Duelist Kingdom ended, starts a small arc serving the purpose to introduce a new character, character development for Yugi will keep going, good challenges to test and explore his strength and potential, the same can be said as person as well...
anyway, we're on volume 16 and 17 already, in western prints is Duelist Volume 9 and 10.
There will be three posts about these 2 volumes, just these 2 volumes, there is a lot to write about, Part 1 will be the prologue of Dungeon Dice Monsters, Part 2 will be the game itself and Part 3 will be the Prologue of Battle City, look forward to it, I will keep doing summaries first so I can touch on the details.
Plot Summary:
After Duelist Kingdom, a few weeks has passed, the volume 16/9 starts with Sugoroku sighing, who seems to look distressed about something, Anzu arrives to pick Yugi up, Sugoroku calls Yugi out for Anzu had come to walk him to school, transitioning to Yugi and Dark Yugi, with these weeks and now the spirit and host being able to talk to each other, it happens often Dark Yugi teases Yugi and give him fashion tips, Yugi's mother even has been noticing something, Yugi's reveals to Anzu his new necklace chain representing the bond between Yugi and spirit of the millenium puzzle.
Before Yugi and Anzu go to school, Sugoroku confesses a new game store just opened, close to put Sugoroku game store out of business, the Black Clown, when they're leaving Yugi curious trying to take a look at the display of the new game store, suddenly a clown appears giving children balloons and trying to give one to Anzu and politely refuses, when they leave, the clown and a young boy appears to his side watching Yugi and Anzu leaving, revealing being father and son, who seem to hold a grudge against Yugi and Sugoroku and wants to revenge Sugoroku through Yugi.
The school is about to start and they are possibly on break of a class, there is a new student(the young boy and son of the clown) and is revealed by Honda they moved to 2nd year of High School, the new student seems to be drawing attention to the girls in their class named Ryuji Otogi, Jounouchi gets jealous of him being popular and then Jounouchi starts boasting about his performance in Duelist Kingdom, catching Otogi attention, he challenges Jounouchi to a game, without Jounouchi knowing being a shell game (a rigged game, basically).
Since it were a rigged games, the four aces plus dice and cup, Jounouchi lost all of them, once the deal of the bet was going too far, Dark Yugi interferes, who challenges Otogi to a bit different game from Four Aces, adding the card Joker, in order to make a fair game becoming it a game of sheer luck, Dark Yugi obviously wins, clearing Jounouchi from the deal of the bet.
The Black Clown grand opening day event, there is a lot of crowd, Yugi gets mixed in the crowd being small and pushed and indirectly kidnapped in being unjustly accused of theft, purposely taking away his millenium puzzle and put him in a dark room, technically this was kidnapping, a very planned one, I must say.
Key Points:
I love this scene, it doesn't fail me to make me laugh, Dark Yugi teasing Yugi like a sibling usually does, now they're more conscious of one another as an entity of their own, specially Yugi, Dark Yugi is already fully aware he is an entity of his own, the others not fully (Honda, Jounouchi and Bakura will take longer, much longer), Yugi and Anzu are closest to it.
For Yugi talking to Dark Yugi became part of his daily life, as if Dark Yugi being a new member of the family to Yugi (same applies to Sugoroku), this scene reveals Dark Yugi is quite the peachshipper, he knows Yugi has a crush on Anzu to the point of him giving advices, fashion advices (so funny), Dark Yugi also got used to this rather quickly to tease Yugi and calls Yugi not other self but partner, after all all it is 2 entities sharing the same body.
What I find interesting about this bond of host and spirit of the millenium puzzle, what would you see in other mangas, you would see the main character is the host and evil spirit is an antagonist - it's very common, in this series case, Dark Yugi is to protect his host and friends and has good intentions, he is a spirit of someone who is already deceased, they get along very well, they behave like siblings even in appearance they look like siblings (it's so cute and very funny).
About Yugi's family, I don't usually mention it, but since it's the last time we'll see his mother, and didn't wrote before, this is my chance, from the times we have seen his mother in the manga and Sugoroku, give us the assumption Yugi lives only with his mother and grampa, but where is his father?, in
this excerpt of an interview Kazuki Takahashi reveals he is working overseas on business, which make us realize, from this information, Yugi's father is almost always absent but in some other info about it that his father sends him gifts sometimes, besides being an only child with an absent father, mother and grandfather (likely on his father side, from the looks of it, because his mother doesn't have tricolered hair, Sugoroku as we know a bit more about him, he shares the same hairstyle and tricolored hair, we can assume is just the spiky tricolored hair is genetic, we can assume Yugi's father has the same hairstyle...), mostly raised by his mother and grandfather, Yugi grows up not having much who he can look up to and see as a role model he can relate to, Dark Yugi takes this role for Yugi.
Dark Yugi only thing he isn't currently aware of is how much Yugi influences him, there is a reason why Dark Yugi penalty games becomes softer, it's not just Dark Yugi, Jounouchi as well (a very big influence on him), Honda, Mai, Mokuba and very very very slowly Kaiba, the ones who are most aware are Jounouchi and Honda as revealed in Death-T and
this post.
If you want to read more, click "read more" below:
