#seems accurate youknow

[mellohiizz]

hey. would you. would you draw havocduo cuddling together. and if so. may you draw it. please.

i miss them

[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

[readbookywooks]

'Yeff,' it said. They feemed in a bit of a hurry, if you ask me.' Mort was already up on Binky's back. 'I fay!' shouted the knocker at his retreating back. 'I fay! Could you unftick me, boy?' Mort tugged on Binky's reins so hard that the horse reared and danced crazily backwards across the cobbles, then reached out and grabbed the ring of the knocker. The gargoyle looked up into his face and suddenly felt like a very frightened doorknocker indeed. Mort's eyes glowed like crucibles, his expression was a furnace, his voice held enough heat to melt iron. It didn't know what he could do, but felt that it would prefer not to find out. 'What did you call me?' Mort hissed. The doorknocker thought quickly. 'Fir?' it said. 'What did you ask me to do?' 'Unftick me?' 'I don't intend to.' 'Fine,' said the doorknocker, 'fine. That's okay by me. I'll just ftick around, then.' It watched Mort canter off along the street and shuddered with relief, knocking itself gently in its nervousness. 'A naaaarrow sqeeeak,' said one of the hinges. 'Fut up!' Mort passed night watchmen, whose job now appeared to consist of ringing bells and shouting the name of the Princess, but a little uncertainly, as if they had difficulty remembering it. He ignored them, because he was listening to voices inside his head which went: She's only met you once, you fool. Why should she bother about you? Yes, but I did save her life. That means it belongs to her. Not to you. Besides, he's a wizard. So what? Wizards aren't supposed to – to go out with girls, they're celebrate. . . . Celebrate? They're not supposed to youknow. . . . What, never any youknow at all? said the internal voice, and it sounded as if it was grinning. It's supposed to be bad for the magic, thought Mort bitterly. Funny place to keep magic. Mort was shocked. Who are you? he demanded. I'm you, Mort. Your inner self. Well, I wish I'd get out of my head, it's quite crowded enough with me in here. Fair enough, said the voice, I was only trying to help. But remember, if you ever need you, you're always around. The voice faded away. Well, thought Mort bitterly, that must have been me. I'm the only one that calls me Mort. The shock of the realisation quite obscured the fact that, while Mort had been locked into the monologue, he had ridden right through the gates of the palace. Of course, people rode through the gates of the palace every day, but most of them needed the things to be opened first. The guards on the other side were rigid with fear, because they thought they had seen a ghost. They would have been far more frightened if they had known that a ghost was almost exactly what they hadn't seen. The guard outside the doors of the great hall had seen it happen too, but he had time to gather his wits, or such that remained, and raise his spear as Binky trotted across the courtyard. 'Halt,' he croaked. 'Halt. What goes where?' Mort saw him for the first time. 'What?' he said, still lost in thought. The guard ran his tongue over his dry lips, and backed away. Mort slid off Binky's back and walked forward. 'I meant, what goes there?' the guard tried again, with a mixture of doggedness and suicidal stupidity that marked him for early promotion. Mort caught the spear gently and lifted it out of the way of the door. As he did so the torchlight illuminated his face. 'Mort,' he said softly. It should have been enough for any normal soldier, but this guard was officer material. 'I mean, friend or foe?' he stuttered, trying to avoid Mort's gaze. 'Which would you prefer?' he grinned. It wasn't quite the grin of his master, but it was a pretty effective grin and didn't have a trace of humour in it. The guard sagged with relief, and stood aside. 'Pass, friend,' he said. Mort strode across the hall towards the staircase that led to the royal apartments. The hall had changed a lot since he last saw it. Portraits of Keli were everywhere; they'd even replaced the ancient and crumbling battle banners in the shadowy heights of the roof. Anyone walking through the palace would have found it impossible to go more than a few steps without seeing a portrait. Part of Mort's mind wondered why, just as another part worried about the flickering dome that was steadily closing on the city, but most of his mind was a hot and steamy glow of rage and bewilderment and jealousy. Ysabell had been right, he thought, this must be love. 'The walk-through-walls boy!' He jerked his head up. Cutwell was standing at the top of the stairs. The wizard had changed a lot too, Mort thought bitterly. Perhaps not that much, though. Although he was wearing a black and white robe embroidered with sequins, although his pointy hat was a yard high and decorated with more mystic symbols than a dental chart, and although his red velvet shoes had silver buckles and toes that curled like snails, there were still a few stains on his collar and he appeared to be chewing. He watched Mort climb the stairs towards him. 'Are you angry about something?' he said. 'I started work, but I got rather tied up with other things. Very difficult, walking through – why are you looking at me like that?' 'What are you doing here?' 'I might ask you the same question. Would you like a strawberry?' Mort glanced at the small wooden punnet in the wizard's hands. 'In mid-winter?' 'Actually, they're sprouts with a dash of enchantment.' They taste like strawberries?' Cutwell sighed. 'No, like sprouts. The spell isn't totally efficient. I thought they might cheer the princess up, but she threw them at me. Shame to waste them. Be my guest.' Mort gaped at him. 'She threw them at you?' 