#Yugi's freakin dead

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep : I don't know the episode numbers anymore I never wrote them down, so from here on out, I'm just going to number up from my previous post. So I guess episode 49

Fun fact I finished this post a week ago and then never pressed send. I can blame this on a lot of things, (work, illness, brain fog, etc) but at this point we just know it's the universe trying to keep me from finishing S5 of my Yugioh reblog, lmao.

So, last we left off, Sad Seto was next to die.

What makes this extra weird is that the other Seto is going to just watch this entire thing happen. He apparently didn't have enough traumatic disassociating while watching his Blue Eyes Wife die, now he will disassociate from watching himself go out in a blaze of glory, too.

Sad Seto's strategy against Zorc is not really what you'd expect out of the #2 of Egypt's court. Although...I guess before everyone biffed it, Seto was more like #5? #6?

He's above Mana I feel. Barely. Mostly because Mana probably isn't the right age to legally work, even in ancient Egypt when the working age is like...if you can walk.

But he was apparently so busy doing Aknadin's taxes that he's decided it's good judgement to throw himself at a 800 ft tall dragon/crotch/man.

for his credit, Sun Tzu's art of war hasn't been written yet.

And Sad Seto realizes his true purpose, which is that he has a smarter, stronger, and more powerful girlfriend (ish.) Which is a running theme on this show, as we all know.

In a bizarre cut that I can't believe they left on US TV...other than I think they couldn't cut this any other way, the penis dragon attached to Zork extended it's neck up to grab Blue eyes by her neck and just fling her into the ground, killing her instantly.

I don't like that the neck can extend longer. I don't like that it's a function of the dragon crotch. They knew. They knew what this looked like. Thanks, I hate it.

Also what an embarrassing way for Seto's past self to die. Truly the hieroglyphs about this event will be wild, and thousands of years later, Grandma Muto probably looked at this event etched into stone and just thought it was weird ancient pervert stuff.

Sorry if you were thinking Sad Seto would recover last minute and realize he's like the most OP person in Yugioh. He instead rotted from his hand and joined the rest of our Egyptian cast in Shadow Hell.

Leaving us with just Mana. And like kudos to her, but how on EARTH did she survive so freakin long!? Like of all of them, I thought Seto would be the last one. Not Mana. Not in a million years did I think it'd be the girl who hid in a pot.

But youknow maybe that's why she survived?

And then Bakura casually walked away from the only Seto who matters. Which is fitting, because if memory serves, that's also what Yami did to Seto for like half of the Battle City tourney.

It's such a weird strange bod on this dragon. It's such a strange bod. He's both got kind of a belly, but also is ripped to shreds. Such a weird bod.

In case you were like "We haven't given Seto enough motivation," we also toss in a few nearly dead brothers just to make sure we have properly traumatized this boy to the point where he'd duel someone who isn't Yugi Muto.

Seto decided magic exists 6 minutes ago, and he's already better at magic than Yugi Muto who's had access to it for YEARS.

Like he learned about magic in a different culture, a different time, a different language, and now he's fighting the final boss.

But it's Seto, so I buy it. He would speedrun his life like this.

That's the dialogue of the show where he says his first words were "neutron blast attack" and youknow...he probably has very few memories of himself as a child since his parents died and his other family put him up for adoption...but he knows his first words?

That, or Seto likes making his brand a reality by making up whatever nonsense it takes to make that brand legit. Which I can also see him doing.

Also please don't look at this foreshortened hand, don't look at it, ignore that this happened.

So thanks to Bakura's weird choice to drag Seto into this universe in the first place, now Bakura has to fight Seto and his 3 blue eyes that would not have existed here otherwise.

++++++ME RANTING ABOUT THE SETO ARC FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++

TBH it kinda makes the whole Sad Seto arc feel kind of like it didn't need to exist. Like this is the Seto fight that matters. This one right here, and although they share a name, it's not with the same guy who fought Zorc at the beginning of this episode.

And like I could add it to a list of problems with this season. But Sad Seto started out so interesting, and then forgot. It was like he only existed to introduce the dragon, and not explain anything at all about the nature of Seto Kaiba we know and love. Like the possession of Aknadin can be a parallel to how Seto was raised following Gozaburo's footsteps, but youknow...that's all old territory.

Like, I wish I had any sort of new growth from the interaction of either of the Seto's together in the same room, much like we've been getting from Yami facing his past self. Yami's been growing a lot, he's been facing his demons, but Seto? Seto's been walking around this desert trying find wifi.

(which like he did find a "wifey" which is almost wifi but wasn't as helpful because she was dead)

The Seto Kaiba who is fighting Bakura right now, is the same exact guy we saw at the end of the last arc against Zeigfried Von Schroeder.

Which means the reason that Seto is now souped up and capable of going up against Bakura isn't because of anything we witnessed here in this arc, but because of the weird horse guy last arc who taught him how to put up a better firewall.

And maybe there was a draft where Seto decides he is a spiritual reincarnation of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Maybe there was a draft where he gained a new ability. Maybe there was a draft where he realized the gravity of what was happening and wanted to save the world.

But it ain't this draft, unfortunately.

Seto is here not because of an internal growth reason, but because he was on a tablet in S2, and we have to know where that plot thread went to have an ending...but the show rewrote what it initially said in S2.

Like in the OG timeline, it was Seto who killed Pharaoh. But here we found out it was actually Aknadin who possessed Seto to kill Pharaoh. (and at some point in that fight, Pharaoh stuck his soul in a box and sealed away Zorc)

Sad Seto was apparently a chill bro the entire time. Just a nice guy who arrested half of Cairo and had a sort-of-girlfriend for about 8 hours before she biffed it.

And I would have been OK with that, if it were more interesting than what we initially thought happened in the past: where we thought it was a kickass Seto launching a coup. But unfortunately, it's not, instead it's a boy who started out powerless, and continued to be powerless despite working in Pharaoh's literal court. He didn't even have the power to not get possessed.

And I am sure there were other drafts, and endings are hard, and the author did get hella hospitalized while he wrote this season, animation is a miracle of many moving parts and budgets, and we were lucky to even get an ending to this show. So I don't want to sound like I'm complaining when there are so many worse directions this show could have gone. I'm just a little surprised it went this direction, mostly.

But say what you will about Yugioh, it doesn't like to be predictable, doesn't it?

+++++++++++++++++++OK I'M DONE++++++++++++++++++++++

Speaking of characters who haven't gained anything from being here, Tristan is no longer possessed!

Tristan begs his apologies and Yugi takes it gracefully. Which means, it's time for the main character of this entire show to finally re-enter the plot.

And they do so, in style.

Y'all I remember being excited about the look and style of extreme sports, but I do not remember this many heelies in the 00's.

Anyway, this is the link to read these in chrono order, you know the drill. See you next time to see yet another girlfriend biff it!

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

[medea10]

My Review of Trigun

How did I get into this anime? Let’s just say this was one of those animes that used to air on Saturday nights back in the day that I would every now and then come across while waiting for either Full Metal Alchemist, InuYasha, or Cowboy Bebop to air. But I never did watch a full episode or know a damn thing about this anime. So I’m just jumping into this anime blindfolded. All I know is that this was Johnny Yong Bosch’s first anime role.

Who is Vash the Stampede?

A frequent question that comes up throughout the series! Rumor has it that he wears a long, red trench coat and sports a Mohawk hairstyle. Some say he’s a notorious lecher. Many recount him shooting up their villages to a pile of rubble just for the heck of it. He has quite the reputation as he has a $$60,000,000,000 bounty on his head and is often known as the “Humanoid Typhoon”.

In reality, Vash the Stampede is…a bit of a dingus. He just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and things kinda get out of hand. But that doesn’t stop two insurance agents (Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe) from following him around to confirm Vash’s identity and keep his actions to a minimum. At first, it’s hard to tell if he’s a stupid-genius or just flighty and gets lucky one too many times. But when shit goes down, don’t be surprised when you see this doofus get serious.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Okay, what sad company did this use to belong to, Geneon, Bandai, or ADV Films? Oh, Geneon! That means good voice actors from L.A. put in really shitty roles. On the contrary, this was a fairly decent English dub. And on a severely positive note, this was indeed Johnny Yong Bosch’s very first anime role (and a main role at that). This was like fresh off his time as a Power Ranger! And I gotta give props for giving this guy a chance at voice acting. This role was the launching point to what has been a very successful career for Bosch. As for the sub, let’s just say I’m happy any time I get to hear Hiromi Tsuru in something besides Dragon Ball. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Vash is played by Masaya Onosaka (known for Bill on Pokemon, Isaac on Baccano, Jadeite on Sailor Moon, Kero on Cardcaptor Sakura, Leeron on Gurren Lagann, France on Hetalia, and Spandam on One Piece)

*Meryl is played by Hiromi Tsuru (known for Bulma on DBZ, Ukyo on Ranma ½, Yubel on YGO GX, and Mika on Gravitation) [R.I.P.]

*Milly is played by Satsuki Yukino (known for Kagome on InuYasha, Mion/Shion on Higurashi, Tae on Gintama, Amakata on Free!, Hiiragi on Natsume Yuujinchou, Mutsumi on Love Hina, and Yoruichi on Bleach)

ENGLISH CAST: *Vash is played by Johnny Yong Bosch (known for Ichigo on Bleach, Lelouch on Code Geass, Makoto on Free!, Izaya on Durarara, Artemis on Sailor Moon redub, Koizumi on Haruhi Suzumiya, and Yukio on Blue Exorcist)

*Meryl is played by Dorothy Elias-Fahn (known for Kaoru on Rurouni Kenshin, Naru on Love Hina, Tomoe on Rozen Maiden, Hakuei on Magi, Houki on Fushigi Yugi, and Amane on Tenchi Muyo GXP)

*Milly is played by Lia Sargent (known for Dorothy on The Big O and Judy on Cowboy Bebop)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Milly! I don’t need a reason, it’s Milly!

SHIPPING: I didn’t really start thinking about shipping until more than halfway into this series. I thought there might be something between Vash and Meryl, but then again maybe not! Then I saw the backstory of Vash’s “younger days” and falling for the one woman who showed him compassion.

Yes, this is the same woman we consistently see in Vash’s flashbacks, Rem. Ooh boy, it’s one of those stories! So yeah, never mind my thinking with Vash x Meryl ever happening. I feel like Vash will mourn Rem’s death for a long time that I don’t think the whole thing with Meryl will ever work.

And as for Wolfwood x Milly…

FUUUUUUUCK! WHY DID YOU RUIN THIS CUTE COUPLE?!

MILLY WAS HEART-BROKEN!

…At least she got to have one night of passion with Wolfy-boy before the unthinkable happened.

THAT DARN CAT: If you watched this series, you might have noticed a little black cat spotted in nearly every episode. It’s there in the opening theme. It’s there in random places throughout the series. It’s there in the ending theme. What’s up with this cat? Well, there are a lot of theories surrounding this particular cat (or Kuroneko). Some say it’s really Rem inside that cat since you see it in literally every episode around Vash. Others say it’s because the creator of Trigun wanted to just mess with your minds with the kitty walking around in random places and towns. Seriously, it will always appear in every new town Vash and the gang comes across! As an avid cat enthusiast, I’m fine with whatever the result. Just as long as no harm comes to the little Kuroneko.

HALFWAY POINT: Halfway into the series we notice something more when it comes to Mr. Vash the Stampede. First of all, those horrifying scars all over his body! Second, that mysterious girl he often thinks about. I mean, we see flashes of her in the opening sequence. And third, the reason why he never kills. Vash has the ability of causing so much damage when pushed to a breaking point. One of the many reasons why he’s known as the “humanoid typhoon”! And that was perfectly shown when Vash chases the residents out of a town (so there would be no casualties), totally demolished the town during a fight, and made an indent on the moon!

But the story takes a sharp-left turn into WTF territory when we learn about WHAT exactly Vash is. Vash is a plant. Vash also has a brother named Knives. And while Vash has a mentality that all beings have a right to live, Knives has a “kill them all and let God sort them out” point of view. Now the existence of Vash and Knives came with a lot of controversy, especially in the ship that they were on. But that girl who Vash cares for, Rem cared for them regardless of what they were. Rem had high hopes for a peaceful world with coexistence. Too bad Knives had other motives and killed her.

ENDING TO TV SERIES: Vash has tried so hard to keep Milly, Meryl, and Wolfwood out of harm’s way. He knows there are some pretty bad people after him, including his polar-opposite brother, Knives. Vash hates death and wants to save as many people as humanly possible. He doesn’t want to see any more needless death. Probably from his flashbacks and losing Rem! Unfortunately, this doesn’t go so well.

I can see how iconic this death was now after witnessing it. Wolfwood, the priest who would hook up with Vash every now and then when they’re up against some ruffians, now finds himself in a crucial decision. He gets orders that he must eliminate Vash. And Wolfwood ends up dying instead in a very dramatic death scene. God-damn! And just that scene where Milly is sobbing freakin’ eats you up inside.

At least she had one night of passion before the unfortunate happened!

Vash hates the thought of having to kill anyone. But he might not have a choice if Knives is coming after him and even hires a powerful foe from a previous episode and the guy that killed Wolfwood to take you out. Once Vash met up with Knives, he winds up having some pretty sick flashbacks of Knives. But our homeboy was able to take out Knives, the desert area gets water, and…

I’m gonna have to read the fucking manga for more, right?

Tap dancing fuck!

BADLANDS RUMBLE: 12 years after the series ended, Japan decides to release a side-story in the form of a movie, bringing back our favorite characters like Vash, Wolfwood, Milly, and Meryl. And yes, reuniting the cast…in Japan.

By 2010, Geneon was as good as dead and FUNimation licensed Trigun. In short, they managed to get Johnny Young Bosch to reprise his role as Vash the Stampede. But everyone else was replaced. And surprisingly, the people they got to do Wolfwood and Milly were pretty freakin’ close to their original voices. Meryl’s voice, come on I know Luci Christian any-damn-where! Vash helps a young lady take out a big-bad guy (who turns out to be his father). And it has the feel of the original series where it’s set in a western town with lots of booze and shoot-em-ups! It’s an interesting side-story to the Trigun trilogy.

Trigun was a pretty good anime. I mean, not one of my favorites, but I can definitely see a lot of people sticking by this classic. Maybe you can chalk up my blah attitude to the fact that I’m not fond of westerns and I kinda took it out on Trigun. Or the fact that there was so much more that the anime could have covered before the end and the ending kinda felt off to me! Like I thought I was expecting more. But I suppose that’s what mangas are for. To be honest, the stories that really grabbed my attention were the back-stories with Vash and Knives and Wolfwood’s final episode.

*sniffles* At least Milly got one night of passion before he died!

If you would like to check out Trigun, all the episodes are available through FUNimation and Hulu (in both Japanese and English). And if you really like the anime, why not purchase the hard copies? Both the series and movie are available for home video.

Okay, that took me a while, but I’m glad to finish Trigun. What’s next on the FUNimation list?

EEHHHHHEEEHHHE

Fuck is that supposed to mean? What is that? Is that even in English?

YOU WILL BE HORRIBLY MUTILATED: The Isekai

Do you mean Re:Zero? That’s great…but that review’s not ready yet. And it probably won’t be until after April 2021! So let’s cast caution to the wind and pick another FUNimation licensed anime.

You’re watching Sarazanmai next. It’s best if you don’t ask questions.

Sarazanmai? The fuck does that even mean?!

OH. MY. GOD.

[lailarain]

Spoilers for TBHK

TW: Mentions of s3xu@l åss@ult/@buse, $uicidə and bl00d

Episode 1:

I just finished episode 1 of Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun(Weird title, I know), and I just have to say...

I love Hanako and Nene and I will protect them both with my life🥰

Episode 2:

WOAH Hanako wyd😳

I kinda ship Hanako and Nene tho lol don't attack me

AYO THERE'S AN EYE UNDER YOUR DESK

Wait did Hanako steal her books or was it that eye thingy🤨

The title spelt faires wrong

OH SHOOT THE SCALES

Wait NO DON'T FALL FOR IT NENE IT'S BAIT

YES MA BOI HANAKO TO THE RESCUE

Wait are Yousei from japanese legend, like yokai or oni?

Okay I DEFINITELY SHIP THESE TWO

Wait why does Hanako look kinda said when she says that

awwww Hanako🥺

Wait what is he talking about who was his friend before

Nene is awesome istg🥺

WAIT WHO IS THE BLONDE DUDE WHY IS HE LOOKING FOR HANAKO NO

"I wish a hot guy who fall out the sky for me that way" girl Hanako is literally RIGHT there

Omfg this orange hair f-boy🤨

Wait WASN'T THAT THE NAME OF HER CRUSH

Hanako just standing there like 😐

WAIT NO LEAVE HANAKO ALONE

He tried to not swear in front of her lol

HOLDUP MA PRECIOUS BABY BOI DID NOT MURDER SOMEONE WTF

HOW DARE HE SAY THAT NO ONE WANTS HANAKO AROUND

Jesus Hanako is so cute lol

I honestly can't tell if hanako is an owo boy or a bruh boy istg

OKAY CAN SOMEONE TELL WHO THIS WEIRD RADOI LADY IS AND WHY SHE KEEPS SHOWING UP AT THE END OF THE EPISODE

Episode 3:

(That one part in the intro) Step-yellow sillouette, what you doing😳

For real tho Hanako looks pretty scared during that part of the intro why are they biting his ear(maybe Hanako was a victim of s3xu@l assault?)

Wait isn't Hanako the 7th of the 7 Wonders

Okay that's kinda gross😟

Okay Aoi is pretty sweet😌

WAIT NO AOI SHE WAS TOO PRECIOUS

NO AOI BETTER NOT BE GONE

NO NOT THE BLOOD

What is she talking about he's not hot at all🤨

OH SHOOT IS HE A GHOST

Okay can minamoto leave Hanako alone🙄

Awww Hanako is half hto and half cute I might be a simp

OKAY WOAH THIS PLACE IS COOL

I mean Hanako has a good point😳

NO DON'T ANSWER IT

OKAY WOAH DON'T ASK SOME HIGH SCHOOLER TO GO COLLECT YOUR BODY PARTS NOPE

Okay WOAH how old are you exactly, Hanako?

Okay this fantasy is making me uncomfortable😀

Girl, you're already cute. You don't need to be a Miu Iruma lookalike to find love

THE BOOBS LMAOO😭😭😭😭😭

Awwww Hanako being sweet to Nene🥺

YES HANAKO SAVING THE DAY

Wait why didn't she answer his question🤨

Wait who WAS making those phone calls?

WAIT THE EPISODE IS ALREADY OVER?!?!?!?

Episode 4:

Okay but for real WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE YELLOW SILHOUETTE AND HANAKO IN THE INTRO?!?!?!

Wait I just noticed that in the part with the yellow silhouette, Hanako is tied up with rope😳

Okay here's my theory:

When Hanako was alive, he was a student at the school. He was s3xu@lly a$$aulted in the bathroom, and muđəred his attacker out of anger/mental instability, therefore cursing him to the bathroom he was assaulted in. He became a ghost to make up for his sins.

Idk I could be totally off-base

HOLY FUCK IT'S A HEAD

IT'S THE BODY LMAOOO

Wait she actually likes it🤨

HOLY SHIT EWWWWWW

WAIT WHAT NO NOT AOI

WHAT THE FUCK NOOOOOO NOT AOI

WAIT YES AOI ISN'T DEAD

Hanako is so sweet istg.

HANAKO REALLY JUST PUSHED HER OFF THE EDGE LIKE A PSYCHOPATH AJAGRKEBDUDBD

Can she not spell or something🤨

WAIT WAS THE GHOST A STUDENT OF MISAKI

Wait she had a crush on her teacher that's so gross

Oh no. The student didn't know Misaki was murdered🥺

WAIT NO THIS IS SAD

OH SHOOT THAT IS DARK

aww she misses the teacher🥺

YES HANAKO MY BOY

WAIT HANAKO NO HE'S HURT

Nene is really fed up😳

WAIT WHAT NO SHE'S GONNA DIE?!?!?!?!

Awwww poor girl🥺

Why'd she have to die😭

Little Fox is mean😑

WAIT DID HE JUST KISS HER YES BABY

WAIT WHO'S THAT GREEN-HAIR GIRL

HE FORGOT ABOUT MINAMOTO LMAOOO😭

Episode 5:

Okay BUT WHO IS GRABBING HANAKO IN THE INTRO ISTG

LMAO SHE WAS FANTASIZING😭😭😭

Okay but she's SO pretty with her in a braid

Are you sure there was NOTHING good about that😏

YES AOI MY GIRL GIVING HER GOOD ADVICE

But I doubt Hanako would admit it

WAIT DID HANAKO PLANT THAT TREE OR AM I PARANOID

I'm excited to see how THIS plays out😁

HANAKO WHAT DID YOU SAYYYYY

WAIT IS HE REALLY GONNA DO IT

WAIT ARE THESE BITCHES GAYYYYYY

Wait what if the tree curses people

GIRL ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME THAT HANAKO ISN'T HOT AS IS!?!?!?

WAIT YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS THIS IS SO COOL

WAIT WHAT'S THE CATCH

Of course he didn't actaully mean it THIS SUCKS😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

HE'S HOLDING HER I REPEAT HE'S HOLDING HER

poor Nene

WAIT OH NO SHE'S CRYING

WAIT DOES HE ACTUALLY LIKE HER

HE'S BLUSHING WHAT

YES YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSS

WAIT HE'S RIGHT THERE

I was right they have the same last name!

WAIT THIS BITCH BETTER NOT COME BETWEEN HANAKO AND NENE

CAN THIS BITCH SHUT UP

TERU STOP IT RN

Okay I kinda feel bad for Kou rn🥺

HOW IS HE ANY OF THOSE THINGS

Wait who is that girl🤨

YES I WANNA FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HANAKO

THE GREEN HAIR GIRL AND NATSU-SOMETHING ARE UP TO NO GOOD I CAN FEEL IT

Wait WHY WAS HANAKO SMILING

I have a bad feeling about this.

Episode 6:

Yeah Hanako really seems like the good guy🤨

WOAH what's up with the door?

I love the Mokkes🥺

It's her book😶

WOAH OKAY THEN SHE REALLY IS IN LOVE

WAIT WHY IS THERE BLOOD

HOLDUP HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT

HANAKO MA BOI

WOAH OKAY YES HE'S HOLDING HER

DID HE JUST EAT THE BUTTERFLY

God I love Hanako

WAIT YOU'RE GONNA CANCEL THE WHAT NOW

Ooooooo I wanna heae some juicy secrets😏

Girl, that secret wasn't juicy at all🙄

Wait what does the library ghost know🤨

SAY SOMETHING HANAKO YES

He's so cute tho

BUT I LOVE DONUTS TOO HOW IS THAT JUICY

HANAKO YOU WERE LOOKING REAL PROTECTIVE OF HER THEN😏😏😏

I feel bad for Nene because they keep saying her legs are fat, as if the boys that say that are gonna get any better. NENE IS A FREAKIN CATCH😤😤😤

Wait what is he talking about Hanako😶

WAIT HE IS TALKING ABOUT HANAKO, ISN'T HE

WAIT HANAKO WAS HIS STUDENT HE'S SO CUTE

Awwwww Hanako🥺🥺🥺🥺

WAIT HANAKO ISN'T EVEN HIS NAME!??!?!? IT'S YUGI?!?!?!?

Awwwww Hanako🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Wait, so did Hanako commit $uicidə, or am I just paranoid?

Wait so that means that happened on the day of July 15, 1969.......SO HOW OLD IS HANAKO AGAIN?!?!?!?!?

WAIT SO HE NEVER GOT HIS DREAM TO COME TRUE BECAUSE HE DIED THAT'S SO SAD

Wait so am I right DID HE REALLY COMMIT $UICIDƏ ?!?!?!?

I THINK HANAKO SMELLS A SNITCH

Man this is a lot to unpack for just one episode

Episode 7:

I love how childish Hanako is

WAIT I SAW THE YELLOW SILOUETTE THING AGAIN AND I HAVE A THOUGHT:

What if Hanako got those bruises because of the səxua| ass@ult thing I said before? That would make sense.

Idk maybe I'm just too obsessed with that theory

I see Hanako differently after the Library too, but in a different way.

What why the donuts?

He's totally lying. I bet he's gonna make some for Hanako🥺

Okay but Kou is actually pretty sweet

I mean, if he DID murder someone who bullied him, they had it coming for touching my precious Hanako😤

Yous shouldn't stop being friends with someone just because it's complicated. ALL friendships are complicated. It isn't supposed to be easy.

Awwww Nene🥺🥺🥺

Okay I'm kinda hungry for donuts now

Ugh it's Teru🙄

Okay KOU YOU'RE ACTUALLY PRETTY COOL

Okay Teru YOU SUCK SO MUCH

SO ARE THE GREEN HAIR AND NASTU-SOMETHING BIY EVIL OR NOT I'M SO CONFUSED

Hanako is so cute sometimes istg

POOR HANAKO OOF

YES NENE😤😤

THEY ARE BLUSHING I REPEAT THEY ARE BLUSHING

"You're totally not my type" okay first of all that is bullshit and second of all get yourself a boy who's chill when you say you don't like them

OKAY WHAT'S GOING ON

HE'S GOLDING HER

Wait why does Hanako look terrified that's not good

HOLDUP WHO DID HE KILL WHY IS THERE AN AD RIGHT WHEN IT'S ABOUT TO SAY WHO HE KILLED

WOAH WHO THE FUCK IS THAT WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE HANAKO WHAT IS GOING ON AHDVEKDVEIDVDJ

GET YOUR HAND OFF OF HIS FACE THIS GUY TOTALLY $EXU@LLY @SSAULTED HIM

YES NENE PROTECT YOUR MAN

HOLY SHIT HE'S BURNING

DID HE REALLY JUST RE-TRAUMATIZE HANAKO AND THEN LEAVE?!?!?!?

WAIT WHAT IS HANAKO DOING

WAIT HE'S CRYING

HANAKO WHAT'S WRONG

I WANNA GIVE HANAKO A HUG SO BADLY ISTG

WAIT SO THERE'S THE ONES CHANGING THE RUMORS?

OKAY WHO IS THIS BITCH

Wait THAT'S HIS BROTHER WHY DID HE KILL HIS BROTHER

This partially denies the possiblity of my theory(MOSTLY denies it), but not entirely. There's a big chance I'm wrong.

WAIT SO SAKURA IS THE ONE DOING THE RADIO THING?!?!?!

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

Hanako🥺🥺🥺🥺

I have a feeling that that is probably jsut a random student😅

Hanako, I hate it when you're sad😭😭😭

WAIT SO HIS EARRING WAS FOR TRAFFIC SAFETY THE WHOLE TIME LMAOOOOO

OKAY WOAH BACK UP GHOST-PERSON

KOU IS NOT A M0ŁƏ$TER

Wait that was the whole episode?

Episode 8:

Okay the person @ssaulting(maybe even $exua||y @$$aulting idk I think I'm just obsessed with that theory) in the intro is definitely his brother

Mitsuba is kinda weird and annoying, but also funny at the same time

Excuse me Traffic safety is no joke😐

WAIT SO HE KNEW MITSUBA AND JUST FORGOT?!?!?!?

Awwww Mitsuba🥺🥺🥺🥺

No Mitsuba you're cool

KOU WHAT THE F ARE YOU SAYING

AWWWWW THIS IS SO SWEET

MITSUBA I SEE YOU BLUSHING😏😏😏😏

MITSUBA NOOOOOOOOOO

TSUKASA STOP IT

NO POOR MITSUBA STOP IT

HOW DARE THEY

NOOOOOO MITSUBA AAAAAAAA

OKAY IMA BOUT TO THROW HANDS WITH TSUKASA, WHO'S WITH ME😤😤😤😤

TSUKASA YOU SICK SEDUCER STOP LYING TO MITSUBA

NOOOOOOOOO MITSUBA

POOR HANAKO LEAVE HIM ALONE TSUKASA

Okay "Let's play together like we used to" really sounds like $exu@l @$$ault

Kou🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Awwww Hanako🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

NO THIS ISN'T THE WAY MITSUBA SHOULD GO OUT NO

I'm am so close to crying rn

OH KOU JUST REALIZED WHAT HE WAS TAKING A PHOTO OF AWWWWW

Okay wow all of that really happened in one episode

Episode 9:

I'm sorry that I won't shut up about my theory BUT THAT ONE PART REALLY LOOKS LIKE WHAT I THINK IT IS I SWEAR

I feel so bad for Hanako rn tho

Omfg It's Natsuhiko🙄

Nene stop it this dude is BAD NEWS

WAIT NO THEY BETTER NO DO ANYTHING TO MY PRECIOUS NENE ISTG

I HAVE THE SAME QUESTIONS, NENE

FRIENDS MY ASS

(To be continued here because I ran out of space)

[supernatural-sol]

So we all but finished duelist kingdom tonight and i was too busy yelling and staring at it to liveblog so I’m just doin a big post broken down by duels! 

Yugi vs Jou

Anzu was really annoying at times bc she wouldn’t let em just duel, but it was really fun and when atem and jou cried like... i felt that i didnt cry @/ findingmidnight cried LMAO (jk jk) I really like how jou subverted his baby dragon strategy, even if it blew up in his face

Yugi vs Pegasus

this was... A Lot. the honda subplot was fun and it was freakin WILD when bakura just killed those guys, atem and yugi’s strategy was also like YEA... and i Also didnt cry when yugi was like *dead on the floor* shhhh, when pegasus lost and he screamed nOOOOO that was excellent. i may hate pegasus and his stupid speech but his va is excellent at making him extra unlikable. in a good way. when bakura Definitely :) Killed him :) i was like LMAO YIKES ..... hes dead in my heart

Post Yugi vs Pegasus + Pegasus getting yeeted (S1EP40)

I get why they included shadi but it felt forced and much more like a watered down s0 atem, at that point i was just like ok im done for the night ... black magician goin to attack shadi and yugi tho was like lmao haha uh also nice reference shadi @ “black magician is meant to do a protecc at the king tho..”

[steve0discusses]

Ep 46 Pt 1: Zorc’s Massive Low Hanging Fruit

We are getting very close! I don’t actually...remember how many episodes there were in this season but listen, It can’t possibly be more than 50 right?

Right?

Anyway, we’re starting off in the battle basement in Yami’s tomb. Who, of course has a battle basement installed right outside of his final resting place, just like how he would have wanted.

And it’s here that the form of Bakura that the dub is telling me is Ryou wants to kill his own classmate. Which, I’ll just point it out since a couple people mentioned it, apparently the manga did not do this nor did the original Japanese version. The dub just made this Ryou for giggles. We already know Bakura can split into evil pieces, this was not necessary. We also know that Ryou is sleeping on those painful steppies, so this doesn’t make much logical sense.

But like we’re watching the dub right now, so sorry, everybody, this is Ryou. Ryou on a bad day, I guess. Dark Ryou. Not to be confused with Shadow Ryou, who is...that other freaking guy.

Yugi just upset that he forgot to bring his dueling disk to a dream universe in the past or whatever. Must feel naked without that thing stinking up his left arm and making that school blazer all wrinkly. Bro is telling me that Yugi should have one really big arm, kind of like trogdor.

(read more under the cut)

the one thing that does make sense with making this Ryou is a little bit of symbolic imagery. Ryou talks about how he doesn’t have friends anymore in the beginning of this arc, and we can assume it’s because he’s decided to step away from other people because of the ghost in his bean. In contrast, Yugi has all these friends he cursed to like him (woops), and for whom he just risked his whole life for, and for whom he didn’t learn the Pharaoh’s name that he needed in order to save all of mankind.

Which, for reals, Tea and Joey are such good buds, that he really did just end the world to save their ass, and that is pretty anime of him.

But Tea gets very nervous over whether or not Yugi was going to perma-die. It would be very awkward if he died, since he’s also the host of this puzzle which is she is currently stuck inside of. Though I’m not 100% on if it’s even possible for him to die here. Little bit of a chicken or the egg situation, which I may have brought up before.

But still, she’s worried about it.

Which is when Joey does a quick head count and go “WAIT WAIT"

(the show does not show us where Tristan is)

Back at Kul Elna, everything is very quickly falling apart. Rocks are falling from the sky, Pharaoh is back at the capital with Seto and the other Seto, and Karim helllllllllllllla died last episode (or 2 episodes ago? I have such bad memory nowadays) so we’re just gonna leave his corpse in the barn and go.

sorry I just took in the incredible abs on this oversized chess piece that is Hassad. 

Why bother? Like for reals why bother?

I have so many questions about this random guy and his character design and they will not get answered. Apparently Dark Side of Dimensions dives into it as well as other unresolved issues from this season but like, that’s for another time. We will be watching that later, and at my rate it’ll be like 5 years from now but I swear...unless I caught covid a second (third?) time we will eventually get there and find out the deal of this...this freakin guy.

