckily Atem heard your cries, and saw the man on top of yo. he quickly ran to you and ripped the man from you.

He hasn't used the Shadow realm since the early days, but he couldn't think of a better punishment for the lowly creature.

He wont lie he made the game quick and easy or him to lose to. so when his soul finally banished to the shadow realm Atem was able to hold you in his arms as you cried.

"Its okay my love...he will never hurt you or anyone ever again."

Joey Wheeler

Let me say, this guy will protect you till his final breath. So when the two of you go to the mall together, and you don't come back from the store you went into he had to check on you.

the far dark corner you are pinned to the wall by some guy you both don't recognize. You were trying to push him off, but he forcing his body weight on you as he kissed your neck trying to leave bruises.

upon seeing the scene all Joey could see was red. he quickly pulled the man off of you and began to beat him with an inch of life.

You had to peel joey off of him, and quickly ushered him home. When the two of you go there he held you close, and asked if you were okay.

maybe it was comforting embrace, or you knew you were safe there, but when he asked you broke down in his arms and in response he just held you tighter.

"That jackass wont hurt you ever again. I wont let him."

Tristan Taylor

When the two of the waterpark was when it happened. He walked away to get some drinks for the two of you, when a man forcefully pulled you to the changing rooms.

He caught a glimpse of your distressed face as the door shut, and he immediately dropped everything, and rushed to the room.

He got there before the guy could do any damage to you. he wanted to be violent with the guy, but he knew that would put you in further distresses

So with his strength alone he knocked the guy out, picked you up bridal style, and informed the staff of the situation.

as the two of you waited for authorities he held you close and cooed sweet nothings into your ear.

"There there baby....i got you."

Duke Devlin

it Happened while you were visiting him at his shop. He ran to the back to get the new shipment of dice to show you. So you decided to have look at the monsters hoping to one day one up him.

When you felt a pair of hand on your waist. You knew they weren't Duke's so you began to struggled bit. When the man leaned down to threaten you.

terrified of what this man could do to you, you froze up as he began to unbutton your pants. The man didn't get far till Duke came out.

When he saw what was going on he dropped the box of dice in his hands. Distracted by the sudden loud noise the man stopped to turn to the source.

However, before he could he was yanked off of you and onto the floor. Duke landed a hard stomp to the mans chest keeping his foot there to keep him down, after he pulled out his phone and proceed to call authorities.

When they got there, and duke showed the security cam footage. after he closed down shop and took you home. when the two of you got there you immediately broke down, nd all he could do was hold you close.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there my heart, I promise to never et this happen to you again."

Seto Kiba

let me just say that there would never be a chance in hell that something like that would happen to you. he makes sure your protected properly, but on the off chance that something did happen he would be furious.

One of the bodyguard had fallen for you while you were under his care. He fell so so hard that he wanted you all to himself. So when he thought no was looking he took you to a forgotten room at Seto's penthouse, and pushed himself on you.

one hand gripping you arms behind your back probably leaving bruises, the other roaming where you know it doesn't belong.

As you began to sob the other Bodyguard busted in Seto right behind him, as the bodyguard delt with him Seto pulled you to him as you sobbed into his chest.

With an icy glare he told the bodyguard to take care of them men, and when they were both gone, he softened.

he held you close, rubbed you back soothingly, ahd whispered sweet nothings to you.

"Im here sweetheart. that trash wont EVER be around you again."

Bakura Ryou

for awhile now he knew you had a stalker. So he never really let you go out by yourself. You understood, but there were times you wanted to go out on your own.

So despite his wished you left to go to the mall for some shopping, and as you were cornered and fought off your attacker the best you could you wished you had listened.

When Bakura noticed your absence he was quick to look for you. One of your friends informed him that you went to the mall for personal shopping.

When he got there the authorities were already taking the man away, and you sat in the back of an ambulance. you were covered in scratches and bruises.

he was quickly at your side, holding you close, and crying himself.

"Please next time listen to me love.....i don't know what i would do with out."

Yami Bakura

since he has had a body of his own he has been very busy with his plans in the shadows. he knew he could hide like he use to ,but he still knows how to sneaky.

Thus you haven't been able to spend much time with him. You didn't mind you knew he loved you. So like every other day you went to the store to get things for dinner.

while in the back near the meat , a man dragged you to the butchers room where no on was. and tried to bring you to the floor.

The man didn't get very far because out the shadows stepped you boyfriend fury dancing in his eyes.

with an unknow strength he picked up the man by the collar, and threw him to the shadows, and what you assumed was the shadow realm.

without missing a beat he went over to you and picked you up, heading back to the shadows he came from.

"Im not leaving you alone again."

Bakura Ishtar

The two of you traveled all the time, so you never had a stalker, but there were times when people did follow you. This time however it was taken too far.

You decided to wonder a bit, and unfortunately found yourself in the wrong part of town. One of the unsavory guys there caught wind of you and followed you. When he cornered you in an ally he began saying things to you, but you didn't understand. all you knew is you had to get out of there.

you tend to wonder often so your boyfriend insisted that you took a taser with you, so without hesitation you took it out of your purse and used it against him.

after you left the scene and called your boyfriend. He was quick to find you and pull you into his arms, and checks you for any bruises.

"Please don't wander without me little Lilly. I don't know what i would do if I couldn't hold you anymore."

Yami Marik

So much like Seto he doesn't allow such a thing happen. You are HIS QUEEN and no will EVER lay their hands on you . He wont tell you, but he constantly has eyes on you. not out distrust but out of worry.

So when of your coworkers decided they wanted to step out of the friendship with you, he witnessed it all.