'Very accurately, I'm afraid. Very strong-minded young lady.' Hi, said a voice in the back of Mort's mind, it's you again, pointing out to yourself that the chances of the princess even contemplating you know with this fellow are on the far side of remote. Go away, thought Mort. His subconscious was worrying him. It appeared to have a direct line to parts of his body that he wanted to ignore at the moment. 'Why are you here?' he said aloud. 'Is it something to do with all these pictures?' 'Good idea, wasn't it?' beamed Cutwell. 'I'm rather proud of it myself.' 'Excuse me,' said Mort weakly. 'I've had a busy day. I think I'd like to sit down somewhere.' 'There's the Throne Room,' said Cutwell. 'There's no-one in there at this time of night. Everyone's asleep.' Mort nodded, and then looked suspiciously at the young wizard. 'What are you doing up, then?' he said. 'Um,' said Cutwell, 'um, I just thought I'd see if there was anything in the pantry.' He shrugged.[6] Now is the time to report that Cutwell too notices that Mort, even a Mort weary with riding and lack of sleep, is somehow glowing from within and in some strange way unconnected with size is nevertheless larger than life. The difference is that Cutwell is, by training, a better guesser than other people and knows that in occult matters the obvious answer is usually the wrong one. Mort can move absentmindedly through walls and drink neat widowmaker soberly not because he is turning into a ghost, but because he is becoming dangerously real. In fact, as the boy stumbles while they walk along the silent corridors and steps through a marble pillar without noticing, it's obvious that the world is becoming a pretty insubstantial place from his point of view. 'You just walked through a marble pillar,' observed Cutwell. 'How did you do it?' 'Did I?' Mort looked around. The pillar looked sound enough. He poked an arm towards it, and slightly bruised his elbow. 'I could have sworn you did,' said Cutwell. 'Wizards notice these things, you know.' He reached into the pocket of his robe. Then have you noticed the mist dome around the country?' said Mort. Cutwell squeaked. The jar in his hand dropped and smashed on the tiles; there was the smell of slightly rancid salad dressing. 'Already?' 'I don't know about already,' said Mort, 'but there's this sort of crackling wall sliding over the land and no-one else seems to worry about it and—' 'How fast was it moving?' '— it changes things!' 'You saw it? How far away is it? How fast is it moving?' 'Of course I saw it. I rode through it twice. It was like —' 'But you're not a wizard, so why —' 'What are you doing here, anyway —' Cutwell took a deep breath. 'Everyone shut up!' he screamed. There was silence. Then the wizard grabbed Mort's arm. 'Come on,' he said, pulling him back along the corridor. 'I don't know who you are exactly and I hope I've got time to find out one day but something really horrible is going to happen soon and I think you're involved, somehow.' 'Something horrible? When?' That depends on how far away the interface is and how fast it's moving,' said Cutwell, dragging Mort down a side passage. When they were outside a small oak door he let go of his arm and fumbled in his pocket again, removing a small hard piece of cheese and an unpleasantly squashy tomato. 'Hold these, will you? Thank you.' He delved again, produced a key and unlocked the door. 'It's going to kill the princess, isn't it?' said Mort. 'Yes,' said Cutwell, 'and then again, no.' He paused with his hand on the doorhandle. 'That was pretty perspicacious of you. How did you know?' 'I —' Mort hesitated. 'She told me a very strange story,' said Cutwell. 'I expect she did,' said Mort. 'If it was unbelievable, it was true.' 'You're him, are you? Death's assistant?' 'Yes. Off duty at the moment, though.' 'Pleased to hear it.' Cutwell shut the door behind them and fumbled for a candlestick. There was a pop, a flash of blue light and a whimper. 'Sorry,' he said, sucking his fingers. 'Fire spell. Never really got the hang of it.' 'You were expecting the dome thing, weren't you?' said Mort urgently. 'What will happen when it closes in?' The wizard sat down heavily on the remains of a bacon sandwich. 'I'm not exactly sure,' he said. 'It'll be interesting to watch. But not from inside, I'm afraid. What I think will happen is that the last week will never have existed.' 'She'll suddenly die?' 'You don't quite understand. She will have been dead for a week. All this —' he waved his hands vaguely in the air – 'will not have happened. The assassin will have done his job. You will have done yours. History will have healed itself. Everything will be all right. From History's point of view, that is. There really isn't any other.' Mort stared out of the narrow window. He could see across the courtyard into the glowing streets outside, where a picture of the princess smiled at the sky. 'Tell me about the pictures,' he said. That looks like some sort of wizard thing.' 'I'm not sure if it's working. You see, people were beginning to get upset and they didn't know why, and that made it worse. Their minds were in one reality and their bodies were in another. Very unpleasant. They couldn't get used to the idea that she was still alive. I thought the pictures might be a good idea but, you know, people just don't see what their mind tells them isn't there.' 'I could have told you that,' said Mort bitterly. 'I had the town criers out during the daytime,' Cutwell continued. 'I thought that if people could come to believe in her, then this new reality could become the real one.' 'Mmmph?' said Mort. He turned away from the window. 'What do you mean?' 'Well, you see – I reckoned that if enough people believed in her, they could change reality. It works for gods. If people stop believing in a god, he dies. If a lot of them believe in him, he grows stronger.'

