| 1 | See also the ''[[Headscratchers/YuGiOhGX GX]], [[Headscratchers/YuGiOh5Ds 5D's]], [[Headscratchers/YuGiOhZEXAL ZEXAL]], [[Headscratchers/YuGiOhARCV ARC-V]], [[Headscratchers/YuGiOhVRAINS VRAINS]], [[Headscratchers/YuGiOhSEVENS SEVENS]],'' and [[Headscratchers/YuGiOhCardGame card game]] Headscratchers pages. |
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| 3 | [[foldercontrol]] |
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| 5 | [[folder:Meta and dubbing]] |
| 6 | * Something I never understood about the English names of cards... specifically, why--in the hands of companies known for de-Japanifying things--would they take cards that already had English-sounding names to begin with, and give them Japanese-sounding ones? For example, "Cyclops" (already a known English term and a public domain Greek Mythology creature) gets renamed to "Hitotsu-Me Giant," and "Gargoyle" gets renamed to "Ryu-Kishin." Keep in mind the headscratcher is the ENGLISH version having Japanese names that were NOT Japanese in the original version. |
| 7 | ** There is a trope for that: KeepItForeign. |
| 8 | ** Related to this, I never understood why "Pegasus J. Crawford" was renamed to "Maximillion J. Pegasus." I could understand if his name was Pegasus Ryuseiken or something like that, but it again went from being an English name to being another English name. (This one is even more bothersome for how the Viz version of the manga keeps the Maximillion name, despite using everyone else's Japanese name). |
| 9 | *** That one's probably because Pegasus makes more sense as a surname, and Crawford is a surname, too; Japanese kids might not pick up on the GratuitousEnglish naming weirdness, but an English audience ''would''. Rather than confusing kids with an inversion of TwoFirstNames, they probably decided to give him an ''actual'' given name and drop one of the surnames. Maximillion is an actual given name (and sounds kinda pretentious), and Pegasus is a lot more memorable than Crawford, so it makes sense. |
| 10 | ** Another interesting example is Yubel. Their Japanese card names are semi-correct, but understandable, German, and would be loosely translated as "The Repulsive Knight" and "The Extreme Sadness Dragon". The ''German'' version... Then translates the English card names, rather than fixing up the original ones. |
| 11 | * Okay, this happened in GX, I know, but it pertains to [[TheChosenOne Yugi]] and the end of Anime/YuGiOh, so I figured it fit here better: It's blatantly hinted at that "Yugi" in GX looks like a lot like Atem, both from the time Judai got Winged Kuriboh and when he challenged Judai to a duel in that... alternate world/time/whatever the hell it was. But I ''swear'' I saw Yugi looking and sounding a lot like he did in Yu-Gi-Oh when he was on the boat to give Duel Academy his deck–you know, during that arc with that one kid on a serious mind-trip thinking he was "Yugi"/Atem. So, what the hell? Did the anime team just screw up, or was that a hint at Atem having come back at some point? |
| 12 | ** They actually hid Yugi's face in the first episode so people wouldn't mistake him for Atem: apparently they couldn't figure out how to make Yugi look older without making him look like Atem. The Japanese anime doesn't have that problem, as grown-up Yugi still uses 'boku' instead of Atem's 'ore' when he speaks: it's easy to tell them apart by voice. |
| 13 | ** Hard to tell- he doesn't seem to be wearing the Puzzle in the opening of GX, but he is when he duels with Jaden/Judai. It seems they later retconned so that Atem left sometime after the end of GX. |
| 14 | ** Didn't that duel occur through time travel? As in, Judai went back in time to when Atem was still around? |
| 15 | ** Yugi vs Jaden took place in the past, sometime after Battle City but before the Millennium World arc. |
| 16 | ** It could also be that Yugi grows up to look more like Atem; after all, quite a few of the other past-counterparts from Egypt directly resemble their modern-day counterparts (most notable example being Priest Seto), and assuming that Yugi |
| 17 | * Why is it in the English dub, the events of Ancient Egypt took place 5000 years ago, instead of 3000? Was it an actual accident on the part of the translators, or is there a reason they changed the years? |
| 18 | ** I'm no expert on Japanese, but I have long suspected it was for similar reasons as why the infamous "over 9000" line is 9000 in English, but 8000 in the original version: 5000 matches up with the speaking animations better than 3000. |
| 19 | ** I personally suspect that it's because 5000 years ago would be 3000 BC. |
| 20 | ** According to Wikipedia, there was a pharaoh called Seth-Peribsen that ruled in the 2nd dynasty, which started around 2890, approximately 5000 years before the events of the current series (give or take a couple hundred years). TranslationCorrection, maybe? |
| 21 | ** 5000 just sounds cooler. |
| 22 | ** This confuses me. I just checked my Japanese copies of both the manga and the anime. Both say 5000, not 3000. So where did person get "3000" from? |
| 23 | * Why does Mokuba call Seto "Kaiba" in the translated manga? I don't know if it's JUST the official version, but it's pretty awkward to call your older brother by your shared last name. |
| 24 | ** I think at one point he calls "Kaiba" Seto in the anime. |
| 25 | *** I think it's because using your surname is more respectful, and Mokuba has a lot of respect for his big brother. Maybe? Also, if you think about it, Seto ''earned'' that name. He might have hated his adoptive father, but he's proud of his company and he's proud of the work he's done with it. If you look at it that way, "Kaiba" would be like a badge of honour. |
| 26 | *** Actually in Japan you never call anyone who shares your family name by it. (don't know if it applies to people who have the same last name as you but are too distant to be part of your family) |
| 27 | *** Well, I understand that, but it's still... awkward I guess. Maybe it translates better over in Japan because of the differences in languages? Personally, I like how the anime did it with the whole "Nii-sama" thing. |
| 28 | ** It was a [[BlindIdiotTranslation mistranslation]] by Viz. Mokuba Kaiba never calls his brother "Kaiba", because frankly, that's extremely silly. |
| 29 | * What the hell is Zorc's motivation in the English dub?! I get why he plans on destroying the world in the sub since he was created from the Items, and would have represented the hatred of the sacrificed criminals on the rest of the world. But 4Kids Zorc is portrayed as [[TimeAbyss far older]], and creator of the Shadow Realm. Why couldn't they tie in the sacrifice (using souls instead of killing) with Zorc's destructive nature? Bakura was the best villain of the show, yet his English version ManBehindTheMan was just some one-dimensional demon thing. |
| 30 | ** That's why total destruction of everything isn't his motivation in the English dub. He wants to dominate the world, to become its new god, which is why he was recruiting followers. The present-day world starts getting reformed into the future of the nightmare world that Zorc envisioned as per the timeline being altered. |
| 31 | * Not so much a question as something of note; why do most villains after Pegasus merge with their monster at the end? You've got Noah and Shinato, Yami Marik and The Winged Dragon of Ra, Dartz with Leviathan, and Yami Bakura with Zorc. |
| 32 | ** Because it's an easy way to kill the character permanently without involving the disturbing mind crush (Marik, Dartz, Bakura, almost Noah until he bullshits his way out of the rules). That, and by law all anime villains are required to have a OneWingedAngel form -- Relinquished's eye was close enough to allow Pegasus a pass. |
| 33 | *** Hell, even ''Relinquished'' has Thousand Eyes Restrict. |
| 34 | * There's one thing that both confuses me and bugs the crap out of me. Some people (particularly shippers) seem to treat Yami and Atem as if they are two different people. As far as I can tell, they're the same person and the only significant difference is Yami can't remember his past or his name which is part of why he doesn't go by his real name in the series. So either I missed some big announcement in the manga/anime that officially declared them as being two separate people, or I just can't figure out what strange logic people are using to justify that. |
| 35 | ** Well, Yami = Atem + 3000/5000 years in a puzzle, missing a part of his soul, which is probably the reason why he was a sadist on a killing spree in the beginning + months of bonding with Yugi and learning from him - memories of his past life. That kind of justifies the notion that they're different. They're the same in general, but not in particular. If this makes sense. |
| 36 | *** So Yami is basically a future Atem who's gone through some rough things the other/younger has yet to experience? |
| 37 | *** Yami Yugi and Atem are the same person. The only time when you can consider them to be different is in the final arc when he's simultaneously fighting Yami Bakura in the present and the past. |
| 38 | *** Well, yes, in this arc, they were the same person, because Yami awoke in Atem's body, or rather his former body, with his present memories. And then there was the Yami playing with Yami Bakura. However, my point still stands. Atem = Yami - 3000/5000 years in a puzzle - friendship with yugi + a complete soul. They are the same person, but still different. You and your five-year-old self are also the same person, but still not quite the same. |
| 39 | *** I can see how some people would interpret his being in two places at once as meaning there's two separate people, but although you and your five-year-old self are not exactly the same, are you so different that you go by a completely different name when you grow up? |
| 40 | *** As for the name Yami, that was only in the 4kids version, and fans picked it up because it's an okay name for the spirit in fanfiction. It's just easier to write than "The pharaoh" or "Mou hitori no boku" or "other me". And by the time his real name was revealed, people had gotten used to using Yami. I think that from time to time, people use Atem in fanfiction that is set after the series finale, but it's quite rare. Sorry, I feel like I'm really missing the point in this discussion. |
| 41 | *** The original point was that it bugged me to see some fans absolutely insist that there is no way in the world that Yami = Atem when I've never seen any official canon declaration that says "Yes, they are ''two separate people'', not two ''versions'' of the ''same person''." The first time I saw that there's an official shipping threesome of Atem x Yugi ''x Yami'' made me do a doubletake... because if Yami and Atem are the same person... isn't that kind of pairing impossible (or at least very tricky) to pull off? |
| 42 | *** Oh, I see. Sorry for arguing against you all the time. As for this seemingly impossible pairing, I have to admit that I'm guilty of liking Yami Bakura x Thief King Bakura, and Seto x Priest Set. I know, it's impossible (just as impossible as finding good fic) but I can definitely see the appeal. However, it's important for me to keep up a certain narcissistic [[ScrewYourself self-cest]] element. (My favourite fics for these pairings are both takes on the Narcissus tale; the present incarnations see their past selves in mirrors. That's the only way it works for me. I'm not very fond of time travelling fics, and I can't even imagine fics that try to pull off these pairings without even bothering with such things and completely leaving the self-cest element out.) |
| 43 | ** Well, if your 15-year-old self and 30-year-old self were in the same room, you probably wouldn't know that they're the same person, personality-wise. |
| 44 | ** I always thought that Atem = Yami + Yuugi; that is to say, Yami is but half of the person once known as Atem, the half that was sealed inside the puzzle while the other half (Yuugi) went on to reincarnate for millennia until he found the puzzle and became 'whole' again. So yeah, don't know how that works either. |
| 45 | ** As murky as the Yu-Gi-Oh reincarnation system is, how disparate the various different individuals who are also sort of the same individual are is up to interpretation, a factor people in the fandom have taken up to eleven. (It does make a convenient handwaving excuse.) BUT as far as canon is concerned, it's pretty definitive that Atem and Yami Yuugi are meant to be the same person - Yami's "My name is '''Atem'''!" declaration before [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence walking out]] can be considered confirmation. |
| 46 | ** No matter how different the same person may be at two points in his/her own timeline, personality-wise or otherwise, he/she is still ''the same person'', philosophical semantics notwithstanding. What most people in this debate are ignoring is that this is about shipping; i.e., it's not about "if your 15-year-old self and your 30-year-old self were in the same room would you recognize them as the same person personality-wise?" so much as "if your 15-year-old self and your 30-year-old self were in the same room would it be weird for them to hook up or get into a relationship with each other and thus themselves (other than ephebophilia)?" |
| 47 | ** In the original finale, Yugi had to duel his 30-year old self in order to free Atem. |
| 48 | ** It could possibly have something to do with Atem's behaviour in the Millennium World arc. Up until he wakes up and finds out that this world is a Shadow Game RPG, Present-era Yami inhabits his original body. After that until Yami Bakura fuses back with Zorc, both Atem and Yami wind up knowing everything that the other has done up to this point but seemingly can't share crucial information that the other learns. At least, Yami can't tell Atem anyway; this is very much apparent when Yami is tipped off that his friends are in danger and are probably being spied on, but Atem doesn't react any which way about it and resumes dealing with the current situation he's in. This gives some weird impression that Atem and Yami are both separate characters at that point technically even though they are still the same character. |
| 49 | * More meta, but here goes: Duelist Kingdom; 4Kids adds a subplot and cuts out repetition, replacing excess material with foreshadowing. Battle City, 4Kids goes the opposite direction; it cuts out a subplot and adds repetition rather than minor details in characters' dialogue. What exactly happened to cause this reversal in dubbing? |
| 50 | ** Could you give some specific examples? |
| 51 | ** Certainly; in Duelist Kingdom, after Yugi loses to Kaiba, he realizes Yami Yugi's recklessness that could put other people in danger. The difference is in the focus of the character development--the Japanese version focuses on Yami, while making Yugi look two-dimensional. The English has more development for them both as they learn from each other and the like. And the reduction of filler; I think of one particular voiceover by Pegasus about how the duel he's watching relates to the tragedy of his life. Foreshadowing in the English version. In the Japanese version, it's just something repeated about the duel.\ |
| 52 | But in Battle City, the English version cuts out the True Duelist subplot--what it means to be one, as well as adding a relationship between Joey and Yugi. Instead, it replaces it with other generic dueling stuff, which leads to adjusting dialogue so it's overly repeated rather than a focus on said subplot. |
| 53 | *** I actually agree with you when it comes to your Duelist Kingdom example. The dub version makes far more sense than the Japanese. In the Japanese version it follows more closely with the manga, where he already knew about Yami's existence thanks to the first seven volumes. But that duel with Kaiba was the first time in both anime versions that he truly realized he wasn't alone in his own body. And Yami had basically just tried to kill someone in a duel, leading to an understandable BSOD in the dub, but it's more of a 'meh, whatever' thing in the Japanese?! It has always deeply disturbed me that Japanese Yugi is so casual about Yami's actions, given the ommision of the events from the first seven manga volumes. As for the omission of the True Duelist subplot, I honestly never noticed it was missing. But then I did watch the dub as a kid before I even knew the manga existed, so I wasn't really looking for the subplot. |
| 54 | *** In the Japanese anime version of Duelist Kingdom, Yugi isn't actually upset about Yami trying to kill Kaiba. He's upset at ''himself'': Yugi thinks he's too much of a ''coward'' to put anybody's life on the line for his goals. He doesn't seem to think he can successfully retrieve Grandpa's soul if he can't be as tough and ruthless as Yami or Kaiba. That's not exactly the most kiddie-friendly message. |
| 55 | *** Exactly, that was just bowdlerisation on 4kids' part. If anything, the Japanese version showed more character development -- for once, Yugi realized he was too much of a softie, to the point he was holding Dark Yugi back. If he hadn't intervened, they'd now be inside Pegasus' mansions and on the way to rescuing his grandpa. That's why he was in tears afterwards and couldn't accept Jounouchi's and Mai's stars; he was upset at himself and felt completely useless. Whereas the dub had him react in a more predictable, two-dimensional manner, responding just like you'd expect from a white-bread NiceGuy. |