Everything from your rejection, to the man getting upset and trying to take you anyway. Unlucky for him Marik decided to make his presence known before the man could do harm.

With a sinister grin he picked the man up by the collar and took him to the shadow realm for a "friendly" duel.

and as his screams where heard from the shadow Yami came to your side kneeled to your level and cupped your face.

"there there my queen...your king is here."

Care to buy me a Ko-fi??

[ladyyatexel]

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 15 Pt 2: Don’t Trust Anyone Who Wears a Floor Length Robe Over Their Casuals in Yugioh

Hey, it’s my birthday, so I’m gonna release this early because the rest of today I just have to work like an adult and that’s no fun.

In the first half of this episode we dunked the worlds smallest plane into a lake and so this second half of the episode involved the kids running as far away from their only responsible adults as they could.

Which like...took whole of less than a second for them to peace out and enter mortal danger.

...I’ve never been in a jungle in India but...I have seen the Jungle book many times...and there’s like tigers and stuff in there, right? and tons of monkeys that are hella mean? And freakin snakes? They sing jazz and scat? That’s some terrifying stuff.

Like these city kids have to learn at some point to fear the woods. But they just freakin don’t. And strangely, the most dangerous thing in these woods isn’t even a snake or something, but a human man just being as suspicious as possible lying prone on the ground.

(read more under the cut)

The card cultist happens to have a British accent, because this voice acting team freakin loves to pull out their British accents. It’s not as lowbrow as Valon, but it’s not as...well whatever Bakura is supposed to be. He’s a lot more tame than Bakura’s, but still very British.

I don’t know if this is because British English tends to be taught instead of American sounding English in many parts of India, but, most likely they just wanted to do an accent. And like...he’s an archeologist...and so the stereotype is there...but honestly, the decision of making this guy British gets weirder and weirder as this episode goes on, get ready for it. None of you are ready for what I assume is the very obvious plot twist of this freakin guy.

Catfish of the century, this freakin guy, I’m pretty sure.

Yugi immediately believes this completely out of place white British stranger in the Indian backwoods next to this inaccessible lake and immediately thinks “yes, my Grandfather crash landed in India EXACTLY where I’m standing right now, and now I must save him.”

Thankfully, Yami exists to gently and politely tell Yugi to hella stop.

Also, I like that Yugi has finally stopped wearing his school outfit out of school. But, he is instead wearing a jacket that is so close to his school outfit I honestly couldn’t tell until the end of this episode. It’s like...I think one shade more purple, it has white piping, and his undershirt has a center seam. It’s nice Yugi has 3 versions of the same black sleeveless undershirt, and this show cares enough to show that tiny factoid about Yugi’s closet.

So, because Yugi is a dumbass and Pharaoh has to just sit back and watch this happen so he can say “told you so” later, they follow this random cultist they found in the woods. Much like Hansel and Gretel, we snack on cake crumbs all the way to the witches house, which in this case, is an undiscovered monolith you would have easily seen from outer space.

HMMMMMMMMMM.

And so get ready for this:

Hey guys.

Remember how Alexander the great was buried in a pyramid?

Now because they’re name dropping Alexander, that’s actually kind of helpful, because Alexander the Great’s favorite damn horse in the entire world died while he was at war with India so he named a city after it. It’s believed to be in Punjab, which is in the Northern part of India

Which means we first of all, definitely crossed the tallest mountain range in the world to get here, and also means that we are like...in some really disputed territory of India right now, and it is crazy that these kids went here for a vacation completely unsupervised.

Another fun fact about Alexander is that when he died, it took 6 days for his body to decompose. At the time, they thought it was because he was a God (or in Yugioh’s case, Extremely Cursed) but nowadays historians think it’s because it took him 6 days to fully die. He just wasn’t dead yet. Had to give it a minute and the ancient Babylonians just got way too excited.

Anyway, Alexander super died in Babylon so I don’t know what the hell he’s doing in India. There is a fun spot in History where his body did get dragged to a couple different places, meaning we probably did lose the original Alexander and there’s a lot of people just guessing at where he ended up...but putting him clear up in India sure was a choice when one of his assumed burial sites was literally Egypt, which would be a more fitting location for a Pyramid and a more fitting location for this show.

Especially since Alexander was trying to invent a new race and culture...it seems a little strange he’d be buried in such a massive pyramid, but maybe he got a really, really good pyramid deal from the funeral home when he was like 28 and just figured he’d change it before the time he died at 32.

Which...now that I’m older than 32, how crazy is it that Alexander the Great died at freakin 32? You blink twice and you’re 32. Is history seriously trying to tell me this guy wasn’t like secretly 62? That maybe he just celebrated his 20th for like 20 years in a row as a royal mandate? I just feel like history is playing pranks on me with Alexander.

Anyway, our weird shady new archeologist guy is named Alex and so take that as you will.

I sure hope Alexander the Great was revived to wear khakis and bother children. Guy conquered the world once and was one of history’s Freakin Worst so he does deserve it, but also...it would explain why he thinks it’s normal to wear a Darth Maul robe over your business casual.

Anyway, lets enter the obvious trap pyramid.

Joey just wanted a nice time running around Northern India. He just wanted to eat some yummy chaat and look at some tourist destinations and maybe glance at a Bollywood star or two. But instead he’s gotta deal with spike floors because Yugi couldn’t say no to a cultist.

Also...one of those spikes clearly went through Tea’s feet, right? And she is absolutely fine? Just checking on Tea’s godlike strength and clearly it is still godlike.

Alex gives us a very long explanation of how he went upstairs and Grandpa went downstairs, and there was a door or something so Alex turned back around and Grandpa was gone.

All of those steps were probably plot relevant and I’ll probably forget all about it in 2 episodes.

