Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.12-15 Part 5 (Dark Yugi VS Kaiba)

Okaay, since the duel is very long, I'll do the same with the Meikyu Brothers, I'll just summarize the events, not including the details, so it won't be a long summary, I'll try make it short as I can...

Update (07/09/2018): This one took longer than I thought, I have been rather slow, I don't like it, I don't understand why is the case...😕, maybe my tiredness on this project is starting to catch up to me...



Plot Summary:


In the previous post, the scene left off from the gang meeting Kaiba again waiting for Dark Yugi to duel...Kaiba challenges him to a duel, the gang disagrees because now Yugi/Dark Yugi and Jounouchi has 10 stars to enter the castle, Kaiba was surprised Jounouchi was able to get 10 stars, point of promoting him from loser to deadbeat (pfffft), Jounouchi tries hard to hold his anger, Kaiba starts directing to Dark Yugi by describing their "fated rivalry" in a poetic way with thorns against each other, similar to how Pegasus described their rivalry.
Dark Yugi accepts the challenge, his friends aren't in favor but respect his choice, before the duel starts, Kaiba tells him, their duel will be using the duel disk prototype with a different mode used against Jounouchi, the Expert Mode, a mode which would require more on intuition and strategy, their duel start, Dark Yugi testing this different mode and learning it's requirements and rules, starts getting pumped, inspired if you will, right off the bat we see amazing combos card moves from both them, it gets more intense to a point when Kaiba is about to lose, realizing it, he is willing to take his life if he loses, he warns Dark Yugi of it, giving him the choice to win or to lose by resurrecting one his Blue Eyes heads (the one had just been cut comes back), Kaiba says this will be the test of his worth as a duelist and then he says something interesting (I will approach once I start writing about the most important points of the duel), Dark Yugi is morally conflicted in the beginning but...once he made the decision to go for it "I can't lose!" in his thoughts, it was then Yugi interfered Dark Yugi and said stop the attack to Celtic Guardian, Blue Eyes resurrected head attacked Celtic Guardian and takes away the rest of Yugi/Dark Yugi life points, the duel ends with Kaiba's victory and Dark Yugi/Yugi first loss, Yugi starting to cry... end...



Key Points:

So Dark Yugi was watching their duel and Kaiba "presentation" of his new invention to play this game anywhere, Duel Disks that uses holograms of the monsters and this kind of holographic to be called "solid vision" (it's kind of like unreal engine 4 graphics level in holograms if you will), which shows Dark Yugi as everyone else, he was deeply impressed and seems kind of excited that he gets the chance to try this Duel Disk Prototype, it's not just the technology of Duel Disks Protoype that will impress him...

Kaiba speaks that their duel won't the same kind he played against Jounouchi as he refers as "deadbeat"(pffft) - Jounouchi is still on conflict conflict about it, it's the "Expert Mode" being more to Kaiba's and Dark Yugi's skill level, we could even call "hard difficulty level"...xD.

I have to say this is really cool, holograms of the cards and not just monsters, it also make them look like wizards (well technically this TCG Magic and Wizards in concept are about the player being the wizard who uses spells and summons), as you see again, everyone was very impressed, during this time they were always surprised by Kaiba Corp or should we say Kaiba inventions, but in Battle City they aren't impressed but as something they already expect from Kaiba...but there is special rules to this "expert mode"...

 

Some of rules of the "expert mode" is that you can put 5 cards, one of them is the main card, the one you put at the centre of the disk, I think, according to it's design, you chose which is you "main card", more or less the one who will do the fighting, but also it means Kaiba can attack "sub stage cards" independently being magic, trap or monsters cards, making it requiring more intuition and strategic making it increasing the difficulty of the game, it's so Kaiba-ish because later he host a tournament that increases it's difficulty a lot more, Dark Yugi gets excited by these new set of rules, it also makes more to his duelling style, that is more around tactical and wits...



If you wish to continue reading this post click "read more" below:

 

Their exchange in this scene is curious because Kaiba is the one who starts saying that they both share the same objective even as enemies, Dark Yugi jumps to the conclusion is to defeat Pegasus, which seems to imply that he thinks Kaiba wants to defeat Pegasus to get back his corporation or in terms of rivalry, he doesn't know yet is to save Mokuba (he still thinks Kaiba is mostly the same, I guess he was marked by that action of his about to give a penalty game, but must have some suspicions) because after, Kaiba's response is "indeed...", yeah he guessed as much...however he tells to Dark Yugi that is impossible for him to defeat Pegasus and only Kaiba himself can defeat him by using the duel disk, inside his inner monologue as why it makes a way to defeat Pegasus is interesting... admits there might be a psyhic power or a trick and point of the duel disk to defeat him is:

"«Solid Vision» cards hide your face and body, and there the chance that by standing farther apart, you'll be out of rage of Pegasus's power! The duel disk was designed just to beat him!"

You can tell he is considering possibilities, the hiding the face and body is putting into consideration that Pegasus may have mentalist techniques (mentalist is a magician who performs feats that apparently demonstrate extraordinary mental powers, such as mind-reading with power of suggestion and looking at any detail by expression and behaviour) while at the same time thinking he might have real mind reading powers that take time to process and therefore the distance between the players in suing a duel disk.
But there is another curious part, this duel disk was designed during "Death-T" to defeat him, so Dark Yugi isn't completely wrong about the rivalry thing, the only difference between that time and this time around, from then was for the sake of rivalry and now is for more personal reasons...

Of course Kaiba is good, Jounouchi, he almost won against Dark Yugi in Death-T, Anzu wisely perceiving the game is just starting, she has good intuition and knows already their skills are well matched, but Bandit Keith has a much better understanding of the duel, this is just the first half, the term best explained of feeling each other out is "testing the waters", they're measuring each other in strength and skill.

Next up is that it seems that rivalry emotions between these two is a little a different, from Dark Yugi's perspective is about settling their scores even though this is their third duel, the frist two duels, Dark Yugi won (when Kaiba was introduced and Death-T), why like this when he won twice, is it to leave a clean slate with best out of 3, it's a solid rivalry, Kaiba on the other hand...(explored along the way).

 

Besides Kaiba curiously haven't summoned yet his Blue Eyes White Dragon despite already having one in his hand...which sounds suspicious, but to me the most interesting part in this scene is the gang's reaction, Jounouchi being someone with good instincts did already guessed he must have already one because himself experienced what was like Kaiba saving the card for a more worthy card until Jounouchi summoned Red-Eyes Black Dragon, the follow up by Anzu makes an astute observation, Kaiba has 1 Blue Eyes and not all three, so it isn't that dire for now, then is Ryou Bakura's reaction is curious in getting to know from Anzu that Kaiba has three Blue-Eyes with a statement of thinking of surprised (he only saw two Blue Eyes and not three in action from the duel of Dark Yugi against the ventriloquist), that there is no way someone can beat a deck like that, he does have a point to an extent, Anzu faith in Dark Yugi (as much as in Yugi) that he has done it before and will do it again, the difference is that Dark Yugi doesn't have Exodia anymore, but she is going more towards faith and something else, there is logic in it...

 

Dark Yugi quickly realising in gaming sense, he is a quick-thinker from questioning to almost immediately predicting Kaiba's main move and plan (there is only one other who is as quick or slightly quicker, as for Kaiba's reaction to Dark Yugi using "Eye of Truth" spell card, Kaiba being smart and methodical as he is, we see a glimpse of what kind of rivalry sense of emotions, it's extreme as expected from him while strongly connected to his arrogance and pride but isn't over yet on this part on Kaiba...on the next key point...

Here is something interesting about Kaiba here in this moment, he says after he lost Dark Yugi for the first time (when he was Kaiba was first introduced)...:

"Yugi...From the moment I met you, I tasted the thirst of defeat...a hunger for victory that was never satisfied...never, ever...until now. {inner monologue: I'll teach you that suffering!!}"

Kaiba may not realise it fully, but this was how his rivalry with Dark Yugi was born, but still long ways to go (because even in Dark Side of Dimensions 😓, this part of him hasn't changed much...), which has grown quite intense, this problem in their rivalry on Kaiba's side will be brought up again but by Dark Yugi himself calling Kaiba out about this later (Update 07/09/2018: in their duel part two of Battle City Semi-Final), so I'll go deeper then, this is just a set up and foreshadowing of Kaiba's development discussion about their rivalry.


 

This is with Virus trap card used by Kaiba, according to by Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, the effect takes 3 turns, while in the manga and anime is permanent, which is a bit annoying, I'm usually not a fan of these kinds of changes, the manga and anime in technical sense, the card is "broken" (overpowered) to have a more dramatic effect in the story and character development like this instance then on the other side, in YGO!TCG, the card effects are more fair.
But since the situation is quite dire, it's natural that he doubts himself, only when it's dire that he goes like this, another frequent trait from Dark Yugi, is that he depends a little too much on his friends to remind him to not give up (it can be to a point be a weakness if relies on it too much, for example, what they're saying is in a sense this: "now is not the time to give up with so much on the line" and "not let your hard work going in vain", however I am a bit bugged by what Anzu said that I'm not sure if is a editing and translation problem in this part or she really said this about promising to his grandpa that he would beat Pegasus and not rescue him, because I'm not sure which is which, I will try to interpret in saving grandpa...

 

In half way through, Dark Yugi understands what Yugi's grandpa means in not being afraid of losing and only then true strength can be born, it has much deeper meaning than just face a possible result of losing, the right person to make understand this better isn't Kaiba or Yugi(even though he plays a part) and also because he hasn't still lost a game once except to Pegasus with a videotape, there are some things you can't understand well unless you experience it yourself (there are some you don't need to experience it to understand).

This page is important, remember what I mentioned in the prologue, this advice reappeared again to emphasize it's importance, specially in Dark Yugi and Yugi and their character development, he understands a bit better at this moment, regardless of the result of a duel (whether you win or lose), don't give up, he still doesn't fully understand yet because it touches in his biggest weakness at this time and he is unaware of.

Another detail to take note as to build up to their next duel about the rivalry between Dark Yugi and Kaiba, on Kaiba's perspective besides his hunger to defeat Dark Yugi to an unhealthy degree that he believes it will stop unless he defeats him and has to be at maximum strength, I think is similar to others but Dark Yugi is a bit different since he was the first person he lost to...source of this "hunger for victory".

I do like that after Kaiba fused his three Blue-Eyes into becoming Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon which has 4500 ATK, there is no denying that is a very powerful card in power-wise but as Dark Yugi rightly concludes that no monster is unbeatable, which is true, by this time he has already some plan but he needs a certain key card...

The key card after this when he draws Multiply card and he makes one of my favourite combos of his in using on Kuriboh, making it a very strong defense with a "wall" of Kuribohs, then he combines as his last move on his turn by combining three cards, Living Arrow, Mammoth Graveyard and Polymerisation into Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon...

 

I like this combo a lot, but I want to approach that in it's symbology of the move itself, first going through Kaiba inner monologue:

"Blue-Eyes White Dragon is a «Light» monster...Mammoth Graveyard is a «Dark» monster...an undead! Merging them together is like Light and Darkness...Matter and Anti-Matter! It's unstable! They'll both die!"

The symbology of this move being about "Light" and "Darkness" mixed together, looking at it logically is grey and chaotic plus unruly creating instability, but thinking it through Light and Darkness are one and the same and can be described as "two sides of the same coin", you can't put them separate as if is black and white, in a way, that's the true nature of it...as much people try to pretend it isn't the case.

The undead is the other interesting part, "Dark" has many of it's "types" as much Light, fiends, vampires, dark sorcerer, dark magic, undead, virus, diseases with different structures and abilities, it's like putting in "character alignment" used for tabletop RPG, some can "corrupt" or "killing on the inside" like an infection as some of them the "undead", as it explains well by Dark Yugi in the next key point...

 

It's very well explained by Dark Yugi:

"I mixed Mammoth Graveyard with your monster. By fusing an undead «Dark» monster with the «Light» Ultimate dragon, a deadly organ rejection is caused. The body becomes unstable and starts to decompose..."

It's more or less, two monsters from different attributes of their respective type being incompatible, with a different composition, if was a vampire with the ultimate dragon would probably work fine, but a dead corpse being half dead with a living, of course, it won't end well as we see above because a dead corpse can would infect specially when is decayed like the undead, this is to show Dark Yugi is very resourceful.

The gang not exactly impressed expression but happy in a sense of "as expected", however irritates me a little is what Jounouchi says that is a bit conceited, Anzu is more inclined about her faith in Dark Yugi's resilience (even though it depended a little on his friends's encouragement).

I do like when others acknowledge someone for being intelligent or smart like this, I always find it cool... such as Bandit Keith who isn't easy to impress being very impressed by Dark Yugi's intelligence, specially seeing smart characters being acknowledged (I have a soft spot for smart characters).

This moment of trance of Kaiba,it has a lot meanings playing out, when he's thinking:

"No!No! I can't lose...! Not again...If I lose, there will be no one to save Mokuba..."

Not wanting to lose again, it has two meanings, the duel itself (since he lost twice against Dark Yugi) and also losing someone important again (he already lost twice people important to him, his mother first then 3 years later his father), he may think there is no one to save Mokuba, I want to say, there is Kaiba, right in front of you, even if lost you could ask for help but you are too prideful, you know very well they would help you if you ask them, they're people who can't ignore someone in trouble, the other thing is that if he had lost with grace, it would actually increase chances of saving him because I don't think Pegasus would go on Kaiba's terms (Duel Disk), this is the person who humiliated the prize hunter nº1 because he wanted to do his way not Keith's way...for someone who was a witness of such event should know better and Pegasus will find a way to cut down anything that puts himself in disadvantage (the rigged tournament says it all), in fact him winning against Dark Yugi would decrease the chances...specially with what he will prepare for Kaiba in case he wins...so is his pride get the best of him like a backstabber that pride is.

  

These panels ensembles reflects Kaiba's guilt, regret and shame of willing to make Mokuba experience "sensation of death" penalty game in Death-T, his biggest regret and shame from the looks of these panels.
The interesting part in this scene is between the older Kaiba and younger Kaiba, going back to the end of Death-T, it was the younger Kaiba solving the puzzle of his heart, why is that? I guess is to start from when he was pure-hearted before becoming "corrupted" by Gozaburo Kaiba to guide Kaiba in being "reformed", the younger Kaiba was very worried about Mokuba in this vision trance to very angry, probably was a promise Kaiba did to himself after his father died and relatives leaving him and Mokuba in a orphanage as a big brother, taking care and protect Mokuba.

 

Once he gets out of trance, he is willing to suicide if he loses, he is an extremist, so he's serious when he says it...

No, Jounouchi, he isn't bluffing, someone who would be bluffing wouldn't put himself in the edge of a building like Kaiba is doing here, close to the edge but NOT at the edge...he's serious.
Ryou is sharp enough to give the benefit of doubt, Bandit Keith could tell he is serious, Anzu kinda knows because of his tendencies to be extreme, I can say Dark Yugi was able to tell he was serious, which was why he was so morally conflicted between saving Yugi's grampa or stop Kaiba from committing suicide...

 

When Kaiba says this moment of decision for Dark Yugi as test of his worth as duelist, Kaiba brings a very interesting point:

"A duel is like two mirrors held against each other...How would you evade your own attack? You have to be a step ahead and put yourself in the mind of your opponent...Victory only comes when you become your opponent...because only then can you know yourself."

What he is saying here, rings true a lot when it comes to battle, fight, sports or games, but not 100%, there is other factors, sometimes, critical situations requires creativity, ingenuity, problem-solving thinking, thinking outside the box, improvisation, your choices and options, keep a open mind and clear, not just seeing from your opponent angle and your own, sometimes is about to see the bigger picture like this duel.
As for his worth as duelist, that depends, because what it means to be a duelist or a true duelist is actually grey and mostly subjective depending on the interpretation of the situation and the individual, but is a big test about your worth as a human being with integrity and sense of justice, it test your principles and ethic...

You know, in the afterwords of the last volume of this series (volume 38, volume 7 millenium world), Kazuki Takahashi says something very similar with similar meanings, but I'll compare the differences when I finish the manga analysis.

 

Dark Yugi is morally conflicted, but there is more to it in him in this section of panels specially from how he is sweating, it's not just doubt about his dilemma, the other reasons besides saving Yugi's grampa and stopping Kaiba from committing suicide, you see the panel with Sugoroku and Dark Yugi thinking "I can't lose..."it can mean three things, saving Yugi's grampa, doubt and fear of losing the duel in (3rd) order to stop Kaiba from commit suicide, Dark Yugi was about to do it BUT...

 

Gorgeous art in these three panels ensembles of volume 12 (volume 5 Duelist), this is one of the few moments when is clear they're not the same person, no other self, when you see they're two entities, just by their choices, the fact Dark Yugi was willing to do it, Yugi stopping him and Dark Yugi respecting  Yugi's choice of not attacking Kaiba, Dark Yugi could have ignored Yugi, but he didn't to respect his host choice but also deep down he probably wanted someone to stop him or help him decide what was the morally right thing to do, Kaiba is strangely quiet, it makes me wonder why to just say "Burst Stream!".
The other thing to note is before Jounouchi VS Ryuzaki, it was Dark Yugi to reach Yugi to intervene, this time is the reverse, the question is that easy for them reach one another? the truth is depends...we will be able to know in more detail in a very important duel, one of the most important.

See Ya Next Post!