Meanwhile, our story boarders are not finished flexing. I think they really enjoyed this particular episode, with this really fun composition around Bakura here. They LOVE to shred scenery with Bakura on this carving, and there are so many good shots where it’s like a comic cover. I mean, look at this:

Damn that’s a good idea. This composition is fun. You got the curves from this...pokemon that I forgot the name of... you got him dead center all strong and rigid to contrast the curves. You got purple and green clouds. It’s fun. If y’all ever want to do the “draw this anime still but in your style” this is a good still. Good stuff.

And then Bakura peaces off--no idea where, and it doesn’t really matter since we have like so many Bakura’s at this point. Lets just assume he’s everywhere.

And with that, the ground gives way to the ZORC within.

This ultimate being, Zorc, who we’ve been talking up for so many episodes.

And that’s when we find out Isis also left out another crucial detail about Zorc:

So listen. We can say that the...neck...of the snake is coming out of his lower stomach. But also, they left it in shadow for a reason. 

The reason is, this episode is getting me flagged.

It occurred to me I don’t have to go for the low hanging fruit. I don’t have to. I can find a way around this. And I struggled. And I did whatever I, a full grown adult, could think to do. I thought to myself, I am a creative person, and I am inventive and I can write comedy well enough so it’s not just about poops and butts and dicks.

And then I gave up because of the number of times this thing is dead center on screen. And really, truly, I make a lot of low hanging jokes on this blog anyway so we’re just going to embrace Zorc for who he really is, both inside and outside.

And he is a slowly growing talking dragon shaped penis with legs.

Covered up by my joke towel in this scene I want you to know the snake just had it’s maws wide open to shout them down. It literally does only talk out of the dragon head on the bottom part of him.

Anyway, then Hassan jumps in front of the missiles zorc shoots from his crotch and well...he dies that way.

Death by firecrotch. This is like an immortal God meant to be the protector of the Pharaohs but you can kill him and the way how is disgusting.

There they go, back to the palace, which like, I guess is VERY close to Kul Elna, since Yami and Seto are currently vibing there right now.

Back at fight club, these two are still at it.

and then back at the funeral of the most romantic anime death of all time, Seto is still at it.

Seto, despite probably having to throw just SO MANY funerals for his tragic backstory is not very good at them. So right now he’s just distancing himself emotionally from literally everything going on around him by convincing himself this is all a very vivid hallucination.

Which it is. For once he is correct, this entire arc is a hallucination, but a hallucination with consequences. Which he is not used to. Hell he doesn’t see consequences when he’s not in a hallucination half the time. He’s like super rich.

Yami decides he did what he can, but he’s done with this freakin guy. I guess trying to reach through to Seto is a skill that only Yugi possesses, cuz Yami is just clear out of patience for this sociopath. Which is a shame, he usually loves this sociopath.

I laughed out loud at this cut to this horse’s ass and Seto’s reaction to being left behind from getting a ride the one time he was the one who needed a ride.

LMAO at the dub for adding that suspicious soil clump where a dead girlfriend probably was laying before.

but being real, this is another very nice shot, I didn’t cap it for vibes, and I really should have. Again, if you’re looking for a “draw this in your style” anime still challenge, this is another fun one. You got a juxtaposition of old and new. You got the storytelling of the dead girlfriend and trying to understand feelings you don’t understand because you were taught to never love. You got lovely ancient pillars. You got a clump of dirt that used to be a girl...

Like we may have dragged Seto’s ass back here, just to make him look cool and out of place in that coat as the wind sweeps by him. And that’s fine, I’ll accept that Seto this season may only be here for some vibes.

As he admires her slowly breathing (yes, breathing, thanks dub) he flashes back to that only time he every had a single conversation with this woman (a conversation they had, only because she thought he was someone else)

And off he goes, to look cool and probably do little else.

And as always, here is the link to read these from the beginning in chrono order.

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

[steve0discusses]

Ep 45 Part 1: Wife Gone, Miss Wife

Hey y’all, been a while! I fully blame this last unexpected haitus on Tears of the Kingdom. Also a billion other life things I won’t go into because 👏 I 👏 Want 👏 To 👏 Talk 👏 About 👏 Dead 👏 Wife 👏 !

Like damn, we’re coming back for just...a wild episode. Remember how a few episodes ago we finally united Seto with his long lost wife card? (and I had to check my notes and um...it was actually last episode if you count Kaiba, and only Ep 39 if you count Egyptian Seto. So uh...6 episodes.)

Remember that moment? Anyway, she dies this episode.

Yeah. Like. Damn. That quick huh? Knowing Yugioh’s track record with wifeys we’re pretty lucky she’s been on screen even that long before she went the Valon route and just full on died from one brush of cards with Joey.

Speaking of Joey, we last left the gang fumbling through a series of puzzles to unlock the pharaoh’s name. Bakura, disguised as Tristan, ran head first in there and threw off any semblance of a disguise and y’all, lets see how long it takes the guys to realize this isn’t Tristan.

Inside of this glowing door is a room with absolutely no light in it, which, don’t worry about it. That’s just a thing we do in art when we don’t want to draw a background--blow it out with light.

(Read more under the cut)

MAN I have questions about the support bricks on the wall, but for now we’ll ignore that and look at the even more confounding giant bricks on the ground.

faced with a wall of Egyptian text on this pair of ancient Egyptian sunglasses they drew on the floor, it is lucky that Bakura cursed Tristan’s bean or else they would have never gotten past this room.

They’re zooming right by the fact that their friend is reading ancient Egyptian. A friend who is best known for 1.) Being a student janitor because he failed to become class president, 2.) being head of a “melons” club, and 3.) punching god-strengthed villains in the face when he should know better. A god which definitely didn’t get pissed as hell and immediately possess his bean earlier today.

So he levels with Yugi, using the biggest most simple baby words that Bakura knows, and they still talk right completely round each other.

Hey remember in Season Zero when that effed up thing happened and we all assumed it would never show up in this remake? (and by we I mean me)

It freakin showed up. My audible gasp when this show remembered that Yugi cursed um ALL of his friends. Like and he just straight up told them? Just like this?

Like at the start of this arc he and Pharaoh did have a chat about how Yugi didn’t have friends before he came along, but I thought they were gonna glaze over it! But nah, he just laid it out there that the past few years were all because Yugi got bored between class and wanted a buddy.

The implications of “hey we would not be friends if I didn’t curse your ass” is already pretty deep. But doing it within a brain puzzle that you followed your friend into, despite the fact you could literally die doing this, and realizing...the only reason you’re in this puzzle to begin with is because you were cursed 2-3 years ago...

...this is the Yugioh I never thought would come back. This season, man! This season goes so freakin fast and so freakin hard through things that like...this could be a whole episode in another show.

But, this is Yugioh, so we’re gonna put a pin in that.

Because it’s time to go back to Seto Kaiba’s past life and his nearly dead stranger friend that we have collectively decided is his wife, and by “we” I mean literally everyone on this show but Aknadin.

Aknadin sure doesn’t know what a “wife” is, but he sure as hell knows what it ain’t.

Kissara runs towards Seto in this huge, empty boss arena that I would avoid like the plague in any video game.

And speaking of based, Seto Kaiba shows up. Because this episode wasn’t unhinged enough yet. Seto Kaiba is here to be the greek chorus of his own wife’s death.

He’s noticed. He’s noticed this is weird.

It’s a different storyboarder this season, but this storyboarder is still dropping some great frames. Look at this Seto they gave us, just snooping behind a pillar. New PFP just dropped (that is if anyone was even still using twitter which like, my life has been extremely blessed ever since I left it, we should all leave it together.)

So anyway she farts out a Blue Eyes on turn one, and Seto just kind of seethes from behind a pillar while trying to parse just anything that is going on.

Aknadin decides to shove her (well, her dragon...spirit...thing) into the rock tablet during the card shenanigans that followed. I, at first thought it was with an Orichalcos, and I got very excited about how complicated this season was going to get before I realized it wasn’t lime green.

I do not fully understand the card shenanigans at play here, it was not covered in my education playing through Yugioh Duel Masters (Master Duel) but it doesn’t matter because of the power of...love? or whatever the hell vibes are going on between these two goobers. They, with their vague as hell energy, will stand together against whatever life throws at them.

And by that, I mean literally dying 5 seconds afterwards

Seto Kaiba behind a pillar watched this go down, confused by whether he should feel anything at all by this random series of events between a girl he had half a conversation with, and a guy who looks like him except with guns the size of barrels.

Seto, filled with the pure anger of his wifey’s revenge, also immediately biffed it in solidarity.

Seto still remained behind the pillar, because why interrupt this? I mean yeah he looks like yourself and that girl absolutely died but eh...he’s gonna stay behind the pillar. Maybe if he had a duel disk he’d have thrown a couple cards and done some property damage. but as you can see, there are not helicopters or cranes to do property damage with.

So instead he remains behind the pillar, which they didn’t draw here in this next frame.

And on the back of a horse, in gallops Pharaoh.

I live for these popcorn moments in TV, where we’re like “hey, what if we just threw these characters in a weird blender and see how they reacted?” and this episode is just--everyone ends up in this one random spot and they all collectively are like like “what? The hell is happening?”

And we will see more of that next update.

As usual, here is the link to read these in chrono order:

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

Next post will go up like tomorrow probably, but, may my post after that not take 2 months to make, lmao, I swear guys we are going to finish Season 5!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 13: Yugi Dies in California, Makes Everything Awkward

Hey guys. Yugi’s DEAD. (again, but way earlier in a season than I thought he’d be)

So lets get into it.

Last we left off, Pharaoh got imbued with the powers of Lime Green. A green that I swear used to be more Aqua, but seems to sort of shift and change depending on if it’s day or night.

As a consequence, Yugi now can’t have any communication with Pharaoh. I guess this makes it so now Pharaoh is split with his “light” side but like...both Yugi and Pharaoh have both light and darkness so...I see the metaphor going on, but I don’t think the metaphor actually...worked when you think about all the screwy stuff Yugi has done even without Pharaoh around. So just don’t think about it.

The big consequence of the Yugi Banishment was more that Yugi wasn’t there to tell Pharaoh how the Oricalchos card works because--and I say this a lot--but Pharaoh doesn’t know how to read.

Pharaoh’s biggest downfall isn’t so much his greed or pride this episode, it’s his goddamn illiteracy. If he took just five seconds to study the fine print then...he wouldn’t have even cast the Oricalchos in the first place. He did it because he wanted to protect his dragon Timaeus on the field, but the Oricalchos made Timaeus immediately disappear so...Pharaoh cast this for no reason other than the plot really wanted him to do it.

Just kinda shocking that Pharaoh, of all people, made such a huge card mistake when he’s supposed to be from where all cards came from. Then again, he’s separated from Yugi who I guess had more card input than I realized, because the rest of this episode is just Pharaoh playing kind of like a dumbass.

And on the voice acting side, the guy who plays Pharaoh had to try and talk even deeper--which was kind of funny when he’s already as deep as he can go. So...it just seems like Season 1 Pharaoh to me, except he laughs more.

TBH Pharaoh was WAY more rude to PaniK than he ever was to Rafael.

(read more under the cut)

Meanwhile, Rex and Weevil have joined the pack.

Only to be hassled by the pack.

And so, since this is a show about cards, how do you make Pharaoh look like a bad person when he...always plays cards, and is usually a good person for doing this same card playing thing?

And as the person in charge of the Death Count, sorry Yugi, that doesn’t even make sense to me. If you’re telling me that JUST NOW cards are suddenly real and not 10+ episodes ago, and if you’re telling me that all of the other times Dark Magician Girl died didn’t count?

If I had to count every time that a card died when I’m pretty sure they were real then we would also have to count most Bakura duels, probably that Pegasus duel, any Shadow game, really, and like...I don’t want to do the math so I am not counting Dark Magician Girl, y’all.

She was alive at the end of this episode, and as far as I’m concerned, her prime function--the reason she exists--is to die a lot. She’s a card, that’s what they do, and I doubt she even felt bad about it. Like...I don’t think the cards are mortal. Does that make sense? I just...maybe it hurt her but like...does she care? She’s a god in this universe.

You can’t kill Zeus. And like maybe people can hassle Zeus but like it would be maybe the sensation of an itch to Zeus if you stab him directly through the throat--that’s how I feel about Dark Magician Girl. She can take a beating and won’t even know it’s happening. Girl is freakin Zeus.

A lot of this Rafael arc is about making a false reality to justify your actions. Rafeal’s was a pretty extreme case involving cards that are angels and that are still cards...or something. Pharaoh’s was “I’ll be fine, I’ve always been fine, I’m very good at this, I’m the exception to every rule.” which is a much more approachable and relatable fake reality than Rafael.

Thing is, Pharaoh’s not entirely wrong. That’s usually true for him. He usually is the exception to every rule bending RNG to his every whim. Like there’s a reason why he took the chance on the Oricalchos, it really should’ve worked out.

And TBH, would have liked to see Pharaoh do this for longer than one episode, especially since him going his brand of cray only lasted during a card game, which I don’t really watch anyway. But eventually all good things must end, and it catches up to him when he realizes the horror he has wrought.

Spoiler, it’s not that horrifying.

Like for reals, I have seen Pharaoh do some THINGS and maybe this is a sign I’ve seen too much Yugioh when I’m like “lol Pharaoh went nuts and that was it???”

I cannot believe he did not pull out even so much as a single knife this entire episode. The hatchets are right there. Then again, his puzzle powers don’t really work in the Oricalchos realm so he has to play normie style. But knives are pretty normie. I feel like Pharaoh should have pulled out some sort of makeshift brain teaser involving knives, but youknow, this season is very much more for kids than previous seasons of Yugioh.

Again, what he did to Panik is about 1000x worse than making a Halloween Kuriboh.

But, now that all the cards he sacrificed to the Shadow Realm are being resurrected and used against him, he looks into the blank face of Dark Magician Girl and accepts his defeat.

Which is very similar to what happened to Kaiba in the earlier seasons of this show. Pharaoh got Pharaoh’d.

But...while it is a throwback, heaven forbid that this show used a real ass human as a stand in for Dark Magician Girl in this scene. Could’ve had just any actual person standing around here to make Pharaoh realize a change of heart--maybe even the kid he banished in his head? But nah.

It was Dark Magician Girl for this emotional beat.

I mean we are watching Yugioh but lol, that was a decision the writing team made. Joey Wheeler’s right over there. Maybe remove Tea from that RV? No? Want to use Dark Magician Girl instead? OK then.

Anyway, now that Pharaoh was shamed enough by a paper card to remember how to be slightly more human, Yugi holds his Puzzle high over his head and screams “BY THE POWER OF THE MILLENNIUM PUZZLE!” or something and does his own brand of magic. Surprise, it’s punching stuff.

Punching stuff is always the answer.

So apparently the puzzle is more powerful than Oricalchos. Which we basically knew the whole time, I mean...Pharaoh got possessed by Oricalchos and all it did was make him play cards.

I can’t believe no one got set on fire that entire sequence.

So, since the Oricalchos demanded a soul, Yugi figured out a loophole.

And again, another Yugioh game was ended by someone threatening to kill himself, and this time it was Yugi. Who died so that Pharaoh’s yummy soul would not resurrect the Great Leviathan.

Because, while Yugi may be a soul-copy and somewhat reincarnation of the Pharaoh? Or something? He’s still not yummy enough. Not yummy enough for that Leviathan tummy.

Which lead to this great scene that I’m sure you’d remember vividly if you ever saw it even once. This is so unexpected and wild and everyone should see it.

This is moments following a very heavy death in the show--Pharaoh’s lowest point--and it is just SO JARRING AND FUNNY in context. I don’t think they meant it to be that way but I had to rewind like 8 times.

First off, enjoy this wtf helicopter, and then...

Wow.

A+ animation, I would never have been so bold as to do drop Pharaoh like a sack of potatoes from 50 feet in the air right after killing Yugi Muto on screen. 10/10. Amazing.

And after it happens, Duke kinda looks over and has the gall to ask... “Are you guys all right?” It’s just...

Wow.

I’m applauding at my computer, I am so glad that whole sequence exists. I’ll probably lift it eventually just to have.

And then the rest of this episode is Pharaoh trying to tell everyone what happened but Everyone still doesn’t quite get it, despite how wildly blunt Pharaoh is.

Cue the endless crying, because if this show loves anything, it’s men in eyeliner openly weeping into the dirt at their feet. Thankfully, Yugi had the foresight to get waterproof mascara, because if he’s gonna die, he doesn’t want Yami to blow up that perfectly cut stiletto heel line.