The thing is Alex...literally thinks he evaporated. Literally thinks that. But how do you disprove it to this freakin guy who like...might have named a city after his horse once and thinks that’s a normal and acceptable thing to do?

and so Joey immediately leaps onto the haunted playing floor.

the way Yugi said this line was sort of hilarious to me so I may cap it. If I remember to do it (I’ve been a little busier lately, with things opening up, as you can tell because my update schedule is in the toilet.)

So, if Joey jumps in...everyone else has to, also.

And we say good bye to Alex and enter the new forest zone, which looks a LOT like the other forest we were just in.

Nice Protoss armor.

We get some hijinks from the local wildlife, which are all cards but real (but not real because we’re in a board game...don’t think about it) and the off brand Sheikah tablets have helpful monsters in them if you touch em.

This season may have been better off as a video game, being honest.

Joey has gone somewhere else, despite going onto the same game tile, and he’s too busy on a mountain range to really help anyone out. So he’s just gonna vibe up here for a bit.

Tea got up after this point and said along the lines of “k, what’s next?” Because mortal danger does not affect her and she fears nothing.

At a beach somewhere, Tea and Tristan spend some quality time together forming a new family with whatever these creatures are.

And Tea’s love of her winged angel comes full circle and now I will suffer this winged orb for the rest of this arc, pretty sure.

Please admire the number of belts on Tea. Her outfit is like max 00′s and I appreciate that. We’ve had a lot of questionable fashion on Yugioh, but they actually dressed Tea pretty on point this arc. Like I often feel like 00′s fashion is hard to define or describe, but it’s Tea right now. That’s it. She did it, it’s right there.

Yugi gets a new flagship card for this arc, and this time it’s Celtic Guardian. Hell why? I feel like his defining card changes every single arc, and they need to like focus and just give him one. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s still Dark Magician...and maybe the show forgot?

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read the rest:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I think I forgot that link in the last recap because yo it’s kind of been a while since I’ve updated, I feel. (well I had a graveyard post and those don’t count really) But, we’re back, we’re still going, slowly but surely.

[cynical-librarian-watches-anime]

Every time I crack open some more Yugioh manga, I think to myself, no way could it get more ridiculous than Kaiba’s haunted house attraction complete with an actual murderer lurking in the shadows. No way could it be more ridiculous than Yami attempting to kill people with his increasingly inventive Penalty Games.

Today, I read what must be THE MOST ridiculous chapters in the entire series. No one can top this.

Yugi and Jonouchi were threatened by Jonouchi’s old gang, all of whom were wielding the choicest weapons of mass destruction. What were these weapons, you ask? Were they knives and box cutters like this same gang was wielding the first time we saw them? No. Were they tasers, like we’ve seen with Mokuba’s gang? Nope.

Yo-Yos. They were YO-YOS!!!! They were whirling them around and hitting people with them, and they were saying it would be DEATH to walk into their “murder net” of flying yo-yos!!

Yami had to show them what real danger is by dropping them through the roof of a very large abandoned warehouse, which he explicitly stated would put all of them in the hospital. Now, if you ask me, the levels of potential bodily harm are vastly incorrect here. Flinging yo-yos at people, sure, it’ll hurt, you’ll probably get bruises, worst case scenario, maybe you could fracture a finger or a toe, depending on the situation. But dropping through a roof that looked to be three or four stories up onto fucking concrete… there is a possibility you could die from that.

This was one of those situations where I had to close the book, and then just sit here staring at a wall wondering what the fuck did I just read.

[aroyami]

Yo, I noticed people (as per FUCKING usual) talking shit about my boy Yugi, so I want to post a little reminder:

Yugi is not a coward

Yugi is not weak

Yugi is not naive

Yugi is optimistic and pacifistic. There’s a fucking difference.

Yugi is, in fact, extremely brave, tough, and aware. Why? Because he chooses to kind, and he chooses to take the hits that he does. Yes, maybe his lack of... a sense of self-preservation, and tendency to be bullied by others was kind of the launching point of the plot, but it literally starts out with him learning to overcome that within the first arc (you know, the one we were already past by the time Duelist Kingdom rolled around because the anime skipped the school arc). 

Remember how he befriended Jou and Honda? You know, when he willingly jumped in front of them to take the hits from Ushio? Is that something a coward would do? No. A coward would run away, but Yugi didn’t. Yugi knows his options, and he chooses to let himself get hurt because he doesn’t want to see others suffer. This has been one of his defining character traits from very early on. He’s even mentioned a few times that he knows helping Yami regain his memories puts himself in danger, but that he still chooses to do it because he feels that it’s the right thing to do, and that Yami needs his help because otherwise he’d be all alone and have nothing. Yugi is someone who feels a need to protect others, and does so non-violently, even at risk to himself.

Oh, and remember the duel on the docks during Battle City? When he was on the verge of collapse and still stood up and directly told Marik, unprompted, that he’s a coward and a bad duelist, and then willingly sacrificed himself to let his friends live? I’m sorry, what was that about Yugi being a coward? Say that again, bitch?

Also, I don’t know WHERE you all somehow got the idea that Yugi lacks confidence in his dueling abilities, because he doesn’t. Maybe every now and then he has doubts as to whether or not he can win a particular duel, but you know what? You know the fuck what? So does Yami! Remember his breakdown over Slifer? Hello?! Yugi is a hell of a good duelist, and he knows it. That’s why the mind shuffle technique fucking worked in the first place, because Yami and Yugi both think the same way in terms of game strategy. Oh, and by the way, guess who originally built their deck? Yeah. That’s right. It was Yugi, bitch.