| 56 | *** In my opinion, the reaction that Dark Yugi should've really not been willing to kill a guy for getting in the way of ''one'' possible means of rescuing Grandpa Muto, is more rational, but it's more ''interesting'' if Yugi is like "oh, I'm the useless one, it's fine he did that." Yugi isn't objectively too much of a softie there, but it's more interesting to see him conflicted about it. It's sort of character development that pays off later, for instance, during the Battle City finals when Yugi and Atem plan together how to defeat Yami Malik without killing off the other Malik also. Can't just let a dude get killed when it just happens to be the easiest solution. Even if the dude is no saint himself. |
| 57 | * According to what I've heard, in the Manga, there is no Doma arc, it goes straight from Battle City to Kaiba Corp Grand Prix. So, Kaiba organised two contests back to back? Both directly after Duelist Kingdom? |
| 58 | ** There was no Kaiba Corp Grand Prix in the manga. It just goes straight to the Millennium Arc after Battle City. |
| 59 | * Everyone's asked it, but it was never answered -- why the hell do they never go to the police? |
| 60 | ** PoliceAreUseless? |
| 61 | ** To be fair, Police would be of any REAL help only in the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix, though there are moments in the first seven volumes where this could apply, and Zigfried and Death-T Kaiba are smart enough to get rid of the police. In the rest of the series, though, WHAT THE HELL ARE THE POLICE GOING TO DO AGAINST ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MAGIC THAT COULD PROBABLY KILL THEM?!? And before anyone says the magic only works in the card game, I'd like to point your attention to the laser beam battle between Bakura and Pegasus. |
| 62 | ** Not exactly cops, but in chapter 8 of the manga, the shop owner loses Yami Yugi's/Atem's game and gets stung by his own poisoned scorpion. When Yugi goes back to talk to Jounouchi, he tells Jounouchi (in the English translation of the manga at least) that when he (Yugi) woke up the sneakers were "in his hands and the shop owner was being taken to the hospital" for the poisoning. Someone at least called the paramedics then. Since there was no one else in the shop (the owner said it was closed when Yami Yugi/Atem came in) and Yugi woke to find the paramedics already there, it seems like Yami Yugi/Atem was actually the one to make the call. |
| 63 | ** Paramedics are also called to take Yugi's grandpa to the hospital after Kaiba's duel holograms give him a heart attack. Again, not cops but it is ''some'' sort of professional help called in. |
| 64 | *** Also, causing a heart attack isn't illegal provided it was unintentional (and even if it were intentional, you'd have to prove it). Ditto the scorpion--that would probably have been ruled an accident. Part of proving something is explaining how it happened. |
| 65 | *** The "reasonable man" defense would probably apply if they tried to prosecute Kaiba for manslaughter for forcing Grandpa to duel with holograms. A reasonable man would not figure that a man whose livelihood involved selling Duel Monsters cards would have a heart attack when presented with holograms of the images, especially since Kaiba would certainly have explained the Duel Arena's function and Grandpa would therefore have been expecting them. Since Kaiba could not have expected a heart attack to result from exposing Grandpa to the Duel Arena, there was no intent, and since the heart attack did not result from any flaw of the Duel Arena, Kaibacorp would not be liable for a product safety lawsuit, either. On the other hand there are the small matters of assault, kidnapping, and unlawful detention, not to mention wrongful death. |
| 66 | ** They did in the DOMA arc. The cops were brainwashed at this point. |
| 67 | *** Also, during DOMA, the US Navy shows up and says that Yugi, Kaiba and Joey are their only hope, because they are utterly powerless against what's going down, and they are stunned that this is related to a card game. |
| 68 | * In his flashback, Rex says he and Weevil could just demand people give them their strongest cards, and they'd feel honoured to give them. The card they got was Dark Ruler Ha Des. Dark Ruler is singularly stronger than any card either of them played (save PU Great Moth and Great Moth), with additional side effects to boost other cards, back in the days before sacrifices. Why did neither of them play this card, how did the kid get this card, and why would he look up to them if he could kick the crap out of both easily? |
| 69 | ** First, neither ran fiends (Weevil ran insects, Rex ran dinosaurs), and they probably kept the card as trade bait. (Not to mention that Dark Ruler Ha Des cannot be revived from the grave.) Second, he probably respected them before their reputations took a nosedive. |
| 70 | ** And there's the issue that Dark Ruler HaDes might not have the same effect in-universe as it does in [[RealLife our TCG]]. |
| 71 | *** No, it did. Bakura ran it back in Battle City, and it had the exact same effects. |
| 72 | * Why does the anime keep inventing dozens of BS cards (like Berserker Soul), when there are plenty of legitimate ways to win a duel? |
| 73 | ** For those specific situations? Let's play Dueling Puzzles. Replicate the situation, your opponent has a monster with 2600 attack, you have a monster with 2700 attack rendered unable to attack via a spell card, as well as costing you 500 life points per turn. You're on 700 life points, he's on 3900. You have a card set, he has a card set, you have a 4-card hand. Win in one turn (No Exodia). |
| 74 | *** De-Spell to destroy Insect Barrier, then Brain Control Weevil's monster. And that's without using a single card that Yugi hadn't used before in another duel. But then we wouldn't have [[MemeticMutation "DURO! MONSTA KADO!"]] |
| 75 | *** Wait, what? You're on 700 life points, and you're going to use a card that costs 800 life points to pay? Secondly, it's the rule of drama. If things played out in the anime like in tournaments, we'd be seeing tons of the same god damn plays over and over again, which as both an anime and a glorified advertisement of the product, would sell the game short completely. Not for nothing, I get the tournament scene and that in tournaments, there's the play to win practical mentality, but (and using today's meta as a reference point) if I'm watching an anime, I'd fall asleep seeing the same damn Zoodiac-True King plays over and over again. |
| 76 | ** RuleOfCool, RuleOfDrama... I know it comes off as an AssPull most of the times, but then again, isn't it a bit more exciting to see the character cornered, and then he suddenly plays an amazing card that turns things around, while the opponent can only helplessly stare? |
| 77 | *** No. That's called an AssPull and is generally thought of to be bad. |
| 78 | ** This only explains this particular duel, but the point here was the overkill. It was necessary to have a card that would 'allow' Atem to continue attacking even after he had already won to show how pissed he was and how his personality had been affected without his MoralityPet. |
| 79 | ** Imagine that there were no cards, and the series were all about magic-users actually summoning monsters and using spells to fight each other. It'd get boring if they kept using the same tactics in every battle, right? It's the same thing here; they add in new cards so that you can see them using new moves rather than using the same ones every time. And the cards kind of have to come out of nowhere- otherwise they'd have to stop the plot every so often to show the characters opening booster packs and reading out the card effects. |
| 80 | *** Amusingly enough, ''GX'' actually '''does''' show people getting booster packs and upgrading their decks with them. |
| 81 | * Why the heck did 4kids edit the card description text out of the cards? I mean, in dub canon, every player has to have the exact effects and conditions of at least 40 cards memorized cold before they play *any* card games with them. It makes the shouting out descriptions make a lot more sense, but wouldn't that be a really counterintuative way to market a game? Also, given the way that this game seems to work, you'd have to have the effects of any cards you wanted to grab from your opponent memorized too. It seems like this'd lead to major abuse of the system, entirely apart from being stupid. |
| 82 | ** Quite simply, it cuts down on the costs of other language adaptions. Editing card text would not only raise production costs for 4kids, but for the companies in other countries doing the Spanish, French, Italian, etc. dubs. It would also increase the amount of time to get episodes ready for air, which could result in the anime falling victim to {{schedule slip}}page and possibly cancellation. It was feasible for the Pyramid of Light movie, which didn't have to meet a specific deadline, but generally they have to have a certain amount of episodes done in a certain amount of time to fit their weekly air schedule. |
| 83 | ** It's also about the MediaNotes/SegregatedCommercial trope; it's even mentioned on the text for that page that they can't show the characters using real cards from the game, because that's advertising, whereas Japan doesn't have the laws forbidding it. The movie, of course, didn't have that problem, since it's not regulated by TV laws. Seemingly, the players in the dub are playing with the English-language version of the cards -- though some of them with different effects than in the TCG/OCG -- since they clearly know each of their own cards and how they work. |
| 84 | ** For what it's worth, there is at least one point the dub where a character directly reads a card - Joey has to read Copycat during the tag duel between him and Yugi and the Paradox Brothers, since he apparently doesn't recognize it. This would seem to imply that there's still text on the cards in-universe that the audience can't see for whatever reason, so it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has to have a bunch of effects memorized at any given time for their deck. |
| 85 | * Bakura's voice. Or more specifically, voice-actor. Why is it a female in the Japanese version? I like the Japanese voice just fine, but it's an odd choice seeing as he's a teenage boy, and in Season Zero he's voiced by a guy (and in every dub of the second series, he's voiced by a guy). So, what gives? Why the odd choice for voice-actor? |
| 86 | ** How is it odd? There are a lot of cases where women voice young boys because a man's voice happens to be too deep. Tommy Pickles of the Rugrats and All Grown Up, anyone? Ash Ketchum from the Pokemon anime (both Japanese and English versions, the former being the same voice actor as Bakura)? |
| 87 | ** 4Kids and other dubs have a habit of doing this. Once the male is old enough, they use an actual male voice. |
| 88 | ** The OP is talking about the original Japanese version of the second anime adaptation, not any of the dubs, 4Kids or otherwise. As they say, all of the dubs of the second anime adaptation have him voiced by a male, and in [[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries the first anime]] he's also voiced by a male[[note]]although, rather ironically, Yugi himself was voiced by a female there, you could argue that Yugi's height at least makes it ''look'' like he would have a voice more like a child's, whereas Bakura doesn't really have that reason[[/note]]. And Bakura's not a little kid; he's at least the same age as the rest of the gang and there doesn't seem to be any reason to think his voice should be much higher than the average male's. So the question is: Why would they choose to have him be voiced by a female when there's no obvious reason to do so, and there's no other version of him that had done that before? It's not a bad thing, but the OP is right when they say it's a bit odd. |
| 89 | ** Even in Japanese dubs, it isn't too unusual to have a male character voiced by a woman. Even when it's a really odd decision (Goku, anyone?) If I had to guess for a reason, maybe they wanted Bakura to have a voice that sounded innocent and boyish. |
| 90 | * How much in-universe time does the series take up? The events of Battle City all the way through the Memory World clearly come right after one another (with a few days' separation in between each), since Yugi's goal once he has the God Cards is to get right to the museum. None of the major arcs seem to take more than a week. Specifically, the first part of Battle City and the entire KC Grand Championship seem to have been one really long day of dueling time with little break. The Virtual World arc is implied to take only a few hours in the real world, hence Yami Marik wandering around and not using the time to find Odion, and the last round of the Battle City Finals is all on one day. The DOMA arc is probably the longest, since they're traveling to different places and there is some actual passage of days, but still didn't seem to last too long. However, right before the events of the Memory World arc, Tea in the dub says that they've had "four years" of adventures together, and in the final battle Ishizu mentions that she hasn't used her necklace to make a prediction "in years" since giving it to Yugi. So what gives? Did they take breaks after Duelist Kingdom and Battle City to go to school for a year? Or was the dub team trying to avert ComicBookTime? Either way, nobody's aged a bit in four years, nor seems to have graduated from high school (which they already attended before meeting in the anime and which is only three years long in Japan). Personally, I think it's only taken a few months at most, but we aren't really told how long each arc is, are we? |
| 91 | ** In the manga, from the time Yugi completes the Puzzle up until the end of Duelist Kingdom, one year passes. During the Dungeon Dice arc, Honda/Tristan mentions that they are in their second year and are lucky to be in the same class again. Battle City lasts a couple of days. |
| 92 | ** On another note, how fast do new cards get created in this game? Duelist Kingdom > Battle City > Doma > KC Grand Prix, being generous, would take about a year in total, and the game goes from Duelist Kingdom where, with a few exceptions, everyone is using vanilla beaters with a few magic and trap cards here and there all the way to super high speed summonings and mass tributes and getting powerful monsters with strong effects onto the board in a matter of turns. Most of these changes happened between DK and BC (because actual rules had been created by then) but in terms of real life support if would be like going from the first set and jumping all the way to pre-GX era decks in a matter of months; with a meta that shifts in power that quickly and that drastically, how on earth does I2 keep the game balanced? New sets would have to be dropping so fast that people would just be "oh, this new card I got last month just got outclassed, time to go buy another box" every few weeks. |
| 93 | * This overlaps with the games, but ''Yu-Gi-Oh!: Nightmare Troubadour'' covers the anime up to the end of Battle City (the final duel taking place against Yami Marik). The opponents in the game use the same cards that they are seen to use in the anime, plus a few extras to fill out their decks. Two of the opponents are Lumis and Umbra (or Hikari no Kamen and Yami no Kamen in Japanese). In their tag-team duel with Yami Yugi and Seto Kaiba in the anime, they reveal their strongest card, Masked Beast Des Gardius -- yet for some reason, this card doesn't exist in the game, even though it's a real card (i.e., not an anime-exclusive one) that was shown in the part of the anime that the game covers. What's the deal with that? The Mask of Remnants (a card that is used in combination with Masked Beast Des Gardius) is also conspicuously absent from the game. |
| 94 | * Okay, the translation of card names is something that really bothers me. One of the major ones is changing "Death" to "Des" in any card that includes the word in its name (such as Des Kangaroo, for instance). I can understand maybe wanting to NeverSayDie, but "Des" ''is not a real word''. Couldn't they have just used something else entirely? Second, "Buster Rancher" instead of "Buster Launcher". Boy, I really hope someone got fired for that blunder. (Unless that was another clumsy attempt at censorship, but why on Earth would the word "launcher" be offensive?). Third, "Revival Slime" to "Revival Jam". Okay... Uh... What? Does that ''blue'' amorphous blob monster seriously look like ''jam'' to you, translators? And the related changes of "Slime Zōshokuro" to "Jam Breeding Machine" and "Defend Slime" to "Jam Defender" - what makes it ridiculous is that they still call the things that Jam Breeding Machine produces "SLIME Tokens". [[SarcasmMode Don't you mean "Jam Tokens"?]]. |
| 95 | ** The switch from Slime to Jam was probably an attempt at avoiding copyright, Des is just their way of including the word ''Death'' because with a Japanese accent it sounds like Des, No defence for Buster Rancher though. |