MAN I am so jealous of this teenage boy’s makeup.

And since I asked the void nicely for Yugioh to be in PAD, and now that PAD put Yugioh in there as if it heard me, I will now turn my attention to Sephora.

Please, Sephora, make me a Yugioh makeup line that is waterproof as hell so I can ugly cry in the hottest desert in America and still not smudge, thx.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Yugi Muto is officially dead!

Didn’t expect that, being real.

Wow.

Really I thought that they would die if ever they ever got separated, but apparently Pharaoh is fine he just...lacks his Yugi half that knows how to read stuff and had a slightly longer attention span.

I can’t believe they cured Yugi of his curse! Congrats, Yugi! You are no longer possessed! 

Y’all. Lets just appreciate the Yugioh Episode 13 curse for a bit.

First episode 13, Bakura killed everyone with like no warning

Second Episode 13 was Ankle-slicing Bandsaw Clown

Third Episode 13 Noah revealed he was Seto’s Secret Already Dead Brother trying to take over Seto’s body

Fourth Episode 13 Yami finally managed murdering Yugi.

Like I dunno if they planned for all 13s to be all the WTF ones, but I’m glad it’s managed so far. I should’ve known when I started this episode that it was a 13, but I just...I just forgot.

Really thought Yami was going to survive this one and we’d have to bury Rafael on this mesa. Lucky for them and the local police, it’s just paranormal murder today.

Anyway...there’s like a lot more episodes of this season left and I don’t know where it’s going anymore. Should be fun. At the rate we’re going, we’re gonna take a bike ride over to New York City to do more card games on the desert Mesas of NYC. Lets see how long Yugi will remain dead.

Maybe next episode Pharaoh will just throw on a bedsheet and Rebecca’s shower sandals so he can go full Egyptian Era? Maybe the eyeliner will be drawn all the way to his freakin ears? Y’all what if he gets really into beads and gold now?

(and if you just got here, this is a handy link to read all of these recaps in chrono order. There’s a lot of them.)

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep22: Mokuba Gets Murdered

So today’s is...a long update, I may half it, but I’m gonna be away from my computer a whole bunch for a few weeks so like...if I half it you’re gonna be waiting on that other half for...kind of a while and by then I may have sort of forgotten what was happening in the first half. So I dunno, maybe I’ll just make this a huge ass...59 cap post.

honestly it’s mostly 59 caps because, surprisingly, no one dueled this episode.

I KNOW.

When I saw that “To be continued” last episode I really thought I’d have to deal with more paper-form BS but Noah finally plopped over at the beginning of this episode so I guess he’s just officially done playing cards now. Everyone has been turned back from being stoneware with absolutely no consequential brain damage. Probably because you could not do any more damage than what has been previously done.

But don’t worry he’ll get some more brain damage in by the end of this episode.

Remember the plot point that Tristan was slowly becoming a real monkey? I think he forgot about that because he’s been a monkey for...a realllllly long time and he kinda like...continues to just be Tristan. Maybe Tristan was nearly a monkey to begin with?

We also get a rare sighting of an actual real deal hug on this show and it was from the last person you’d ever expect.

Surprisingly heartwarming for this show.

If that duel disk goes off, both of them are super dead. Hugging in a duel disk might be the most dangerous sport either of these boys have ever done.

Anyway, because Seto and Mokuba were the first ones to go, they have no idea that any time has passed at all.

He seems pretty OK for Yugi just nonchalantly taking his dragons but this is VR and...the cards aren’t...actually here. So like...Yugi didn’t actually steal anything? No proof, no crime.

To be honest, no one should have any cards in any of their decks right now, but the show kind of forgets that these digital cards need to be drafted each round. It’s fine.

Anyway, in the wake of losing a card game, Noah just remembered that he’s a freakin god of this universe so he decides to just go for plan B, which you would think would be most people’s plan A.

(more under the cut)

Ya Noah could have peaced out at any point in this show, but because he was trying to impress Daddy he just...didn’t?

Not like it mattered because the integral plot device was like “oh yeah guys, I’m in this show, too, completely forgot. Oops, is it too late? It’s already episode 22? Eh, better late than never.”

and don’t be deceived by the cap, it showed like...every millennium item for some reason. You’d think it wouldn't show the rod because Yugi doesn’t have that, but apparently Marik up there on the ship was like “the hell is this going off for?” and then just shrugged it off.

Noah gets...mostly this image of a well waxed Pharaoh while Yugi gets images of Noah’s memories, where he finds out each of Yugi’s friends and Yugi himself were stuffed in little sci fi VR pods. You’d think that they wouldn’t need to access Noah’s memories to realize that. Should’ve been the first thing they realized when they got here. In VR.

Like, think about it, the only other person that got kicked out of here was Pegasus. And to kick out Pegasus it took all of Yugi’s friends except Bakura. Apparently this time all Yugi needs is for Pharaoh to focus (and Bakura to be just...youknow...present, I guess. Assuming the writers haven’t forgotten that Bakura’s still in there)

I think they mostly did this memory exchange as an excuse to give us a review--thing is there’s so much weird stuff to review it feels a lot like exposition. Like I don’t remember seeing these big boys before:

There is just...a lot of design put into this robot you only see like a couple of times. Some concept artist when all ham so I wonder...was this his OC? I’m so glad his weird OC sleepytime bot got into Yugioh. Good for him.

So at this point I kinda turned to my bro and was like “this feels a lot like the Matrix, doesn’t it?” and then in rolls in the bright purple cloud of “you don’t even know.”

I’ll just leave this here.

back to Yugioh.

Yo I kinda forgot in the mayhem that Kaiba’s Dad was clearly here this whole time. I figured we’d run into him, I didn’t really think he’d Castlevania it up in the sky in order to do it.

So this show presents these two brain orb AI monsters as being pretty well...alive...in that Orb because we’ve only heard this explanation from two AI beings who are pretty sure they never died. But, are they alive, really? Did they really transcend to a higher plane like Noah thinks? Or was this a thinly veiled murder/suicide? Did Gozaburo Kaiba kill his son because he could not allow him to be crippled, seeing an opportunity test out this crazy orb AI that needed a human brain in order to function--knowing full well what he was doing? And then later kill himself after losing everything to Seto?

Like, I’ve heard that in the Japanese version, Gozaburo commits suicide and in the English version he does not. But, at least from where I’m sitting...I think he commits suicide in both versions. Like, maybe it’s because I’m an adult watching this and not a child, but it feels like Gozaburo did this in order to set a trap for Seto as his last screw you before he left this mortal plane.

Either way, Noah’s kind of an idiot and so he still has not caught on. What followed was the three very worst Kaiba boys just kind of shouting at eachother for 5-10 minutes but, like, on completely different wavelengths, every single one. The lack of communication between these dumbasses right after Gozaburo drops this horrifying bomb of “and then I killed myself to kill all of you” was actually pretty low key hilarious.

The dub then got very confused as to when Noah died. Really confused, I’m not going to analyze that too much, it’s dub problems. Dubs do that sometimes.

Also, this is a new Noah outfit. Huh. shame we never got to know it.

Anyway, as the truth comes out, suddenly this accidental Kaiba family therapy

sesh everyone else in this High School class is privy to just starts escalating.

OH OK, KID’S SHOW.

Yo, remember how many jokes I made that Kaiba was raised in Outer Heaven? Apparently I was WAY closer than I realized.

And speaking of Metal Gear:

Anyway, remember that random idea that Noah dropped on us to consume the world with VR tech? I knew it would come back, just not quite like this. Not with a nice Power Point slide show via the sky from the Most Evil Mufasa.

And that was how Kaiba’s Dad decided “I was once scorned by a rude 12 year old, lets destroy every human on Earth and extinguish all civilization.”

So basically the entire freakin ocean is just filled with these robots? Just completely polluted with nighty-night bots?

Yo.

So like this whole time we’ve been following Marik, who’s trying to destroy the world, and keeping babysitting tabs on Bakura, who’s trying to destroy the world, but Kaiba just wants to be the best and show everyone else up so he just decided to set in motion the entirety of humanity’s destruction BEFORE THIS SERIES EVER STARTED.

*coughs* I can’t believe Yugioh just did the Matrix better than the Matrix.

Now listen, I know what I said--and I have to tell you, the Matrix was one of my favorite movies when it came out when I was wee middle schooler and watched it secretly at my friend’s house. It was rated R for absolutely no reason, and so I wasn’t supposed to watch it--but I did anyway and it was very thrilling to break the law like that. Keanu Reeves did a middle finger--yes, that was the cuss that put it into R territory--and I was like “wow, he is crazy!”

But, while it’ll always hold a place in my little tween heart, that one did not age well. Mostly because, once it stepped away from the cave allegory you have to start asking questions like “so...how did everyone get trapped in the Matrix?” and it was like “because the robots needed batteries. So like...humans...became batteries...rather than..........actual batteries.” which makes a lot of sense when you’re like a child and you don’t know how batteries work, but as an adult it’s like “...so they’re not very smart robots, then?”

But, Matrix came out about 1999, and because it was super cool, it influenced everything. This show was about 2001, and Kaiba’s wearing a floor length coat--I really think there may have been a bit of an influence?

And I think they may have explained how all humanity would get placed in the Matrix better than that movie series that was like 3 movies and a bunch of video games and a very violent cartoon. And like, the Yugioh explanation is still balls insane, but hey, at least this motive makes sense.

And then, at this point, Mokuba’s Stockholm Syndrome came back, but this time it’s just plain old fashioned Stockholm Syndrome, no weird brainwashing on the part of Noah was necessary to make any of this happen.

Like I really think Moki’s finally snapped. It’s finally snapped. He doesn’t know have any idea what is going on anymore and desperately needs a nap. A nap that will last like 5 days. Moki needs to go to the beach and just...not move for about a straight week to recover from the mess of this tournament.

Most people at this point would be like “yeah I think maybe Noah isn’t trustworthy” but this group of kids--this is the only group of kids that sees a cackling undead digital ghost dude hunched over like this who has already tried to kill them on multiple occasions--straight up just 10 minutes ago--and says “he’s probably much better now.”

Just 10 feet away from them, Marik is desperately trying to finish the arc he started, but keeps running into filler problems. Which is this door.

This X-men door, the most powerful filler villain in the Yugioh universe.

I can’t believe they explained away Marik--super powerful evil villain that bested Bakura--by using one singular door that kept him occupied for like 20 episodes.

Apparently the bedtime bots are equiped with Huge Lasers.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of keeping everyone alive to send them to the VR realm?

But whatever, they have huge lasers, but little do they know, Marik can shoot lasers out of that necklace he stole off Bakura, and he didn’t actually do that and it’s kind of a bummer. Instead he reflects the lasers with the rod. Which then makes you wonder--is that why Bakura didn’t use his laser attack then? Because of the reflection issue?

Sorry I can’t believe I even entertained that idea. Clearly they completely forgot about S1 at this point. It feels like it’s been so many years since things were simple and you could shoot lasers out of your eyeball/necklace.

And then, canonically, Marik gave up on this door. This normal ass door. The only foe he has ever stepped down to.

This door has faced the ultimate evil, it has stared down an actual fallen god born of anger and violence, who, after thousands of years steeped in an abusive tomb, has risen to consume the entire world, but, this door, using all of it’s bolts and joints you can buy at your local Home Depot, sent that fallen god back whence he came. Which was a blimp. Marik came from a blimp.

This door should be the 4th God Card.

(I want y’all to know that I originally wrote “5th” god card and bro corrected me because I literally thought there were 4 this entire time.)

The amount of time that Mokuba was not kidnapped after Yugi and co just saved him? I want to say maybe 10 minutes. He got one hug from Seto, and then went back to the kidnap zone.

Apparently, Noah decided to trap everyone else in their old memories--which is an interesting way to recap what happened in S2. The trap doesn’t trick them very well because these guys are missing a fair amount of memory at this point, so they basically got served a bunch of weird nonsense.

So while those guys are going to go down their very, very short memory lanes, Noah takes Mokuba to the same exact Dave & Busters that Tea and Yugi went on a date to back in like S2. Like this is the same exact one. And what’s nuts is I think they even redid the backgrounds, but definitely used S2 as reference. It’s quite the devotion to detail.

Noah tried to invent some sort of weird mystery doorway but then Mokuba was like “yeah it’s in the game right? Don’t say no, because I am hankering for some arcade time--don’t touch the other stick though, I want to play solo.″ and then Mokuba just proceeded to play this 2 person arcade game by himself while Noah just...watches.

In Dukes memories, Tristan looks the same as Duke’s always perceived him.

There’s just a lot to take in here.

But don’t worry, it gets weirder than three cultists on one small toy monkey, because here comes some romantic development that had absolutely no basis in reality. This is just so freakin weird, get ready for it.

They definitely almost run over Duke and Serenity--Joey’s sister--and Joey does not not seem to have any reaction to nearly running over his little sister on the road, because one second later, this is happening.

And that was how Noah managed to insert his JoeyxMai fanfiction into Joey’s head and tried his damnedest to make it canon. It’s wild. I can’t believe Noah was a shipper this whole time. Like, who else has he been secretly shipping???

Noah had a split second to use his fabulous orb brain to deal with Joey, and while he used actual memories from the other kids, when it came to Joey, he sort of stopped and went “oh yes, my OTP!”

So then, in this split second Noah kinda turned to his pile of Joey fanfic he keeps stashed in the corner of his Orb Brain Consciousness and was like “well I have this really good one I wrote where Mai wasn’t in the coma yet, and there clearly aren’t enough romantic sunsets, and like...what if they were getting married? Oh man I love this AU! This is so good, can’t wait to upload it to his brain, OMG, he’ll love it. What if they were in Hawaii or something!? OMG they’re so freakin cute.”

Like everyone else on this show who has a canon relationship had to go through some type of sweet hell terror memory but Joey--just Joey--got to go on a date or something and then seal his love with a ring. Like we’ve seen many indicators that Noah is a small child but this was probably the biggest indicator we’ve seen of Noah’s maturity level when he was like “this is how relationships work.”

Again, Yugioh just writing your fanfiction for you--did you want an AU where Mai and Joey’s age wasn’t an issue and she also wasn’t in a coma yet and was uncharacteristically like “lets run off and get married?” because usually you’d have to search Google for that content, but now it’s just here and given to you on a silver platter.

At about the same time they were fully convinced none of this was a real memory, they all ended up back here, minus Kaibas. Joey apparently took the longest amount of time although he had the most bizarre set of memories. He probably just wanted to see where that fic would pan out, but like most fic’s, it kinda stopped updating at about chapter 3 so he gave up on it.

Just a few blocks away, Mokuba and Noah’s playdate from Hell is going according to plan, and Noah is just biding his time before snatching a body. But, before he does, I guess Noah did want to see what happens in this arcade game Moki’s playing because he’s just been standing here admiring Mokuba’s work.

Even Noah at this point is surprised at how deeply Mokuba has Stockholm Syndrome. Noah was just not prepared for how low Mokuba’s expectations are regarding his evil and pathological brothers.

Actual line of the show through this whole ironic experience, Noah just saying “wow...I almost feel bad”

Anyway remember that DDR game--that huge screened DDR game where Tea had a dance fight with Johnny Steps during her date with Yugi?

Did you ever think it would, one and half seasons later, become the scene of a horrific crime?

Did you ever think that the crime that would occur on the inane DDR machine that Tea once had a dance fight on against a guy wearing fringe moccasins would later be the scene of a family betrayal where Mokuba got murdered by his own dead secret older brother?

Because I sure didn’t.

Anyway, now equipped with his ultimate form--a very small kid with hair that weighs more than the kid itself, Noah rises from his grave.

I kind of love evil Moki, not going to lie.

Apparently Moki’s evil in Season 0 so I’ll probs have to go back to that season eventually to get more of that evil Moki fix.

I hope this is the type of scene that will end this entire show, TBH, just a crazy ass Moki cackling over the bodies of every other card player. That would be such a good way to end this series.

Anyway, I don't know whennnn the next update will be. I may update on that later--maybe not, but until we meet again, we’ll just leave evil Moki here in this nearly abandoned SeaQuest, laughing his face off over the sweet tunes of some Plantasia.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 44-45: Kaiba Hallucinates a Dead Woman and Then no One Talked About it???

So, for the record, I am writing a little bit to the future here because I did make a little bit of buffer. And this episode had a Hella Random Thing in it and I just want y’all to know I try to create an authentic reading experience--although it’s not like a blind riffing, I clearly watched each episode twice to make the caps and write all this stuff--and I do it one episode at a time so you get a somewhat close to a realistic live cap experience, but like, believe me when I say I did not see this coming.