Maybe this is too hot of a take for this cold ass fandom, but people who see Yugi as weak, cowardly, and insecure aren’t looking at the actual canon. You see this (mostly exaggerated fanon, tbh!!) image of Yami as the super tough, infallible, unwaveringly confident, always-knows-what-he’s-doing, overpowered King Of Games™, and you assume that Yugi must be the opposite, that he must be weak and cowardly and insecure and that’s why he needs Yami to teach him to stand up for himself. But none of that is true. Yami and Yugi are not polar opposites, and never have been; They’re two different expressions of the same person, with Yami being the aggressive, direct side, and Yugi being the more passive, calm, slow-and-steady side.

To say that Yugi is weak and naive and Yami is the epitome of masculinity and power is to do them both a disservice as characters, and frankly to ignore just about everything in Yugioh. Oh, and if you won’t take it from me, maybe try listening to your precious “real protagonist”:

Thank you, have a nice day, and go fuck yourself.

[pkmnjesus]

My Top 5 Shadow Games from Toei’s Yu-Gi-Oh! series (pt. 0/5)

The Door of Darkness has been opened. Why Toei’s original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was awesome!

Today I wanted to do special series of posts on a very obscure anime that not many people really know about outside of the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom. I’m not here to talk about the he famous Yu-Gi-Oh series done by Studio Gallop, but here to show some love towards the first anime adaptation of the manga done by Toei Animation (a.k.a. the infamous Season 0). It only aired in Japan with 27 (based on chapters 1-59 of the manga series) episodes in 1998 and 1 movie in 1999. This was a very dark and violent series compared that touched to the later anime that 4Kids badly dubbed on topics like high school street fighting, terrorism, death games, manipulation, school corruption, and many more, which is probably why it never saw an international release outside of Japan. The 1999 movie did concentrate more on the Duel Monsters card game which will later on be the main focus in the years to come. Some scenes from the later anime can even be seen from season 0 but got adapted a bit differently.

It even has psychological themes in winning games that require no skill but only good luck (especially that Raijinhai episode where they play some ancient game from India). The funny thing is the series was still considered to be heavily censored/toned down since the manga was WAY more brutal and dark. From the introduction of Dark Yugi sending Ushio to a pit of monsters, to playing with deadly digital pets & yo-yos, to finding time bombs in an amusement park, and even surviving Dark Bakura’s BATSU GAME! in the final arc. Let’s not forget about Seto Kaiba (with green hair!) because he’s still pretty much an asshole here sparing no expense hiring game masters to beat Yugi, and nearly killing him (with his friends) in the Death T arc with outrageous obstacle courses. I would compare this to another very dark anime, Death Parade, as its modern counterpart because of the similarities it has on playing games with severe punishments. And let me just say, the soundtrack for the anime was great! The background music really set an eerie and some epic (Yami’s theme) tunes that really set the tone for the episode. It’s just a shame it never got an official release besides the OP (a.k.a. the YGO Abridged theme lol) and ED songs.

But what’s so different besides the darker aspect compared to the YGO series later on? Pretty much the big difference here is the addition of Miho Nosaka to the main cast of the five students in Domino High School. The characters are still pretty much the same (though Mokuba is a bit more evil in this one), and it still does have Duel Monsters (this is where Duelist Kingdom/Season 1 rules came from lol) in it, but it wasn’t the main focus since other games were being played too. The anime even featured the original Capsule Monsters chess game that 4Kids eventually made a different thing out of in the middle of season 5.

The main draw to this anime, and why I love this series so much, is the concept of Yami no Games, otherwise known as a “game of darkness” or “shadow game”, where Dark Yugi challenges antagonists to different types of games with an ultimatum (usually if Anzu’s life is in danger xD). It was just so satisfying to see Dark Yugi (with his smirky smile) beating all sorts of evil people such as bullies, criminals, thugs, creepers, and egomaniacs, ESPECIALLY those who try to cheat in their games...that’s an automatic L for them >:) What do the losers await them in the door of darkness? The punishment of a Penalty Game that will really mess your mind up...or may even kill you. That’ll definitely teach you a lesson or two. So with all that being said, here are my top 5 favorite Yami no Games! I will try my best not to spoil that much since I really want people to really give it watch and understand how awesome season 0 truly was! I will be referring to all the characters in their Japanese names since this was never dubbed anywhere. So please bear with me if you’ve only seen dubbed YGO!

Now it’s game time:

P J’s Top 5 Yami no Gēmu from YGO “Season 0″: #0 | #5 | #4 | #3 | #2 | #1

[smorgasbordofobsessions]

liveblog: yugioh! s341-347

ep341

"kaiba, we may not always agree, but i still trust you"

i do not like this gap between the title and the bullet points

i've, obviously, been using the new post editor (mainly because i HAVE to when using split-screen because tumblr forces that form) but maybe i'm just not remembering a gap in the old post editor (which i actually like)

i've never liked shuffling cards just by cutting them - i like actually shuffling them

"yugi thinks i gave him that card in an act of friendship. that's ridiculous! friendship is for the weak"

honestly joey's right in saying that, when kaiba talks like that, he is disregarding mokuba

which, in kaiba's mind, he'snot really doing, because mokuba is a guaranteed person in his corner - so much so he, arguably, takes mokuba's support for granted

but we all know that kaiba's two focuses are mokuba and his complany - in that order because we've seen him ignore his company to save mokuba from danger

surprise surprise evil!marik has made this duel a shadow game

oh!! evil!marik put up good!marik and yugi as a bet for the shadow realm

oof the stakes are so high!

hmmmm evil!marik just sent Ra to the graveyard - smart

evil!marik looks fucking crazy haha

fuck slifer is that dark magician?????

ahyami has summoned slifer!