| 96 | * Why didn't they give Jonouchi's character arc in the 'Battle Kingdom' storyline to Anzu? She's already shown as being desperate for money to go to dance in America (this being a plot point in several books) to the point at which she took humiliating jobs, and was recently fired from her last job at Kaiba's AmusementParkOfDoom, so having her go to the tournament to duel and claim the prize would have been a lot more natural than Joey [[RememberTheNewGuy revealing a sick sister he's apparently had all along]]. |
| 97 | ** Seems like an unfortunate consequence of being The Designated Girl At that point, Anzu had only ever been a chronic damsel in distress and an occasional love interest -- never the focus of her own story. Takahashi clearly just wasn't interested in changing her role or giving her more development. Jonouchi, on the other hand, had long, long, long been established as our secondary main character, so he needed a purpose and a quest of his own, so that's where the writer's efforts were focused. |
| 98 | ** Another aspect could be that fighting for a sibling would be seen as more heroic and selfless than fighting for personal reasons like going to dance school in America. Anzu would only be fighting for herself if her motivation was dance school, whereas Jounouchi is trying to win the prize money for someone else. |
| 99 | ** Because that would have been much ''less'' natural. Trying to win the tournament for selfish reasons (which, had she succeeded, would have screwed Yugi out of the opportunity to save his grandpa) would have made Anzu look like a terrible friend and person. Jounouchi's reason for participating (the tournament prize money being the only shot he had at saving his ill sister's eyesight) was far more sympathetic and justified. Besides, trying to force his way into an invite-only tournament without being invited is something Jounouchi would do, not Anzu. |
| 100 | * Neither Star Chips nor Locator Cards make any sense for tournaments that were supposedly tests of skill. Sure, you'd have to win a few duels, but instead of the best duelists making it to the final, you'd instead end up with a few competitors who lucked out and managed to finish their games quickly. The entire first round of both Battle City and Duelist Kingdom would be over in about half an hour, with everyone scrambling to win a few duels in the fastest time. It'd make only slightly more sense if the organizers were impartial and didn't care who completed the tasks first... but they were't. Pegasus needed Yugi in the final for his plan to succeed, and Kaiba needed whoever held the God Cards (and preferably Yugi). With the amount of sidequests and distractions heaped upon the main characters, it's utterly astounding that both tournaments didn't end up with a final full of complete randoms while the important duelists were left in the dust. |
| 101 | ** The manga clarifies just how many Star Chips and Locator Cards were used in the tournaments. In Duelist Kingdom, there were 40 players invited, so 80 Star Chips total. Normally, that would assume eight duelists, but Pegasus also hired Player Killers to defeat competitors and take their Star Chips, and were only meant to challenge players until they won 40 Star Chips, so that the 40 chips they didn't take would be among the leftover players. They would eventually have to run into each other and duel for the necessary Star Chips. Battle City is even stricter, as Kaiba says there are a total of 48 locator cards in this tournament. Since six are needed to enter the finals and eight people are allowed to compete, that means there is no chance of a leftover competitor wandering the city trying to get that last card, as all cards would've been turned in to compete in the finals. This means that the eight duelists in the finals are the only duelists left in the tournament. |
| 102 | * Why does the anime go out of its way to say sacrificing monsters, a core part of the game and something you HAVE to do to get most monsters is bad? If it was just some weirdness in the manga that the anime didn't fix then that's one thing, but the filler made for anime goes even further with it like in the Waking The Dragon arc where they straight up state Atem is evil for sacrificing monsters. If that's the case, WHY MAKE IT A CORE PART OF THE GAME or even introduce the concept at all? Hey I must be evil for playing the card game properly. It reminds of how the early Pokemon anime did the same with evolutionary stones and vilified people for using them despite being a core part of the game. It feels like just anti-marketing for the game and a bad way of making people interested. |
| 103 | ** In that arc, the act of sacrificing monsters was an exception to the general rule. Any time the Seal of Orichalcos is played, the monsters on the field become their real counterparts. That means sacrificing them then was akin to killing your allies off (despite the fact that the monster itself seems to be fine afterwards. I suppose it's the principal of the matter that counts.) And obviously the card game wasn't designed in mind to use and abuse the real monsters (okay well, it sort of ''was'', but not to the extent of physically replacing the hologram with the real thing.) |
| 104 | *** Its not just during DOMA, although that was where it was the most important. Yugi's duel with Arkana made a big deal about Arkana sacrificing his Dark Magician to take a cheap shot at Yugi's life points, so much so that Dark Magician Girl gaining attack points from it being the graveyard was treated like him betraying Arkana for the manuever. To answer the original poster's question, I think it all depends on the context of the action. Sacrificing monsters in order to summon a stronger one or to pull off an effect generally isn't treated with scorn if person doing so is only doing to further their plays, since they're just playing the game normally. But when the person is laughing maniacally as they do so, or doing so just to inflict pain to their opponent like Arkana or an Orichalchos wielding Yami did, then its a sign that there's soemthing wrong with the duelist. |
| 105 | *** You said the key word right there: Arkana sacrificed ''Dark Magician''. They were building up Mahad's undying loyalty to his pharaoh, and Atem's undying respect for and loyalty to his loyal friend. The entire point was that the duel woke Mahad up: Arkana throwing his Dark Magician away for a cheap shot made him realise that the man he'd been serving wasn't his pharaoh, while Yugi's Dark Magician willingly leaped into the way and sacrificed itself to protect his friend's life points. Both cards were acting as Mahad, and siding with Mana (as Dark Magician Girl) to protect their pharaoh from beyond the grave. If it was any other monster, it wouldn't have been nearly as big a deal; case in point, Yugi's thrown some of his own monsters for cheap shots with Catapult Turtle. It was about Arkana literally ''trying to beat Atem to death with one of his closest friends' soul'', and Mahad was '''not''' down for it. |
| 106 | ** While it may be filler, the explanation that Arthur Hopkins gives after Yugi's duel with Rebecca may serve as a good justification. Even though both he and Rebecca sacrificed Monsters to power up "Shadow Ghoul" in technically the exact same way, Arthur recognized and valued their contribution and honored them by considering them just as important as the "Shadow Ghoul" itself while Rebecca threw all her monsters away as fodder without a second thought. It's not the act of sacrificing monsters itself that matters so much as the context of the player's intent and appreciation of those sacrifices. |
| 107 | * Why does the series and its spinoffs use 4000 life points (2000 in Duelist Kingdom)? Would using the maximum 8000 really change the length of the episode? |
| 108 | ** The anime/manga used fewer life points before the real card game existed. As for why they still use 4000, it's probably less about pure length and more about the pacing and action of the duel. With fewer life points, each battle has more impact and it doesn't take as long to get to the critical point where the hero has to turn the duel around or lose. |
| 109 | [[/folder]] |
| 110 | |
| 111 | [[folder:Egyptian stuff]] |
| 112 | * Ok, it's common a reincarnated person has the same face as his past life, but how could Seto's past life have the same name as him? And Seto seems to be a very Japanese name for an ancient Egyptian priest. |
| 113 | ** Actually, Seto's past self was called "Set", I believe, which was the name of one of the Egyptian gods, so it's not Japanese in origin. |
| 114 | * How in the hell could the puzzle take eight years to solve? It had maybe 23 pieces - even if you didn't know what it looked like, simple trial and error would mean the puzzle would take a month at maximum. Did he just decide to work on it one day a year? |
| 115 | ** It was a ''magic'' puzzle. Its shadow magic clouded the mind of any who tried to solve it until the time was right and the one trying to solve it was in the proper mindset with the proper desires in his heart and/or until the Chosen One tried to solve it at the Chosen Time or something. It's not entirely clear, but the point is that it's all but certain that he solved the puzzle on the puzzle's terms, not his. Note how he comments on how easy it suddenly is when he does start solving it. |
| 116 | ** [[DevelopmentHell He works on it]] ''[[DevelopmentHell very]]'' [[DevelopmentHell sporadically?]] |
| 117 | ** In the manga, Duke Devlin tries to piece together the broken Millennium Puzzle--he thinks it's easy, and he manages to piece it together halfway through, before being twisted by its shadows and briefly trapped in an illusion. |
| 118 | *** Actually Duke just flat out failed, it was his dad who got the mystic psycho illusion treatment for trying to put the puzzle together. And while Duke's dad was trying to put it together, Yugi weakly stood up (he'd just been choked and thrown against a wall by Duke's dad) and told him "Stop... you'll make... the puzzle angry..." Also, in the manga, when Yami is confronted by Shadi in volume 3, Shadi tells him that it was no coincidence that Yugi solved the Millennium Puzzle... the puzzle chose Yugi. Somehow, the events of the first chapter convinced the puzzle to let itself be solved by Yugi. I personally think it was the moment where Yugi was getting beaten by Ushio, and his thoughts revealed that the 'wish' he made on the puzzle was for "friends who could count on him, no matter what" instead of something selfish like money or popularity or power. |
| 119 | ** Some puzzles are not just a matter of placing each of its pieces on top of each other. The Millennium Puzzle probably required complex rearrangement of the pieces around and through each other as it took shape. |
| 120 | *** I vaguely remember Yugi saying something along the lines of "If I rotate this piece clockwise 45 degrees..." when solving the puzzle (I think it was in the manga), so yeah, the puzzle is probably more complex than it looks. |
| 121 | ** Also, he didn't know what it was supposed to look like at the end. |
| 122 | ** For the record, (and this might be cheating a bit but it ''is'' manga canon-compliant) according to a shot of the case containing the deconstructed puzzle in Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions it has ''at least'' 49 pieces by counting, and even then the layout and perspective of the pieces makes it difficult to tell if some of them are actually singular or not. A good chunk of those pieces are absolutely ''tiny'' as well, making it hard to figure out what the shape is meant to be from Yugi's perspective when he was first solving it. When the puzzle was being solved by Mr. Otogi in the manga, the puzzle's top underside suggests that its interior is more complex than its exterior implies, with labyrinth-esque connections. If anything this would make multiple similar looking exterior pieces with different interior connections viable and would thus make it more difficult to solve. Finally, in the aforementioned film we see Yugi place the last two pieces into the puzzle, which slide flush into the surface indicating that the traces on the Millennium Puzzle itself aren't whole pieces (with the exception of the Eye of Wdjat piece.) |
| 123 | * Is there any particular reason Yami can't create his own Shadow Game before Bakura, Marik, Pegasus, etc. create theirs? I assume the rules say that anyone with a Millennium Item can turn a duel into a Shadow Game so long as the rules are fair to both players. And why would one Shadow Game overwrite another? |
| 124 | ** Yami kept on pumping out Shadow Games against random people in Season Zero (the Toei anime before the one more widely known), but he stops doing this when the 'real' Yu-Gi-Oh anime starts. In that anime, his sadism magically vanishes, and seeing as the stakes are quite high in Shadow Games, he really doesn't have a reason to. |
| 125 | ** If you've taken the time to read the original manga, you'd know that he was still creating Shadow Games during Duelist Kingdom. The reason he stops doing them after that arc is actually explained. Pegasus says there's an evil presence within all of the Millennium Items and Dark Yuugi, not knowing who he really is, wants to dissociate himself from that as best as he could. Which is why he didn't give Pegasus a Penalty Game and stops initiating Shadow Games entirely. This, of course, has nothing to do with how he could have initiated his own Shadow Games with less lethal punishments to keep the antagonists from initiating theirs. Also, the "Season Zero" and "Duel Monsters" anime distinction only exists in the anime because those were two different and otherwise unrelated adaptations of the same source manga, which had no disconnection between the two "eras". |
| 126 | ** Yugi kind of pulled the leash on Yami after killing too many people. He grew a pair, slapped him on the nose and told him No. |
| 127 | *** That's really English dub only. In the manga, Yugi never tells him not to Penalty Game anyone. Yami had already stopped physically hurting anyone at this point since that was a s0 thing, and he only did it when his opponent was threatening bodily harm to him or his loved ones outside a tournament/game situation e.g. the gunman holding Anzu at gunpoint, Joey's old gang threatening to electrocute him to death, the gang threatening Hanasaki are mostly the only people who are hurt physically. |
| 128 | ** Who says Shadow Games have to be sadistic? If you know your opponent will invoke a "loser dies/is banished to the Shadow Realm" Shadow Game, why not invoke your own and make it a bit less painful? Keep the consequences of losing, but nothing else. |
| 129 | ** I'm pretty sure that the entire idea around Shadow Games is that they're sadistic. In order for a Shadow Game to be played I believe players have to pay up something dear to them. If a bet placed in a Shadow Game would be something like loads of cash or anything, they could just as easily play a normal game with the same rules. |
| 130 | ** Also, in the manga, he still continues to mind crush people, and he plays a bunch of Shadow Games during the Duelist Kingdom arc. Though mind crushing kinda exists in the anime, it's quite toned down. |
| 131 | ** As previously stated, in the manga Yami Yuugi is quite fond of mindfucking people, but that diminishes. So, what I think happened is that Yami still has the ability to create Shadow Games, but he chooses not to use it because either Yuugi asked him to stop it (the consequences are sometimes worse than death, after all, and Yuugi was probably horrified off-screen when he found out what happened to Yami's previous victims), or because Yami doesn't want to endanger Yuugi, seeing as how the latter almost died when they dueled against Pegasus and was also used as a sacrifice in their duel against Marik. |
| 132 | *** Don't be so sure about Yuugi being horrified. This is manga-only, but anybody remember those collectable fighter monsters that the bully was beating everyone up for? It's pretty early in the series, and before this there's effectively no evidence to suggest that Yuugi knows that the other Yuugi exists other than that weird series of blackouts - which says nothing. However, in this arc, after he gets his toy stolen, he asks a classmate if he can borrow his, and goes looking for a fight. Effectively he's asking the other Yuugi to come out and lay the smackdown out on the bully, and has noticed that Bad Things happen to people a lot of the time in these situations. |
| 133 | *** Actually, that is in volume 6 of the manga, and it is in volumes 4-5 during the DEATH-T arc that Yuugi admits to Jounouchi and Anzu that he suspects the existence of his other self/the Pharaoh's spirit[[note]]Shadi actually clues Yuugi in as early as the last chapters of volume 2, telling Yuugi to "discover your other self"[[/note]]. Also, at the end of the DEATH-T arc Yuugi remarks that, for once, he can remember everything that happened. So, by the time the Monster Fighter chapters happen, Yuugi is having fewer blackouts and seems to have some idea of what his other self/the Pharaoh's spirit is capable of. In fact, several chapters in volume 6 almost give the feeling that Yuugi is indirectly asking his other self/the Pharaoh's spirit for help when he finds himself in over his head, both as a demonstration of the growing trust between them and as Yuugi's fulfillment of his declaration in volume 5 that he "won't be afraid of the Other Me anymore." |
| 134 | ** To go further into detail, he still dishes out Penalty Games in Duelist Kingdom that are as equally "sadistic" as the first seven volumes of the manga, but stops after Pegasus says that the Millennium Puzzle has an evil will because if he were to continue to do so he would prove Pegasus's words correct. Most of the confusion regarding the shift between the personalities of early Dark Yugi and the one seen in the second series anime is the result of AdaptationDecay and FanDumb regarding the supposed connection between the Toei series and Duel Monsters series. Unfortunately, a lot of people have only seen the anime and never gave the manga a chance, which is why confusion like this occurs. |
| 135 | ** Because Shadow Games are generally equal in terms of punishment for losing, Yami Yugi probably figured he could just win the Shadow Game his opponent created, rather than wasting any of his own magic or effort summoning his own Shadow Game. |
| 136 | *** That's the whole problem, they're not equal, otherwise why would his opponents always create them? Yugi never WANTS a shadow game made by the enemy, he only wants to not lose one. The best case is that there are no rules to the game itself and the loser loses their soul (something he doesn't want to happen to either player so no victory there). At worst, the enemy puts in some extra rule that ALWAYS affects the protagonist more than himself. Sure a rule like "everyone here goes into their favorite card" is technically fair, but Bakura didn't care about his other half whereas Yugi both does care about his friends and has more friends to lose in the cards. Sure, both Yugi and Pegasus lose energy to maintain monsters but Yugi is younger and less able to handle it. He is ALWAYS at a disadvantage in a shadow game so it often doesn't make sense why he wouldn't create one just to block the enemy from making their own. |
| 137 | ** Sadistic or not, if you were going to be in a duel with one of those Shadow Game maniacs, wouldn't ''you'' prefer a game where the stakes are "a few hours of physical pain" or "develops craving for food you're allergic to" than, say, Marik's "loser has their memory wiped and is banished to an eternal hell"? |
| 138 | ** In the Japanese version; they were Penalty Games and the damage was real. The good Marik turned on his dark side by surrendering and sealing the only shred of his dark side remaining in hell. |
| 139 | * I've just realized something strange; before the Ceremonial Battle, Yugi has to put the seven Millennium Items in the stone, and then the Eye of Wdjat would split his soul apart. Question: If Yami's soul was in the Millennium Puzzle, how'd the Eye of Wdjat separate it from Yugi after he took the Puzzle off? Did Yami's soul somehow detach from the Puzzle and get stuck to Yugi? |
| 140 | ** I've always seen it as this: When the puzzle was in pieces for all those thousands of years, Yami's soul was somehow stuck inside it. Then, when Yugi solved the puzzle for the first time, Yami's soul took up residence in Yugi's own body, and the puzzle's main purpose was to then serve as a conduit through which they could switch who was in control of the body, as is what happens when Yami takes over for a duel or whatever else is going on. That explains why in both the manga and dub, when the puzzle is stolen Yugi has to get it back himself without any help from Yami, because it seems like he ''can't'' get Yami's help without the puzzle. Strangely, the Japanese anime makes it seem like they COULD change places, but Yami doesn't want to because he senses Malik watching, although he doesn't know who Malik is at the time. Supporting the manga and dub version of this, however, is a second earlier theft of the puzzle in the manga. One of Yugi's classmates steals the puzzle while Yugi is in gym class, and challenges Yugi to a shadow game of the Chinese game Dragon Cards. Yugi loses, and before the dragon rips out his soul, he grabs the puzzle from his classmate's neck. Then Yami takes over and says "Just in time... if I hadn't snatched the puzzle back my soul would have been entombed in darkness...." This implies that if Yugi hadn't grabbed the puzzle, Yami's soul would have been stuck in Yugi's body but unable to control the body, and therefore unable to challenge the classmate to a rematch and rescue Yugi's soul. |
| 141 | ** Another question: The first season uses spirit projections in some mental realm to visually represent the discussions between Yugi and Yami. The second season does mostly the same, but it's outside the mental realm and in the real world. Still projections, but still just a way of visualizing.\ |
| 142 | However, one instance during that arc changes this: Yugi, as a projection, picks up the Red Eyes Black Dragon card. After Battle City comes the Doma arc. From there, projections become 'solid' enough to cause physical action; e.g., Yugi pushing away Yami to sacrifice himself or, later, Yami having a spirit-projection duel with a spirit-duel disk against the real Leviathan. The latter is just as weird as it sounds.\ |
| 143 | I could say that the oddities of the Doma arc are from its status as filler, so it doesn't have the same continuity as the manga. But what of Yugi's projection picking up the very real Red Eyes card? |
| 144 | *** Maybe when Yami and Yugi are seen in spirit form, they've actually become some sort of poltergeist? |
| 145 | ** And another question, sort of triggered by the Doma arc: simply put, it's been stated multiple times that Yami can't exist without Yugi, yet he does fine without him when Yugi sacrifices himself for the Seal of Orichalcos. Why? |
| 146 | *** Because Yami's original body is dead, if Yugi actually DIES then so does Yami because he's got nothing to fall back on. Yami Malik himself says so in their duel. He thinks to himself that if he wipes out Yugi's soul in the Shadow Game, it will kill both Yugi and Yami, but if they wipe out his good half, he will still remain. Yami is able to survive because Yugi is simply held captive and his soul is not in his body. Yugi's not actually ''dead'' when he gets captured by the Orichalcos. |
| 147 | *** This actually has precedent in the Manga - see how Yami Yugi was able to beat the Chinese Dragon Cards after Yugi's soul got sucked into a pot. |
| 148 | *** Although if you mean how Yami is mentally/emotionally unable to exist without Yuugi, then that's true; WordOfGod once stated that Yami really was insane when he first came out of the puzzle, but changed as time went by and he interacted with Yuugi. So, seeing as how Yami represents the 'darkness' of a whole soul, if you take out the 'light' (Yuugi), then Yami would have no one to balance him anymore, and would most likely be driven insane eventually, as evidenced in Doma in the duel against Weevil. |
| 149 | *** The fact that Weevil tells Yami [[BlatantLies he has the card with Yuugi's soul in it]], then rips up said card (effectively KILLING Yuugi if the expression on Yami's face is anything to go by) in front of Yami, [[KicktheDog then laughs and says it was a completely different card]] and he doesn't even have Yuugi's soul with him, might have had ''something'' to do with [[RoaringRampageofRevenge pushing Yami over the edge]] during that duel... you know, what with [[BerserkButton how well Yami seems to take the idea of Yuugi being hurt at all]]. |
| 150 | * The Millenium puzzle is supposed to be the most powerful of the Millenium Items. Therefore, the wish made on it, for friends that would never betray him, should not be able to be broken by other Millenium Items. However, Marik uses the rod to force Jounouchi to betray Yugi, and Bakura uses the ring to force Honda/Tristan to. |
| 151 | ** Friends that would never betray them means just that. The puzzle won't magically keep them loyal, they are loyal because that's the kind of people they are. And they are NOT the same people while possessed. |
| 152 | ** When Atem takes control of Yugi, he becomes a completely different person than Yugi was. |
| 153 | * Okay, this is a minor one, but if Shadi was actually Hassan, then what's up with Shada? Twin brother? Red herring to mislead people about Shadi's true identity? |
| 154 | ** Might be a red herring, since Shadi says he was killed by Bakura all those years ago, and they carried the same Millenium item, which would lead people to think this was Shadi, but then his true identity as Hasan is revealed later? |
| 155 | * The items are supposed to be made of gold, right? This being the case, I have no idea how half of them are even usable, and how Yuugi does not strangle himself and/or break his little neck every time the puzzle swings a little. Gold is ''heavy''; if we're assuming that the items are made of solid gold, than there's probably at least a liter and a half of gold in that puzzle. Given what gold weighs, the minimum is roughly 60lbs/30kg. It is possibly a great deal more! If the puzzle's box is also solid gold, then depending on how much gold you say is in the box and puzzle combined, that could be close to 100lbs of gold, that tiny little Yuugi grabs and hauls around with no visible effort. And you can't tell me that having several pounds of gold hanging out in your eyesocket wouldn't be massively uncomfortable, or even dangerous. |
| 156 | ** The Millenium puzzle is hollow. |
| 157 | *** I've actually seen inconsistencies in the various scenes where the puzzle is being put together or taken apart. Sometimes it looks hollow[[note]]Ex: when Yuugi first solves it in the manga[[/note]], other times it seems solid[[note]]Ex: when Yuugi rebuilds the puzzle in that fire between the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City arcs[[/note]]. Also, in the Memory World arc all the Egyptians call it the Millennium ''Pendant'', not the ''Puzzle'', which implies that, hollow or not, the Millennium Puzzle was originally one seamless item that only became broken up into puzzle pieces as a result of Atem sealing himself and Zork inside it. |
| 158 | ** The Puzzle and all the other Items are [[AWizardDidIt magical artifacts]]. It wouldn't be surprising if [[FunctionalMagic making the item easy to carry around]] were on the list of RequiredSecondaryPowers for all the Items. |
| 159 | ** Forget the items, what about all that gold the Pharaoh runs around wearing during Memory World?? Although, if he's strong enough to run around on a horse and fend off some of Thief Bakura's ghoul squad with a sword while wearing all that, it does explain how he's able to pull off what appears to be [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower an 8-foot vertical leap in the Capsule Monsters spin-off]].... |
| 160 | *** It could just be gold leaf jewelry. Would be TruthInTelevision, as the Ancient Egyptians were known to make gold leaf and coat important objects in it, jewelry being among that. As for the Millennium Items, probably pure gold still. |
| 161 | ** It's not ''just'' pure gold: [[ComicallyMissingThePoint it's a gold/]][[NaziGold blood sacrifice alloy.]] |
| 162 | * Atem is associated with darkness and Horus. Horus was a god of the sky and the sun. Why? |
| 163 | ** Horus also represents the current Pharaoh, and embodies the sun and the moon. Also, the eye of Horus was crafted by the moon deity Khonsu. Horus is also known as the Ultimate Victor. And Ra kinda tops the whole Sun thing, so it's still fitting to associate Atem with such. |
| 164 | * Regarding the infamous "finger guns"...did they ''really'' have to censor the pistols entirely? Other anime that aired around the same time were able to get away with having real fire arms (the only exception being the infamous "Disco Guns" from ''Gundam [=SEED=]''), and even in ''Digimon'', at least one Digimon who was a walking firearm was able to avoid getting censored. So why cut the guns at all? |
| 165 | ** Digimon was dubbed by Saban. Yugioh was dubbed by 4Kids, and 4Kids kind of had a huge reputation for altering its imported shows. |
| 166 | * The Millennium Eye, I get that Pegasus can't disqualify himself, but isn't it basically full on cheating to have an eye that can literally see what cards the opponent is going to use? it's the magic equivalent of having a camera positioned over your opponents shoulder and a tablet connected to it in your lap. |
| 167 | ** It is. But it doesn't matter since Pegasus owns the Duel Monsters card game and his brand of cheating is reliant on ancient magic that can't be detected by regular people, if they even believe it to begin with. |
| 168 | ** Duel Monsters clearly [[AintNoRule did not have rules forbidding the usage of ancient Egyptian magic (or laser beams)]]. Considering that most of the monsters ''are'' ancient Egyptian magic, enforcing such a rule would be infeasible at best. |
| 169 | * How did Ancient Egypt in here get conquered if they had actual gods and magic? Did the rest of the ancient world have their own magic like [[Anime/MetalFightBeyblade Moses with his Beyblade]]? |
| 170 | ** Considering things like the Dragon Cards are artifacts with similar abilities to the Egyptian magic stuff and are Chinese in origin, this could literally be the case. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Duel Monsters]] |
| 174 | * The writers really aren't consistent when they compare Exodia and the 3 gods in terms of size and power. In battle city, the gods are larger than skyscrapers, whereas Exodia is about 3 times the height of a grown man. (We never get a full body shot, but he's probably smaller than the Gods). Isis tells Kaiba that Obelisk is stronger than Exodia. In the Millennium World arc of the manga and the Dawn of the Duel arc of the anime, it's drastically different. In both versions, Zorc dwarfs the gods in size and power. Exodia has now gotten much taller. In the anime, he's about a head taller than Zorc, whereas in the manga Exodia's torso is equal to zorc in height (Exodia's legs are underground, so he's about twice as tall as zorc here.) He's also described as being "just stronger than Zorc" which would mean that Exodia is stronger than all 3 Egyptian Gods combined. In GX, Exodia's height changes between scenes, due to shoddy animation. Exodia is once again called the ultimate creature who is more powerful than that era's gods, the Sacred Beasts. However, Exodia is always defeated because of a flaw in his owner (Adrian's lack of confidence, Shimon's old age, Rare Hunter's stupidity), so it may all depend on who's using him. |
| 175 | ** On that note, is Exodia supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy? He has the face of a bad guy, but he's associated with Yugi and he fights Zorc in season 5. In GX and Battle City, he is portrayed as evil. Maybe it depends on his user. |
| 176 | *** Well, he ''is'' called 'the Forbidden One'. Using Exodia under any circumstance is probably obscenely dangerous for some reason. Why else would he be the only monster broken into five pieces? |
| 177 | ** Exodia may be like pre-demonization Seth: immensely powerful and nominally on the good guys' side, but also not a guy you can fully trust and liable to turn on you if you don't show proper respect or provoke him (like Osiris did by seducing Seth's ''wife''. That's why Seth killed and dismembered him and threw the pieces all around Egypt). And given how little Exodia is used in the series and that his cards even got thrown in the sea, he may be ''pissed''. |
| 178 | ** Exodia is more likely a reference to Osiris, the Egyptian pharoah-god who was said to bring about civilization and is now more famous as the ruler of the land of the dead. The original name of the archetype is roughly translated as ''Sealed''. For lore purposes, he was so powerful that it took the power of all the other Duel Monsters to seal him, and even then it required him to be split into five pieces. As for his size, it is a thing about YourSizeMayVary, mainly for thematic purposes. Exodia being gigantic when used by an enemy duelist was to emphasize the David vs Goliath style of conflict. For Zorc vs Exodia, it ''was'' a nerfed Exodia due to only having a single, mortal man to draw power from while Zorc had a virtually limitless power supply. |
| 179 | |
| 180 | * HOW IN THE NAME OF SLIFER THE SKY DRAGON DO YOU EVEN PROGRAM ALL THIS STUFF INTO A CARD GAME?! To summarize one of Yugi's strategies: "I use my Catapult Turtle to shoot my Dragon Knight at your flying castle in order to break its anti-gravity ring, which will make it fall down and squish your monsters who are trapped by your magical shield thingy." Explaining this to someone who doesn't follow the anime got me a really weird look. I actually had a cousin who tried playing like this (ex. "My Graverobber digs a Trap Hole in front of your Castle Wall, which destabilizes it and makes it fall over and squish your Fierce Knight"), and while it was highly entertaining, we wouldn't let him get away with it '''because it was utterly ridiculous'''. It's a '''card game'''. You cannot pull that stuff off in a '''card game'''. |
| 181 | ** That was probably why they changed the rules permanently. (see the JBM entry right above.) This is nothing compared to Season 0, though. Kaiba manages to end a game by SPLITTING THE DUEL FIELD. Another person pwns Yugi with Greek mythology-related cards! |