At all.

At all.

And if any of you were watching this at home and saw this happening then you are lying OR you have been writing a very creative fanfic and this fever dream was also shared by that one guy on this writing staff who really really really stans Seto Kaiba. Lets dive into it, shall we?

Things start out pretty normal, as we are yet tucking another hospitalized person into Kaiba’s floating coma ward.

I’m starting to notice that this room also has sheets which just means when they got to Bakura, they just didn’t feel like tucking that nasty boy in. They looked at him covered in blood and grime and whatever other sweaty layers are all over Bakura and were like “None of us like Kaiba, but we don’t want to do that to his linens.”

And then the episode starts with Joey literally saying this

Now in the actual line of the show, Serenity stayed behind because she wanted to be strong for Mai, a lady she looked up to so much for all of 3 hours. She also said that her brother’s strength inspired her to have the courage to stay well below deck and whatever the hell nonsense was going on up there.

I mean courage is a word you could use to describe it, I would just call it common sense.

Also, look at this Christmas miracle.

I like that someone on the animation team was like “How else are they going to know that Mai isn’t wearing the disk? Draw it on the table. We have to.” and then bam there it is. That is one super random detail.

(more under the cut)

At the top of the blimp, they’ve decided to give Marik a little bit more space.

The Yuge crew must’ve looked at this situation and been all “I can stand next to Marik, or I can appear to root for Kaiba.” And they made their choice.

Below deck we get to see one of my favorite things, that’s right, it’s fake UI for TV shows.

these look like windows you pull up in Maya when you’re trying to find the right vertex or something. Maybe that’s what inspired all this? I dunno, it’s very silly that he would need the same image of a card twice, and that he would need one flipped and in wireframe. Especially since all they're doing is translating a language.

Or maybe he’s just been dogging Kaiba for half an hour before this episode started? Who knows, but honestly, I kinda have to side with Kaiba on this one, moving Mai would be a bad choice since there’s doctors--right there--but like...they should land the blimp though. Like the blimp with a murderer on it maybe needs to land at some point?

But never mind that, there’s cards to be played.

Or...not played.

It takes Ishizu so long to show up that Roland almost cancelled the game and I was so ready to not have to watch a card duel. I was so ready for that to be the canonical end of Ishizu but of course that didn’t happen.

PS, Marik is permanently glowing now.

Kaiba still doesn’t believe in magic and this guy has a constant third eye. So did Yugi all of last duel and Kaiba was just like “I don’t get your weird fashion” and tbh that’s a fair assumption to make.

To be fair, they probably only have once source of not cursed jewelry living underground, and it’s probably why their so matchy-matchy. Like, we all have that one Aunt (I was that one Aunt for a little while) with an Etsy shop and way too much inventory that they just give away to family every birthday and holiday. Judging by how much jewelry these two are wearing, their one Aunt isn’t doing so hot selling her merch.

Anyway, Marik’s good side makes an attempt to reach out and it doesn’t get him very far.

Honestly, when you look at it, there’s more people here from Kaiba’s extremely close school class than there is from the Ishtar family. And they don’t even know that Odion is also related. Sort of calling the kettle black here.

Again, ancient Egyptian Samurai with Yugioh cards would have been one hell of a spinoff with so many problems, where is that anime?

So, the game begins, between a mostly-neutral-antagonist and a protagonist who has done nothing but lock herself in her room in the dark for about 1/4 of a season. I have literally no idea who I’m supposed to be rooting for. Neither does anyone on the show.

Things went about as well as you’d expect dueling a psychic, because Kaiba has learned absolutely nothing from dueling Pegasus.

*Mokuba still has the whistle*

Anyway, because Ishizu can read the future, she knew she’d be going up against a dude who relies on very big strong dragons, so she straight up removed every strong card from his deck, leaving only six cards. 

It’s at this point that he only really has one option, to play a Blue Eyes White dragon, which he had in his hand still, or to play the God Card Obelisk which I think was still on field? Again I don’t pay too much attention to the duels but the big thing is that he’s gonna use Obelisk, so Ishizu cursed it so it would hella kill him.

Much like any of the God Cards have done thus far. The worst cards. These are the worst cards and at this point no one should want them anymore. But youknow, hubris.

This is all pretty run of the mill since every time Kaiba duels, he gets hella dunked on, but then...this happens out of absolutely no where.

WHAT?

SHOW.

The least dateable guy in Yugioh!? How is it Kaiba--a past version of him mind you--but a shirtless Kaiba who’s got some lady draped across his arms like he’s gotta model for the cover of a Harlequin romance novel for old ladies? Which...I can arrange that.

Why--out of all of these boys, was it this one that has something the most resembling a fully formed relationship? More so than Tristan, more so than Yugi, more so than whatever was going on with Joey last episode.

What!?

WHAT?

This came out of no where like a jump scare!

And like, here’s the thing, if Kaiba was your slice of pie from the weird ass hair dessert tray that is Yugioh’s selection of husbands, that’s fine. Ship away. But like, imagine with me here, you have a boyfriend--and if you don’t like boys that only adds to this experience--you have a boyfriend and he has the most normal hair of anyone you know, and that’s really great. But his voice ALWAYS sounds like he’s announcing an NBC cop drama. Like you’re eating dinner and he’s like “Can we watch the food channel?” like he’s solid snake.

You’d kill him. You’d kill him way before you end up dead draped across his arms in some weird flashback. You’d straight up kill him.

Sorry, I just made him a lot more attractive for half of you. Whatever, my plan backfired.

But, despite...how...he is, now Seto has one of the most tragic of all the relationships on this show, up there with Pegasus and his dead wife. And so like, I turned to my bro and was like “WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED??”

Cuz this show that has very, very little dating in it. A show that has had no physical kissing unless you count that time Pegasus macked a ghost. A show where someone almost got married to someone they never dated in their life and they shrugged it off. A show that had Mai and Joey friendzoning the hell out of eachother rather than admit any sort of crush. A show where Tea and Yugi went on a date but then I guess forgot that happened 20 episodes ago and are now in permanent friend limbo. (Tea and Yugi so far having the most realistic dating experience tbh.)

This is just straight up here’s a picture of past Seto, and his dead wife is here too, no explanation! Have fun digesting that!

(wouldn’t have noticed they forgot to finish Yugi’s necklace if I hadn’t done the cap. hm. So fast I blinked and missed it until I wrote this copy.)

And like, I’m making it seem in these caps as if these characters talked about what I just witnessed in any degree and straight up they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. Kaiba didn’t want to discuss this crazy ass thing that happened. Just me. I am the only one that’s talking about this in 2019. Just me.

So I turn to my bro and was like “you have to tell me what just happened” and bro was like

“Sorry to disappoint you but...I’m pretty sure that dead girl never comes up again.” and then he kind of continued “I’m pretty sure Kaiba sacrificed his one true love in order to get his Blue Eyes.” and I realized “Bro, is this just a headcanon you made up? Are you telling me your spicy Seto Kaiba fanfic as if it’s true just like that one time you told me that Yugi’s Grandpa ate a guy in Egypt and I believed you for 30 episodes?” and bro was like “Mmmmmm It’s probably a headcanon. I’m pretty sure they dropped Kaiba’s dead girlfriend plotline completely off the face of the Earth. Like a LOT of plotlines from s2, Rach, don’t get attached.”

So, because Kaiba believes that his.......dragon.......told him to play a dragon, Kaiba sacrifices his Obelisk to play a dragon--thus removing the Obelisk curse.

So if it’s strongly suggested that Kaiba’s love for this dragon is youknow, an equivalent to the devotion you would have a for a dead wife you have cradled in your arms, then -- has Kaiba been dating this dragon the whole time? Is that what the show just seriously suggested to me with this juxtaposition? Because I am an illustrator and if I wanted to make someone look like they had an intense and complicated relationship with a playing card, that is how I would draw it. Just saying.

And like for serious, how is it that Yugioh keeps writing it’s own fanfic? Like, is this dragon infused with the spirit of his dead wife? Is that why his reincarnation has this weird fixation with the Blue Eyes White Dragon? OMG this is absolutely ridiculous, I can’t believe I’m considering that Kaiba was literally married to what is now his paper card of a dragon. Of which he has 3 of.

Clearly I am thinking way too much about this.

I mean to be fair, Kaiba did save Tea that one time. He also took out a helicopter and a crane at the same time but Tea was just fine.

Oh boy.

That was so freakin random. Well...I’m glad that Kaiba got back together with the dragon. They had sort of a breakup at the beginning of the season and now KaibaxDragon is back in full swing. Good for them.

This was the only guy smart enough not to play a God Card, PS. This guy. I guess if Seto fell in a plot coma the entire tourney would be essentially over, so...it had to happen this way.

But dead wife, amiright?

Here’s a link to read from S1 Ep1

And PS in case you don’t know about the Billionaires and Baby’s books that have--I swear to you, like 400 books in the series--please admire the billionaires and babies books. Never read them. But I like to spread the news of these completely insane and real book covers wherever I go.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 40 Pt 1: Kaiba Has Arrived and He’s Pissed

Woof I was gone a HOT MINUTE. Overall it was a lot of long covid fatigue problems, a lot of “wow I wrote this thing and it makes no sense because words don’t work right in my brain fog brain.” So I looked at my bro who also has long covid thinking “well maybe he’s well enough to write something” and he was like “I just put dry ramen in cold water and then set it on the stove I think I’m losing my mind.” so ehhhh not much I could really do about it other than wait it out.

So thanks for your patience, I always appreciate how low key and casual this blog is compared to literally anywhere else I post on the internet.

Last we left off, Seto had some time reflecting over a haunted eyeball, and came to the decision that he wants to kick Bakura’s ass properly and in person. So, Kaiba took a red eye flight in his Wifejet straight towards Egypt.

So he lands this thing directly in front of a museum. Not just any museum, too, THE museum from like S3 where Ishizu spooked Marik in a vault and he went “ughhh! Sis you’re so rude!!!” and then Marik leapt through one of those massive windows and into an itty bitty motorcycle side car. Seems like just yesterday that Ishizu was seething at him from that broken stained glass window while Odion slowly vroom vroomed that ridiculous Indiana Jones motorcycle into the sunset.

Bro brings up “hey, do you think they fixed that window” and I agreed that she probably just duct taped some plastic bags on it like a busted Sedan. Because if this family has like zero experience in anything, it’s any invention that lets in sunlight.

(read more under the cut)

Seriously, I thought they were dead because Bakura could so easily sneak into the vault to end the world. Figured “Wow I can’t believe the last remaining members of the Pharaoh cult freakin died offscreen while protecting their King. What a poetic way for Marik to go.” and nah, man, all three of them immediately ditched their Pharaoh the moment Yami turned around, lmaooo.

I freaking love how bad these assholes are at their one job.

And yes in the actual line of the show Seto was like “who are you?” and he very quickly played it off like a joke but we know better. The BRAIN DAMAGE on this child. Who, as you can guess is here because he want’s more Brain Damage, yes please.

So he gets right to the point, holding the Worst Orb waaaaay too close to his face.

Again, my postcovid senses are just screaming at this nasty ass germ ridden eyeball. Also I had Odion as the same font as Roland, which was an error I made before Roland became one of the most important characters on Yugioh (to me). So no, Roland is not here, although I wish he was. I just don’t have a font for Odion and I’m too tired to make one at this point.

God bless the storyboarder, that 👀 on Marik is sending me.

And so...I don’t exactly know what Ishizu’s plan is to somehow get Seto to join his friends in the Egypt hallucination. Or how Ishizu knows that things went South in the crypt when they thought he’d be fine. But, I look forward to Seto’s reaction to being in his distant past and treating that incredible display of magic with a single wet fart.

Hard to tell because Mana blends into the rock, but at some point she and the genie decided to play a game where she treats him like a trampoline and the rest of them have decided to just watch from afar. I mean I guess what else would you do at that point? Like nothing right? Like the only game they have at this point is Mancala or shoving your soul into a stone tablet and playing cards with it.

But if anything, the weird tableau gives Yami and the crew time to catch up.

(has too much long covid to check if I made basketball joke before, does not care, because it still is crazy to me that if Yugi had just played basketball none of this would have happened.)

Using her powers, Ishizu manages to spot Pharaoh talking to himself by the Nile, and so Shimon and the rest of the palace can breathe a sigh of relief.

So, Shada gathers an army of like 12 people (which I’m sure the animators mandated because of the crazy amount of crowd scenes in this season) so they can retrieve the pharaoh, brush the remnants of the Nile off of his hat, and then drive him over to Kul Elna to take back the puzzle from the rude town wizard.

Wouldn’t be Pharaoh unless he kicked his friends out of dangers way, even at the threat of losing the entire universe. off they go, on horseback even.

Part 2 you’d probably expect that we find out what Yugi and Co even decided to after they were stranded in the desert by their best friend. But we don’t. Instead, We’re gonna go to Kul Elna, and Yugi will just uh...take a nap I guess.

Anyway, I’m just gonna post this now, bro read through it, both of were like “yeah that’s a post.” At one point he had something to add, and I completely forgot what it was. I think it’s good enough! Hope you enjoyed the first post I made in like what feels like is 2 months.

As always, here’s the link to read these in chrono order

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

And I’ll see you soon for part 2!

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 32: Mahad’s Dead

Feels like a million years since I’ve actually sat down and done a Yugioh post, which is a shame, because Bakura was just about to do some nonsense.

Mahad has decided that he’s going to trap Bakura’s soul into this tablet which like...good luck, man.

and like if we are assuming that all of these blank Chekhov’s tablets are going to house demon souls from all of Yami’s dead friends that will eventually become our playing cards in the future...Bakura’s monster, diabound, is a card nowadays right? (And I mean he’s a modern card in the shows universe, I figure there’s like a billion versions of diabound by now in Yugioh proper) so ... at some point Pegasus made him into a card.

So I guess that means Bakura’s soul monster isn’t actually diabound. I think? I try not to think too much about that at this point cuz it is a little bit confusing.

Look at em go, doing this vertical wheelie drop in those flimsy wraps, upskirting everyone on Bakura’s front line. They’re living their best life. Me, personally, would be terrified about going this fast without at least one belt on my sarong, but strangely this is the only time in Yugioh no one has 5-20 belts each.

(Bakura stuff under the cut)

Meanwhile, inside the tomb, Bakura and Mahad are gonna have a card tablet fight against the diabound that Mahad already knows needs a freakin God card to win against. Mahad really thinks a lot of his magician powers, which youknow...that’s hubris for you.

Yugioh loves to go back to hubris as a reoccurring theme and I appreciate that in every season of Yugioh, that has always been a constant. Don’t tempt (card) gods, folks.

Diabound now has a new look, and it’s getting kind of complicated for the art team, who just have no idea where to properly put the snake on this guy without it looking like a problem, so they just go for it and let it be a problem. I mean why the hell not, he has a snake for a lower torso. You can’t make this not awkward.

Because I know a little bit about how this game actually works (Character Development on my part, can I just say) I actually looked up this card, and no where does it say “it gains the super powers of the monster it fought before” so um...really glad I learned how to play this game.

When’s car season? I only know the car deck, and apparently no one in Master Duel plays any of these anime cards except for like Blue Eyes White Dragon so all of this is still completely over my head.

There’s not enough cars in ancient Egypt man. But you know what is in Egypt?

A little bit of actual Egyptian, which was cute!

At first I was like “wow, way to out that you’re from modern day Japan, Bakura!” and then I remembered his past self isn’t even from Egypt, either. Bakura being quite meta here.

Anyway, it was time for Yami to get the hell out of bed, because Yugi and Yami both have a really damn hard time sleeping on this show. And, I guess it’s been so long since Yami had a body and had to go to sleep that he forgot a little bit about how one gets ready for bed. Please admire how much metallic jewelry this child wears to bed.

It’s worse than Yugi. Yami your magpie situation is wow. Four rings, four bangles, a stacked choker, Tea’s airport cartouche, earrings--THE HAT? He even slept in the hat??? (also his eye liner, but I’ll give that a pass. We have, all of us, every single one, slept in our makeup and woke up to a pillow that has that one little splotch of mascara. We have, all of us, every single one, taken that pillow and just flipped it over to cover our sleeping-in-makeup sins.)