"could this be the end?" NO OF COURSE NOT

evil!marik has summoned ra!

ep342

thought: has kiaba ever dueled in a shadow game? or has he just watched them from the sidelines?

"such a low price to pay, especailly when it's my weaker self who pays the price - with his body"

"i plan to prolong your anguish for as long as i can"

whyyyyyy do villains keep making this mistake???

yo what the fuck is up with joey's accent? like it's both thicker but faker then usual? has been the last few episodes but sometimes he talks and i'm just ????

you know what would've been funny

if Ra actually wouldn't obey evil!marik's command because evil!marik's not actually the pharaoh and Ra would only listen to a real pharoah

evil!marik has fused with Ra to give Ra 2999 ATK from his own life points, leaving only 1 life point for evil!marik to have

yugi's faith in kaiba allowed him to draw the car kaiba had given him

i hoenstly forget how duke devlin got caught up with the gang

??????????

oh wow evil!marik played "de-fusion" to avoid defeat

oh wow yami's brought obelisk to the field!

ep343

evil!marik played a trap/monster card that's a slime that imitates the monster that tried to destroy it

so now we have two obelisks!

oh shit revivial jam!

evil!marik fused his slime!obelisk with revival jam - so damn

dark magician girl <3

damn eil!marik really does know how to duel shit

odion's opened his eyes!

ep344

yami usd monster reborn to bring back slifer and protect obelisk from Ra's attack - and protect his life points

"when two monsters are sacrificed, obelisk's force becomes infinite"

what the hell

out of his ass evil!marik pulls a magic card that only allows a monster with more stars than Ra to defeat it

yes

yes thank you

DARK MAGICIAN!!!!!!! <3

LOOKING GOOD!!!!!

odion really left his hospital bed just to let good!marik know he's still there to help him

ep345

good!marik has taken over and surrendered the duel so now evil!marik has been banished to the shadow realm

yugi is now he champion of the battle city tournament!

so marik showed his back off, yugi has all three egyptain god cards,a nd kaiba is ready to get the FUCK OFF THE ISLAND

so the island's gonna self-destruct in an hour yet somehow the kaiba's have disappeared (after arming the bomb) and the engines for the plane aren't working

the drama

ep346

kaiba will literally never get over losing to yugi

also, maybe next time you hold a tournament, make sure you specifically ban yugi from participating so that you can win haha

the island is set to blow in 25min but we have time to reminisce about a childhoos promise made to mokuba

seto's motivations!!!!!!

see this is where having pokemon would come in handy XD

"since when can you fix an engine?" "how hard could it be?"

wow i'm sorry it took 50min to come up with the idea of using the helicopter?

IT TOOK 59MIN30SEC FOR THEM TO COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THEY SHOULD USE THE HELICOPTER

idiots the lot of them

ohmygod

kaiba's embarrassing as shit he has a fucking blue eyes white dragon jet

"oops i guess the other ship wasn't fixed yet"

"the battle between us will never be over!"

IF kaibe were to win a duel against yugi, could he even cope with that win

seto's gonna open theme parks to honor his promise to mokuba how cute!

"i know that i spent a whole season fucking you over but can we still be friends"

okay so now yami+yugi just have to figure out the ancient egyptain secrets by themselves? like... what the hell?? shouldn't the ishtars be abl to help witht hat??

dude can't even read fucking egyptain (kaiba can though)

"i've got places to go, hearts to break,a nd dice to roll"

please i am begging this show to give me more dungeon dice monsters

duke gave serenity his phone number haha

ohmygod tristan did the same thing

"you were like a.. like a sister to me"

serenity she was in a coma for so long

are... are yugi and joey about to duel????

hm they are - so joey can "earn" his red eyes back

you have to wonder why kaiba just let them keep their dueling disks - because presumably that means the other contestants were able to?

though it is good branding

ep347

last episode of the season!!!

ugh see the preview for s401 and it's a still of weevil

is this a fucking flashback episode

it was

[miss617]

Today in “Seemingly Simple Questions That I Think Too Hard About”: Why are so many fans of the Yugioh franchise so eager to hate on the card game aspect?

I know that the manga is held up to some gold standard. I've even seen people say that Duel Monsters "ruined Yugioh." This is so weird to me because, real talk guys, there would be no Yugioh without Duel Monsters. I don't mean the concept, obviously. The original manga would still exist. But the franchise? The thing that we're all talking about to this day? No way.

Wanna know why I think so? Check it out under the cut.

I say this because Yugioh has a noticeably clearer direction once it drops the Game of the Week conceit and adopts Duel Monsters as its game of choice. The early manga is episodic, possibly to a fault. It's apparent that Takahashi had some idea of what he was trying to do with the myth arc but not much structure. For instance, we kind of take it for granted now that Yugi's alter ego is a pharaoh. When Shadi shows up in volume 2, however, he only recognizes that Yugi has a power and believes it must be tested. He doesn't say, "Yo, my family has been waiting 3000 years for someone to solve this puzzle because the spirit of the pharaoh is inside it." You think that would have come up. So I'm not entirely sure that Yami Yugi being a pharaoh was the original plan. Heck, I'm not even sure there there was much of a plan at all. I feel like so much creative energy was probably put into coming up with each Game of the Week and a story to go with it that the larger myth arc kind of fell by the wayside.

Moviebob Chipman once claimed that "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" acts as an in-continuity soft reboot of the entire Amazing Spider-Man comic due to the drastic changes in status quo. Duelist Kingdom serves a similar function in Yugioh. It introduces a new overarching villain, Pegasus. The closest thing we had to an old overarching villain, Kaiba, has had a literal reset. He's now less malevolent, cares for his little brother, and is set up as someone Yami Yugi can respect as a rival. Jonouchi's character motivation has changed. Before he only wanted money to pay off his dad's debts. Now he suddenly has a sister that he needs to cure from Soap Opera Blindness, like, right now. And the danger of the Millennium Items is no longer a thing that pops up every few volumes. Instead it hovers over all proceedings because we know why Yugi needs to save his grandfather. You can, in fact, start from Duelist Kingdom and have little need for more context. That's probably why NAS chose to do just that for the second series anime.

(That's not to say NAS did things perfectly. The loosely adapted manga chapters that shoehorn in the card game are ... weird. The choice not to include an episode on Yugi solving the Millennium Puzzle? Kind of baffling. And the attempt to mix "The Cards with Teeth" with Death-T is a little awkward in its execution.)

In any case, the story gets so much tighter around this time. It's where the Hero's Journey portion of the narrative actually starts. And I put most of the credit for this on the fact that the tournaments have a built in context for each duel. Y'know, because it is a tournament. People have to duel to progress. That means less creative energy had to go into the set up of each game and more could go into the planning of the myth arc. I mean, yeah, I guess it's cool that originally Yami Yugi had a fondness for disproportionate and often violent retribution. But if Yugioh had stayed an episodic Game of the Week manga it would have died on the page. And you know how I know this? Because the Toei anime, despite trying to introduce some kind of overarching plot with Kaiba's Game Masters, despite how ‘cool’ everyone thinks it is in retrospect, still couldn't manage to make it past 27 episodes.

[voidfcllen]

I think it would have been infinitely funnier if Yami was still going feral and torturing people during Battle City. Like. Don’t let Yami Bakura and Yami Marik have all the fun here. He is not better then them morally even though he pretends he is because he loves his friends and does it for ‘righteous’ purposes. He has done Some Shit to peple that was at times laughably Not Equivilant to the crime that person comitted.

He also should have backslid Very Bad on his moral development when he lost Yugi in the Orichalchos arc and it could have lead to very interesting stories about Yami being afraid of his own inner darkness.

[voidfcllen]

The actual mental nightmare it must have been for Yami to untangle his own identity from Yugi’s memories after Duelist Kingdom though. Like, honestly, until that shadow game with Bakura and almost yeeting Kaiba off that roof, it didn’t really click to Yami that he wasn’t actually Yugi but Murderous.

They try to touch on it in Battle City but like everything Yami hears about himself from the Tomb Keepers is kind of not painting the best ever picture. He only has their super biased perspectives on his actual identity, which is a whole other thing to deal with. Imagine going from thinking you know your identity, finding out you are Not That, and having a whole other one shoved on you in what, the span of a few months?? Weeks?

Then the writers kind of just bury it under two-three filler seasons and Yami goes back in his Alter Ego box and doesn’t get much further development.

[voidfcllen]

Honestly every single villain should thank their lucky stars they met Yami on the upswing of his character development because in season 0 he really just was out here to attack people and was having such a good time with it.

If Yugi’s defeat of Kaiba hadn’t brought attention to them I’m sure Yami’s trail of bodies would have!

[voidfcllen]

Back on my ‘Yami is a Ravenclaw’ bullshit but now with headcanons.

In his first life, Atem was not nearly as adept at controlling the magic of the Millennium Puzzle (at the time Pendant) as he would become in his second. Or in any magic at all, for even if the teenage pharaoh was loyal, and just, and was willing to give everything for the sake of the world, what little we do get of Atem’s backstory in the memory world arc implies this responsibility was new, and he only began to take his duties seriously after his father passed.

Atem couldn’t defeat the Dark God, only hold him off. His final gambit, with the help of Horakhty herself, was one final Game. Hinging the fate of the world on a Puzzle that was never meant to be solved, irreversibly linking him to Zorc and to the final battle they never finished.

He was never a particularly powerful mage, but he was loyal, and courageous, and above all Clever. In a sense, Atem was the one who forged his own destiny.

Thousands of years later, his soul had seeped in the shadows magics and become one with the Millennium Puzzle. It didn’t just house his soul, it held it together, it was his soul.

When Atem was freed from the darkness, he emerged a nameless, faceless entity of pure magic. Until he connected properly with Yugi, it was the only thing he knew that didn’t come from Yugi’s memories.

[voidfcllen]

Since he doesn’t have the puzzle anymore in either of his post-series verses, Atem wears the cartouche necklace Anzu gave him, and these really just, gaudy chunky necklaces because not having that Weight there was throwing off his center of gravity like, hilariously bad.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: Seto Kaiba's First Kidnapping

It’s Christmas vacation, I have Mannheim Steamroller on repeat, so much chocolate just an arms reach away from me. And I have purposely given myself nothing to do as an attempt to teach myself to do nothing.

So lets watch something weird and revisit Zero.

For those new here, I have been also reviewing most of Season Zero. If you don’t know what that is, you can my recaps in order by clicking this link here.

And like last time, I am not actually affiliated with Team Millennium, and I hope they don’t mind that I am capping their episode. You can find them on Youtube where they are slowly redubbing this season into English, and um--this next episode is the last episode they have! So I don’t know how I’m going to recap the rest?

Probably the same way I did in the first episode where it’s a lot less dialogue and more just...my reaction to it.

And, as always, my disclaimer for the new people that this was made in the 90′s and based off of the OG manga and it is...not the same show. It’s problematic. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a counter-culture anime from the 90′s. Though this episode is pretty tame, honestly. Weird, but tame.

So, we start off the episode with a very lovingly drawn sky, not sure why it’s on THIS show but it’s here. This post apocalyptic sunset.

And staring directly into this sun going supernova is Seto Kaiba in his green hair, just brooding...

Not sure how he has this view from his Pemberly style mansion, but I dunno, maybe the city is visible from the backyard, or Seto just has really good vision. Either way don’t worry about it, we see Seto vibe out and visualize weird stuff all the time.

So, spurned by his hate for his classmate that beat him in cards once, Seto decides it’s time to enact his revenge by...what sounds a lot like some weird Lord of the Rings Lore and I dunno if it’s a bad translation or I just don’t really know what the hell he’s going off about because I never read the Yugioh version of the Silmarillion. Probably both.

See, while the first couple episodes of this show have different variations on Youtube, this one really only had the Team Millennium version in English (which is fine, there’s just some confusing things) and then the other version I saw skipped half of the episode because I guess they decided this part was boring or something. So forgive the fact that I’m flying on the seat of my pants here and I assume y’all will know all the deets I don’t know. For once, my contribution will be...kind of a lot less words.

So lets get right to it.

(read more under the cut)

Seto, who is in so much denial from Seasons 1-4, that I’ve headcanoned is actually cursed to never admit magic is real, has decided to call upon the (checks notes)

4 Game Masters

Yeah, that’s a new mechanic, these are a thing now. Don’t worry if you never heard of them before, I’ve been capping this show and I also have never heard of the legendary 4 magical Game Masters either.

So at this point these statues start glowing all creepy, and because it’s Yugioh I just kinda assumed...they’d do something.

I’m starting to think that maybe that was supposed to be symbolic, actually. Maybe there was never actually magic in the statues. Maybe it’s part of Seto hallucinating, as always. This whole show kind of runs on being a sort of metal fever dream whenever people get intense about games, so I’m probably not supposed to align it with any established magic laws anyway. It’s just I never know when things are real or just aesthetics, which I enjoy, quite a bit, that it’s open ended--but still it’s somewhat confusing as to if these gargoyles are...a thing now or were just always set dressing to kind of remind us of the cards that come later in the episode.

But, remember the spooky indoor gargoyles in your mind, keep it there, these menacing gargoyles over a fiery sunset...

OK now lets meet the real villain.

There he is. Our villain. And his name? Ripley Sheldon.

MAN to go from spooky gargoyles to Ripley Sheldon. There’s a name. That’s a name all right. I’ve only seen one episode of Big Bang Theory but Sheldon is a name forever ruined for me.

So--sidestory--this one time, my friend was at a wedding in Santa Cruz, which is a pretty beachy hippie town that always smelled like weed before it was legal, and there was just...a doll at the wedding. My friend was seated at a dinner party table just right next to this doll, and the family was like “Ah yes, this is the doll, you have to speak to her. She’s a member of the family.” and my friend had to suffer roleplaying with this doll for hours.

So before you’re like...there’s no way grown ass adults are this weird with dolls in public.

Yes. It happens.

Ah, and it’s the first instances of the Kaiba Corp logo and it’s the same. Complete with helicopter, because that Logo is never done until it’s surrounded by a fast military vehicle of some sort.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh great.

Yo remember that one episode where Yugi almost got his legs chopped off by Arcana and Arcana’s wife was being held behind a curtain, and at the end of the episode Arcana pulls back the curtain and his wife was a manikin the whole time and her head fell off?

Getting those vibes.

Back at school, Miho is busy being the most manipulative human being, this time with losing at cards. Like y’all I am TRYING to give Miho the benefit of a doubt here, but it seems even the translators hated Miho so much they had her refer to herself in the 3rd person. I am trying, really I am, sorry to everyone who loves Miho, I will leave that door open as I watch these--that maybe Miho will...grow on me.

But not this episode.

And then this happened. I guess from the breeze of Honda leaning over too far.

Believe it or not, Yuugi’s vertigo will come back later in this very episode. This whole bizarre scenario was just foreshadowing.

But for reals, Yuugi is so FRAIL in Season Zero. While I appreciate the contrast between Yuugi and Yami Yuugi, I gotta recognize how much Yugi has evolved over 4+ seasons because Yuugi is just...eggshells. Every part of him is polite little eggshells.

But in contrast, you have Anzu who is ready to fight in every single scene she’s in and I’m OK with that.

That and the very clear romantic direction that is just...simple. It’s very simple in Season Zero. That’s nice.

Anzu isn’t even possessed by two ghosts. In fact, between Anzu and Yuugi right now, there are 0 ghosts. So weird. So kosher.

Speaking of weird,

Y’all, I have no explanation for this. I only know so much Kanji.

The translation I watched tried so very hard to do what they could with this, and kudos to them, but...this is what happens with translation, it’s just a very hard job sometimes. So I get how they decided to form this joke into English, but if anyone is like a Japanese speaker and gets the pun that was clearly happening here, feel free to youknow, share the knowledge.

Unfortunately the undubbed episode that exists on Youtube that I found edited out this part so they didn’t have to try and translate it, lol. Either way, I appreciate Orange Jounouchi a lot, as well as the background squids on Squid Jounouchi.

Can you imagine just being in high school, and you get summoned to the Nurses Office? Can you even imagine what rumors would start from that? Like I know Seto wants revenge against Yuugi through cards, but I think he just did. I think he did like maybe one of the worst things you can do to a High Schooler just now. May as well page over the intercom that Yuugi has to pick up his yeast infection ointment.

And this is where we meet...a ridiculous satire. This 30 year old beautiful woman flirting with a child disaster who cannot balance while seated on a low chair.

And predictably, Yuugi lost because things just got THAT weird and awkward. Dunno if the translators put that in there for fun, or if that’s honestly how it was in the original. My bet it was probably exactly that weird in the original. Mostly because this show has a lot of “stranger danger” set ups to teach little children to never trust bad adults and this just seemed like exactly that type of set-up. Don’t trust the overly nice nurse or she’ll steal your cards in a game, kids.