| 182 | ** ...wait, what are you asking? If the card game itself can allow for it, or if the duel terminals and Duel Disks can actually keep up with it? Because between Kaiba's ruthless work ethic and Pegasus's naked insanity, it'd be really easy to believe that it's been accounted for. |
| 183 | ** That works for Battle City and beyond, when everyone has access to the holographic technology. Then it would work, if you thought of Duel Monsters as actually being a video game that uses cards as controls. But before Duel Disks are released to the public, it seems like unless there is a duel arena around like the ones at Kaiba Land or in that warehouse where Yugi duels Bandit Keith, players have to play Duel Monsters as just cards on a table like we do in real life, and there's no way all the crazy interactions we see in the anime could be printed on the cards (especially when we actually see the cards and they're ''normal monsters''). |
| 184 | ** They say at the beginning of the arc that the game will have "a new set of rules" specifically for Duelist Kingdom. It's never stated that the field/environment advantage thing is the only one. Though, this DOES bring into question how Yami knew about these things. Alternatively, Yami is using the Millennium Puzzle's Screw Destiny ability to make it all happen, so basically, he's cheating and 3000-/5000-year-old magic can influence how technology works. |
| 185 | *** The puzzle does NOT influence duels that way. |
| 186 | ** I feel like I'm the only one who thinks that Yami's not cheating and simply using the holographic dueling system to his advantage. The way I see it, his "insane" strategies such as the one mentioned regarding the Catapult Turtle and Castle of Dark Illusions being used to crush Panik's trapped monsters are a result of two things. First is that the holograms are at the very least programed to simulate some sort of basic physics, since you can't make the movements of holograms look realistic without physics and that's what Kaiba wanted in the manga: realistic holograms. Also, in real-life physics if you drop something heavy (like a book) on something small (like a bug) it gets smashed and killed. So, it makes sense that if you replace the book with a castle hologram and the bug with a monster hologram and drop the castle on the monster, the computer will probably consider the monster to be squished. The second is that I think it's a subconscious holdover from his days as Pharaoh. Back when he was dealing with the shadow games and the ka instead of cards, the monsters ''WERE'' real. And in real life, if you somehow have a castle floating over the enemy and the enemy is trapped with no place to run...then if you make that castle fall, it'll squish your enemies and you'll win the fight. The fact that he's pulling out these strategies that seem so outrageous is, I think, proof that he's actually a much more brilliant strategist than anyone else in the series because everyone else is stuck with the mindset of "cards cannot do that, so I must play like I always have and not try something bold and new." In fact, I felt somewhat disappointed by most of the Battle City rules (although I can see the point of some, such as requiring sacrifices to summon high-level cards) because by having to submit himself to the restrictive Battle City rules, Yami isn't able to play to his full potential. Instead he has to focus more on the "card" aspect and keep himself from even considering some of the tactics he'd otherwise be able to use. Case in point: In Battle City Yami comes close to losing to Malik's puppet with Osiris/Slifer because he has to stick to the rules of the tournament which don't allow him to pull any of those fancy strategies to weaken it. But in the Memory World arc, Bakura is able to defeat Osiris/Slifer very easily after he's damaged the stone slab that houses the ka, causing Osiris/Slifer to weaken while Atem can't "draw more cards" to restore his ka's power. |
| 187 | *** I seem to recall hearing that Duel Monsters would occasionally use a Game Master, much like [=RPGs=], to illustrate various obscure effects, such as [[RocksFallEverybodyDies "Castle of Dark Illusions falls, all monsters underneath are destroyed"]]. |
| 188 | ** In Duelist Kingdom, the rules appear to be that anything goes. The person who is most creative at bsing their way to plausible-sounding rules or actions (THE MOON RAISES THE SEA!! OH YEAH, WELL I ATTACK THE MOON!!) is the winner. Between Kaiba and Pegasus, they probably just ran about every conceivable action that any given card could be put through, and then let some of them combine. Besides, it looks cooler, and this way Yami can bs his way to victory in impressive ways. |
| 189 | ** It's valid by the rules, as well. If all the effects worked in the game, Gaia, the Dragon Champion's attack power is 2600 and Catapault Turtle can sacrifice one monster for half the damage. Panik's were less than 400, and the effect would have caused 1300 pts of direct damage, winning the duel. |
| 190 | *** As with anything, the early chapters/episodes were written BEFORE the card game was fully codified, and in many cases, the cards even created. |
| 191 | ** To sum it up: MST3KMantra. |
| 192 | * Okay, how does Mai's perfume trick work? I mean, fine, I can accept that she can distinguish cards by their smells when they are close to her. (Which is why Jonouchi being able to smell the cards makes a bit more sense in the manga, considering that they're actually sitting together in a small box with barely a meter between them.) But how in the hell did she manage to fool Dinosaur Ryuzaki? Even assuming that he didn't notice the smell (probably assumed she was wearing perfume), how could she possibly smell which card HE picked up? I know, of all things that could possibly bug me about Yu-Gi-Oh... but still, I don't get it. She's not [[Literature/{{Perfume}} Grenouille]]. |
| 193 | ** That's not how her trick works. She doesn't know what card her opponent drew, she just makes them think she does. By playing her own cards by smell instead of by sight, she convinces her opponent that she's psychic, and thus makes them doubt their own strategies, meaning they never try them, meaning they start floundering, meaning they're easy pickings. |
| 194 | *** Yes, but at the beginning of the Duelist Kingdom arc, when she's on the ship with Rex, she asks him to shuffle her cards and draw, and then she tells him which cards he drew, right? Of course, she did it only to confuse him, but still. How did she smell it from that distance? When she draws herself, she might subtly wave the card a bit, so that she can get the smell right, but when someone else draws for her? I get what the purpose of the trick is, I'm just not sure how it actually works. |
| 195 | *** Considering that they expect us to believe that she can actually discern different scents in a deck where each card has been sprayed with a different fragrance and then shuffled together I would say that smelling the cards from a distance is hardly the least believable aspect of it. Maybe she has the super sniffing powers. |
| 196 | *** You're right. Also, how in the hell does the smell stay? It has been established that the cards are pretty waterproof. (Exodia in the water, Yugi's cards in the river in season 4... the real cards would be ruined.) If you spray those cards, they might smell for a while, but wouldn't it just fade pretty quickly, because the perfume would stay on the surface? I have just tried it out on a piece of plastic, and I can barely smell the perfume anymore. And if the cards weren't waterproof, she would probably ruin them by spraying them with perfume, unless she applied the perfume with a tissue, in which case the smell wouldn't be nearly as strong. |
| 197 | *** To further add to the impossibility, anyone who actually owns a decent number of perfumes knows that they often contain similar ingredients to one another (such as vanilla, which is in most perfumes). Once the perfume has dried and faded a bit, sometimes the only thing you can pick out is that one particular ingredient. Meaning that after maybe ten minutes, all of Mai's cards would start to smell the same unless she has very unique perfumes. And as someone already pointed out, the cards have been rubbing up on each other, too... |
| 198 | *** Something to consider, Mai doesn't have to memorise 30 different scents, she only needs different scents for different cards, duplicates would get the same scent. Now consider that her Duelist Kingdom deck is largely made up of duplicates of the same cards (her Harpy Lady combo plus support) and her trick becomes much easier to pull off. |
| 199 | ** I always figured that Mai was unconsciously using the Heart of the Cards. The first time it worked, she thought it was the perfume that did it, and has had no reason to suspect otherwise. Either that or she didn't want to believe in mystical energies from a ''children's card game'' of all things. |
| 200 | ** Sadly, it didn't help against Marik, who literally chained her to a tablet and let Ra loose on her. |
| 201 | *** Fridge Brilliance: Mai actually does very well in that duel until she tries to play Ra, Ra is not her card and the Heart of the Cards wouldn't apply to it, if anything it would punish her. |
| 202 | * Let me make this simple: How the Hell can holograms cause explosions, knockback, wind, etc. outside of Shadow Games? |
| 203 | ** HardLight? |
| 204 | ** GX and onwards refer to the holograms as "Hard Light", a fictional technology that adds a slight level of physical depth to the holograms. Also 5Ds explains this with "Momentum" ("Ener-D" in the dub, "Feel" in the manga, and "Sense" in the English translation of the manga), which is an energy that is emitted when dueling that carries over your emotional intent in the impact, creating a type of sensation over the opponent. |
| 205 | ** Probably because the anime is over-the-top. I think in the manga version, the holograms are not as dangerous as the anime version. In fact, in Yugioh GX manga, it is implied that the players just act it up. In the manga, when Manjoume collapsed after getting direct attacked, his schoolmates (who were unaware that Manjoume was playing a shadow game instead of a regular duel and thus felt the pain) were surprised because Manjoume was not the type of person that "acted during duels". Note that the manga Manjoume is stoic and quiet, basically a total opposite to his loony anime counterpart. |
| 206 | ** RuleOfCool. Would you rather watch 30 minutes of players going "*fingersnap* Awww, nuts" when they lose life, or going "OH SHIT!!" as they see an explosion coming to knock them off a rickety rope bridge into a [[EverythingsBetterWithRainbows giant pit of rainbow anti-matter]]? In-universe, though, the explanation seems to be that Solid Vision's name comes at least in part from the fact that the holograms ''are'', in fact, somehow related to actual matter. |
| 207 | ** It probably has something to do with a minor form of gravity manipulation through light. Light is made up of photons, which have properties of both a wave and a particle at the same time. Space and time are relative, and the closer to light speed a particle travels, the greater the distortion is. Einstein's theories of relativity state that gravity is nothing more than a distortion of the fabric of space-time. Thus, if light particles can distort time, they also distort space, and can potentially alter gravity. It seems reasonable then, that the explosions, knockback, wind, and other various effects produced by the "Solid Vision" holograms may be caused by minor gravity fields generated by the holograms. |
| 208 | *** Holograms do not work that way (and light in general doesn't work that way either). |
| 209 | *** When you say light doesn't work "that way" do you mean that light doesn't distort space-time? Because if that is your meaning, I think [[http://www.physorg.com/news63371210.html this guy]] would like to have a word with you. |
| 210 | ** I have always assumed it was some little fan thingy built into the duel disk itself. Take damage and you get a face full of air. |
| 211 | ** Forget explosions, how can holographic suits of armour allow two 17-year-olds to jump 30 feet in the air, punch each other, and have one fall back to the ground unharmed while the other flies down? |
| 212 | *** The Seal of Orichalcos makes everything in the game real. |
| 213 | *** No, all the Seal did was allow them to summon monsters from the other realm in place of their monsters. Joey and Vallon's armour, though? Those were advanced machines that would have no counterparts back then. So unless they had highly advanced computers fighting in the Dragon war as well.... |
| 214 | *** And that doesn't explain how Valon could do it when he went 1-on-2 with Rebecca and Duke without the Seal. |
| 215 | *** Both Valon and Joey have, at some point, been shown to be pretty good fighters. If anyone human did what they did, it was them (and Tristan) that were more suited to doing so. |
| 216 | *** And how about Pegasus' toon monsters, for instance? A good guess would be that Dartz, with his [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney money and power]], had the initiative to create any card he or his minions desired, which is the only logical explanation for all of the Orichalcos related cards. |
| 217 | *** Only real Duel Monsters cards (and the Ghouls' amazing forgeries) work in real Duel Disks, but Dartz' crew ''doesn't use real Duel Disks'' -- they have weird quasi-organic-looking ones that can accept any card Dartz devises. The real question is why Yuugi is able to use the Seal in his authentic Disk; shouldn't it reject it with "Card not recognized"? It's not even a counterfeit of a real card; there's no "Seal of Orichalcos" in Duel Monsters, let alone any of the specialty cards. Yet there's an entire fold-out ''hatch'' for these cards no one has ever heard of before. |
| 218 | *** That fold-out hatch is for Field Spells. And clearly Duel Disks are the Master Input Port to the card database. Encountered card not found in database? Upload information. If, later, card found to be a fake/custom, delete and flag against use future duels. Meaning the Seal and and the 3 Legendary Dragons can be reprinted later by Kaiba. (Because why the fuck WOULDN'T he want to reproduce the Dragon cards? He said they're individually as powerful as the 3 Gods combined.) |
| 219 | *** If the Duel Disks could detect counterfeit cards, how did Rare Hunter summon Exodia's head in his duel against Yugi? As far as I remember, Rare Hunter's Exodia Pieces were counterfeit in the original. |
| 220 | *** Dartz's company is mentioned as owning a piece of most of the companies in the world. It's not far-fetched to think he'd program the Seal in as a contingency plan. And the duel disks don't detect fakes, but simply don't register cards that they don't know exist. |
| 221 | * Why do people continue with these tournaments even though you have people going into comas when they lose matches? Is there no regulatory committee for this sort of thing? |
| 222 | ** That only happens when some damn supervillains show up. And they only go after people with some connection to Millennium Items and the associated plot devices. The average player doesn't seem to have a problem worse than run-of-the-mill cheating. |
| 223 | ** Not to mention that, in Battle City, Kaiba was so focused on getting the God cards he was prepared to leave Ishizu in Domino after the Gods were all on board. |
| 224 | ** It's even {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the Kaibacorp Grand Prix arc during Jounouchi's match with Sieg. Honda points out that Jounouchi is playing terribly, and suggests maybe it's because, for once, the stakes are negligible. |
| 225 | * How is it that if a character is given a card before a duel, they WILL draw that card in the duel even though, if they are using 40 card decks and the duels last about 5 turns, meaning they draw about 10 cards, there would only be a 1 in 4 chance of them drawing that particular card? |
| 226 | ** It's very simple: Dramatic Convenience: Just like (Sorry to say) my example above with the whole blimp thing as annoying and unrealistic as these things are it's simply so Takashi can create drama. If they didn't get the card, there would be no reason to introduce it. |
| 227 | *** Similar to TheCaseyEffect in movies. Not to mention that [[VillainsActHeroesReact the antagonists draw the hands they need beforehand in order to create said conflict]]. |
| 228 | *** See: TheMagicPokerEquation |
| 229 | ** Also keep in mind that one can have up to 3 copies of most cards. It seriously increases the chances of drawing the one you need if there are 3 in the deck. |
| 230 | * Why are there so many contradictory titles? Weevil's the Japanese champion, but the Japanese Kaiba is the best duelist in the world? Bandit Keith, an American, is the intercontinental champion (which is the same as world, but he and Kaiba have supposedly never had a match), but Rebecca Hawkins is the #1 American duelist? And not a single Rare Hunter or member of Paradius has a ranked title, despite both groups having triple copies of every single card in the game? |
| 231 | ** In the manga, Duel Monsters game was relatively unknown in Japan when Kaiba and Yugi had their first and second duels. While Kaiba was mentioned as the best player in the country, there was not much competition in Japan. Due to the mind crush Yami Yugi inflicted, Kaiba was in coma for a whole year, during which, Duel Monsters game became very popular in Japan, competitions started to be held, and Weevil became the champion. In the manga, the reason why Kaiba Corp. was going to be taken over by Pegasus and why Kaiba was not invited to Duel Kingdom was because he was still in coma with no sign of recovery. Kaiba didn't recover until after Duel Kingdom was halfway done. |
| 232 | *** About Rebecca, the way I see it: Bandit Keith was the American champion, but after losing to Pegasus, he stopped taking part on official tournaments and only played for gambling, time of which the national tournament, which suposelly happens once per year, took place again, this time with Rebecca as the winner and thus gaining the right of calling herself "#1 American duelist", it is possible that the American tournament concluded shortly after the end of Duelist Kingdom, so Keith still held the title when he first appeared |
| 233 | ** Weevil was the Japanese champion because he won a recent tournament that Kaiba and Yugi weren't participating in. Keith is the former U.S. champ, and Rebecca is the current one. |
| 234 | ** Re: Keith - Intercontinental is not the same as worldwide. It just means he's the champion of a tournament that spanned at least two continents. |
| 235 | * I have a problem with the fact that sometimes people will withold information about their in-play cards. There are a fair number of times when someone will announce something along the lines of "When you attack my monster, its special ability activates!" and their opponent, and the crowd watching will be stunned to learn these facts. |
| 236 | ** Perhaps they simply assume the other player knows what the card does? |
| 237 | ** Alternatively, it's because describing in detail the function of every single card you play is incredibly annoying for your opponent. I know this from experience. |
| 238 | *** But, as Duel Monsters is usually played in series with Duel Disks/stadiums at a distance sometimes it's impossible to check a card's text, and players seem to be explicitly hiding what should be publicly available information, which is against the rules in every card game known to man. At the very least, whenever a character sees an effect monster they don't know, they're demonstrating extremely bad play by not even asking what it does. Ra is perhaps the prime example of this, since it has new random powers in every duel it's used in that consistently suprise everyone around it, and since the text on it isn't in English everyone seems to pretty much have to take Marik's word for what it does. Even Kaiba, who owns and maintains the program that supposedly admins card effects/damage/life points, is stumped analyzing the card. |
| 239 | *** Maybe Kaiba Corp. makes the system, but Industrial Illusions is the one filling in the card database and making the holograms? |
| 240 | *** From a pure scriptwriting standpoint, it's so the monsters' abilities can be demonstrated without them just saying it. You could have the villain saying "My monster will kill you if you attack it, so don't even try", or you could have it actually happen. In-universe, it's probably that effect monsters' effects are treated like traps, so you don't have to reveal it until its time to use it -- at that time, its effect is verified by the hardware, so as to avoid any cheating (remember, if the disk registers a bad move, it will lock up and skip your turn). A card could only do more than was intended once, and even then they needed to actually rewrite the code for the card on every level. All other times, all effects were apparently legit -- including Jinzo's rust-proofing, Mystical Elf's ability to give the BEWD its power, and everything Ra did. |
| 241 | ** Also keep in mind that in the Franchise/YuGiOh-verse, to be a good player, you need to know pretty much what every card in the game does by heart. The ones in your hand have text written on them (in the original version), and it's assumed that you've read your cards before starting to play, because it would be really annoying if every other turn, your opponent stopped to read the effect. And still, If I recall correctly, there are a couple of instances where somebody says (or thinks) something among the lines of, "Heh, good thing you have no idea what your own card does, or I'd be dead now." I think that Jounouchi is the victim of this mostly, what with his Time Wizard having so many "surprising" effects. And there are just as many cases of somebody with an effect monster laying a pretty obvious trap - if you know what the effect is! Usually, Jounouchi attacks, and while his monster flies towards the opponent's monster, Yugi goes all, "NOOOOO!" but it's too late, and the opponent reveals the monster's hidden effect. So, in a way, knowledge actually is half the battle. |
| 242 | ** At least in the official game, public knowledge rules allow you to read any card your opponent has in play whenever you want, as long as that card is face-up (to vastly simplify things). Presumably, the same rule is in effect in the series, and most players are either so arrogant, or so used to just facing normal monsters, that they don't think to ''ask'' if their opponent's monster has an effect. |
| 243 | * How do they decide who goes first half the time? It seems like who ever just says 'MY TURN, DRAW!' gets to open up the match. |
| 244 | ** Maybe the duel disks randomly select who goes up first. |
| 245 | ** Presumably, there's a coin flip or game of rock-paper-scissors like there would be in real life, and they just skip over that because it's boring and doesn't affect the story. |
| 246 | ** The coin-flip dosen't matter at all in Yugioh.. |
| 247 | * What is up with the Duel Disks? They way they work is very inconsistent at times. For example, when Joey summons Red Eyes against the Rare Hunter, the card appears, then he sacrifices the 2 monsters and the Dragon comes out of the card, later on, players sacrifice the monsters, they disappear, then they summon the high-level monster, and finally, near the end, when they appear in Egypt, they put in their ace monster, which is of a high level, and it just appears in monster form without tributes. What? Maybe the sacrifice worked differently when Joey took on the Rare Hunter because it was the first time Joey played his high-level monster, so its card form appeared as though to tell him he needed the sacrifices, but the Egypt example is going way too far. Did the Duel Disks recognize they were in Ancient Egypt and adjusted themselves to the rules of 3000/5000 years ago or something? |
| 248 | ** Weren't the duel disks a product of their imagination? But I think it also happens outside of duels, season 4 for example. Okay, the anime is not the most reliable source, but it leads me to believe that there are different modi. Presumably, there's the duel-mode that basically follows the rules, and a "just for fun" mode where you can basically just throw any card on the disk and have it materialise. |
| 249 | *** Yes, in the Millennium World arc the Duel Disks were just imaginary constructs. In Season 4 the Duel Monsters are all made real by the power of the Orichalcos, so if they summon something outside of a duel they're using the disks as some sort of conduit to summon the actual spirits of the monsters and not dueling. |
| 250 | *** The Duel Disks would kind of have to have some kind of testing mode that just projects images without requiring a duel to be going on. Leaving that available to the consumer as some kind of "play hologram" mode would be a great marketing concept (and, considering how much {{Fanservice}} is in the game, probably sell a whole lot of Duel Disks to {{Hikikomori}}). |
| 251 | *** In the battle with Leviathan there's no duel going on, yet Yuugi, Kaiba, and Jounouchi still place cards on their Duel Disks to summon their monsters. |
| 252 | *** This can probably be {{Hand Wave}}d as ancient Egpytian magic (patent pending), considering they're fighting a soul-stealing magic entity with magic knights that sometimes happen to be dragons sealed into magic spells. |
| 253 | *** They don't need to use the Duel Disks to summon the actual legendary Dragons from the cards (Yugi just holds up his that first night, after all), they're just doing it out of habit. |
| 254 | ** As for the changes in the summoning graphics, this could have just been a user-interface patch made to the Duel Disk software to make it clearer to players that the tributing comes before the monster is summoned. |
| 255 | * Who manufactures all these cards InUniverse? |
| 256 | ** Pegasus' company, Industrial Illusions. |
| 257 | *** I mean after Pegasus' death. |
| 258 | *** Well, according to the spin-off ''Manga/YuGiOhR'', Yako Tenma, one of Pegasus' adopted sons takes over. This only applies to the manga as Pegasus survives in the anime |
| 259 | * How exactly was Exodia's effect a mystery at first, I mean I think a few people mentioned that they could never figure out how Exodia works...when how exactly it works should be written right on the main body card. If you want to say the whole "You have all five pieces and you win the game" thing was not written on the card, then if you weren't playing with holograms how exactly would you prove that to your opponent? (Though to be honest as earlier Headscratchers asked, one has to wonder how this game was played without holograms to begin with before Kaiba's revisions.) Or were the pieces themselves quite common but Exodia's head was ridiculously rare to the point few people ever saw one? |
| 260 | ** What was actually said I believe was that Exodia itself was so rare, and Exodia's summoning conditions were so difficult to accomplish that no one could actually do so in a duel until Yugi vs. Kaiba. In the actual game, there are several strategies that facilitate summoning Exodia, but in the anime there are some severe differences that make it much more difficult. For starters, both players start with 2000 life points, a fourth of what the actual card game has, meaning you'll hit zero a lot faster. Furthermore, the original rules, though never explained, seem to work something like: "Turn. Draw. Summon monster/play spell. Turn end." With no attack directly effects in the game, the implication was you would lose if you didn't play anything to defend yourself with on your turn. Since Exodia requires you to gather all five pieces in your hand, you somehow would have to do this while summoning monsters and playing spells to keep you alive. Other than swords of revealing light there aren't many "stall" cards in the original anime the way there are in the actual game, so playing a regular duel WHILE trying to gather all five pieces into your hand borders on impossible. Even the first Rare Hunters' deck, which works to get Exodia together as fast as possible, has neither the speed nor defensive power of real life Exodia decks, even with three copies of each. Add to that how absurdly rare Exodia is (Kaiba never considered it a possibility that Yugi would have such a card, so it must be pretty rare) and it's pretty obvious why no one has really done it. Yugi only summoned it through sheer luck. |
| 261 | * Speaking of Exodia, how are the god cards stronger than him in the rules of the game itself? Would the God Cards just reveal an Exodia negation effect if someone actually tried to play that against someone with a God Card on the field? |
| 262 | ** The God Cards are stronger than Exodia because they're a lot easier to summon and win with. They each require only three tributes, and pretty much win the game when they hit the board. Exodia, on the other hand, needs the player to gather five different cards into his hand before his opponent kills him; so while you would win against a god if you revealed Exodia, the gods are so much easier to summon, and so easily splashed (in the anime at least) that they are leaps and bounds better than Exodia in terms of cost efficiency; winning the game by drawing five different pieces of Exodia just isn't as appealing as simply summoning a monster capable of killing your opponent anyway. |
| 263 | * Why does everyone start with only 4000 LP (2000 up to and including Duelist Kingdom)? The only reason I can think of is "So that Duels can be finished in less than three episodes". However, in Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions, all players are shown to start with 8000 LP. And in the dub, the movie happens about six months after the Atem vs Yugi duel, so it is set in the gap between Duel Monsters and [=GX=]. |
| 264 | * Near the beginning of the manga, Blue-Eyes White Dragon is stated to be [[GameBreaker so strong]] that the creators couldn't bring themselves to print any more than four. If that's the case, ''why is it still seemingly legal for tournament use''? |
| 265 | ** Kaiba mentions he had to bankrupt, threaten and even cause one duelist's suicide in order to obtain these cards in the manga. With that in mind, the implication that they were put out into the world in the first place despite not wanting to print anymore than four suggests that they were likely prize cards in tournaments. Of course, if that were the case then the winners would probably feel ripped off if they weren't tournament legal cards. They wouldn't need to ban them then since only four people in the whole world would have one each, until Kaiba got his hands on them. |
| 266 | * With a series so thoroughly populated by card game enthusiasts, why don't more characters use sleeves? If it's a compatibility issue with the Duel Disk technology, you'd think Kaiba would just [[MegaCorp put his capitalist pants]] on and develop proprietary sleeves that ''are'' compatible. |
| 267 | ** Cards in the anime are shown to be much more durable than their real-life counterparts: see Kaiba hucking them around at Industrial Illusion goons like shuriken. They can still be torn up if you pull at the right places, as seen with Kaiba ripping up the fourth Blue-Eyes, but I would imagine it's sort of like plastic dollar bills - durable enough not to suffer scratch damage but easy to break if you actively try to rip them. With that in mind, sleeves are pretty much pointless. Also, as far as the Duel Disk is concerned, I don't think it's a technological compatibility issue so much as a sizing issue. Cards with sleeves would take up more room than cards that don't, and trying to design the Disk to account for that might prevent the disk from picking up on forms of cheating that involve the weight of the cards or subtle differences in the sleeves. |
| 268 | * Duel Arenas are great and all, but didn't it occur to anyone that they make it ''incredibly easy'' to cheat? You're separated from your opponent by a field, and all you can see of him is his face. What's stopping him from pulling a card out of his clothes or something? In fact, that's exactly what Bandit Keith did, and the only reason he got caught is that Pegasus could read his mind. |
| 269 | ** Plus there's the fact that you can't see your opponent's cards. So how are you supposed to know what the rules written in them say? |
| 270 | *** You can see the opponent's cards, on the little table thing there is a screen showing your opponent's side, probably built in to prevent people cheating by pulling out cards because their opponent's can see what they're doing. |
| 271 | [[/folder]] |
| 272 | |
| 273 | [[folder:Odd duelling choices]] |
| 274 | * Yes, Joey is a CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass, and yes, he acts like a dumbass most of the time, but why does everyone keep insisting that he's weak and that they'll be able to beat him easy-peasy? He came second in Duelist Kingdom and he was a Semi-Finalist in Battle City. Surely that's a clue that maybe, just maybe, he's actually a really good player? Aside from each arc's BigBad, Kaiba, or Yugi, he never lost a single duel. Despite this, he somehow gets a reputation for being a loser. Why is this? |
| 275 | ** Wait, do you mean canon-wise or fandom-wise? Anyway, I think (at least within the fandom) it's because he's not a wielder of a Millennium Item nor has he held an Egyptian God Card. (He did hold one of the legendary dragons, but that was in a filler arc.) Plus, [[OvershadowedByAwesome he's not as big as Kaiba and Yugi]]. [[CantCatchUp His continuing decline in rank]] doesn't help at all, especially since he uses a gamble deck that makes it ''very easy'' for detractors (both in the series and the fandom) to downplay his victories. |
| 276 | *** Of course, said gamble deck is really a smattering of chance cards, which is meant to compensate for his lack of access to [[PowerEqualsRarity rare and powerful cards]]. Said fandom, meanwhile, is likely to take Kaiba's [[BiggerStick beatstick]] ownership for granted as much as Kaiba does and, predictably, treats Joey as he would. |
| 277 | ** Also, he has lost to a lot of minor-level duelists. In order, Tea, Duke Devlin, Seeker (the Exodia rare hunter, Odion (who would have won easily if Marik hadn't forced him to play the fake Winged Dragon of Ra card), and Mai. |