From an artist perspective, part of this is because they very much used a mirror tool do draw a lot of him here (which like, yes, you should absolutely be using the mirror tool if you have one. Please use the mirror tool and save your precious time on this planet earth. We like art shortcuts in this house) so if there’s earrings on one hand, it’s on the other by default. And also they just didn’t want to bother figuring out what his bangs situation was without the hat on--but it is pretty funny that he just...went to bed like this.

OR, and this is a big thing I just realized--that’s a wig. He’s bald under there. Do they have the guts to draw a bald Yami? Clearly not.

Parts of me are like...was there a point in the storyboarding process where Yami had no hair here? Did someone in a suit point at that and be like “this is very off-brand put back on the 30 lb hatwig I don’t care if he’s sleeping.” But we will never know.

Also please admire his bed.

What you don’t see here is the giant millennium eye just hovering over him on the bed rest. This is a very cursed bed situation that only a ghost would sleep in for any amount of time. (and that it was too spooky for even Pharaoh is saying something.)

Yes I did look up ancient beds in Egypt and none of them seemed to have four posters. But it’s not like this bed was even drawn to the perspective they clearly mapped out on the floor right there, so I don’t think they had the time to research that. Team did their best. Which involved taking that spooky bed from Noah Kaiba’s arc in S2 and shoving it here in Egypt in S5.

So Yami decides to ponder the sky pyramid that no one else can see but him. Just vibing in the middle of the night on a balcony filled with so much anxiety. This episode is really calling me out right now with my chronic insomnia, but thankfully none of my friends play murder cards (that are apparently made out of human souls of my ancient best friends).

In a sequence that was too hard to cap, one of the towers set off a little laser beam to inform us that Mahad was being a dumbass.

So something that I didn’t catch last episode, when I was hootin and hollering about the Anubis and how Anubis allowed everyone to just use the same damn deck of cards--I was wrong actually. Not my fault, it was the show doing organic storytelling and I was not prepared for that. Because it turns out everyone gets their own unique card crypt. So really, each of these towers is it’s own deck.

What a freakin nuisance this must have been to build, holy hell.

Also when bro was capping this, he at first was like “huh, isn’t this Dartz’ tower of souls?” and like yeah. Of all people, we’re getting a lot of Dartz throwbacks this season, so S4 wasn’t so tangential after all. Really they were just hinting that the horrible awful thing Dartz was doing, was done about 7 times over by Pharaoh’s Dad himself.

Which youknow...Yami is taking this in strides, still getting over the fact that his Dad probably (absolutely) killed that village, and that Seto is going to betray him very soon, and that Bakura is about to kill Mahad. Pharaoh I’m sure will eventually address this hypocrisy soon. Maybe. Kind of. Maybe not.

Man I can’t believe how honest Dartz was when he was telling Pharaoh point blank about how Pharaoh’s dynasty wasn’t that great in the past. Man. Pharaoh really shouldn’t have come here, kid should have just gone to math class, honestly. This isn’t worth ditching PE.

Anyway, Mana’s here because she also had the very bad dream that Mahad was about to biff it.

Imagine if this was a rule during the season where Tristan had the souls of 5 different dudes crammed into his brain who all freaking died in there. Tristan would be like 5 times banished.

Which now that I have played a Yugioh game, I know that banishing the same card 5 times in a row is a completely normal way of playing Yugioh.

Speaking of being dead and being banished and being Tristan, the gang is still lost in Yugi’s brain palace.

Yugi finds a door in it that for a split second really threw me for a loop. I 100 percent saw this and was like “DAMN IT HOW MANY BAKURA’S ARE THERE.”

Thankfully, this was a trick Bakura, and Ryou is indeed still passed out on the steps of Marik’s tomb. Assuming Marik hasn’t picked him up by now and shoved him into the Jeep.

Back in the simulation of the past, Bakura is doing really, really well for himself.

I do like the dedication to the detail on his Ancient Egyptian Toms. When even was the last time I saw a Toms in the wild with the tiny toe box? Like 2012? Maybe the fashion was the same for 3012 BC.

Anyway, Mahad is a real freakin asshole to Bakura this episode and that was kind of refreshing. It was a straight up Home Alone situation in here with him using his magic powers to just make a billion traps invisible. (and do less damage to Bakura than the Home Alone kid did to those robbers, ngl)

HOW.

How did he freakin miss this?

How is it even possible to miss the guy who is chained down by a bear trap with the largest ax that mankind has ever made? And how did it manage to break off said bear trap in the process? Like Mahad may be dark Magician, but he’s also the unluckiest human who has ever lived.

Anyway, Bakura reacts by shoving the ax at him which like--I never get to see this ceiling to figure out how the hell the suspension on this can go so many directions, but the big takeaway is that Mahad overcompensated, tried to kill a card god, and cheated at cards in the process of doing so, which in Yugioh means you’re already dead.

Meanwhile, in the Desert, Pharaoh is doing his best to not look like a dumbass in front of Mana.

Mana directs him to the summoning training grounds, which is where I guess they practice cards usually (don’t think about how many souls were sacrificed so they could practice cards). Where, Pharaoh finds out that Mahad has already locked himself into a cave, and that it’s too late to do freakin anything about it.

Mahad’s explanation for why he’s doing this is that he wanted to pay back Yami for all the goods stuff he’s done, like that time that Yami sucked the snake venom out of him all those years ago--which is a somewhat symbolic thing about how Yami tends to remove people’s darkness when he plays them with cards (or kills them, either/or)--but also puts in motion the fact that Mahads going to hella die here and put Pharaoh in a pretty bad position.

Mahad shouldn’t have done this, it definitely hurt Pharaoh’s dynasty in a huge way more than it helped Pharaoh, but Mahad was absolutely certain that his dark magician powers could do the trick. Which they didn’t but youknow...hubris.

Anyway, Bakura’s guards are here.

Lets jump cut so we don’t have to animate that. Instead, we’ll just jump straight to this:

This is a nice shot. For your redraw a scene from an anime meme, you could redraw this shot. I like this shot.

I don’t like this next shot though.

Good ol Egyptian spandex.

Unprovoked, the tablet from the very beginning of this episode decided it had enough of this plotline.

Pharaoh realized he was about to lose all of his magicians in one single day because of this single damn piece of rock, thanks to Mana just...standing underneath it. Bit she’s fine now. Mana survived.

Mahad is not though, he HELLA died.

If it had killed them both, it would have been a little awkward for that tablet because it’s only really supposed to fit one dude. We gotta wait to kill Mana for later.

Who would you cast as Mahad? Serious question, because I joke about this show becoming a Netflix original but there’s been a little bit of a Yugioh renaissance lately (like apparently Master Duel ended up having WAY MORE downloads than anticipated and it’s really upset the meta of the rankings because everyone is playing the same deck) so we all know it’s only a matter of time. How white are they going to cast Mahad?

Like it’s just going to be an off brand Robert Pattinson, and honestly I’d be kinda down for that because my expectations are zero, and I just want to recap that potential hot garbage and what it would do to their hair.

And if an off brand Pattinson is too much, like I enjoyed the cowboy Bebop remake cast, I just didn’t want them in the Cowboy Bebop remake. Make them all Yugi. Go ahead Netflix, Yugi’s so many people at this point, turn him into those three, you have done worse.

Yugi realizes that he needs to stop searching through random doors and simply wait for Pharaoh to call out to him, which, because Yami is trapped in a hell period where he’s absolutely going to die, should have already happened like a billion times already but Yugi just wasn’t paying well enough attention.

And like that, they get transported away. To where? Probably Egypt. Excited for the outfit change on all four of these guys. Yugi will be the only one in Egypt with a belt around his neck.

Soon, they will all be eating a garlic in Egpyt with the homies, assuming they don’t get immediately murdered because everyone will think they’re some sort of wizard. Which, in the case of Yugi is absolutely correct.

Anyway, see you next episode, here’s a link to read these in chrono order from the beginning.

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

[steve0discusses]

S5 E31 Part 1: It is Actually Embarrassing How Long it Took Me To Realize This is Dark Magician

I’ve been telling my bro that I know too much about Yugioh now. I was like “am I really giving the experience of a first timer when it’s taken so long to write this that I clearly know way too much?” and then this episode happens where this guy who I thought was Marik is actually Dark Magician.

Like I watch this episode, then I do caps for this episode, and it wasn’t until I did a bunch of these caps that I realized...damn it, I’ve been calling this guy Marik for the past 3 episodes and guys.

He’s very much the dark Magician.

So it’s nice to know that I’m still just blissfully unaware of most Yugioh knowledge. Like I turned on the Master Duel game last week, opened a card, it was 5 paragraphs of information, and I was like “Yes. I still have no idea if this game is a long prank.”

And Bakura also felt like he was being pranked when he realized a Blue Eyes is not actually going to beat all 3 God Cards (which he already knew, because Bakura has already died to a God Card in S2 but wtv.)

Bakura freakin loves just peacing out this season. Keeps announcing himself, throwing down some dead bodies, and then just walking away mid-duel. Like this is the third time he’s done this during this arc? But before he drops the mic he’s gonna leave some threats which like...remember that a majority of these people have never seen this asshole before.

(OMG you can even see Mahads hair from this angle and I still thought he was a Marik for so freakin long OMG)

(read more under the cut)

And off he goes on his glorious horse.

I love how much the Yugioh team likes to torture themselves by drawing horses, especially when they have the ability, they just do not have the budget to really get into that stuff. Like this shot here:

This shot the horse stayed mostly still and just kinda grew bigger and bigger until the bottom. It was very silly. I love horses in Yugioh.

Like it’s a shame that my recording/video situation for some reason started wigging out on me because in hindsight, I should make a supercut of every shot of a horse in Yugioh. It’s like...just a little uncanny valley, I very much enjoy the disaster horses.

So ends Pharaoh’s first evening as a Pharaoh.

Which honestly, at least he’s still freakin alive. He’s doing pretty good for his track record. Eventually, Past Seto is going to stab him in the back, but let’s be honest, that’s also how Yugi will die in the future, making bets.

Anyway, remember how last episode I posited the question, how long will it take Pharaoh to notice the giant ass pyramid in the sky?

And he IMMEDIATELY has to tell everyone about it. Shimon was kinda like “you’ve had a rough day lets um...lets move you back to your bedroom and lock you inside.”

But this is normal for all Egyptian Pharaoh’s, right? Like from what I can tell from ancient history, putting the entire nation’s weight on a single human being’s shoulders makes them lose their nut. They’re probably just happy that Pharaoh isn’t burning all their houses down...instead it’s this other guy they’ve never seen before...houses get burnt down either way, but hey at least it wasn’t the Pharaoh this time who did it.

Except for Bakura’s village, that one got super burnt down by a Pharaoh.

OK maybe everyone’s houses are crispy toast no matter who’s in charge.

Pharaoh thinks longingly “man....if only Kaiba could see us working together and getting along...hmmm” like a Parent would think about their own unruly children.

But, speaking of individual’s who fold under the pressure of carrying the entire future of mankind on their shoulders, Seto has already lost his mind. Like full melt down. Usually it takes a couple more episodes than this in an arc for Seto to go spare, but the millennium eye took his already fragile composition and turned it into a fine powder (yes it is still sitting on his desk).

So he does what normal people do and starts having a conversation with it.

Normal thing to do.

And then Seto decided to do the one thing you should never, not ever do with this horrible eyeball.

...he has learned nothing from seeing Pegasus with this thing lodged into his left eye all these years. It has never occured to Seto that the eye WANTS to sit in there.

And, if you remember, the guy standing behind past Seto was Aknadin, who is in the past wearing the eye.

Yo, how gross is it to think about how this is a used false eyeball. Seto’s hands are touching something that touched the backside of a dude 5000 years ago holy crap the cooties on that thing.

Seto was likely this close to becoming the next Pegasus.

Man that would have been a hella entertaining arc if Seto got millennium item cursed. That or we would see absolutely no difference since Seto is already such a disaster. It would put Pegasus out of a job though.

...but would it? I feel like Kaiba doesn’t have the patience to oil paint.

Bye, Seto. Off to join the plot. No idea how he’s going to find the tomb, but he’s probably got a tracker embedded into the neck of every single person that’s been in his competitions.

Back in the past, we start to see how Seto might eventually want to do a tiny bit of assassination.

By the way, Bro and I were squinting at Aknadin here, and realized he could be a past version of Marik’s Dad, rather than a Pegasus. Just a thought. Or maybe it’s because all old guys with beards look the same in anime.

Talking to himself, Aknadin lets us, the audience know, that it’s finally time to make the Death Count Higher.

How many people lived in a village in the ancient past...like 1000 people? That sound right? Everything I know about small towns I learned from my roomate’s friend in college who came from a small town in Nevada, so this is what I’m basing this off of. Until I get a number, Bakura comes from Caliente, Nevada (they pronounce it “ca-lien-ee”).

Now Aknadin said this in his bean, but even if he said it outloud, Seto’s got these metallic ear covers so he probably couldn’t hear him anyway. This information lets us know that the reason why Bakura’s got such an angy ghost is because he’s the end result of a whole lot of dead people.

And so Aknadin’s like “I think Bakura is ALREADY the worst ghost you’ll meet Seto. Don’t ask me how I know that.”

But Seto isn’t listening because he just loves stuffing people’s souls into tablets. I think one of you mentioned that the dub changes the tablet magic a little bit, and that the original version of this show made it a LOT more like murder. So youknow...changes why Seto is getting so into making tablets if it’s actually him getting bloodlust.

So basically every version of Seto is secretly fueling the war machine that he insists he’s trying to end.

Not gonna lie, I kind of love this weird pink fur rug.

Like damn. Maybe it’s because I’m a millennial and we’re waaay too much into decorating our house with puce and gold but like...look at it. The color combo in this room is a joy.

Anyway, time doesn’t work anymore, which makes Isis’ job freakin suck. Pharaoh could let her know that “yeah so I was 5000 years into the future until 10 minutes ago” but he just doesn’t want to tell anyone that because they already think he’s fruit loops and his grip on the throne is a little tenuous atm.

*what?*

He kept...what?

how did he do that?

Kept this necklace, so maybe there’s a chance Pharaoh also kept his modern underwear?

And again, the YugixTea ship writing tender moments so much better when the characters are separated than when they actually get to be together. These writers man, it’s their favorite way to write romance, because this is also how they write every other ship we’ve seen on the show. Except for whatever the hell is going on between Rex and Weevil, who will probably be buried in the same damn coffin.

Back in Yugi’s head, they’re just kind of lost and wandering around, which is to be expected.

Yugi has sent so many people off a ledge, that he does it subconsciously.

This did not work. They will be here for the rest of this episode.

Anyway, see you all next update, and until then, here’s that handy link to read these all in chrono order from S1 Ep1.

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

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 36 Part 1: Yugi and Company Finds Egypt

So because we don’t have card duels anymore, which makes these episodes Very Long to cap, and because I’ve been just real busy lately, I’m gonna do a little bit of an experiment. One that will hopefully streamline the process, and make these a bit easier of a read for y’all that maybe didn’t realize this blog is going to be the length of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time (yes I will die (or tumblr will die) in the process of making it because they will never stop making Yugioh, and I have accepted this).

So the experiment is that I will be splitting these so it’s about 15 caps an update, which means this episode is 3 updates. This blog is mostly for me to blow off some stress energy from things outside of my control, but after all these years writing blogs and webcomics and etc, I realized.......I gotta do something about the weird ass length of updates here. If it were anything else, I would have cut it down and streamlined the process years ago, so lets just try it out and see what happens. (and am I suddenly inspired to do this right now because part 3 currently is a hot mess in my drafts folder? Yes.)

So, starting off, Mahad just hella died, and Mana isn’t taking it very well because she has not finished her Jedi training.

Also everyone else is here now, a little bit too late for the party, but at least they made it for the funeral.

And as Mana was going to dump on Yami, Isis got hella distracted and reminded everyone that Mahad is like super dead. Like beyond dead to a point where he exists as a symbol for cards. Crazy how dead Mahad is right now.

(read more under the cut)

While this is happening, Yugi and friends have finally found the way “out.”

Don’t get me wrong, I do like this from an artistic standpoint, feels pretty unique to have this slice cut out of a pyramid in the sky attached to an Escher Painting. If anything, Yugioh is pretty good at showing scale, and I think that is something that anime, in general is good at doing. Very cinematic for a TV show.

Honestly, these shots make me wish that there was some sort of Nolan-esque adaptation because these have such space-bending sci fi vibes. But because of budget we didn’t quite get to Inception territory. Which is fine, I mean this was done in acrylic.

But then Shadi is like “well I clearly didn’t get the facebook invite to Yami’s party so I’ll just go home and scroll through twitter because I’m just not very social, byeee.”

