Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 8 (B!Jounouchi VS Yugi)

you will notice a slight change in some titles, the number more specifically, including the number of volumes I will be covering, which means I will be covering 7 volumes, and the finals will be 5 volumes, the last volumes duelist.
Now will be making the transition from Volume Duelist 15-16 (in japanese print version is volume 22-23).
Before getting to the summary, you maybe wondering about why I didn't include Dark Yugi in the title when he plays in the beginning and very little, since is mostly Yugi who is dueling, I thought it would be kinda pointlessly long title and Yugi is the main focus and Jounouchi, also the summary will be long,there is a bit of focus on the duel itself since they are very relevant and the post itself will be very long, as this duel is extremely important.
To be able to distinguish between the real Jounouchi and brainwashed Jounouchi, when is brainwashed I'm refering to as b!jounouchi and when is the real one is just his name.

Plot Summary:

The duel starts between b!jounouchi and Dark Yugi, Dark Yugi begins with defensive moves, trying to think of a way to how to free Jounouchi from Marik and get them both to survive from this death match, b!Jounouchi is attacking with banned cards that the ghouls has created and edited Jounouchi's deck being full of them, Dark Yugi tries to talk through, but affects very little and Kaiba is worried about their lives but is in a tight spot as well with Mokuba's life in danger.
Dark Yugi feeling very hurt, he starts listening to Yugi's voice, Yugi and Dark Yugi comments about the situation, Yugi suggests to duel against b!jounouchi, Dark Yugi at first is hesitant in letting him play but tells him if Yugi's life is in danger he will be taking over and they do Mind Shuffle.
As Yugi starts taking over, surprises b!jounouchi and Kaiba, he makes lots of very smart and bold but very risky moves driven by his faith in Jounouchi and their friendship to shake up b!jounouchi to weaken Marik's control and it's effective.
The duel gets more dangerous and Dark Yugi gets worried for Yugi's safety, he tells he will be taking over, Yugi refuses as response and explains his reasons and asks to just watch, removes his millenium puzzle to stop Dark Yugi from taking over.
The scene changes while the duel is happening, in Domino Station, Honda, Ryuji and Shizuka just arrived to where Battle City is happening, they meet Mai and she notices Jounouchi's sister and purposes to Shizuka that she will take her to her brother, so they have a ride on Mai's car to go to the Domino Pier.
The scene changes back to the duel, Marik starts making mistakes that affect strongly and shake up even more b!jounouchi  and weaken his control over Jounouchi, Yugi asks b!jounouchi to take care of the millenium puzzle for him, Yugi puts his millenium puzzle on b!jounouchi and it shake up b!jounouchi again when was about to throw a piece of the millenium puzzle, as the duel goes on, there is some back and forth, as Yugi tries to remind b!jounouchi of events which helps the brainwash gradually wear off.
The back and forth of the duel while is still on, Kaiba gets free from the ghouls and saving Mokuba, but even so is not enough, so Kaiba and Mokuba can only watch the duel.
Marik is having a difficult time to control b!jounouchi, finally Yugi provokes Marik to attack him and he fell for it, Yugi uses his last card to capture Marik's attack putting in a position that he can attack his opponent or himself and with this Jounouchi is fully back and to buy time to say his final words to his friend, Yugi makes himself drop his life points to 0 in effort to save Jounouchi and few seconds later Jounouchi does the same to save Yugi, so Yugi was saved by Jounouchi and Jounouchi by Kaiba, then Jounouchi puts the millenium puzzle on Yugi.

(sorry for being a bit long but it was much longer than this, that's how hugely important this duel is).

Key Points:

 

Reading what Dark Yugi is saying to b!jounouchi, there are words that doesn't affect him and others that it does, when he says "Don't you feel pain...in your duelist heart?", you see by his expression he is very sad seeing Jounouchi being controlled by Marik and b!jounouchi reaction to it as if mocking it, he feels more hurt so what he says makes it more clearer what he is feeling (it's actually kinda moving):

"The pain in my body...it's not from being burned by your cards...it's the pain of my sadness seeing you lose your heart as duelist!"

This quote, you can actually feel a little bit the pain of Dark Yugi, I don't fully agree when it says duelist heart, because what about the outside of it? so I interpret as the piece of his heart is a duelist, because there is more that defines Jounouchi outside of dueling, and you see these words actually has a small effect on b!jounouchi, since the brainwash of Jounouchi is to focus and prepared only for Dark Yugi, he will have less effect even if their bond is very strong, so it requires the right person to free Jounouchi...

(On a additional note, the art in this duel is quite beautiful, in this section, specially Dark Yugi, you can see Kazuki Takahashi put a lot of effort on this duel)

You can see in these 3 panels, Yugi still has some difficulties to reach Dark Yugi and Dark Yugi to hear Yugi during duels due to his ego and pride that blocks it, we have to remember even though he is a bit more humble now, it doesn't change his ego is still big, specially his "duelist ego and pride" because outside of duels, Yugi has no difficulty to reach Dark Yugi, this time around Yugi to reach him didn't took as long when it was against Kaiba and Pegasus, you see there is some progress in their connection between spirit and host.


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Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 7 (Battle City Break Part 5)

We're getting closer to one of the most important duels in the series...but let's focus on the little break first before the duel.
We are still in volume Duelist 15 (volume 22 in japanese print version).

Plot Summary:

In the previous post summary, when Kaiba and Dark Yugi just won the tag-match against the Masked Ghouls, but as soon as the duel ended, Marik mind controlled Mask of Light and started talking to them through him, Kaiba was surprised as he noticed the voice was different and the body language was different and weird.
Dark Yugi informs Kaiba that it's Marik talking through Mask of Light, Leader of the Ghouls and owns the third god card.
Marik tells Dark Yugi that everything is ready for him to try to save his friends or not and to Kaiba claims Ra, the Sun Dragon is a god card more powerful than Obelisk...and leaves Mask of Light body, Kaiba and Dark Yugi discuss about this situation, as Mokuba appears in a helicopter and affirming that Kaiba's company has found Jonouchi and came to pick them up and take them to where Jounouchi is, their conversation prolongs in the helicopter as Kaiba tries to gather more info about Marik.
When they arrive at the location where Jounouchi is, Dark Yugi immediately recognises the place, the pier from when they went to Duelist Kingdom, once Dark Yugi reaches the ground, he sees Jounouchi but he looks different being already brainwashed/mindcontrolled, Dark Yugi isn't shocked but panicked and later is revealed to Dark Yugi that is not just Jounouchi who's been brainwashed, Anzu as well which comes as a big shock to him and feeling more fearful for his friends, Marik blackmails with Anzu's life for Dark Yugi to duel against brainwahsed Jounouchi (b!jounouchi) in a life and death match.
The duel is about to start...

Key Points:

I agree and disagree with Kaiba here, Kaiba acknowledges teamwork can be important but only when is truly necessary, let's say he will only use it as a last resort and still goes by his loner principles, and also you can only trust yourself and other people get in the way, to me depends, if it's you and the society, yes, it's best trusting yourself only, but if it's you and the people you care about and care for you back, I don't really see a problem, as  I think is important to be independent because you're still an individual, also Kaiba believes he is alone, when he really isn't, he has Mokuba and the current Kaiba Corp employees seem very loyal to him.

 

Their conversation gets more interesting from here, Dark Yugi being in a hurry and rightfully so to find his friends as Kaiba presents the place where it will hold the finals to Dark Yugi and Kaiba, Dark Yugi is reminding Kaiba that he should already understand why Dark Yugi is in such hurry, Kaiba knows since he fought to save Mokuba and his company and thinks about what he just said, but Kaiba being naturally inquisitive, he still has some questions about the subject...


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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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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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