Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 6 (Battle City Tag Duel: Teamwork and Power of Unity)

The summary will be small since what is happening is a duel, but there is important moments to highlight, it's Kaiba character arc and development, the key points will have plenty to write...
Where we are in volumes, volume duelist 14 to 15 (volume 21 to 22 in japanese print version), yeah, we are getting closer to "that" duel (I'm looking forward to write my thoughts and observations about  "the duel", they're one of the four most emotionally intense duels (with Dark Yugi/Yugi VS Pegasus, Dark Yugi VSDark Marik and the Ceremonial Duel).

Plot Summary:

The duel starts off with Mask of Light going first then Dark Yugi and after is Mask of Darkness and lastly Kaiba alternate turns being a tag duel, they start being somewhat in trouble because the main characters's opponents have a good teamwork, Mask of Light focus on spell and trap cards and Mask of Darkness to summon, be the offence and defense.
Kaiba being a stubborn and prideful loner, refuses to teamwork with Dark Yugi and wants to defeat his opponents by himself, as they get cornered, Kaiba has no choice but to teamwork with Dark Yugi, at the beginning he misses the point but thanks to Dark Yugi he learns fairly quickly what teamwork is, once he understands it, Kaiba and Dark Yugi are on equal ground with Mask tag team driving towards victory on Dark Yugi and Kaiba side.
It's obvious the focus in this duel in terms of character development is Kaiba.


Key Points:

 

As much as I get Kaiba being more of an individualist (I'm one myself), I do understand Kaiba to some extent but isn't exactly for the same reasons, but I can acknowledge teamwork when is necessary even though isn't my style, which is what Kaiba learns in this duel about himself and teamwork, I can relate with him a little on this part.

Kaiba is missing the point in this duel having an individualist mindset and being single minded as well all his life, but there is reasons for it, not just Gozaburo and his parents's deaths plus their uncle and aunt that drives him to be extremely individualist, this tag duel teaming up Dark Yugi is one of the most important lessons to him plus the ones against Dark Yugi's duels.
By the way, I always laugh at the panel when Dark Yugi asks to team up with eye signal, Kaiba expresses his thought as the most ridiculous idea he ever thought or heard.

Another note to remember, when Kaiba's eyes are like this is when he is consumed by his ego, when he is actually thinking clearly is different from these panels above.

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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 5 (Battle City Break Part 4)

Yes, there will be a lot of battle city breaks, because there is a lot to observe most of the time and we are still in volume duelist 14 (vol.21 in japanese print version).
The summary will be small and not much to comment, in this post and next one, Kaiba will have a bit more focus than Dark Yugi since Kaiba will be developing himself a bit due to his character arc.

Plot Summary:

We left off at Marik just arriving at the aquarium with Bakura seriously hurt.
Jounouchi and the others (Sugoroku and Anzu) leave the aquarium, they find a stranger (Marik) holding Bakura who is very injured in his left arm to the point he is very weak and about to faint, they get worried and all of a sudden they are ambushed by a gang of a young boy whose duel disk has been stolen by Yami Bakura (poor Bakura...), Marik shields Bakura to protect him and takes the punch instead (takes the chance to gain their trust), Jounouchi gets irritated and being good at fighting, "took care" of them easily.
Sugoroku takes Bakura to the hospital through a taxi cab, while Marik stays with Jounouchi and Anzu, he introduces himself as Namu, Marik starts to prepare to brainwash them...
Kaiba and Dark Yugi are beating a bunch of ghouls on the way as a tag team, ghouls warns Marik that they can't stop them anymore, so Marik calls a special tag team to go after Kaiba and Dark Yugi, self-proclaiming to himself that their decks serves to defeat god cards to buy time to brainwash Jounouchi and Anzu.
The special tag force starts going after them, one of them throws a device at Kaiba's duel disk as it blocks it's function and another one shows up who has the key to unlock the device and blackmailing them, Kaiba and Dark Yugi has no choice but to follow them...
They reach the top of a skyscraper, this special tag force introduce themselves as one being Mask of Darkness(MD) and the other the Mask of Light(ML), the tag duel is about to start...

Key Points:

 

Nice excuse, Marik...I feel so sorry for Ryou to be in this situation, I think it shows the difference between Yugi and Ryou as hosts, Yugi at the beginning of the series like Ryou at this moment, Ryou doesn't remember the times Yami Bakura was taking over, in Yugi's case he didn't remember until the time of Monster World arc, Yugi was able to be more gradually aware what was happening when Dark Yugi took over, it became stronger in the duel against Kaiba, Mai and Pegasus in Duelist Kingdom, to a point Yugi could decide whether to watch what was going on or not when he didn't wish to interfere strongly (ex: Anzu and Dark Yugi "date" and other instance), the same is for Dark Yugi (ex: Dark Yugi didn't watch Yugi reading the newspaper about Egypt exhibition and Ishizu, he didn't knew about the newspaper article), but Dark Yugi could do it for much longer time than Yugi due to building the millenium puzzle for 8 years had an influence.

There is another difference between Yugi and Ryou, the strength of heart, specially right now, Yugi is much stronger than Ryou Bakura, Ryou stagnated the moment he let Yami Bakura take over and manipulate him in his development, on the other hand, Yugi just kept evolving and still is, the more aware he becomes,..


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