Also Shadi had to leave beause it’s plot convenient but we’ll get to that in a bit because Yugi had to embrace the ledge.

It was intense how quickly Yugi vaulted off this ledge. So many ledges over 5 seasons, and he just wanted to have a taste. Finally.

Anyway, after Yami probably did a little funeral before shoving Mahad into his card obelisk, all of his cult decided to have a little bit of a chat about how the ultimate war with one single dude named Bakura is going.

Like just keep in mind that most of the city is probably going on life as normal because Bakura is just one guy. Like yeah he set part of the city on fire yesterday, but as we find out later in this episode, cities in this part of Egypt are just always on fire.

It has a very Star Wars vibe where the people in charge are having this big rebellion, and there are these big movies about it, but then you watch the side content like the Mandalorian, and no one else in solar system freakin cared that there was a change of power, it made virtually no difference to them whatsoever.

Seto reallllly wants to arrest everyone in the city, and Aknadin was like “ehhhhh” because he knows Seto only wants to do this to fill his obelisk with as many tablets as humanly possible. But then Grandpa was like “YEAHHHH” because Shimon secretly loves the military state.

If I were a band person I’d tell you what instrument every single person in Yugioh would play based on their stereotypes but I was never in it. I guess Bakura would play the...flute? I dunno. I don’t know anything about band, I play piano. What I assume is true in any school with a band in it, is that the only way to get into the one piano spot in the band, is to go up against the literal valedictorian (and then hope she gets sick or accidentally cuts off her thumb something). And listen, I may be a pianist, but I’m not that much of the pianist stereotype.

But cuz Yami doesn’t freaking know how people work because he’s a dead dude that’s been locked in a prism for an eternity, he’s like “sure lets lock everyone in the city, I love that stuff.” It did not occur to Yami that Seto is filling a vault with people’s yummy demon souls, and then in the English dub, locking those people in jail even after they were exorcised.

Yami just has a lot going on with losing Mahad after he was his friend for all of like 15 hours so he’s just not really paying attention. Especially not paying attention to the situation going down in the market district.

Falling directly from the sky, these guys realized that they have made a Scene.

In case you were wondering, no they did not draw boobs all over this season although that would have been the style of Egypt at this time period. Instead we get a basic outfit I can only describe as “bible video fashion” when it comes to the normal ass non-important townspeople of Egypt.

 And fun fact I just found out from reading a Wikipedia article (so it might not be true) Ancient Egyptian kids didn’t wear any clothes at all until they were 6.

Can you imagine being naked for 6 entire years? That there was a life before modern society and needing to go to school and get an office job, you could just be completely ass naked for 6 entire years. Like maybe Mom or Dad dunk you in the Nile occasionally to wash you off, and then off you go, just a little naked bastard, right down the street, not a care in the freaking world, not even worrying about splinters because there’s not even planks of wood that exist yet. Damn.

Anyway, Joey tried to communicate with them anyway, in front of a bunch of oranges in the foreground to remind us of the tits that will never be in this shot but would have been if they were actually in ancient Egypt.

I once asked “Do these kids even think Roland is cool?" And it turns out that Joey does. Joey LOVES the nickname Roland gave him. Gonna get someone at the mall to write it on a grain of rice that he can wear on a necklace.

Which, I just realized, may not be a universal thing, and just a weird ass thing we do in California.

(a picture in case you don’t live next to a beachtown tourist trap and have never seen one)

Anyway my Mom never let me buy one when I was 11 and I really wanted one shaped like a cool dolphin and I have never forgotten it. And sure, I could just get a rice and write my name on it and shove it into a 20 cent pendant from Micheals crafts but it’s not the same.

In a way, rice necklace is the modern cartouche.

...

...anyway, speaking of bad necklaces, our bff haunted prism that has been with us for so many season’s took a sabbatical.

This is when it finally dawns on Yugi that clearly, they were never supposed to come here and they just put themselves at ground zero with no way to interact with it.

Youknow, if they had dragged Ryou Bakura here, would he have been able to take over Bakura and be like “well that’s enough of that” then solve this entire season? We’ll never know, since I think he’s still passed out on the stairs. Or, Ryou has walked down there, seen all of his school friends dead and been like “Oi that was probably me...well, I’ll be leaving then...”

And that is why, plotwise, they couldn’t bring Shadi. Otherwise, pretty sure Shada would have just become Shadi and then...well it’s still Shadi so he probably wouldn’t have done a damn thing.

Anyway that’s it for here, as always you can read these from the start by clicking this link!

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

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 28: You’ll Never Guess What Happened to Mokuba

Lets start off this episode at the heels of the last, with a weird dutch angle that kind of clips Weevil into this wall on the right but don’t worry about it. Animation, being an abstract drawn medium, lets us do weird ass perspective choices like this that would be absolutely hell to watch in live action and impossible to recreate. So lets embrace it, just like how Yugi immediately accepted that Rex and Weevil hella died in front of him and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Bakura kind of doing a solid since Weevil and Rex did happen to murder that entire Caltrain--if those people were even real on that Caltrain? S4 left it a little open ended. (Or at least it was the dub that did. The dub desperately trying to bring down that Death Count number and failing to do so.)

Anyway, in case you were like “Ah, no, Bakura has all the millennium items, just like he always wanted!” he just straight up gives them back.

Incredible character growth on Bakura here.

Although, he did decide to keep the necklace, which we have already clarified does not need to be “given” back to Bakura because it goes where it wants. It can fly, it can dissolve, it can even roll around on those little dongles. That necklace schmoves when it wants to schmove.

So Bakura decides to finally tell Yugi how this all works because it’s S5 and we still have literally no idea. Like we probably wouldn’t have gotten quite so lost in America/India for an entire season and a half if Yugi and Pharaoh just had any idea how to use these damn cards and items and weren’t randomly throwing them at a wall (which I can’t believe is canon, that you must thrust them at a cursed wall, but do it wrong, and you have freakin Dartz all over again.)

Anyway we find out from Bakura that we were using the wrong wall anyway, we want the one that looks like a golden sarcophagus and has neat little places to put each item like a spooky advent calendar. We saw that wall dude back in S1 with Pegasus, sometimes referenced throughout the series, and honestly I forgot that it exists so thanks Bakura, for the refresher.

(read more under the cut)

Dunno why in S1, Bakura was so adamant about doing this all himself, or why in S2 he clearly wanted to mess around with God Cards, but maybe being dead in S2 gave him time to think and realize...he doesn’t really need to steal anything. Maybe getting possessed by Marik at the end of S2 made Bakura way more lazy, since this seems way more a Marik move to just let other people do all the hard work.

So Bakura finally decides to tell us secret past stuff. But I’m sure he’s leaving a fair amount of it out because Bakura is very clearly puppet master and everyone is completely falling for it.

It would tell us why Ryou is like “actually I will help my ghost remove itself from my damn body.” Does mean Ryou has to do some effed up stuff but damn if he can heal himself from the evil ghost that keeps killing everyone, he’ll do it.

Yugi sees this opportunity more as a way to help Pharaoh regain his memories and move on--but like...I live on the internet so I did find out the spoiler that at some point the end of this show will address that moving on is exactly what it sounds like and..............................show, wtf. Like I dunno how they’ll justify it in any way, but we’ve had 4 seasons of demonstrating that every time you remove Pharaoh from Yugi and visa versa, really bad stuff happens because both are not fully developed on their own. They’re both not a complete person, Pharaoh especially so. 

So it’s kind of weird to me that Yugi is down to go through with this when Bakura is being kind of blunt about what will happen if they do. I wouldn’t say Yugi and Pharaoh are all “nice! I’m so happy to be possessed!” but I was here in S4. I remember what happened when Yugi hella died.

and apparently so was Pharaoh who was like “EXCUSEY? We are not getting a brain divorce.”

And off he goes. Thanks for the lore dump that will force Yugi to do........the same thing Yugi was going to do anyway. To run over to the evil Mr Potatohead and shove all the items inside...just like he was going to do anyway.

But weird talk, Bakura. It was good to see you.

So off Bakura goes, to do more mischief because it’s been kind of a long time since he’s done anything and he needs to make up for the season and a half he spent taking a nap and binging TV.

Seto Kaiba is burning the early AM oil, no idea the scope of this crazy power point presentation he must be making--but sure hope those power point transitions are worth just not sleeping.

Also, we get a good look at this desk and it’s accompanied Worst Carpet Color I Have Ever Seen In My Life. Please admire the amount of cords this desk has, and they kind of go off onto the floor instead of into the desk? Love that. And---what is this thing?

OK I gotta go on a rant about this gadget. Like y’all I was alive when this episode came out and I have no idea what this tech is at all.

He clearly has a phone on the other side of his computer, so it’s not an answering machine. Is it like a music synthesizer? A baby toy where you click the button and it goes “moooo”? Like what the hell is this thing? It almost looks like a cash register or an ATM or something.

Like is it an intercom? It couldn’t be! Intercoms are used with your phone, which is on the other side of his computer. Also it’s REALLY early in the morning so no one else could be here to page (and it’s deffo not a pager).

OMG I just realized something. Is this the internet?

Holy crap what if this is his second phone line? Like we used to have multiple phone lines back in the day so that way one could use the internet, and then the other could be a working phone. Is this is his second line perhaps?

But no! It couldn’t be! There was wifi and broadband by 2003!

WTF is this thing???? It’s too small to be a fax machine. It has an up and down button like a printer but what the hell does it print...?

is it a stamp printer? Is Kaiba personally stamping and selling his duel disks himself? Is it a card printer? Is he testing printing individual cards? (which he couldn’t be doing because Pegasus makes the cards)

WTF is this thing???? If any of you figure this out please tell me, I have been on google image search digging though old tech and I cannot figure this out because it looks like a cassette player, but this is the 00′s when we used CD’s and thumb drives. You could barely even buy cassettes at this point.

Anyway, the power’s out, but Bakura can appear in your screen, which is a neat thing the Millennium items can hella do, but Yugi has never done.

eyyyyyyy it’s Mokuba! Looking good!

Also Mokuba’s looking hella twinner with that striped outfit next to Bakura’s. Gotta love a good blue stripe. (that Stockholme syndrome set in so fast it was there before he was even abducted wow)

So Kaiba goes “MY FREAKIN LIFE.” and pulls his cards case out of his desk.

TBH I feel like Kaiba wanted to get distracted. It’s like would you rather work on a project at 4-5 AM or would you rather duel to the death on top of a skyscraper? You know what Kaiba’s answer would be.

I don’t usually get a kick out of funky looking tweens because that’s just what you need to animate, and they should be funky, but this one got me good.

Anyway, Mokuba’s hella dead. Bakura just throwing down body counts to make up for Dartz and the past two filler arcs that didn’t have that many dead people, honestly.

Also, like...is my font too small here? The papyrus font has some presets that I tend to use because it’s easier, but if y’all are on the phone (no idea if tumblr lets you pinch and zoom) you’d tell me, right? I still have these caps around, and I can still change the sizes if need be. Please let me know if I made something that is illegible.

Anyway, Bakura says he’s doing this to make his final plan come together but damn does Bakura have a reason to get back at Seto Kaiba for that time that Seto Kaiba did basically nothing to save Bakura’s arse during that tournament.

Yo remember Dead Card Wife from S2?

The show decided to NOT forget about Dead Card Wife, and I find that shocking. I figured they’d be doing all they could to unwrite Dead Card Wife from all of our collective memories, but she’s still here! She even got a name! That I have already forgotten!

Freakin Seto Kabia’s going to have a human love interest and I don’t know how to parse that. Good freakin luck with that, writers.

And then Bakura, our Charlie Kelly (I think accidentally labelled Joey as a Charlie Kelly at one point, but it was wrong, it’s always been Bakura) decides to pull out the random card and left the game right before beating Seto and probably would have shoved his soul into the shadow realm.

Be aware that Kaiba has been working all night, and now probably assumes he’s fully asleep. It’s just like my roomate who took 32 hours of college classes one semester on top of a part time job (yes, that wasn’t allowed, but she begged the dean until they allowed it) and she was so screwed during finals week that she took a hell ton of caffeine pills, stayed awake for 36 hours, and started seeing a ghost man in our kitchen who stole our juice, drank it straight from the bottle, and vanished. (she failed nearly all of her exams, in case you were curious about the end of that story.)

No way that Seto thinks that any of this is real, although the dead Mokuba might make him question it come morning.

And then just out of freakin no where Bakura lobs this oily nugget across the stage:

What an amazing morning that Seto Kaiba is having. And you know he’s never going to finish that power point presentation. The power went out and totally lost all his work. Like Seto’s morning of “I’m going to be productive, I’m going to be the best” ended with a gross ass eyeball from his distant past.

Like how do you even log “Bakura lobbed a nasty false eyeball at me after killing my brother” into a bullet journal? You can’t. His day is ruined before it started and it was because he didn’t go the hell to bed the night before.

Like Kaiba seems pretty satisfied with being in love with a paper card that’s shaped like a dragon. Does he really need it to be in love with a person from 5000 years ago who is hella dead now? As far as un-attainable soul mates go, he should stick with dragons.

Also, considering that Pegasus and Kaiba are back on speaking terms...wouldn’t he just give the eye back?

Like obviously for the course of the show he won’t, but like...wouldn’t Kaiba just be like “I don’t want this.” and give it back the next time he and Pegasus go out to brunch? Seto doesn’t think the eye is haunted.

Anyway, lets go to Egypt. No idea what happened to Mokuba, Rex, or Weevil, the show decided to go to Egypt instead. (I’m assuming Grandpa buried their bodies in the parking lot, and Roland is in charge of hooking up Mokuba to the nearest computer orb)

Where we find out that Tea bought everyone’s tickets the day of departure.

Bro did some research and the price of this plane ticket is actually well below 6 grand for 3 tickets, but...still more than your average teenager.

I have mentioned before that these kids seem hella loaded going to this fancy school that had Seto Kaiba in it but damn, Tea too? Like is Joey the only average Joe person here? If there were a next season...pretty sure we’d find out that Tristan is secretly a prince or something. Where does their money come from?

Like for reals Tea doesn’t have a job anymore because she nearly got shot at the burger restaurant...

...or what if this is payout for that time she suffered damages at the burger restaurant? Maybe this is hush money so she won’t sue the burger chain?

Or...she won it in MMA fighting and we all know the correct answer to that one.

Anyway, marvel at Yugi bringing a carry-on of horrific cursed items onto a plane, staring the TSA agent directly in the face as his huge necklace keeps setting off the metal detector. Each of these kids are going to be patted down for being just the most sus people who ever entered an airport, especially after their last flight went down over the Himalayas.

Anyway, that’s all for today, and here’s the link to read these from the beginning if you’re new here:

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

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 21: Joey Takes A Snack at that Cray Sauce

Hey guys! The 17 yo cat with kidney disease I was out of town watching lived to see another week (she was a very good girl). Which means now I can get back to the good stuff. This episode is brought to you by the colors red and orange, and I hope you like this color, and I hope you like this after effects they CGId onto this volcano.

Anyways, they first have to do this familiar ledge fall, because, it’s Yugioh, and if there’s a bunch of lava, Tristan wants

in

that.

And then Joey decides...hey you know what? I’m gonna jet. And...it’s not the first time he’s pulled a wild card and been unpredictable, I mean none of us can really forget that time he decided to get murdered by Mai instead of going in a straight line towards the end boss last season, but this time it was kind of funny how it was hastily composed.

And off he goes, folks.

As he left, Tristan was like “Ya dummy!” and Tea was like “nono, we gotta encourage him--run Joey! You can do it! See? Now he’s gone.” and it’s like...Tea is either trying to kill Joey with her support or honestly thinks that’s good support and I can’t fully tell which she is.

(read more under the cut)

It’s at this point that Grandpa has the gall to say “Did any of you happen to catch the lore? I fell asleep during that part.” Just like my Dad when we watch any movie as a family.

Meanwhile, maybe 100 ft away from them, Joey is in mortal peril but it’s Joey, so he’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.

In fact, this episode seems like it would have been a better arc if it stretched out more episodes because the Joey neglect happens so quickly and out of nowhere that it’s...less organic than your average children’s show. Honestly it’s kind of funny how fast the fall of Joey Wheeler happens this episode. And I think it could have been a fun interesting time if it was handled better but youknow...it’s crammed into one single episode and you’ll se what happens.

As Yugi ruminates a cool thing that would have been really interesting this season--like running into more rando’s from other periods of time than just Alexander--Tea looks across the lava highway and was like “found it.”

Back at the dragon situation, Joey starts opening his heart to this dragon and it’s like...did they originally intend for Seto Kaiba to be here? Because I guess Joey uses Red Eyes a lot, but I also skip a lot of the card games, so when I think “who likes the dragon card?” Joey is not the first one I think of.

That and like he got over his Atlantis dragon card like hella fast, right? Like totally already over that?

And also if you thought Joey would pull out his other dragon to try and communicate or get a hold of this dragon like...nah.

Back at the fort, these guys decided to ditch Joey to get to this sword at the top of a volcano to solve the riddle, and what follows is some weird ass canon.

As I’m pulling up my Google Doc with my deathcount on it, Tristan decides this is the time he won’t freakin die and turn into a robot monkey for 15 episodes.

And he makes a huge ass green dragon. You’d think this MASSIVE dragon would do more in this episode, but nah. Although he pulls out Massive Dragon, it’s like kind of worthless, so he mostly puts it back in his pocket.

And then Tea pulls this elf chick out and it’s freakin hilarious because look at her giant elf.

Like Tea is not a small person! Are Yugioh monsters all 12 ft tall???

Yugi is also all ham about fusing with his dude now. It knocked him out a couple episodes ago, but Yugi is so keen on destroying his body that he’s back in clown town. And like...took his Grandpa for a ride, I guess, although I’m pretty sure Summoned Skull has wings.

Course, Summoned Skulls insides are his outsides...and I dunno if you’d want Summoned Skull to give you a big hug and carry you around. Summoned Skull just seems like he’s sticky.

And, once they make it to the top of the volcano where the plot sword lives, we first have to visit this plot twist of the century.

YEAH.

OUT OF NOWHERE.

THIS EPISODE IS NOT LONG.

Aaaaaaand now Joey is going to try and kill everyone here. I did not skip anything, PS, Joey dipped off-screen.

PS, everyone’s reaction to “I will kill you!” was a whole lot of rolling their eyes at first being like “Joey, stawp.”

So, now that Joey’s randomly possessed by this dragon, we get a peek into what Joey’s brain zone looks like. It’s a whole lot of nothing in between his ears.

Consistent to S1 actually, when we had a bit of a Joey Brain Zone moment. It was a blank void there, too.

So apparently Joey decided, back when he was confessing his love to Red Eyes Black Dragon, that he would jump on it’s back to calm it down--and it just...fused with him. So...now he’s a dragon.

Sure, I guess. I mean...there’s really no limit on what a Duel monster can’t do, so I’ll allow it.

The team tries to just say “ah screw it” and pull up this sword themselves (you can kind of see it in this shot) and the sword just slurps into the dirt even more out of spite. Seeing that there’s a bit of a time limit, Grandpa pulls this one out of his back pocket.

Yo, Grandpa’s not even possessed. Hey, remember that time that Grandpa nearly died giving Arthur Hawkins the last of his water back in Egypt? Remember that?

Like uh, you can definitely tell this was made by a different team that may not have gotten that cue card. It may have been lost in the mail. Either way, kind of a hilarious heel turn on Grandpa’s personality here, although it does make logical sense to save most of the kids from sacrificing one kid. It’s just...that kid is Joey...so...that’s like his adopted Grandson, right?

So Yugi does something very on brand for Yugi and invades a brain.

And like...obviously Yami and Yugi would say no to this. They would never do this. Not after all the dozens and dozens of times they have sacrificed the world and everything for their best friends.

But...maybe just this one time we can kill Joey? As a treat?

So uh...Yami hella vaporizes Joey with his new powers. Luckily, Joey Wheeler has Shaggy Doo energy and just...he survives it for some reason. I don’t know why he isn’t dead, maybe because the dragon made him stronger? Eh, don’t do the math (on any part of this episode).

So Joey gets up and is like “I know the answer to the riddle!” As the sword kinda melts into the volcano and Gramps is like “Well we’re dead, actually, so no one cares!”

And Joey’s like “Look!” and he hops onto the back of the Red Eyes Black dragon and reveals this random thing:

Because it turns out, that the dragon was the real problem and not this volcano with a sword in it.

Which youknow...could have been cool if this episode wasn’t so many insane plot points so quickly. Kind of a lot of episode here. This episode could have been a whole season of a show.

Like how long was Joey Possessed by Marik in S2? Like 5 or 6 episodes? And you can see how much more successful it was at selling the story although it was a lot of the same themes and ideas. Pacing is important.

And then Joey passes out from the suit juice.

Which is when we get one more Alexander cameo, just kinda watching them leave and onto the next arc of their little journey.

They sure did put a lot of eyeliner on Alexander the great, and, being real...he may have actually been wearing a hell ton of dope eyeliner when he was alive, so this could be historically accurate, for all we know. Those old marble statues used to be painted, after all. Maybe they had dope Yugioh eyeliner down to his cheekbones? One can wish.

And like if you ever get the time--seeing what those marble statues looked like with paint on it is so freakin goofy and fun, I love it. I love that for 600 years we thought those marble statues were supposed to be naked and white but it’s like, nah man--this guy’s just wearing a skin tight breast plate and when you paint it, it’s so garish it’s like a freakin clown outfit.

But anyway, that’s all for now! Hope y’all have a good weekend, and as always, here’s a link to read these in chrono order, if you just got here!

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

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 23: No One Expects Bakura

Got a lot of lore in this episode, which I didn’t really expect in any part of this arc, but it sure happened. And it’s so wild I’m still processing it. So lets dive into some lore because I need to write some words about the places this episode is going to go.

We step out of the magical glowing door, only to arrive at the original map.

And out of no where this guy shows up. Alexander the Great decides he’s done stalking the crew and wants to join them at the very, very tall fire they lit in the woods. Honestly, Maybe Alexander the Great was like “holy crap these city kids are going to burn down my entire woods holy crap.”

Tea does throw Alexander directly under the bus upon meeting him, maybe not as bluntly but still pretty blunt. And Alexander is like “Don’t I know it.”

And while I’m sure y’all are like “wow, Yugioh sure thinks a lot of themselves to put the literal King Alexander in their TV show.” Don’t worry. There’s a bigger twist coming.

(read more under the cut)

First thing he does is whip out his coat with this stance that conveniently also shows off his built arms, to which all the men were like “woah” while Tea rolled her eyes. Not sure what Alexander the great is lifting out here in the middle of nowhere, maybe a couple of duel monsters? Maybe some trees? But clearly he still has the energy to do his daily HIIT.

I really can’t think of a worse punishment for a famous warrior than the worst armor ever made.  After introducing his armor, he decides to give us a history lesson, which literally no one paid any attention to because of the glaring situation hanging underneath King Alexander’s neck.

YEAH.

I keep falling for it. Every time I’m like “ah, Yugioh is calming down for a spell” they do this to me. Here I was kind of wading through this predictable arc and then the writers were like “We’re losing them, we have to pull out the rug” and they did. They pulled out that one spice in the back of their cabinet that seems to fix so many seasons of Yugioh.

Bakura’s back. Welcome. Hell knows, we missed this mess.

I guess he’s not literally “here” here, but the same ghost inhabited both these boys, and one of the boys went so nuts he decided to conquer the Old World before he turned 32, and then the other boy spent his time stabbing himself to trick people to take him to the hospital, pulling out false eyeballs, shooting lasers, and killing old minibosses in graveyards.

And just...the implications here.

Like everyone who uses the same millennium item throughout time has some soul-similarities, almost like a reincarnation. Like Yugi and Pharaoh are such a good blend at this point that Yami answers to Yugi’s name basically always. Even when people know Yugi is dead, they stilled didn’t call Yami Yami. There’s some type of soul that has to use a certain item, and when you mess with that, you get Marik, who couldn’t control his millennium item properly if Seto (who was supposed to own it) was nearby.

So the implications here are that while Pharaoh is pretty powerful, Alexander the Great...conquered Egypt. And you got Kaiba who I guess was Rosencratz in a video game and Yugi also was Henry the 5th once...

...but Bakura was Alexander the freakin Great and I’m just letting that sink in because now he’s just going to hang out with them as if he’s a normal guy. As if he’s just a Bakura hanging out with his frenemies around a camp fire.

Which...the last time they hung out around a campfire with Bakura, he did end up murdering all of them 5 minutes later to try and steal the necklace but like...

...holy crap literal Alexander the Great might be nicer than actual Bakura...

So, you may be wondering how Yugioh explained what the hell happened to Alexander the Great, and what that has to do with card games. Don’t worry, we have that other guy who we only see show up once a blue moon, that’s right, you completely forgot about him, and I know you did, because I completely forgot about him, too.

It’s everyone’s favorite life-ruiner, Shadi! He even has a new belt!

Bro was like “lol what if he has a millennium belt?” and um...it does seem to have an eye on it, so chances are high that’s a cursed belt for a spinoff.

So I’ve been giving Alexander such a hard time about this convoluted game of nursery rhyme riddles but...it was Shadi. Which makes a lot more sense because Shadi has been not really alive for a really long time. He might not remember how people work. 

And, in Shadi fashion, he actually is doing the Season Zero thing of judging whether you have authority over your item which...about time. He forgot to do this to Marik (or maybe he did and Marik got through by accident?) and he didn’t seem to care about Ishizu (which...yeah) but he did show up about 12 years too late to be like “Yo I think you might be disrupting all of mankind, Alexander.”

It’s all Shadi’s fault. I can’t believe Alexander the Great was Shadi’s fault! Shadi has screwed us a lot, but I can’t believe he’s been screwing humanity for That Long and at That Scale.

Bakura is just in so many places--because he’s also in Yugi’s necklace right now, watching this and being like “Oi, it’s my ex. Awkward.”

So the nice part of the ghost that has since moved on and currently lives in modern Bakura hangs his head in shame, because his nice side has been cruising around this horrible tabletop game for like thousands of years.

TBH he deserves it, Alexander the Great killed like.....so many freakin people.

and no, the show never tells us that Bakura ever entered this pyramid, and there’s a good choice that the Ghost side of Bakura has learned to keep it lower key so he doesn’t have to deal with Shadi’s BS...but Shadi WAS on the same blimp as the rest of them, right? He knew all the items were in one place, he told us.

But ah, I am remembering now, that he then he looked at Bakura passed out on a bed, and then up at Tea who was possessed by Bakura and holding onto that ring, and Shadi was like “oh it’s this dumbass. Well, DnD pyramid’s full, maybe next time.”

So while they definitely wrote this arc looooong after S2, it does work into the lore that, because Bakura was already shadow realmed, Bakura missed this wonderful opportunity to hang out in the ghost pyramid with his early incarnation that also has a British accent for some reason.

HOLY CRAP.

The British accent was foreshadowing. That’s insane. I can’t believe the foreshadowing is that he was 1.) British and that’s it. No other things. Just British. Other than that, nothing else really feels Bakura about his look, he’s a completely opposite body type.

Freakin this guy is towering over the rest of them at like 10 feet tall. Ancient Bakura was a roided giant. Like Pharaoh is still tiny in his era like Yugi is, but Bakura? A freakin beast.

So Alexander OldBakura pulls a riddle out of his pocket because he couldn’t figure it out himself all those years ago when he hella died in this pyramid because the only smart part of Bakura is ever in ghost form--”nice” Bakura is always kind of a sweetie dumbass that habitually does bad things.

Although this one is played off as more a himbo in this show, which is crazy, because I never thought I’d call Alexander the Great a himbo. But compared to the other villains...yeah...

PS, you may be wondering...but he didn’t die in India, Alexander left India, didn’t he? You’re right. He didn’t die in India. The show has a loose interpretation of history at the best of times, but they addressed this and inferred that Alexander went full ghost after half of him got lost in the pyramid, which lead to him getting hella betrayed and he died. They leave it very vague since IRL we don't know what happened to Alexander’s body and he died in kind of a weird way, which I think I went over already in a previous episode. People like to make Alexander’s death kind of mysterious IRL, but that’s mostly History Channel propaganda--he most likely just took a while to die and they called him dead too early.

Well...at least this clears up what his tomb is doing in India, because this isn’t a tomb. It doesn’t exist! Shadi’s ghost magic at work, this place is fake. Which is how no one else has found it.

How did Joey end up with a ticket here? How did Grandpa get a message from Alexander the Great, who I guess was his protege and closest friend (according to the...other Alexander standing outside who...I’m not sure who that guy is actually.) So many questions that I have that we will not get to because we still have to do the riddle Macguffin quest that every episode of this arc has to do.

I can’t believe the audacity of this show that they’re going to explain away Alexander the Great. How close are we to bringing in Atilla the Hun or Ghengis Khan? I shudder to even say this but like...they thought about Hitler right? Hitler was definitely on the table to have some sort of eyeball implement in his pocket? Thank GOODNESS we finally stepped away from alternate Hitler in media lately because there was a period of just...too many Hitlers in movies and TV (I say knowing full well they’d probably just write an alt Robert E Lee instead with way too many belts on and it’d probably whip ass.)

Anyway, the last riddle is kind of dark.

Hey guys, just an art tip, never draw a dragon so it’s tail goes in between it’s own legs like that. It’s like...I mean you can see it, right? Phallic dragon in a big way? Like Kaiba can do it because we all know that’s what he’s after, but I don’t think the spooky Dragon Cult was going for the same suggestive stance.

So we start off this riddle by walking in on a girl who is ready to fling herself off of a cliff, as you do, in order to power up the White Eyes Blue Dragon, which sure is a weird lore footnote for this kid’s show to shove into a side arc. Pharaoh and Joey are like “woah guys, this seems super unnecessary, like I get that everyone here is fake, but come the hell on.”

And what’s crazy is that we have seen this story before about the 5 headed dragon at the end of S1. It came back.

Kaiba’s bad VR experience is so far better than Shadi’s, I’ll give him that. Almost like Kaiba makes games for a living.

There’s also this dragon chick who I wish was that girl that Seto Kaiba hallucinated once in a card game, but it’s instead just some weird ass girl (yes, I looked this up). Still thinking she might turn into a dragon though because...she’s just really freakin weird.

And so the writers had us go to 5 separate locations in this very short episode, when all I want to do is discuss why the hell Bakura and Alexander the Great share the same damn necklace. But sure, we’ll go to 5 different locations, why not.

Also Joey does this without skipping a beat it’s like...yeah, Tristan almost dies (and literally dies) all the time, this is probably the right choice.

Then they get a little tour of the city by the dragon sacrifice girl, where we meet a plot relevant sword, because swords in this arc are kind of like Legend of Zelda keys. We got like 9 different types of swords at this point, but we gotta keep stacking em out of a paranoid fear that we’re gonna miss one and get softlocked out of the water temple.

Yes, the nasty-ass Bakura-god Alexander the Great was not pure enough for the sword of “divinity” and that sure is an understatement.

Pharaoh also can’t lift the sword and he just shrugs and says “We’ll get to it later.” because Pharaoh knows how DnD works. He decides to follow the DM’s clear pathing and go to the 5 locations although we all know this won’t matter. He already knows this is a pointless quest.

Luckily, they did remember they can fly this episode, and so fighting their dragons with the other dragons, they quickly realize “yeah these are invincible actually.” And Yugi is like--”Quick, to the plot sword!”

Yugi picked up a monster at Lava Lava Mountain, but I do not remember it’s name. I only know is that, when fused, it makes very busy Xenoblade armor. Like kind of if an AI bot made Xenoblade armor.

I don’t like it. Anyway, he puts down his crazy shaped decorative blade that wouldn’t be able to cut freakin anything, and picks up the normal shaped blade.

And after this they actually had a really good idea for some visual spectacle. Problem is, it just wasn’t executed well, I couldn’t even cap it because it went by in too few frames. They wanted to have the energy from the dragons swoop into this sword and then light it up into a 10000 ft light saber that fills the screen as he flicks it around. This could have looked pretty neat, I think that the story-boarding intended it to be cool, but wow, the execution. Man.

A shame, how much potential there was in this sword fight that didn’t make it because this side arc is so compact that they only had like 10 seconds to work with.

Not like it mattered.

Behold:

Look, it’s every one of us walking out of quarantine. mm. I feel you, 5-headed dragon. Same. Big Same.

Anyway, next time hopefully we’ll just get through this dragon fight quickly because um--Bakura, what the hell?

Anyway, I’ve been hella slow about doing these, but hopefully I’ll get back into the swing? (and maybe I’m just a one post a week person now ((two weeks? OMG when was the last time I posted?))) Anyway, now I’ve since learned not to do 3 side-projects at once.

And to read these in chronological order, here is the link: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono