Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 4 (Jounouchi VS Ryota)

Before getting to the summary, I'd like first for you to know where we are in volumes and it's direction, since the next duel starts at the end of one of the volumes and continues in the next, we are at the end of Volume Duelist 13 to 14 (volume 20 to 21 in Japanese volume), this will happen quite often in the future...
I'll warn you when we're going to the next volume.

Plot Summary:

We left off with Jounouchi challenging Ryota and him accepting it and the encounter between Yami Bakura and Marik.
First the duel, both players bet two puzzle cards and rare cards, Jounouchi already starts making mistakes because he isn't properly focused for trying too hard to look cool (getting carried away with his recent victories) and Ryota is dominating the duel, once Jounouchi starts being more attentive in the duel, it shows these two players/duelists are on equal ground, so there is a lot of back and forth and what marks the difference between them was their experience, Ryota being a more experienced player than Jounouchi, at the end of the duel, Ryota had the option to prolong the match but he chose to stand with his favourite card to the end, with this, the duel is finished with Jounouchi's victory, now he is qualified to the finals.

The meeting between Yami Bakura and Marik, due to the fact they're both millenium items wielders and the subject Yami Bakura wants to talk about is the millenium items, so they have a private conversation about it, it starts studying each other and gather Intel through dialogue, so we get reveals of who knows more about the millenium items, Marik says his objective is to kill Yugi (Dark Yugi and the original Yugi) and offers a proposal whether Yami Bakura is to join him or be killed (but that would result in a millenium duel), Yami Bakura joins Marik but with the main objective to gather more info and Yami Bakura "borrows" his host to Marik...

Key Points:

 

It seems not only are they betting two puzzle cards as also two rare cards, Jounouchi bets on the rare cards he gained in the tournament, he feels hyped for having an audience and we know how he gets in these kind of situations...

I find interesting, Jounouchi became well known between duelists\Magic and Wizards fan community, those more experienced get a little curious about Jounouchi, not bad for Jounouchi as he gained some reputation thanks to Duelist Kingdom ;).

 

Here we are presented Jounouchi's flaws when he gets carried away who tends to try to act cool, but he learns a very important lesson with this duel, it helps him shaping up to not only become a better and experienced player and starts to build his own principles as a player and as a duelist and will affect him as person.


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The Release Date of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions DVD&Blu-Ray was announced!

I'm a tiny bit late because the news was announced in 24th October in the japanese official website of Yu-Gi-Oh! 20th Anniversary...(the only website in english that was updated on this news is wikipedia, not the fandom wikia)...
The Blu-Ray and DVD of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimension will be released in Japan on 8th March 2017

click this this link for further details if you can read japanese...

There is more details around here if you go after the link, I can't read Japanese so I used the google translate but I got the general idea, it seems is given exclusives if you pre-order for a limited time in certain stores, for example in Amazon of Japan you seem to get one or 3 B2 poster sizes of the characters or one of them (Kaiba, Yugi and Aigami) , one has a T-shirt, but there is a standard in all stores for the pre-order, Transcend Game one-shots (however I'm confused if is a digital version or printed version, but I think it is a digital version).

I'm posting this because it seems many people doesn't seem know...

Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 3 (Battle City Break part 3)

Another break, there is a lots of events, there is 1 duel but is too quick, it will be hard to write a summary because it has so many events.

Plot Summary:

We left off in Dark Yugi's victory, after the duel ended and the doll stopped moving for some time, and Mokuba as chairman committee, pick up Slifer The Sky Dragon god card for Dark Yugi, now he has a god card as well, the egyptian god which represents Osiris.
Kaiba being the impatient person he is, he is about to challenge Dark Yugi and they're interrupted by "Silent Doll" Marik, who informs Dark Yugi that he has three types of views, one of them is that he sees through the doll, the other is in the road and last through a rare hunter who is watching his friends and Jounouchi, and hints indirectly at the chance of brainwashing them, with this Dark Yugi starts to panic, and Marik leaves the "Silent Doll"'s mind.
Dark Yugi is about to leave and Kaiba asks him if he is running away from the duel with him and Dark Yugi replies he can't let his friends die and leaves, as he searches for his friends and Jounouchi with no success, finds himself blocked by two rare hunters, they challenge him and the two men tries to decide who comes first with scissor-paper-rock, but it's always a tie, irritating Dark Yugi and Kaiba shows up again and challenges the two rare hunters to a tag team pairing up with Dark Yugi, but Kaiba makes it quick, the chances he gets to summons Obelisk (to show off -.-") is right off the bat.

As Marik watching through the rare hunter and arrives Domino City, getting closer and driving like crazy without caring for people's safety, while Ryou Bakura is sensing something as Anzu calls him out and Sugoroku is commenting how well Jounouchi is doing in the tournament and having 4 puzzle cards, so he is close to the finals, and looking forward to duel against Dark Yugi and continue their conversation about the current state of the tournament.
Jounouchi uses a device in the Duel Disk to detect others duel disks by 50 meters called Duelist Search Sensor (could come up with a better name, non?), quickly detected a duelist close by, so Jounouchi follows running as the others catch up except for Ryou Bakura meaning Yami Bakura is taking over with the Millenium Ring detecting a new millenium item and sensing someone is coming and steal  someone's duel disk to illegally participate in the tournament (so many illegal participants...).
Jounouchi and gang finding themselves in a Aquarium, meeting there with Ryota Kajiki, previous Dark Yugi's opponent in Duelist Kingdom and Jounouchi challenges him to a duel and Ryota accepts it.

Key Points:

Kaiba's standards are always high even towards his rival, it has to be at his level (-.-"), he is really obsessive and extremely competitive when comes to his favourite TCG.

 

I really like Dark Yugi's awkward expression in the panel when Mokuba is giving Slifer The Sky Dragon and puzzle card, it's so cute seeing him feeling awkward, but why was he feeling awkward?

He knows Mokuba well enough to not feel awkward, it might be because a little kid being one of the judges to be sure no one is breaking rules and knows well, etc and behaving quite friendly with him as well.

Dark Yugi contemplating for having a god card, he must feel surprised and impressed by the card...

The funny thing he isn't much about getting powerful cards, but favor to the more useful and make it up for good strategies, since he has more of a tactician mindset but...

from this line, he seems pretty happy about it to have such a powerful and a god card.

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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 2 (Dark Yugi VS Silent Doll "Marik")

This post will be a brief summary of the duel (not transcription) and the keys points, I want to compensate for these months for not post anything, by becoming more active (since these lasts months has been busy preventing me from being active).

Plot Summary:

As you remember, I left off in the previous post, Silent Doll "Marik" challenging Dark Yugi, who accepts the challenge.
The duel starts as both duelists testing the waters, then Marik makes metaphor of his strength as a duelist as he advances with his strategy and cornering Dark Yugi to the point of facing Slifer The Sky Dragon, Dark Yugi at first feels terrified for some time but tries to fight back, as he is about to lose the will to fight, Kaiba appears (who received info from his company for detecting Slifer The Sky Dragon) and tell him as his rival not to lose to anyone but Kaiba himself, Kaiba notices the difficulty Dark Yugi is facing and gives an interesting advice, Dark Yugi gets back on track...displays a good amount of skill with a very smart move.
The duels ends with Dark Yugi's victory!

Key Points:

 

Both of them have such huge egos, so funny, it's funny and amusing really when Dark Yugi says "You can catch me...but can you beat me?", that's his overconfidence and ego, and cheesy phrases from an overconfident character, then when his opponent praises his skills he goes quiet not of nervosism, just plain serious, usually when someone praises you, you would say thanks, makes me think why he doesn't it? is he acting humble or to not let flattery get to him? or his ego is so big because of something he already knows and thinks he is very skilled himself? we have to remember his pride and confidence mostly bases on his skills...but he is not aware yet of his own weaknesses yet, at least not completely, there is others, we will explore it in this post a little.

I think is more about not getting flattery get to him and at the same time is super confident that his skills are superior than most players, he can be so contradicting sometimes, probably because is uncommon an overconfident person and character with reserved personality without being snotty but generally a good person, strong sense of justice and righteous, he has unusual combination of traits.


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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 1 (Battle City Break Part 2)

I finished the first part of Battle City, but this time I will be covering 7 volumes, the duels around this time are longer therefore plenty of duels which starts at the end of a volume, however not making transcriptions of the duels hasn't changed, I will still make a small summary of it and focusing more on the plot and the characters.

In the english licensed version is "Duelist"vol.13-19.
For being a Battle City Break, the main focus will be Yugi and Dark Yugi.

Plot Summary:

We left off with the end of the duel of Jounouchi against Haga, as a result with Jounouchi's victory.
The second part of Battle City starts with Kaiba Corp using their surveillance system to find the god cards around the participants but with no success since the wielder of Slifer The Sky Dragon hasn't dueled yet...then transitions to Marik just arriving to a port close to Domino City (80km of difference), discussing the plans with his subjects, informing he won't be on the sidelines anymore but still in hiding as he rides in his moto getting himself ready for the duel including his "silent doll".
The scene changes again starting to focus on Dark Yugi and Yugi conversations, their conversation will be interrupted by Marik through his "silent doll" and challenges Dark Yugi.

(what a small summary I just wrote...)

Key Points:

 

That's some technology right there, Kaiba! Kaiba's obsession with games is impressive, specially when it comes to Duel Monsters/Magic and Wizards, he can grow a bit impatient...but it shows that even Kaiba without being in the building, the company can work pretty well independently, Kaiba could give himself a vacations once in awhile because sometimes he seems he doesn't take any vacations.

 

Kaiba is quite straight to the point even to his employees, he is quite confident about the technology of his company, he does trust his employees enough to do the job they were hired for (such a practical way of thinking), but Kaiba having plenty of fighting spirit and quite passionate about games makes him the type of leader who goes to the front lines.

We get some info about their technology, the surveillance system being the same as the U.S. military, when Kaiba goes big, he really goes big, at least he doesn't have big delusions of grandeur (only some of it xD).


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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 5 (Jounouchi VS Insector Haga)

This time it will be a bit smaller than the previous, but the summary might be a bit long.


Plot Summary:

We left off with Marik getting closer to Domino City, so the scene changes in focusing Anzu, Sugoroku (Yugi's grandfather) and Ryou Bakura searching for Yugi and Jounouchi and not having much success, comes the time for lunch, Anzu remembers where Jounouchi might be, Beef Burger.
The scene changes to the location of where Jounouchi is as Anzu suspected, Jounouchi eating with his duel disk still on his arm without considering it might be hurting others around him as he eats, a man who he accidentally snapped in the face called him out, Jounouchi feels offended for being called out of not removing his duel disk and the owner of the Beef Burger called him out as well, Jounouchi listen to him because he has given him free pickles (I don't think it's the only reason, I 'll approach this rude behaviour).
After Jounouchi removes his duel disk and put on the table, a kid was passing by and steals Jounouchi's duel disk, Jounouchi notices straight away, leaves his pay and left the restaurant to go after the kid and quickly catches him as his friends caught up with him.
The kid tells a sob story as he lost a duel, he lost his deck and duel disk, Jounouchi buys the story while the others specially Sugoroku is giving the benefit of doubt, suspicious, Jounouchi is decided to duel against this person, they do have an interesting conversation between Jounouchi and Anzu, sharing a tidbit of the current state of Shizuka, even though the surgery was a success but Shizuka is scared to take off the bandages, Anzu to Jounouchi "reporting" Honda went on some trip, Jounouchi knowing full well Honda, he understood straight away where he went...
A scene transition goes to the kid thief talking with another kid, this other kid reveals to be Insector Haga who orchestrated the whole thing to put one of Haga cards, a parasite card in Jounouchi's deck, with the condition of giving a rare card to the thief kid, unsurprisingly Insector Haga given a "common" card (so he lied), the thief kid calls out and Haga attacks him with a bug killer to his eyes and leaves to prepare himself for the duel...
Jounouchi meets Haga and the duel starts, right at the first turn, Jounouchi got his parasite card and was automatically special summoned due to it's effect and activates it's player field effect, from the start Jounouchi is in a corner, as the duel goes on, there plenty transition scenes between this duel and Honda going to the Hospital to pick up Shizuka followed by Otogi Ryuji and convince Shizuka to go with them to give courage to Jounouchi since Jounouchi is dueling to do the same for her.
The duel ends with Jounouchi's victory.



Key Points:

 

I want to mention this titbit scene which talks about their daily life a little bit, Anzu mentions while blushing a little(it could be from feeling tired from walking searching for Yugi and Jounouchi) and expressing her opinion that Yugi should get a cell phone is interesting, indicating Yugi isn't much for technology unless there is games involved...he needs to reorganize his priorities a little...

Honda not telling he is picking up Shizuka just to surprise Jounouchi and them, another cute titbit from Bakura, he participates in campaigns and write the plots for these tabletop RPGs campaigns, which later Anzu reflects on it as "seems like everybody's drifting apart these days...", it's natural, you're all in 2nd year High School, one wonders what's Yugi future...as profession (Jounouchi for me is kinda easy, it's what he always have been doing as part-time jobs, Anzu - we already know to be a dancer, Honda I suppose I can have a guess it will be something similar to Jounouchi or something else, Bakura might be related to RPGs or game designer of RPGs, Otogi Ryuji is easy because he already works as game designer, Kaiba is electronic gaming engineer and president of KaibaCorp, but Yugi is a real mystery for me because he has so much potential and promise yet he always not thought of his future until recently because of the circumstances regarding the spirit of the pharaoh he is hosting made him think about his own future, but what kind? I have a feeling the end of Dark Side of Dimensions movie will give a glimpse).


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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.18-19 Part 4 (Dark Yugi VS Pandora)

This one will be a bit longer than the previous post (a lot of foreshadowing moments, plot focus, points I want to discuss).

Plot Summary:

In the previous post, Dark Yugi had arrived at one of the secret bases of the Rare Hunters Ghouls inside a card store, Pandora The Conjurer challenged Dark Yugi to a duel to test who is the true master of Dark Magician/Black Magician.
Pandora guides Dark Yugi to a duel arena and they start shuffle their own cards and then of each other with some little discussion about how you treat the cards by how you shuffle, Dark Yugi tells Pandora using shotgun shuffle damages the cards, when they put in their positions for the duel, shackles on their feet and a carbide tipped saw blade appears and rolling and advances as you lose life points, if your LP reach 0 then the player who loses the duel has their legs chopped and eventually die if no ambulance comes...
Dark Yugi is deeply affected by this game of death (will be approached in the key points) and the duel starts, it gets more intense, even some unusual events happens, when Pandora activates a spell card affects the whole field (inluding the opponent) is willing to sacrifice his own Dark Magician and other monster card to take away Dark Yugi life points, Dark Yugi could have used on his own Dark Magician, but Dark Yugi's Dark Magician shielded Dark Yugi on his own will, it's an unusual event and as the duel reaches it's end, it comes the debut of an iconic card in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dark Magician Girl/Black Magician Girl leading to victory for Dark Yugi.
Carbide saw blade is getting closer to chop Pandora's legs, Dark Yugi is free from the shackles and gets a puzzle card, Pandora had safeguarded a key copy, he is about to remove from his wrist with the duel disk, then Marik comes to his mind and removes the image of the key and feel of the key in his hand, Yugi takes over of his own body and saves Pandora, Marik introduces himself to Yugi (he is aware of 2 entities) and a very interesting conversation between Marik and Yugi.
After this conversation, Yugi finally reaches a decision...and Marik approaching Domino City on a boat.


Key Points:

 

I was patiently waiting for this chance for this key point to write about, look how Dark Yugi is reacting to this life and death duel, he was someone who mentally scarred others and killed a fugitive from justice (but his life was in danger as well plus the hostages, I'll give legitimate defense, the gun was pointed at him, it was kinda fair) for protection or fear of losing (Kaiba's duel in Duelist Kingdom), when he asks "is this fun for you?" and a little lower in his voice, in the panel hiding his face a little, and asks again in a clearer voice tone "I'm asking you, is it fun? A battle that kills people...", while hiding half of it as in deep thought when asks in the panel, then comes to Dark Yugi saying "Then I'll take you..." as he looks down in deep thoughts "...to the very edge of your life!" to Pandora.
I had to describe this scene in detail, because these panels alone show big character development on Dark Yugi part, the moments when he asks and hides his face and looks down a little, it expresses Dark Yugi may not speak of it or not show his deepest thoughts to the readers but by looking at the early volumes of what he has done to this duel, it reveals duels against Kaiba and Pegasus, specially the information about the millenium items having evil intelligence had a huge impact on him and he feels a lot of guilt and regret because this very duel it is mirrored at him of his shadow games but as he tries maintaining his sense of justice.
Dark Yugi has been realizing and slowly admitting recently since Duelist Kingdom, his sense of justice is flawed and so is his own self but is a big step for him to evolve and expand himself and so is his ethics like his pride evolved into integrity as I explained before in the duel against rare hunter exodia post , he is learning about.his own flaws, but does he hate himself for the things he did in past and had forgiven himself? I don't know, but one thing is clear, recognizing and learning from his mistakes, he tries to be the best of himself and keep his integrity.
I want to feature a post on Tumblr that inspired to write this section like I did about this Dark Yugi/Atem character development tumblr post of this scene.



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