After this really awkward card game (and I’m not going to bother to dive into it because I don’t talk about the card mechanics here), we find out...that Seto’s just been staring at them...the entire time.

Like it has such a voyeuristic vibe to it, it really makes you wonder about Seto’s whole deal just an awful lot. Like Season 1-4 doesn’t really ship Yugi/Kaiba, in my opinion (and just my opinion, I know how y’all feel about the ship and that is a-ok, all ships are welcome here)...but Season Zero ships A LOT. It’s not a serious ship by any means, it’s clearly a crack ship, but they...very clearly know what they’re doing with Seto being this obsessed with Yuugi in this way, omg. It just sounds like a kink to me.

So, ways to beat Yuugi Muto:

steal his stuff halfway through the game, try to kill yourself, rock paper scissors, try to kill Joey Wheeler, or dress up a sex doll like a nurse and have a gross old man have it play cards while he makes a sexy lady voiceover.

(Y’all I’ve been to my share of arcades in my life and I think I’ve only seen like 6 pinball tables total. Do good arcades only exist on TV? I think it’s all a lie.)

Then, because I guess this episode wasn’t going anywhere, Yuugi goes to the arcade to play some video games. The video game is unimportant, and it’s never been brought up before, but he’s dead set on finding it. Because unlike Yugi, Yuugi just doesn’t really have a goal in this series so he just kind of flutters around until someone tells him what to do.

TBH that’s a pretty 90′s thing for a show or a movie to do. To have characters just exist and have things happen to them, but in all, they’re just...wandering. So it’s not so much a knock on the show, it’s just that sometimes it’s a little of a transition to go from a goal being something physical, like finding the lost city of Atlantis before every human’s soul is absorbed into the great Leviathan, to the goal being more of a mental acceptance--Yuugi just learning to accept this curse he doesn’t even know he has yet, and trying to find acceptance in his group of friends.

With Yuugi, we’re kind of just watching his daily life, which is mostly watching him try and sneak games into every spare moment that his local adult has turned around. It has a very slice of life feel to it, but minus the near constant innuendo slice of life tends to have (at least the ones that have been recommended to me)

Now, because this is a show about people getting a real EXTREME comeuppance every time they break the law, what will happen to Yuugi for ignoring his Grandpa’s wishes and going to the arcade before going home?

First, we meet this mushroom haired person.

That’s right kids, NEVER stop by the arcade on the way home from school--1.) The local arcades are almost always 90% boring racing games and busted shooters that came out on the Nintendo 64 when I was a child and 2.) You will get abducted.

And then we get this face swap.

Kaiba just really loves dress-up. No wonder he was hanging out with a guy super into dolls. And like, I went into before how Seto Kaiba is always doused in facsimile energy. He loves faking it up, and apparently that’s been true since Zero.

He introduces that he will have four challenges from four Game Masters and uh so welcome to the...I don’t where this is, but a weird place full of dolls that must exist somewhere in Domino.

I guess this is to make it seem like they have an audience to watch Yuugi fail but even still...what?

So we get kind of a mirror to the scene at the beginning with Miho crying and Honda telling Yuugi to apologize for beating her, except replace Miho with Seto and Honda with this guy who really likes dolls (and Miho is a lot like a cursed doll). Like, if there were a theme to this episode it’s “grow up and stop apologizing when you beat someone in a card game” which isn’t a terrible theme, especially in this show that is about Yuugi learning how to adult.

In fact the “grow the hell up” theme is so strong we have a villain who is just...a big baby who carries dolls around. Kinda makes you wonder if the show would have eventually had Yuugi just...grow out of toys and games completely for the finale. Like in the Yugioh we have now, he can’t, because first off they licensed a hell ton of toys, but also because Yugi does games for his actual job. Even if Pharaoh was gone, Yugi still has to play games all the time. In this case, he could just...be using the games to learn how to do adult things, which is actually why we give kids games in the first place.

But, speculation aside, it’s at this point that a card play knocks Yuugi off of his chair and he passes out. Despite the fact that this isn’t a Shadow game and there...shouldn’t be any magic present. In fact, I don’t think any part of this game in this episode required opening the door of darkness. When he switches to Yami shortly after falling off of his own chair he’s like...yeah this is fine. Seems all above board. No need to kill anybody

And then apparently there’s a type of Dual Monster’s card I was unaware of.

A doll-type.

So I looked it up, is there a doll type card in Yugioh?

And it seems like there’s a lot of dolls, but not like...a type, as far as I can tell. Again, I don’t play this game, I’m only here for the plot and this one just seemed like they really had to reach for Yuugi to have just the right type of card to play.

And again, because this wasn’t a Shadow Duel, our loser just kind of walks away...all the way back to Britain, I guess.

And Seto just stands there behind a window in a rainstorm to allude to his many unshed salty tears, and it cuts to Miho who I guess has learned not to cry when she loses to Yuugi now.

And then she pulls out an absolutely winning tactic. This would win, actually. It’s actually genius.

And that is a very strong

From me. Wow. No thanks. I actually don’t want to see Yuugi do a kissy face ever again, thank you.

Half of you loved that though. This is fine. We’re all different.

Anyway, I assume the game was never played, or Miho won and the show just decided not to show it. If Season Zero Yuugi is a Yuugi that makes out then...that is...shocking. Then again, we’re only like...a third of the way through? I think?

Anyway, it’s...after Christmas because I went out of town for a spell, but I’ll just...post this now. Last post before the new year.

I’ll see y’all in 2020!