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 14 pt 2: Failed Attempt to Get a Ride to Jacksonville

Yo so fun fact, things have been WEIRD over here and I’ve been very distracted by...all the weird stuff going on. I basically had to put a block app on my computer so I would not use any of my social media because it’s like...things are NUTS right now and it’s hard to work from home if it’s like that. Anyway, I was so distracted, that when I paced these caps out initially I thought this was like...half an episode. It’s short though. Oops.

Whatever, it happens. Better a post than no post right? This week I’ve been doing so many other things that uh I didn’t get around to watching much Yugioh. So a little post is fortuitous.

Anyway, last we left off, Yami has decided to regroup and figure out “well...what do I do once they kill off Yugi? Retire, right? Like I have no idea what other thing I do than help/harass this child?”

And then Tea actually suggests something along the line of this

Which is hilarious, because I’m so incredibly fed up with my government at the moment (yo voting season is around the corner--just reminding anyone reading this to double check that you’re registered). But luckily, Rebecca was there to say “yo we do not have any proof” which is a complete lie, because a huge ass eye was in the sky over Japan, but also Rebecca was wise to get them to stop trying to get through American Bureaucracy.

Like I’m not saying the US would allow Sky Eye to continue if they were made aware of it, it’s just that it takes a really long time? Like you can “Mr Smith Goes To Washington” the Evil Sky Eye but you have to write a letter and then remember how to address a letter, and then you have to send it, and then call people, and make a lot of forms. It’s boring TV.

(read more under the cut)

So Professor Hawkins, sensing that boring TV was incoming decided to walk out of the bedroom and just plot dump on us.

So although we know what the inscriptions say, because Hawkins JUST TOLD US, I guess he was like “you have nothing better to do, go spend a ton of money and get yourself to Florida.”

And so I guess that’s Goodbye California Geography for now. It was good while you lasted. Glad it happened. Glad I got to see the Golden Gate in Yugioh randomly and hang out in Pegasus’ hometown.

(Genuinely curious if Joey and the rest of them will ever stop calling the Ghost in Yugi’s body “Yugi.” I mean...he kinda killed Yugi, you’d think they’d try not to remind him of that every 5 seconds.)

So lets see how Seto is doing. He’s back in his office chair, hasn’t changed since yesterday (although he might just have a closet entirely of black turtlenecks, he just seems like the type) and we’re back to wondering what the hell this guy even does at this company.

I guess Seto hasn’t changed his number since he was in Spanish class with them like a year ago. And for some reason they decided to set up a webcam which is even another level because...I didn’t know you could do that in 2003. Like we had chat services for web chatting and 500 px wide videos--but I believe phones used their own network for video calls. I could be wrong though.

Anyway, this looks hella low tech, but another instance where Yugioh was trying to be near future tech but modern kids wouldn’t...think it is special at all.

PS this is the weirdest way to tell someone that their best friend is dead.

Like remember how they didn’t even tell Kaiba that Bakura died when Bakura was in his own tournament? Well they just LEAPT to tell him that Yugi freakin biffed it, and it is so confusing to everyone watching this call. They don’t even bother to explain that it’s Pharaoh standing there instead of Yugi. They’re just like “Yugi’s hella dead” and Mokuba’s nonchalantly like “......wait.”

And then Seto just loses his entire mind. there were so many frames of animation for this transformation.

And youknow, what’s even weirder than telling someone that their best friend is dead, is this reaction.

And that is the story about how Joey Wheeler did not get a ride from Seto Kaiba, and how the simple act of Joey Wheeler asking Seto Kaiba for a ride, undid an entire year of therapy and pushed Seto Kaiba completely back into card crazy.

That is canon.

Back at home base, no one remembers how transportation works. I guess this was an age before Uber.

They have a CAR attached to the RV...right?

Like there’s 2 CARS here????

But sure, lets take a train to go to the airport that should be closer now that we’re out of the city. Not sure which train this is. None of our trains look like this.

Anyway, next time on Yugioh I’m pretty sure we’re going to be commuting again.

Is that what it feels like to not be American and visiting America? Just a hell ton of commuting? Because I’m kind of used to spending hours in my car every day, but maybe to people from Japan it’s like “Oh man, America--it’s like this huge ass city, and then it’s just HELL DESERTS FOREVER” which in some states, is in fact accurate.

I don’t know if I’ll be getting a post out this week--maybe? I’m not sure, I got some stuff to catch up on and because I’m spending so much less time on my computer, it might be a week in between updates. Maybe I’ll put up a graveyard--we’ve collected quite a few. Not sure. But maybe there’ll be a post? No one knowwwwws.

And here’s a handy link to read these in order.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep5: Happy Valentines Season the Writing Team Remembered YugixTea Exists

Alrighty, I’m mostly back together from nearly a week of the plague and now my buffer is basically demolished. Man. Youknow, every time I make a buffer this happens. Maybe I was just asking to get sick? That every time I finish a healthyish buffer my immune system just tanks in response?

Anyway, that’s fine because it’s been like a week now that I’ve been sort of wanting to talk about the massive amount of birds in this episode. Yeah, birds. I mean there’s no reason for me to try and hide the spoilers, I’m assuming 99% of y’all have seen this show. There were a LOT of birds.

Last we left off, Yugi decided to run headfirst into a trap door.

And then on the other side he was somehow amazed this was a trap?

Because there wasn’t either a mace or an ax handy to go through the wall like Tristan And Duke, instead Yugi has to end up in a Photoshop Filter.

Shoutouts to the overlay aurora borealis on top of this whole mess. This whole aesthetic here is just so nostalgic and I didn't even watch this show as a kid.

Man the 00′s were a great time. Speaking of great time.

We’ve had like 0 Joey for like 4 episodes and it’s been kind of incredible since this show leans pretty heavily on Joey. Like I have barely touched that mustard color in Photoshop, instead it’s been a lot of Tea, and I’ll be honest, about time. I have been saying for like 3 seasons now that this girl never has anything to do but be a ghost bus and a sort-of-not-really-gf to I guess Mokuba and sometimes Yugi but now she’s...still not doing a whole lot. I’ll be honest her new big thing is mostly running away from things, but at least now she now does Olympian feats while still doing nothing.

But all that’s gotta change because, much like Joey in S1, Tea’s gonna throw some cards with only like 2 games under her belt. 

So like, I was experiencing Witcher 1 the other day, and I don’t recommend it since Witcher 1 is not nearly as good as it’s sequels, but there’s this hilarious line where Witcher is gonna learn a dice minigame, and he asks his friend “how can I become a dice expert?” and his friend goes “Well that takes experience! Play 4 games.” and it’s like lol what? 4? That was all it need for ANYONE to be an expert, huh?

This is like that. Yugioh is a weird universe where Yugi is King of Games but he’s only been in one tourney and he’s only played this game professionally in a professional no-one-is-setting-anyone-on-fire setting like maybe 4 times.

Like everyone plays this game but the bar for entry is surprisingly low? All Yugi had to do was beat one guy by playing him once, really--just beat Pegasus and boom, King of Games. No wonder Seto was so freakin pissed.

