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:

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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They to talk a lot as if they're siblings (well, they look like siblings since they're physically similar) and roommates, at the same time spirit and host.

The most relatable panel of how long it took them to decide to put a certain spell card in the deck, to anyone who plays this card game, including the video games of Yu-Gi-Oh! knows very well how long it takes to build a deck, the longest to me in it's video games were 2 hours, not sure if I would take all night, but I'm sure there are hardcore players that sometimes takes just as long as they did.

 

I think it's always important to notice the reticence in phrases and paragraphs, it usually means silent thoughts behind the reticence, considering Yugi's secretive trait, his thoughts at first look like genuine questions but the reticence adds more to his real thoughts, when he is considering possibilities and wondering, once Dark Yugi finished, it focused to Yugi's thoughts, the reticence in his every line of thinking, it's clear his thoughts are slowly disclosing, preparing himself to accept and at the same time evading as respecting Dark Yugi decisions.

I think it's very telling how much Dark Yugi admits to himself, to Anzu (the previous post) and to Yugi that he relies on Yugi's strength about his character development at this stage, but there is more to his character development yet to write, but all in due time, this is just the smell of it.

These 3 sure love to brag and show their competitiveness childishly, Dark Yugi and Mai matured a lot since Duelist Kingdom and learned to have some humility which is quite an achievement coming from them, one would expect for these 3 guys to grow a little, their skills and deck maybe, personal growth...? certainly doesn't seem that way.
I think is funny Mai is tired of them already, simply because of their behaviour, you can see they like competition, preferably a friendly one, like Dark Yugi and Mai have for one and another and same for Jounouchi.

 

Dark Yugi is pretty reactive when comes to his righteousness, he is very quick to act on it, tends to be quite cheesy wordy and very vocal.

I took interest in what he said about the publishers, remembering Pegasus is deceased, who takes over Industrial Illusions after his death? It was never revealed until Yu-Gi-Oh! R, I still haven't read it and didn't buy it yet, which are events happening between after Battle City Arc and before Memory World Arc, but at this time we don't know nothing of it, the reader would assume it was KaibaCorp who would bought the company...but it isn't the case, it's one of the holes left in the main manga series that bugged me a little, only when the main series was over, Yu-Gi-Oh! R came as a spin-off, even though the original concept and storyline by Kazuki Takahashi, but the story development and art is by Akira Ito, so Yu-Gi-Oh! R can be considered official (since follows the story of the manga and Pegasus's death).

 

Despite his cheesy words and find his righteous trait a bit annoying sometimes, one has to give credit he has his own ethic code and integrity and act on it, I find it thoughtful and rightfully so from Dark Yugi stating he has no right to know his enemy/adversary/opponent strategy before a game since it would give him an unfair advantage, the way to prove your ethical views are by your actions, attitude, etc by playing honestly and fair, to keep his integrity, it shows Dark Yugi's sense of justice has evolved as well.

I never knew of this kind of technology of contact lens existed until it I was re-reading and analysing, makes wonder for how long it existed, probably has a similar amount of history as to contact lens but a bit lesser, I researched a bit about them, it seems is commonly used by poker card players, thumps up for Kazuki Takashi for this kind of reference.

I find it funny his extreme shock that Dark Yugi quickly figure out his strategy (in 3 turns), not meaning to be harsh on this guy but his moves kinda suggested, it was bit obvious, I mean just putting defensive monsters and not attacking plus playing a spell card to often draw more cards even solely relying on Exodia with one strategy to assure his victory is a  big weakness in itself, it's no wonder Dark Yugi being highly perceptive and intelligent figure out his strategy and finished him off so quickly, I think the duel ended in 5 turns.

 

Jounouchi being inexperienced, you know, you're the very person who saw some of the holes about pride in Duelist Kingdom, Dark Yugi in this case is more about integrity and of course, the only part got it right, confidence, believing in your instincts and intuition, I say this because Dark Yugi might still have his big ego, confidence, cockiness and cheekyness, but his pride was something he overcame into integrity because he learned in Duelist Kingdom and time of his reflection before the tournament to recognize the holes pride has, that's some sign of character development, Jounouchi is getting there.

 

The main villain of this arc was already introduced to the readers and in this scene to Dark Yugi, plot making it's progress, I find it curious when villains reveals what is he doing and plan (but not the whole thing), he is explaining how his millenium item works (there is still more panels to look into it of this villain)
Now we know the name of this unknown main villain, Marik, the millenium item he uses seems to have a big range of powers to be able to control others from huge distances if he already put a bit of himself inside the person, it's a long range type of millenium item as millenium tauk, most millenium items are direct.

 

In these panels he reveals a good amount of information, it's half of it, the other half he is omitting some crucial information necessary for Dark Yugi to know if he wants to recover his memories...

At this point we know the name of Marik's millenium item being Millenium Rod, the last one Ishizu was referring to...

 

Dark Yugi is still considering possibilities of the importance of these god cards such as being so powerful they contain themselves power of darkness, possibility to act on their own, but doesn't know it's importance to him, I won't write about it yet because it's not at this scene revealed.
The reader may wonder about this information that these god cards contains the power darkness together with title of king, but I already wrote in the previous post.

I think it's funny after Marik informs Dark Yugi someone in the tournament has the remaining one Marik is seeking, when Dark Yugi wonders who could have, I bet he is considering Kaiba.

 

This is part of Jounouchi's character development, in other words, about himself growing as a duelist among other things, the bond between Dark Yugi and Jounouchi  is usually defined by their quest of what means being a true duelist to them.
I already talked about Duelist Pride in Duelist Kingdom arc being it's constant subject, in Battle City is about being a True Duelist (to me it sounds a lot like what it means being "true fan" of something which is topic discussed a lot, being someone who have been in multifandoms), what is usually discussed about card games and games in the series, they are topics it can apply into your life and your attitude towards hobbies/interests as well, inside hobbies and interests there is it's own community like in this case, duelists are Duel Monsters/Magic&Wizards players, specially being a competitive hobby/interest, we find different sorts of people inside, they may share the same hobby/interest but how they express it, behave and attitude might be different from person to person.

Jounouchi might be starting as intermediate level, but he is like someone when someone starts being more involved in a fandom or fan community of something, Jounouchi in the current situation is searching for his own dueling style and his own way and what kind of role he wants to play in the duelists community, this card game can be heavily customized and personalized in multiple ways, a chance to express yourself...

I think Jounouchi is showing some maturity, realizing his own weakness in dueling for relying too much on Red-Eyes, for someone who wants to grow stronger as duelist, I guess Dark Yugi's duel affected him...

 

Technically Jounouchi is asking Dark Yugi to hold his Red-Eyes until he is ready to duel against Dark Yugi and to get back his card, it means a lot things, Jounouchi duels against Yugi most of the time, played against few different ones, but never played against Dark Yugi but here he is expressing he wants to duel against him, this shows Jounouchi is conscious Yugi and Dark Yugi aren't the same but not something he dwells in deep thought because either way Dark Yugi is an important friend as much as Yugi is to him, no matter what happens, simple as that.

Another thing to notice about Jounouchi is how much he is willing to learn to take chance of battle city for a learning experience in becoming a better player, I find it admirable how he takes chances to learn more, removing the events gangs involvement, he didn't missed one day of school or even one class, which means even though he tends to goof around but he takes school seriously when he is struggling with familial and economic conditions and working part-time, it was the same for him in Duelist Kingdom together to help his sister.

 

Dark Yugi's reaction to Jounouchi's favor and challenge as promise, it's sweet of how happy he was Jounouchi asking to duel against him, he have been waiting, remember in many posts before at the early start of Duelist Kingdom he doesn't usually takes initiative to challenge someone even though he wants to? but he has already implied it at the end of Duelist Kingdom, in this case isn't really because of rivalry, friendly though, but isn't fully that, when he reveals he was waiting for those words, if we think it through, Dark Yugi must have have watched many times Yugi and Jounouchi duelling against one another to their hearts content and for fun, when did Dark Yugi had chances like that without heavy weights? specially now he is fully conscious he is an identity and entity of his own, he probably always wanted to have this kind of duel.

See ya Next Post!!