| 278 | *** His loss to Tea/Anzu is before he is properly trained by Yugi's grandpa or even has a remotely playable deck. For Duke, it is originally a random dice game where Duke is exposed by Atem in the manga, that in the anime is changed to a card duel played with draft decks (decks exclusively made up of cards pulled from booster packs on the spot), and Joey narrowly loses, partly due to Duke topdecking the very card he needs to finish him off. Seeker uses an illegal deck loaded with multiples of limited cards, including draw cards such as Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity and, most of all, 3 Exodia sets (which are fakes, at that). Odion does come close, but due to rule differences wouldn't have won if Judgment of Anubis were the same as its RealLife card; Joey plays Giant Trunade, which returns magic/trap cards to the players' hands rather than destroying them, and Anubis only negates the latter case. (Not to mention that Joey was limited more by lack of strong monsters than by skill, or else he would have reduced Odion to 0 outright before Odion got the chance to spring the Temple of the Kings combo.) And Mai a minor duelist? How dare you, sir. |
| 279 | *** You mean similar to how Jinzo was given the new effect of ''destroying'' rather than just negating all trap cards? That wasn't doing Odion any favors either; it left him open to Joey's multiple direct attacks. |
| 280 | *** Wouldn't have made a difference. Embodiment of Apophis is returned to the spell zone it came from and treated as a trap card when its effect is negated, so there wouldn't have been a functional difference for Odion if his traps got destroyed or negated. |
| 281 | *** The only reason Joey ''summons'' Jinzo in the first place is because he uses a two-card combo of Foolish Burial and Graverobber that ''both'' use effects that are completely different from their actual ones. |
| 282 | *** They were given different effects in the manga. Foolish Burial in particular hadn't even debuted yet in the real life card game. |
| 283 | *** Also, Joey would've won against [[BigBad Marik]] if he didn't cheat with Shadow Games. Yes, Joey deserves some more respect. |
| 284 | *** Duke may have been a rewrite, but it's still canon for the anime. He also was participating in a draft duel, which most duelists will agree is the only way to have a level playing field in a battle between a champion who has had his deck rebuilt over and over with rare cards and a noob (which I'll remind you is exactly what that was). Duke may have topdecked Fairy Meteor Crush, but Joey admitted he topdecked Goblin Attack Force, so saying that diminishes his loss is just wrong. Which would mean that Duke really was a good duelist who suffered a case of RedemptionDemotion at the end of that mini-arc. |
| 285 | ** I may be mistaken, but didn't he lose to Mai ''on purpose''? |
| 286 | *** Mai was in position to make the winning move, but when she realized that she didn't actually want to beat Joey, he collapsed, tired from his previous duel, and lost anyway. |
| 287 | * How are these tournaments expected to function? The KC Grand Prix would work, with a set number of contestants and regularly enforced rounds, but Duelist Kingdom and Battle City? There are way too many people in both for it to function properly; Duelist Kingdom would need at most 20 people (4X10 Star Chips means 40, 2 Chips Apiece means 40/2=20) and there were far more than that, and Battle City would require 48 -- more, yes, but still far more than the number shown. |
| 288 | ** And even then, why allow people to just go wandering off? Why not actually make them fight? You know, like an actual tournament. What use does setting them loose in the city serve apart from giving the writers an excuse to put Yugi in a deathtrap? |
| 289 | *** In Battle City, allowing participants to wander off is to give the rare hunters plenty of opportunities to enter the game by stealing the duel disks. Bakura's, Marik's, Ishizu's, and Odion's duel disks are definitely stolen from legitimate participants. The Rare Hunters most likely CANNOT participate legally with the restriction that Kaiba placed (you need to be at least 5 star duelist to get the duel disks required to participate) and most likely WOULD NOT participate if they could not cheat under watch of spectators/judges and whatnot. This would defeat the purpose of holding the tournament to begin with. It's also why the final is held in private. Otherwise, spectators would notice that half of the finalists were not original participants and that many of them were "screwing the rules." |
| 290 | *** But Odion, Marik and the Rare Hunters' duel disks weren't stolen -- each was given to them after the man in charge of handing out Duel Disks edited the information, fabricating their accounts and giving them a spot in the tournament, just like he did for Joey. |
| 291 | *** Well, that wasn't exactly legal either, was it? From a legal standpoint, we'd have to know whether the guy was distributing the names as Kaiba's employee, or has just bought a bunch of disks to distribute, in which case he could do whatever he liked with them. However, given that Kaiba wanted to control the distribution of the disks, it can be assumed that the guy had a contractual obligation to only give out disks to people who are qualified. Changing information and giving disks to peoeple who shouldn't have gotten them does amount to stealing and reset in the cases of the Rare Hunters and Marik. |
| 292 | ** It's explained in the manga before Yugi's duel with the Player Killer of Darkness that there are 40 contestants in Duelist Kingdom, with a total of 80 Star Chips, and the goal of the Player Killers is to take 40 chips from the duelists, with the remaining 40 going to the tournament finalists. (Presumably, the chips that Mokuba stole from Yugi and the unnamed duelist that were knocked into the ocean wound up counted as part of the Killers' 40.) |
| 293 | ** In the manga, the actual number of contestants in battle city seems to be 48. At least, Kaiba says that there are 48 locator cards. In the anime, it's spoken of "hundreds of duelists" if I remember correctly, which makes no sense whatsoever. As for the Duelist Kingdom, maybe it was mostly about who first manages to get 10 starchips (and wasn't there also a time limit?), with the additional "playkillers" as adversaries? Yeah, it really doesn't make any sense. |
| 294 | ** Both tournaments have time limits. Bakura convinced Bonz to wager five Locator Cards against his one because of how close everyone else was to getting the number they need. Once the fourth player enters the castle on Duelist Kingdom (or the eighth player steps on the blimp for battle city), The qualifying roud is over. Have enough points to qualify, but get there too slow? Too bad. |
| 295 | ** Duel disks used in Battle City also have a duelist finder function, which Joey uses in the manga. |
| 296 | * If Kaiba's whole plan was to get powerful cards, why would he ban any cards at all? And then, why is Hinotama considered bannable but Harpie's Feather Duster, the signature broken card, allowable? |
| 297 | ** In this case, I think Kaiba's pride played a big role. Maybe he thought that cards that can reduce lifepoints without any condition are a cheap way to win? |
| 298 | ** Remember that cards have a different level of rarity In Universe than in our world. How many people do we ever see making use of Harpy's Feather Duster? It may be so rare there's no point in banning it. |
| 299 | ** Kaiba's plan was to get the god cards, he likely already owns all the others. |
| 300 | * The field Magic card was invented by Pegasus for the Duelist Kingdom competition. Okay, two major problems. One: Yugi already has the Burning Land card, which is useful only for destroying Field cards. In fact, that's the entirety of what it does in the entire season it is shown. Why did it exist before that? Second major problem: Allister, Raphael, and Valon were all taking peoples souls long before that contest, using the Seal of Orichalcos. How would they even manage to play that card? There wouldn't exist a slot for it. |
| 301 | ** Funny how you ask a question about the Seal of Orichalcos right after the Field Spell question, which the Seal of Orichalcos happens to fall under. About Burning Land, the concepts of Field Spell cards and, as always, many cards like Burning Land, were different from the actual card game, since they were written beforehand. Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom field territory rules were entirely different, so evidently, Burning Land targeted designated areas. |
| 302 | ** In the anime version, there's a field spell zone on the duel mat used in the first-episode duel at school, so presumably field spells did exist- the concept of pre-planned duel boards scattered around the island with different fields active in different zones was what was new. Of course, this doesn't apply to the manga version, which never uses a duel mat and thus never demonstrates that Field Spells exist. |
| 303 | ** Yugi points out right after Weevil's first attack that he was able to guess that Weevil was trying to take advantage of a field boost and so did the same with his own monster since monsters being stronger on different lands was already a known aspect of gameplay. So no, the field power ups weren't made up for that tournament. Heck, Mako's entire deck relies on the field being ocean. |
| 304 | * I think this is anime only, but it still bugs me. It has been established that you need to have the actual fusion monster, which is consistent with real life rules, unless one of the mystical dragons in season 4 is involved. So, for what reason does Yugi carry a card he could ONLY every use in a 2 vs 2 duel with Kaiba? I'm talking about the fusion between Black Luster Soldier and the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. This card cannot be used in any other situation, and unlike other cards that only work under a certain condition, this is no in-game condition. The condition is Kaiba, who's not known for being a team player, to actually have a double duel with you. It just strains the CrazyPrepared trope a bit too much. |
| 305 | ** BLS is a good card on its own (as good as any similar card can be in the anime), so Yugi keeps it around. It being able to fuse with Kaiba's most powerful mon is a bonus. |
| 306 | *** Yes, but why does he actually have a Dragon Master Knight in his deck? |
| 307 | *** Because he has a habit of dueling Kaiba, either with him or against him. A monster that only requires Kaiba's BEUD to die, then a Monster Reborn to use, and has THAT level of power, is well worth using. |
| 308 | ** At the time when the series came out (i.e., before the creation of Synchros) there was no limit to the number of cards you could have in your fusion deck. It would make sense to keep any fusion monster you get your hands on on the off-chance it may be useful -- even if not against Kaiba, a person could use a fusion substitute monster. |
| 309 | ** I know Headscratchers and WMG insists on answering questions that normally are assumed to be {{hand wave}}d, but come on. Fusion Monsters (and Synchros and Xyz) exist in a state of dimensional flux. When Polymerization is activated, the Fusion Monster crosses from the other dimension into this one. If it makes you feel better, just imagine the card creating itself like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4deOQct8rTk what happens in 5D's]]. |
| 310 | *** I'm totally ready to accept that you can just randomly fuse monsters just like that. I'm just not really happy about the fact that it turns out that you need to have a fusion monster card (just talking about the anime here, not the RL TCG). But I accepted the other tropers' reasons for Yugi carrying around that particular card, so I didn't argue further. |
| 311 | ** I think a better question would be, why does Dragon Master Knight ''exist'' in the first place? Even BEUD, which would only ever be played by Kaiba, didn't exist until part-way through Duelist Kingdom, and yet DMK just appears in Yugi's deck with no explanation. Why would anyone print (or, program, whatever) a card that nobody can play and then distribute it publicly rather than send a copy to the one person who ''can'' play it? |
| 312 | *** For why it exists: While we do know that there are only 4 Blue Eyes in existence, we ''don't'' know how many Black Luster Soldiers or Dragon Master Knights there are. It could be that Kaiba got Pegasus to make it prior to the latter taking Mokuba as Kaiba was originally planning on having Dragon Master Knight be ''his'' ultimate monster (it's effect would give it a whopping ''7500'' ATK from, [=DMK=] itself, as well as the 3 Blue Eyes + [=BEUD=] in the graveyard alone; Kaiba is not opposed to using Ritual Monsters as shown by Paladin of White Dragon, and considering how much Kaiba loves dragon-types, he could even get it as high as '''10,000''' ATK if he was lucky enough, so it wouldn't be entirely out of character for him to use it; outside of the Egyptian Gods, the only thing Yugi possessed that would be strong enough to challenge [=DMK=] would be Sorceror of Dark Magic, whose effect could allow him to beat [=DMK=] if he had at least 7 Spellcaster-type monsters in his graveyard[[note]]assuming that all Kaiba had in his graveyard was the 3 Blue Eyes[[/note]] and [=BEUD=], and counting [=DMK=], it would gain 2500 ATK; Sorceror of Dark Magic's anime effect reduces the ATK of any monster it battles by 500 points for each Spellcaster type monster in it's user's graveyard[[/note]]...assuming it's something he has in canon, but never got the chance to use), but the card wasn't finished before Pegasus forced him to come to the tournament, and by the time it would've been ready for him to use, the Egyptian Gods entered the scene (and Obelisk only needs 3 monsters to be summoned, whereas [=DMK=] needs 3-7 to be fused), so he likely set it aside for when he had to team up with Yugi. Or it's more common than [=BEUD=], so Yugi has a copy, but it's a SituationalSword since he doesn't own a [=BEUD=]. |
| 313 | ** While this conversation has been fun I should point out it's pointless as the original statement is false, in the anime you do not need the fusion monster in your hand to play, only the polymerisation card. The fusion just appears once the others have been played. |
| 314 | * After the Three Dragons awaken and destroy the Seal of Orichalcos, why is Dartz still dueling? He played it to steal Yami [[XanatosGambit or his own soul]], so beating him now would be pointless. |
| 315 | ** The best assumption is that Dartz was SO corrupted he didn't ''need'' to activate the Seal to take their souls, that or the Great Leviathan helped with it, it did take his soul at the end. |
| 316 | [[/folder]] |
| 317 | |
| 318 | [[folder:The power of friendship]] |
| 319 | * Why are Yugi and co. so quick to befriend and/or help Kaiba? Following the manga, the majority of their early encounters with him involve kidnapping, theft, and/or attempted murder. Even if we assume that they were willing to start over after Yami Yugi "cleansed Kaiba's darkness" or whatever, that still doesn't explain why they're so comfortable with Mokuba. Have they completely forgotten that he tried to poison Jounouchi/Joey and Yugi? Or that he forced Yugi into a game as part of Death-T where the loser might be terrified into a heart attack? |
| 320 | ** Joey himself [[LampshadeHanging points this out]] in the manga when they arrive at the place where the Duel Tower was, thinking something along the lines of "Well, if you're such a nice guy, why'd you try to kill us with a giant theme park of death?!" I think it's because Yugi is [[IncorruptiblePurePureness quite a forgiving kid]], and his friends just follow his example. Still sucks, though. |
| 321 | ** Also, recall that Mokuba saved Honda's life during Death-T, and called off his older brother's ''gun-wielding'' thugs. |
| 322 | * The claim that Kaiba values Blue Eyes so much because it represents Kisara's reincarnation. Even if Takahashi said it himself, it contradicts Kaiba's love and modus operandi of having [[PowerEqualsRarity the rarest and most powerful cards]], with his ownership of the only full playset of the card, which as of that point in the series is the most powerful monster with no adverse effects or summoning limitations, practically guarantees that no one else can hope to create a deck with as much built-in power. What's more is that some fangirls will use the Kisara connection as a humanizing trait, even though in practice he uses the dragons to knock the stuffing out of his opponents while [[StopHavingFunGuys acting superior towards them, especially if they're using weaker monsters, more often than not]]. The Kisara connection would mean something if it were to a weak card he wouldn't otherwise dream of using, like Happy Lover. |
| 323 | ** Pfft, power ''nothing''. Blue Eyes is a two-tribute beatstick without an effect, and it dies to removal just like any other monster. If it wasn't for the whole Kisara thing, even subconsciously, Kaiba would probably favor a card with just as much power but with a far better effect, like XYZ or Chaos Emperor Dragon. A player of Kaiba's caliber would only stick with a monster so horribly outdated for the RuleOfCool. |
| 324 | *** Those cards came out much later. Effect cards, much less powerful ones, were few and far between in the early days. And lest we forget, he had a habit of deriding weak cards regardless. Need I remind you of his reaction to Kuriboh, prior to the rest of Yami's combo? |