Anyways, so the fact that Tea hasn’t really played is just like everyone else on this show.

(read more)

Anyways, after she ran 4 miles and climbed a bridge and all that, she decides, youknow what? Right here in this barren orc-filled desert is probably a safe place for a dream sequence.

And she dreams of the very last person I expected her to dream about.

So...I have questions about this dream sequence, ones that I will touch on later, but clearly Tea is getting some inception quality prophetic card knowledge from Yugi through a dream...however...Yugi isn’t actually doing anything right now. Right now Yugi is running through Tron so like...how is this happening?

Like is this just Tea actually knowing how cards work under layers and layer of subconscious? Because under layers and layers of Tea’s subconscious is actually SlightlyMoreOrLessEvil!Marik, who, as we discovered through last season’s plot twist is actually very, very bad at cards. Bakura might be still under there too, but he’s sort of everywhere just minding his own business so I doubt he’d bother coming out for Tea. Bakura’s still canonically dead/hanging out in Yugi’s Brain Labyrinth Game Room playing Gameboy Advance until Season 5.

I mean, it would be neat if Yugi actually could do this but like...he’s not actually here or at all aware that this is happening. Yes he has Ishizu’s necklace right now but will not use it this episode. This is just happening for no reason.

Which leads right into the second thing which is our most vague couple is finally going to get it’s own episode since like the beginning of season 2 and it’s literally all a dream.

Flashbacks to Yugi and Tea actually hanging out and talking one on one were all we really needed to stop calling this ship vague but eh this BARELY counts as it’s all one sided. This is just Tea doing all of this relationship herself. Which is pretty true to form as Yugi is a mess and can barely do relationships with himself at this point, let alone add a girl into the mix.

I feel like at this point a Broadway play about one single Yugioh card is waaaaaaay more likely than YugixTea ever like ever getting together (cuz like FOR REALS most Broadway is bad. Like legit not great). In fact, this make believe date they went on together is so far from reality--as it is not only a dream, but a dream in VR, and that even in the dream itself Yugi reminds her “PS, WE NEVER WENT ON THIS DATE, PS” and Tea’s like “that seemed open ended” and Yugi was like “NOPE.”

So this play is so terrible that it asks for audience participation and it turned her into a cosplayer.

So little aside, when I got my Netflix account the first thing I rented was Ironman, and then the second thing I rented, mostly out of morbid curiosity, was Cats.

Regrets. I like watching some pretty bad movies and plays but Cats is sort of like...if everyone dressed like personified leg warmers and made us pretend the leg warmers turned them into cats for some reason, and that the legwarmers were all in a polyamorous relationship with everyone else and got way too horny when they danced. And then they all died at the end/went to space/got reincarnated. But, I guess we have to give Cats some credit for basically launching furry technology forward like 50 years.

I am SUPER looking forward to the Cats movie. Probably will skip it in theaters but Netflix? Yes, please!

Anyway, Pharaoh was also here chaperoning these two like he always does although Tea has no idea what he looks like.

I just realized that, so far, every date we’ve seen with YugixTea, Yugi wasn’t even there. Like how does he keep managing to do this? The kid is managing this relationship like a champ being the supportive boyfriend or whatever and he’s not even there. Like damn.

A penguin.

so many penguins

Anyways, the animation team drew I want to say like 600 penguins for this episode. I just want to acknowledge their sacrifice for our behalf, so we could have this filler episode and watch an actual relationship blossom between Yugi and Tea but only in a dream sequence.

Because I notice art stuff like this, they did copy paste these penguins in a clever way so it wasn’t drawing 60000 penguins, but damn that’s still a lot of penguins.

My bro, the namesake of this blog, freakin loves penguins. So this entire episode he kept looking over at me and being like “right?! RIGHT!?” and it was like “wow, Bro they really made this show just for you huh?” and he was like “RIGHT?!?!”

So the thing about Crump is that he likes collecting numbers about people, which the show makes out to be strange but I have a bunch of accountant friends, and I once had one tell me that God was an accountant, and then he gave me some complicated explanation that I absolutely muted out of my memory. I once had a friend who had a fascinating spreadsheet on everywhere she lived and the friends she had, just to see if she could accurately display the percentage chance of who was dating, who was getting married, and the exact percentage of which of those broke up and the length of all of their relationships. And she was an art major.

I never saw those spreadsheets of love numbers, I only know they exist, and I have no idea where I stood on them. Sometimes I think about it. Is she still tracking me? I sure hope so.

Dude that one penguin on the right just

This show throws out the number 219 pieces of pizza like that was a bad thing?

I guarantee you, that eating 14 slices of pizza a year is a depressingly low statistic (assuming you don’t eat pizza when you’re 1 yo) That is only about 1.5 large pizzas a YEAR. That is nothing.

Course bear in mind I’m a Californian and I eat like...about 2-3 slices every time fast food pizza is offered me. And if I’m alone, well dammit I’ll eat.......more than that, we’ll just say. In fact, I just Marie Kondo’d my closet and found my college cookbook which was mostly me trying to replicate the CPK Thai chicken pizza as well as the CPK Pear Gorgonzola pizza (and may the CPK Pear Gorgonzola Pizza Rest in Peace, you perfect pizza. I have not returned to CPK once it left the menu. Bro hates this pizza but he is wrong.)

Like it sounds way nasty but I’m Californian so we don’t believe in food purity here. Put whatever the hell you freakin want on your dumb ass pizza. No food is sacred, no food will be left untouched, we’re all human beings, and everything you like is all going to be turned into pizza and tacos anyway. That is the way.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve only had 219 pieces of just Pear Gorgonzola Pizza (since it was a pricier pizza). Maybe Crump was just referring to the one type of zah?

Anyway, I got very distracted by pizza just now.

Tea heard Crumps offer to duel her in exchange for her body and she was like “I don’t really actually want to do that.” and just bounced.

I mean at least she tried to bounce. As it is, I’m glad Tea is like the only one here who at least has figured out that Cards are Dangerous.

And then an iceberg formed under her feet.

Meanwhile, Yugi has been sent to this room with four doors. Each door has a number of stars between one and four. Please remember he has Ishizu’s future necklace somewhere on his person and it could probably help him out but nah.

and then out of no where Yugi pulls this out of his pocket.

Another place where, because they localized the show to a ton of different countries, they decided to make a fake currency so people wouldn’t be thrown off by a Japanese coin and it only made the lore more confusing. He could have just used a Yen and I’m pretty sure us American kids would have been fine but localization problems amiright?

But yeah, there’s just this super random Millennium Penny that Yugi just has. To have. The redheaded stepchild 8th Millennium item no one remembers. Just like how no one remembers Bakura.

Now that I think of it, he did pull some pennies out of his pocket back in S1 with the labyrinth riddle. So maybe that’s just a skill the millennium puzzle can do--making weird ass pennies?

This is my brother’s aesthetic, this right here. This Big Penguin in a 3 piece suit and it’s got some anime for some reason strapped in the most goofy way on it stubby little wing.

This is Steve-o’s Mood down to a T.

Anyways, funnily enough, Tea and Yugi do actually get to communicate with each other this episode, but she isn’t aware that she’s doing it, much like how he wasn’t aware that he was in a dream she just had.

And so, Yugi feels newly inspired and very desperate and just throws himself directly at the door.

Yugi never did this back when Tea was abducted last season. Which...was yesterday. All that happened literally yesterday in the timeline of this show. Literally yesterday in the timeline of the show Seto Kaiba had to save Tea because Yugi got himself tied to an anchor and was too busy trying to kill himself to save Joey Wheeler (which didn’t even work and Serenity had to save Joey Wheeler instead it was a whole very confusing thing.) Like Yugi has got to stop needlessly sacrificing himself it only works a fraction of the time.

Anyway, Crump (Crumb? I don’t remember his name anymore) gives us a little backstory on why he chose to be a bird. We never got a backstory with like...Gansley. I think Yugi didn’t really waaaant to know why he was a sexy fish. And Gansley honestly didn’t want to tell him. And personally, I’m OK with not knowing.

What is it with TV shows and saying that every freakin weird tick their characters have is down to childhood trauma? Usually from parents? Like it’s such a tired trope nowadays. And honestly, from a psychological standpoint, TV shows constantly blaming parents for any character being an asshole is sort of unfair because sometimes you just have a kid who’s an asshole and it’s no one’s fault (except for the kid himself). But mostly, Yugioh tends to get creative with their backstories and this one is just “I dunno, I was lonely” which is a whole lot like the Mai backstory, but she didn’t turn into an evil bastard who wants to be a penguin, did she?

Hell, she got engaged.

Anyways, Seto’s S1 outfit makes a rare appearance. I miss that green jumpsuit with the pop collar. We got it twice this season. Heh, and bro told me this arc was bad.

And so because Crump was just straight up real bad at business and didn’t know how to find more angel investors, he’s just gonna do a murder.

Can we talk a little bit about this? So Gozoboro Kaiba was an asshole who made a ton of weapons--and that whole time, Crump was working with him so that one day he could go up to Kaiba Sr and be like “lets put that nuclear deal on hold--what if instead we just sold...penguins?”

Like that was Crump’s whole life plan. He blames Seto for it not working out but this guy worked for a supervillain for I’m assuming was like 30 years to build this theme park that I’m pretty sure would have never been made anyway?

And then Seto turned right around and made a theme park with a bunch of dragons in it?

Like why didn’t Crump just go to a freakin Zoo and be like “Lets make a penguin only zoo?” Like why didn’t he start with people who actually worked with animals?

Why did Crump go straight to working with the evil guns n stuff company to build a children’s theme park?

Anyway, he’s a penguin now, so it’s not like Crump is really all there and altogether. Like I’m assuming that maybe Kaiba Sr got a penguin theme park commission in his inbox once a month and just threw it in the trash being all “there goes that Crump again” and just ignored it or something. Like every Halloween work party Crump would have been a penguin, right? Like EVERY Halloween for 30 years? And like when Kaiba Sr got his boys did Crump come up to him and give him a Penguin lecture about how to be a perfect parent? Like how much of a nightmare was Crump to work with and how many times did the Kaibas try to kill him before Seto finally did is what I’m asking.

Also, still taking Dayquil, thanks for asking, I apparently still have some rants.

But that’s all for now.

PS I’ll have you know I almost made the title of this episode “fowl play” and decided that was too much of a low hanging pun. But I’m still like...I’m still feeling like putting it up there. That be the mix of meds and congestion.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 26-27: Marik Also Tries Mind-Crushing, Except Literal and With A Very Large Storage Unit

Ah, Yugioh, where two children are possessed by ghosts and two other children are possessed by just some guy named Marik.

He’s still pretty sure he has a plan. To be honest, at this point it just seems like he’s desperate, but I have to hand it to Marik, that he’s doing more than just relying on a spooky golden maraca thing he keeps in the side pocket of his cargo pants. Something that a lot of shows do really wrong with villains (pointing fingers directly at My Hero Academia while I’m typing this) is that they rely too much on their fancy looking superpowers to show they’re a bad guy. It’s fine to have super powers but you gotta back it up with making sure you’re throwing your heroes into a psychological nightmare--at least once.

At least once, MHA, it is Season 3. Please. You have such a huge budget and the best animators in the world. Please. I beg of you.

Yugioh, on the other hand is like...when WON’T we be in a psychological nightmare?

And so Marik has decided, after the bandsaw murder clown incident, the blown up skyscraper 100 story fall to your death incident, and the spooky mime incident, that he was ready to just really go to town on effed up villain stuff today. It’s time to pull all the stops. He’s got Yugi’s BFF’s all ready to turn on Yugi, he’s got an abandoned shipyard...for some reason...

All in all, as much as I rat on Marik, I very much appreciate that he didn’t monologue in some Mahjong bar for twelve episodes about all the reasons he wants to do evil stuff, he just goes out and does it. Let me rephrase, he just goes out and makes other people do it, but at least someone is doing something in every episode. Can’t say that about all the TV I watch.

You do have to hand it to him he never does the same plan twice.

(read more after the cut)

So, spotting Joey from afar, Kaiba lands his helicopter dangerously close to him, and just walks out unarmed, his smallest brother standing next to him. Mokuba is still taking everything in from last episode apparently and he’s just really confused most of the time as Joey starts going off about himself in the third person to Yugi.

And Seto decides to just watch? He doesn’t call for help, he doesn’t use his crazy amount of leverage, and he doesn’t do the smart thing which would be to run the hell away, he just kinda soaks this all in and has decided that he lives here now.

So, Marik, who can do a lot of the dark magic stuff Pegasus and Bakura have showed us, decides to instead go old school and forgo magic for most of this fight (other than some possession of course.)

Like I said before, if you’re gonna write a villain, they gotta get in your hero’s head a bit. It’s villain 101. Should it ever go as far as a Yugioh villain on kid’s TV? I mean proooobably not necessary? But something this episode does is show that a villain does not need superpowers. All they need, is to test your hero’s greatest insecurities to the breaking point, which is something Marik does really well, and surprisingly a lot of shows I don’t need to mention, because I already have, don’t do. They kinda rely on “well he’s got evil powers, so he’s evil and they punch a lot” while not understanding that it was never the powers that gives a show that tension that villains bring.

Like, Yugioh does a lot of things wrong, but surprisingly, they know how to write a clearly evil villain who’s just overheard that Yugi’s big thing is this bond of friendship--which is really childish--but he goes with it anyway. So he makes this bizarre Joker-like card game scenario that is based on breaking those friendship connections. But leave it to Yugioh to have something really pure in theory but in practice turn into this screwball nightmare. Yugioh is kind of like a really simple chocolate cake but there’s a tire on it and it’s on fire.

I will say, it is odd that Seto got dragged here into the friendship battle, as he is the worst friend. So now he also gets to go through friend torture with some school mates he occasionally has class with. TBH, I don’t think Seto has even realized yet that he has also been 100% abducted since the moment he walked off that helicopter. Seto lives in a nice denial place.

So lets go over Marik’s Big Plan #7.

First, off you gotta put on these shackles, seen here:

I feel like Shackles are this seasons Maze Labyrinth. I mean I guess Yugi’s shackled to his destiny? Or at least the destiny of the ghost he’s attached to? Anyway, so many shackles this season.

And then these shackles and chains are connected to Joey as well as this anchor we see here:

What nice symbolism to illustrate that Yugi’s friendship will drag everyone he knows along with him--as it has for the past 2 seasons. Not really a big spoiler for everyone involved in this battle.

And then this was a thing Marik added just for kicks, which can be symbolic, too, but I don’t feel like diving into it:

I actually never thought these two would actually cancel a game. Mokuba decided against blowing his whistle at it though, he decided it was probably too late for that. Aaaaaand it was:

Yo, how do you sneak up on people with a 70 ft crane?

Honestly I was surprised that Seto cared enough about Tea to not move, but I guess he couldn’t kill Tea in front of Mokuba. And I dunno, Seto and Tea never really talk to eachother, so I guess I’ve never noticed that he thinks she’s decent enough to continue existing. He might like her better than anyone else on this show other than Mokuba. And I’m not saying that to ship them, although I’m sure it’s a fine ship sailing around out there, I’m just saying that it is notable when Kaiba accepts that someone else besides a Kaiba deserves to live.

And then one last touch:

I guess no one told Marik that Tea and Yugi aren’t actually dating? I mean how much would it suck to go on one date with a guy and then all of a sudden you’re dealing with all of his villains?

Accurate, actually, that is exactly how dating works. You go one date and then you casually run into him in an elevator and then all of a sudden he’s like “So my ex fiance took me to court over the engagement ring and it’s so unfair that I can’t get that money back when she’s gonna marry this other guy she’s only known for a month anyway.” and it’s like “You were engaged?”

But, for his credit, 2 weeks later I needed a date, called him up, and he was like “Sorry, I’m in the hospital because I got an ulcer removed because apparently there’s too much stress in my life pulling these allnighters for my classes, and my car died and it’s gonna cost 2k to fix it, and then my ex fiance visited me in the hospital which was hella weird because my Dad is here. Anyway I got a tube down my pee hole and it was the worst pain I’ve felt in my life including the ulcer they removed from my gut. But I dunno. When’s the date?” and I just assumed he was pranking me but turns out, the next day, my teacher confirmed the kid was in the hospital and as high as balls.

Anyway, Pharaoh isn’t the worst person in the world to date, I guess.

It’s nice that Yugi was able to find all of his accessories in blue leather and silver rivets.

The duel begins, everyone cries, except for Tea who’s just screaming from the sidelines that Joey needs to remember how much he loves Yugi. She reminds him to think of the experiences they’ve shared and it was like oh boy maybe skip the part where you bullied Yugi to to hell and then he got cursed with a ghost that lives in his body.

TBH, I feel like it would be bad to introduce Serenity to the fray? Like if I were Marik I’d be like “woah get Joey’s sister out of here, that’s gonna snap him out of it.” but it’s not like Marik gets the whole family love thing anyway, living with Ishizu.

In case you were wondering, yes Mokuba actually tried to explain to Tea what was going on, so the show went over what the hell was going on I want to say like 3 times. Which is something you kinda have to do when you’ve turned your card game into Mousetrap.

And so this is where the episode ended, and I was capping along and felt like this could be a two parter post for this weekend, so why not? Lets continue.

Ah, and it starts out with Marik on a boat.

That boat gets mysteriously bigger and bigger every time it shows up. How many Rare Hunters are there? Like 10? And do they have to rent an apartment on this boat, like how does this all work? And if they do rent an apartment on the boat, who’s cooking? Like Marik, obviously is not a cook since he’s a living disaster, but I want to know more about boat life. Did Bandit Keith ever make them a crunchwrap supreme? Is one of the Rare Hunters always playing Wonderwall? Do they tan on the bow? Why would this boat ever need to be this big?

And I know this isn’t any of the Yugioh spinoff shows, but if I were to write one it would absolutely be Marik’s Boat Life. That would be the name.

Anyway, Yugi decides to fly over Pharaoh’s shoulder like a little angel. It’s been kind of a while.

So like it’s foreshadowed pretty strongly that Yugi’s decided “why even bother, Pharaoh, we don’t need your card talent today. At least my life will end as I lived, short and very awkward���

On the other side of town, Tristan has to go up a group of these Rare Hunters, and from everything we know about Tristan, this shouldn’t be so difficult? Like he punched out Bakura and threw Double Spike Mullet over his shoulder at one point, but unfortunately, punches don’t seem to work. But do you know what does?

I completely forgot Duke Devlin was a character in this show. Surprised he’s not in this competition, but apparently his game he’s making alongside Pegasus is really panning out--which is kind of effed up because Pegasus is a murderer. But youknow...I guess that everyone in the show decided to overlook that?

Whatever, I spent an entire episode trying to understand that, lets get back to the friendship plot line. Yugi decided to play a card that lets Joey take a card from Yugi’s hand, which gives him an opportunity to show Joey’s dragon. But will Joey overcome Marik and take this very good card to use on Yugi? (bro just corrected me and told me this card is actually not good but wtv)

He takes a different card. Friendship triumphs over...this card that I should know more about but I don’t watch the card games so I’m just gonna wing it here.

And then Yugi plays it anyway, and the music swells and it’s meaningful again.

Because the Red Eyes is connected with his heart now. Not sure when that happened exactly but it apparently happened at some point.

Seriously, when did this happen? I ask a lot of questions rhetorically but feel free to answer that one. Did I miss something? S1 this card was just kinda there.

Pharaoh, sensing that Yugi has very well lost his mind and will be absolutely hit by a fireball, decides to take over. Remember that the last time Yugi got hit with a fireball, he passed out pretty much before it hit him. And then he died. Yugi died last time a fireball hit him (I’m pretty sure that was a fireball in the Pegasus fight? It feels like years ago). Mind, that was a shadow duel, but apparently that doesn't matter this season because all the cards are real and no one cares that this is a very big problem.

Pharaohs legs are either three times the size of his torso OR they’re wearing extremely high waisted pants. Both scenarios are good.

And he gets hit in the face with a fireball.

And doesn’t pass out. Good for him. He is about 15% alive though, Yugi is basically going to die if he gets hit with another fireball. Like his lifepoints still say 1000 but it takes him like ten minutes to walk all the way around this pier and give Joey this:

Luckily, Marik as Joey plays cards so slowly, that the ten minute walk was still shorter than a single turn in Yugioh.

Also this is a thing? Just anyone can put that on?

so this whole time anyone could have been wearing the ring to Mordor? Just anyone? OK then.

Anyway, next week, on Yugioh:

Does Marik have any lag on that superpower of his, because I feel like it would make this show make some more sense on his part? Did the mime just walk home? If they all did die this way--not saying the will or won’t because they’ve died so many times now, but if they DID--weirdest way to die, amiright?

And if you’ve stumbled onto this blog which is halfway through S2, let me direct you to this handy link, which gives you all the recaps in chronological order from S1

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep8 S1: Pharaoh’s Nietzsche Problems

I figured this would be a good show to recap since it’s got maybe about 5 minutes of content an episode...usually. But, the thing about Yugioh is that when it needs to move plot, it really moves a lot of plot. Quite a bit happens this episode, it’s a long recap, so lets just get to it. Starting with Keiba’s brother, Mokuba.

And no, we haven’t missed anything--he’s just secretly been here the entire time.

What’s kind of neat about Pegasus’ help is that they are reoccurring characters. This guy with the mustache. The one with the double spike mullet. They are very flat characters, but their presence asks a lot of questions. In this case it’s “do you really want to befriend Mokuba or something? What’s with this silver platter service? Do you guys all hang out? Do you all go to the beach together in your time off and like read magazines with your sunglasses on?”

And back in the largest drawing room and all of it’s slight perspective errors that are off just enough to cause me great pain, Pegasus is enjoying his weird ass cheese meal.

When informed that his victim has escaped, he’s not exactly concerned. He’s got cameras all over the island. Also, it’s an ISLAND with only one boat to stow away on and it is nicely guarded. So he figures he should check out how the duels are going with the island computer system. Because ya, of course there’s a camera every five feet on this deserted island. This guy is about one step removed from a Bond Villain.

Speaking of, Yugi is back to walking aimlessly around the forest with his buddies, just biding his time and blissfully unaware of the karmic retribution soon coming to him because of something his other half did.

And they run into my brother’s favorite character, double spike mullet man. He’s got a name but for the life of me I will never remember. His weird thing is that he can’t hold someone a normal way. He usually holds them like teddy bears.

Tristan finally demonstrates why he’s a member of the crew and it really threw me for a loop. Tristan has bizzare gorilla strength--but only occasionally. And predictably he gets soundly kicked by this very nimble double-spiked mullet man, who might be legit invincible.

And because the Yugi crew can’t not, they decide to take heart and do some justice, like they always do. This episode is like a big caveat for “always do the right thing, though sometimes the right thing would be to leave it alone because you aren’t as good or smart as you think you are, and you might only make things worse with your ineptitude.”

So, they decide to use the best strategy they could think of in order to catch the chip-napper, which was to just kinda...wait around or something. Turns out they aren’t very smart, which I’m really starting to think may not be entirely their fault since Yugi has only half a brain (though I’m starting to think it’s more a 20-80 Yugi-Pharaoh mix) and the rest are constantly exposed to Pharaoh psychic powers, which must be confusing. They actually do talk--in great detail--about how dumb Joey Wheeler is through the length of this episode, I just didn’t cap it.

Luckily, Mokuba wasn’t exactly hiding so we very quickly cut to the chase, although it appears Yugi doesn’t really get who this, he’s just got a card addiction and sees dueling as a great way to solve Nearly Any Problem. Including how to deal with theft.

Ah Joey, the Cassandra who called it first at the haunted Pharaoh necklace Maybe Possessing His Best Friend’s Mind.

Surprisingly, Seto Keiba’s awake. I just assumed he was in a hospital bed these past 7 episodes. But, apparently he’s walking around...sort of. He got a heavy dose of depression symptoms from the mind-wipe, and that’s not the sort of thing that this show tries to hide.

A lot of kid shows try to tread on this territory. But, this is the only one I’ve seen that goes HARD into mental illness without watering it down into some sort of cute metaphor like Elsa and her ice magic. Kieba doesn’t know how to Keiba anymore. He doesn’t want to do what he used to do. He doesn’t want to be who he used to be. He lost the thing that gave him passion and he’s PISSED.

And because it’s Yugioh, it’s gotta get Pretty Dark For A Kids Show, and so Keiba walks out of their life and puts all of his very real adult responsibilities on his very little brother who does not understand why.

While this is actually a pretty accurate portrayal of what depression can do to a family, I just wanna note that they chose to go this route. Usually in a kids show, when a character is “cured” of evil, it’s replaced with something else. Usually, it’s replaced with the goodness that character already had, deep down inside. Maybe a goodness they had as a child. In the case of Keiba...he apparently didn’t have that goodness to begin with.

Parts of Keiba are just GONE and Pharaohs take is “I fixed him, so you should be happy now.” Like, I have no idea if this show supports Pharaoh or actually wants to portray this as a character flaw, but I assume we’ll find out more later.

Also, remember how I said that Pegasus was once removed from a Bond Villian? Well, he crossed the one degree in a foot-note flashback.

I had to rewind when I watched this because this whole thing about “I’ll just kidnap him and run the company that way” was so...illegal? Even for a kid’s show it’s so roundabout. I mean we’re dealing with a Psychic so why not just mind control one of the Kiebas? O well. And then there’s the other thing--because Yugi embarrassed Keiba Corp by beating Seto, Pegasus has to prove he’s a better card player in order to seal this shady business deal.  For...some reason?

Meanwhile, Pharaoh turns himself into a Philosophy 101 major’s first thesis about Nietzsche, as he makes himself the sole definer of what is good and evil and basically ignores what anyone lesser than him might say on the subject because he is Pharaoh and Pharaohs are Right.

Does he care about what he did to Mokuba and his family? Maybe later, but he certainly didn’t really care this episode. He just seems annoyed that other people aren’t like gun-ho about his “just wipe em clean” theory when it’s like, dude, does the medicine really outweigh the cure here? You gave the guy depression.

And although the show keeps saying Keiba was evil--we didn’t see much evidence of that because this all went down in Episode 1. Maybe that’s a lot of my problem in getting to like Pharaoh. I just gotta trust him that Keiba’s evil, but the worst thing I saw him do was tear up a card that Grandpa’s heart was connected to. Keiba still doesn’t even believe in that folktale heart of the cards stuff so should he be judged on that?

This blog just came off of occasionally recapping Once Upon a Time, which is obsessed with “where does good/evil come from?” and so to see this same trope of “We’ll just remove everything evil and it’s fixed!” explored again in another show--I dunno, we’ll see if Yugioh can do a better job. The bar is set pretty low because Once totally botched this.

My opinion: this mind-wipe seems pretty temporary since it’s not like Keiba chose to get it done, but we’ll see how it goes.

I was honestly surprised to see a show like this actually deliver a good take on the Sailor Moon Moral Savior trope, where she waves her moon healing wand, and evil characters are just “good” in the flash of an eye and all problems are solved and she is heralded as this wonderful savior.

Like seriously last episode was about stabbing the moon with a stone robot, how did we get here from that?

Meanwhile, back on the island, They’ve decided to do the right thing and it’s screwed them yet again because sometimes the only way to truly fix something when you screw up, is to just never have done it. Sometimes we do bad things thinking that if we get caught we can just fix it later--but there’s a lot of things that aren’t fixable. Sometimes people won’t be available to say sorry to. Sometimes you can’t return what you’ve taken, let it be star chips, time away from your little brother, or actual pieces of someone’s soul. Sometimes you just have to live with that.

Just a quick reminder that last episode revolved around eating fish for lunch.

Mokuba has such a strong neck now because of all these weird arm grabs. Also, I just realized Double Spike Mullet Man also has Big O type eyebrows and it’s something.

speaking of freaking too late

I mean I’m not even going to pretend that’s the real Keiba because youknow it’s a dark show but it hasn’t gone that dark. With the exception of our main character who IS half a zombie but man it’s always nice to see Pharaoh get a good ol slap in the face when he’s on his insufferable God kick.

Anyway, next week we duel a zombie and also find out how this is even possible. I admit I did not see the zombie twist coming that was...I feel like I use the word “unexpected” in every recap but here we are.