Thursday, March 17, 2016

Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 1 (Battle City Begins - Dark Yugi VS Rare Hunter Exodia Deck)

We are finally on volumes 18-19 and licensed version in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist vol.11-12, starting Battle City story arc, this is gonna be a long ride, because this story arc is huge, the posts will be smaller for a awhile until comes the most important duels.

Plot Summary:

We left off on Jounouchi have his Red Eyes Black Dragon stolen by rare hunters before the day of the tournament, the next day comes starting off with Dark Yugi and Yugi have been building their deck all night, they talk a little before going to the center of Domino City for the the rules to be explained, even Sugoroku Mutou closes his Kame Game Shop to watch the tournament.
Dark Yugi is waiting at meeting place for the rules of the tournament to be revealed and wondering where is Jounouchi since he doesn't seem to be in sight and encounters Mai, she was wondering the same thing about Jounouchi.
Kaiba suddenly appears in all TVs of the city, including an airship flying around with a plasma tv (this guy sure loves to go big), explains the rules of the tournament and informs Kaiba himself will play in the same conditions as them, once finished the tournament begins.
 Jounouchi suddenly appears approaching a man in a coffee shop reading in his portable pc, challenging him and revealing he is a rare hunter as will get back his Red-Eyes, the man refuses, Dark Yugi is shocked by this and intervenes being himself to challenge him and duel against the rare hunter.
The duel starts, Jounouchi tries to warn of his exodia deck to Dark Yugi, but he reveals some of his principles, I'll talk about in the key points, during the first two turns, Dark Yugi finds strange the rare hunter playing style by putting only defensive monsters, not attacking and making it draw more cards, in 3 turns Dark Yugi figure out his strategy of the rare hunter exodia deck, in 2 turns, Dark Yugi defeats the rare hunter and his deck technically, this duel was very small, Dark Yugi finished him very quickly, the main villain named Marik introduces himself through mind control of this rare hunter he just defeated.
Dark Yugi is about to give it back and Jounouchi refuses and tells him his reasons (it will approached in the key points), so to a point when gets Red-Eyes back by dueling against Dark Yugi.



Key Points:


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I really like these two panels, specially when he mentions the "those two boys", remember he saw Jounouchi leaving, so he isn't referring to Jounouchi and Yugi but it was Yugi and Dark Yugi, making it more obvious that he is more aware than he is letting on, the way mentions them, he sees Dark Yugi as his grandson as well, to him it's like having two grandsons, it's very cute.

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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.16-17 Part 3 (Prologue of Battle City)

This one might be just as long as the previous one, it's when the plot starts to move at full charge, there is important events regarding characters and their relationships and development.

Plot Summary:

In the last post I left when Jounouchi just saved Yugi from the fire, after this event Yugi stays in the hospital to be treated and healed while Jounouchi had minor injuries so he doesn't need to sleep in the hospital, Yugi is playing Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards with Jounouchi, Anzu feels relieved Yugi survived the fire and feels grateful for Jounouchi being able to save him, Yugi and friends share their thoughts for Yugi finishing the puzzle so quick, leaving Anzu in deep reflection about the situation regarding Yugi and Dark Yugi and the recent info revealed by Pegasus, an old man who is Yugi's hospital room-mate calls him out about an article on the newspaper getting the attention from Yugi, an egyptian woman who's from the Egypt government with an millenium item quickly realized by Yugi and Ryou Bakura, millenium tauk, who is holding an Egypt antiquities exhibit in Domino Museum by name of Ishizu Ishtarl.
 By night time, changes into Kaiba arriving at Domino Museum to meet up with Ishizu, Ishizu  introduces herself and summarizes her job, Kaiba tells her he is only interested in creating gaming technology and not in history, Ishizu reveals the origin of Duel Monsters in a ancient egyptian palette and same kind of palette showing figures of what looks like Yugi wearing the puzzle with Dark/Black Magician and Kaiba with Blue Eyes White Dragon, Kaiba is shocked and in denial for a while, also reveals Pegasus created 3 Egyptian God cards, one of a kind each, the most powerful cards in Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards were sealed in the valley of the kings for being too powerful, Ishizu informs him 2 cards were stolen by Rare Hunters Ghouls, a group that collect rare cards and sell in the black market, she gives to Kaiba the only one she was able to save from this group, "Obelisk, The Tormentor" and claims she trusts Kaiba, slightly suggests him to host a tournament to attract this group in getting the missing 2 cards...
The next day at the rooftop of Domino Hospital, watching the view while waiting for his friends to pick him up and talking to Dark Yugi, Yugi talks about what Yami Bakura and asks him if Dark Yugi knows anything about it and wonders to him if he is a king, Dark Yugi replies he doesn't know, he just knows exists in Yugi through the puzzle, they have an emotional moment and Yugi tries to dodge the subject saying he wants to leave the hospital early, Dark Yugi makes notice to Yugi their friends arrived early as well as they arrive at the hospital.
The scene transitions to Kaiba testing the new version of the duel disk and the Egyptian God card and challenges the deck used in Duelist Kingdom...
The week passes with Dark Yugi questioning his existence to Sunday, Yugi dressing himself for Anzu, trying to follow Dark Yugi's goth-punk fashion sense so  he could make Dark Yugi take over, setting a "date" with Anzu because Yugi has been sensing Dark Yugi brooding...Anzu is feeling quite nervous for this "date", Dark Yugi arrives, Anzu jolts and blushes, they start the "date", Anzu and Dark Yugi share thoughts at some parts during the time spent and Dark Yugi confesses what is truly going on with him and says he knows where he wants and needs to go, the Domino Museum to see their exhibit, there they discover Dark Yugi is actually a soul of a pharaoh sealed in the millenium puzzle and they meet Ishizu Ishtarl, revealing some bits what is needed for him to restore his memories and future that soon she will meet an enemy with the last millenium item, they exit the museum, Dark Yugi asks Anzu to not talk about what they discover at the museum with Yugi.
Dark Yugi and Anzu still in front of the museum, Dark Yugi realizes they're surrounded by duelists, they find Mai, greet each other, both sharing some info, Kaiba appears to announce that he is hosting a Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards tournament and informs the rules and conditions of the tournament.
Next day, Yugi and Anzu reveals about the tournament to Jounouchi and the others, after school they go to a card game store, Yugi has the highest level in skill so he gets a duel disk for free, while Jounouchi is level 2, you can only be over level 5 to enter, revealing Kaiba is selecting his contestants, the store owner notices Jounouchi has an ultra rare card (Red Eyes Black Dragon), the store owner suspiciously hacked and put Jounouchi on Level 5, after they leave the store to Yugi's house to discuss about Jounouchi's deck, the store owner calls the rare hunters.
When Jounouchi leaves Yugi's house is already at night, as Jounouchi walks by an alley to go home, he meets rare hunters and one of them challenges him to a duel and he loses and his Red Eyes Black Dragon by a rare hunter who owned an "Exodia, The Forbiden One" completed, the tournament still hadn't started, so it was an unofficial duel for the act of putting the rule of ante...

Key Points:

image.png image.jpg

In this scene Anzu is feeling relieved, I think it was more towards Yugi, after all Yugi is her childhood friend, like I said, childhood friends usually gets special treatment, also there is her romantic feelings developing slowly for Yugi, she expresses gratitude to Jounouchi in her own way but her comment Jounouchi being really thick-skinned rings true figuratively and physically (pffft), physically is obvious due to his delinquent and harsh background and being very athletic, on a metaphorical side of it, even though when others (specially Kaiba) taunts (except Yugi) Jounouchi, he may be easily provoked by Kaiba but isn't easy to get him feeling down, even though his fake confidence was crushed by Kaiba before but he gradually got up on his own, now he is not as easily and strongly affected by Kaiba, he may get angered but don't act on it, holds back as well.

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