| 325 | *** FridgeBrilliance - Kaiba wasn't so much deriding Kuriboh's existence as the fact that Yami Yugi ''played it on the field''. Kuriboh has a useful effect IRL, but it's activated by ''discarding''; had Yami Yugi not done the Multiply AssPull (and be honest: could ''you'' have seen that coming?), he would've been a dead duck. |
| 326 | ** Though it's true that power plays the biggest role here, one can't deny that there is ''some'' kind of emotional connection, even without WordOfGod -- especially if one considers how it represented a symbol of hope during one of the flashbacks in the virtual world (Mokuba's drawing), or how he relied on it despite having freakin' Obelisk on his side of the field. However, it doesn't change anything (or much) about Kaiba's characterization. If anything, it's more a kind of additional particular fondness, rather than "reunion with his one true love!!!" |
| 327 | *** Mokuba's drawing is non-canon to the manga, and the incident during the duel vs. Ishizu is about [[ScrewDestiny screwing destiny]]. If it were about going with love over power, it would be a BrokenAesop, because [=BEWD=] isn't much weaker than Obelisk. There are only basic parallels, in that whereas Priest Seto valued Kisara as a near and dear individual, Kaiba quite possibly values Blue-Eyes as a symbol of his rise to the top, and definitely one of his power. |
| 328 | *** ScrewDestiny is how Kaiba justifies his actions, but in actuality he has a connection with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon (not necessarily emotional, but a connection nonetheless) Blue-Eyes [[PastLifeMemories calls out to him]] through the Millennium Rod, which he also has a connection to. |
| 329 | ** I think what inspired this view is probably Raphael's relationship to his Eatos card, but that's definitely not the case here. Raphael was a counterpart to Atemu, with Eatos being his answer to the latter's Dark Magician. |
| 330 | ** Can't Kaiba fusion 3 out of his hand and have Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon 4500 ATK, then if he has de-fusion that's three 3000 ATK monsters without sacrificing those 6 monsters? |
| 331 | *** Yes, he can. And he (well, his spirit counterpart anyway) did EXACTLY that in GX. |
| 332 | *** Yami beats him to it; that's how he beats Noah in the VR arc. |
| 333 | ** "The Kisara connection would mean something if it were to a weak card he wouldn't otherwise dream of using." But it kind of is. 99% of characters' "ace" cards are special (like Fusion or Synchro) or have useful/intimidating Special Effects. The BEWD has nothing directly special about it except being fusion material and the highest Attack Points for a Normal monster. Even fans of Power Decks like Jack Atlas know the value of Special Effects over Attack Points, and Kaiba couldn't have become such a dueling legend by holding the amateurish philosophy that Attack Points are everything. Kaiba was unaware of his connection with Kisara when his obsession with the BEWD began; its high attack points are a half-decent way for Kaiba to subconsciously compromise having such a boring, otherwise weak monster at the center of his deck with his obsession with Power, but logically, it doesn't make all that much sense. |
| 334 | *** Yes, which would make sense if Kaiba was a character in Zexal. He is, however, a character in the original series. Yugi's signature card was Dark Magician, Joey's was Red Eyes. Both of these with with the same limitations of effects and drawbacks as Blue Eyes, but without the 3000 attack. Also, yes, the metagame is different now, but back then, back when the series started and Kaiba's connection with his card was gone over, ATK was everything. |
| 335 | *** Not to mention the Blue Eyes' function as a status symbol: in the manga/anime universe, Kaiba tracked down the only four copies in existence, then [[KickTheDog destroyed the surplus card which exceeded the limit he could keep in his deck]] so his holding them would be unique. Remember, PowerEqualsRarity holds over JunkRare in the story. This doesn't carry over to the actual RealLife card game or even to later parts of the franchise, but as the universe existed then his actions were starkly in-character and pretty brutal. |
| 336 | * I'm probably the only one who isn't in on the joke but, why exactly does Kaiba hate Joey so much? Like, even more than anyone else in Yugi's gang? Almost immediately after they meet? |
| 337 | ** Dub-only. Kaiba is slightly condescending to everyone. Jonouchi just happens to have a hot enough temper to be bothered by it. Doesn't help that the dubbers take the liberty of adding insults to Kaiba's lines to make it look like he has some kind of vendetta against "Wheeler". |
| 338 | *** Perhaps they wanted to go with a "SlobsVersusSnobs" theme. Problem is, they pretty much made it one-sided in the "snob's" favor. |
| 339 | *** Japanese-only. The impression I get is that Kaiba is just a bully, and bullies pick on the people who give them the most amusing reaction. Among Yuugi's TrueCompanions that would definitely be Jounouchi. This explains some of the times that Kaiba ''specifically'' singles him out, like when he captions Jounouchi's Battle City portrait "Nobody." |
| 340 | *** In the Japanese version, at least, the word Kaiba uses to describe Jonouchi most often is "mediocre." So, it's not that he actually hates him, per se. It's just that he doesn't respect him. In Kaiba's mind, Yugi is the best of the best, a worthy opponent, but Jonouchi is just a nameless nobody, another random face in the crowd, completely below his notice and completely unworthy of his time. |
| 341 | ** In the manga not only do they hate each other, it's mutual, as Joey never forgave Kaiba for Death-T and trying to murder them, and even after the Mind Crush, Kaiba waited until he was sure Joey drowned before dropping the key to save him, and later wished he'd ''stayed'' dead after his temporary death to Yami Marik. Among other things, Kaiba repeatedly mocks him as a commoner, a worthless duelist, and a waste of space. |
| 342 | ** [[MemeticMutation Because he's a third-rate duelist with a fourth-rate deck.]] |
| 343 | * And now for the greatest battle in all Yugioh continuity: What would happen if ever there was a duel between the Heart of the Cards and the Power of Friendship? |
| 344 | ** Impossible! Trusting In The Heart Of The Cards is just invoking the Power Of Your Friendship With Your Monsters. They are one and the same!! |
| 345 | [[/folder]] |
| 346 | |
| 347 | [[folder:Duelist Kingdom]] |
| 348 | * I don't know how to say this, but... Pegasus' plot makes no sense! He wants both the Items and Industrial Illusions/Kaibacorp to resurrect his dead lover. So he kidnaps the loved ones of Kaiba and Yugi to force them to play ball. Fair enough. But then, wouldn't it be in his interests to make sure Yugi gets to the finals? Instead, he makes everyone desperate to beat Yugi, sends mooks against him, and then (in the manga) says only one of Kaiba or Yugi may enter the castle, even though Yugi has ten star chips! It makes no sense in terms of Pegasus' goal to do that. Granted, Yugi would have been stranded on the island until the tournament ended, as is implied in the manga that the other boats back had already left, so Pegasus could have tried to steal the item then, but if he had intended to steal the item, there was no point him avidly humouring Yugi playing in his tournament (and there'd be no point to the tournament itself, come to think of it...) |
| 349 | ** He was being careful. According to the rules (in the dub at least), the puzzle can only be take via a duel. By setting the Player Killers against Yugi (if he told them to take the puzzle) he'd only have to duel them to get it, instead of facing off against someone with magical powers who (kinda) knows how to use them. |
| 350 | ** In the Japanese version, collecting the rest of the items wasn't part of the plan, he only needed the hologram technology. Beating Yugi was only required to get the Kaiba Corp executives on his side. As for why he put Yugi through the tournament, it's probably similar to the above explanation for why it was done in the dub; so that he might potentially not even have to bother with dueling Yugi personally. The Player Killers worked for him, so presumably Yugi being beaten by them would be considered a win for Pegasus (the dub makes this explicit at one point), and if Yugi were somehow eliminated by another contestant, beating whoever eventually won would be like beating Yugi by proxy. |
| 351 | * In the flashback sequence where Pegasus tells the kid how to beat Bandit Keith... what was Pegasus trying to prove? The kid beat Keith in one move, meaning one of two things: one, that the implications of the mind reading were useless, as the victory was a simple matter of playing the right card after Bandit Keith's turn (and that the kid wouldn't have known what to do without Pegasus's note), or two, that Bandit Keith clearly wasn't beaten by the kid himself; he was just doing what Pegasus told him to do. Either way, part of that sequence becomes a little superfluous. |
| 352 | ** Even worse, this was an actual case of cheating. Not only did Pegasus replace himself with another player (which is outright against the rules in almost every single one-on-one match in tournaments), he also gave that player a note that told him exactly what to do. That right there is a blatant example of cheating in front of millions of people and was caught on camera. People get banned from tournament play for far less than that in RealLife. |
| 353 | ** Well, Pegasus was running the tournament and created the card game itself, so he makes the rules. |
| 354 | ** And it's not ''technically'' cheating: there's no rule against having a player take your physical place on the field and giving him commands. Odds are there weren't any traps or spells to stop the kid, Pegasus was just humiliating Keith by showing that he was so much better that he could tell someone exactly what to do (the child part being just for extra humiliation) and win that easily. |
| 355 | *** That would still be cheating if only because Keith himself pointed out that asking for help wasn't permitted in the tournament. Even ignoring the ludicrous idea that the audience would accept some kid being thrown into the last match when dozens or hundreds of them lost in early rounds, Keith still should have pointed out that Pegasus giving the kid instructions is a case of the kid cheating. |
| 356 | *** The point is not that he exchanged places with the kid, that is technically "substitution," but then he '''told''' the kid what to do and even wrote it down, which is "helping." |
| 357 | *** Remember, though, the match in question was an ''Exhibition Match''. Bandit Keith had already won (and retained) the title of Intercontinental Champion, so the match between him and Pegasus was just FanService, there was actually nothing at stake. As such, ''yes'', what Pegasus did was cheating by having a proxy take over, but he's the creator and owner of Duel Monsters, and since the match was superfluous anyway, probably no one really cared enough to lose their job over it. |
| 358 | *** And in the manga, it wasn't a tournament at all; Keith explicitly challenged Pegasus, and Pegasus accepted (he set all the other conditions: a million dollars were at stake, and the entire thing was broadcasted nationwide). |
| 359 | *** The manga explains that Pegasus did it to create publicity, basically turning the event into a commercial for duel monsters. The whole scene was a bit offensive, because it implied that all Americans care only about money. The anime toned it down a bit, taking away the million dollar wager and making Keith act rudely to Pegasus, so Pegasus humiliated keith out of revenge, not to advertise his product. |
| 360 | *** Well, apparently, Bandit Keith calls him a paedophile. ("So you like little boys.") That's more than just being a bit rude. |
| 361 | *** To the people who brought up Keith accusing Pegasus of cheating by asking for help, he ''never'' said that in the Japanese original, only in the abridged series, and possibly the dub. He didn't remotely view Pegasus calling a random kid from the audience to take his place as asking for help; he thought Pegasus was just messing around. If anything, he would view it as Pegasus handicapping himself -- which is technically what he was doing, as a way of proving his superiority to Keith. So this is a DubInducedPlothole at worst. |
| 362 | ** What bugged me about this scene is that they don't explain how a monster with only 1850 ATK can destroy Garnecia (2400 ATK) and take all of Keith's lifepoints. |
| 363 | ** To answer the original question: The point of the scene is to show how cheated and humiliated Bandit Keith feels (rightfully so), and give more evidence of Pegasus using the Millennium Eye to cheat. in the English dub, at least, the info on the note he gave the kid included what card Keith was going to play, so Pegasus had to have cheated somehow. I don't see what was superfluous about it. To answer the above question: The reason that monster won even with lower ATK points is because at that point the actual game had some ElementalRockPaperScissors in it; Pegasus's monster is a Wind-element and Garnecia Elephantis is an Earth-element, so Pegasus's monster won the battle automatically. Why that takes out Keith's LP isn't explained. |
| 364 | *** The card Pegasus used to defeat Bandit Keith in this duel has since been released as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flying_Elephant a real card]], and its effect does help give something of an explanation. Specifically, it has the ability to win the duel immediately after dealing battle through a direct attack under certain conditions. Presumably the anime card has a similar effect, and that's why Keith lost when the kid played it. |
| 365 | * During Yugi's 3rd duel with Kaiba (The one that introduces Blue Eyes Ultimate), why doesn't Kaiba just attack Yugi's Celtic Guardian after resurrecting his Blue-Eyes on the turn it was reborn? Instead, he waits a turn for some reason. He could win that duel legitimately if he would just do that, and we know it's possible to attack with a monster on the turn it's reborn because Yugi himself does it with that card all the time in the same season. |
| 366 | ** RuleOfDrama. It puts Yugi in the realization that he's not the only person pulling the strings, which starts him communicating with Yami. If Kaiba ended it right there, Yugi wouldn't have secured the fact there was another presence. |
| 367 | ** [[NewRulesAsThePlotDemands Because Blue-Eyes is part of a fusion and therefore has to wait a turn before attacking, apparently.]] Which only brings the question why didn't he revive Swordstalker instead... |
| 368 | ** No, I'm pretty sure in the first season of the Duelist Kingdom rules, there was a clause that monsters reborn from the graveyard couldn't attack until the next turn, just like monsters that were just created through a fusion. Probably a "special summons cannot attack on the turn they are special summoned" rule or something, worded in real life terms. |
| 369 | ** No, it was already stated that Yugi does almost the exact same move in an earlier duel by resurrecting a Blue-Eyes and attacking on the same turn (Yugi vs. Monster Clown), and later in the same season Yugi resurrects a Black Skull Dragon and attacks on the same turn. |
| 370 | *** Actually, it was all part of some bizarre unique in-canon ruling regarding Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon at the time. The monster can only be destroyed one head at a time. (Which is why Yami could only behead one of the monster's three heads.) On the flipside, a revived head would have to wait a turn in order to attack. |
| 371 | *** If we go by Kaiba's duel against Joey for third place in Battle City, it could be that Kaiba would consider doing so stooping to a low he doesn't want to stoop to - he gets ticked at Joey reviving one of his Blue Eyes in said duel; he probably figured that if he revived one of Yugi's monsters, Curse of Dragon, on his side of the field, Yugi would probably be more than happy to pay Kaiba back by reviving one of Kaiba's Blue Eyes in a rematch (which, knowing Kaiba, he would all but certainly accept to prove he could beat Yugi without forcing him to hold back). |
| 372 | ** The Duel Disks only have space for one card and four magic cards. At all times, there is only one monster in play -- when Kuriboh is multiplying, Kuriboh acts as the sacrifice for Kuriboh Tokens, which don't require placing an actual card down at that point. Kaiba can't revive Curse of Dragon or Swordstalker cause he doesn't have space -- his BEUD is still on the field. |
| 373 | *** Not exactly, it's more like one active "main" monster and 4 side cards (which can be monsters). You can attack with a non-active monster, you just can't use your other side cards to power it up if you do. So even if he couldn't switch the active Blue-Eyes with his revived monster, he could still attack with it. Another odd thing about the scene is that Kaiba seems to have Negate Attack as his fifth card, which means that once he draws Monster Reborn he doesn't need the suicide threat anymore. Now, it's possible he just did it to screw with Yugi's head, but everyone (including Kaiba) acts as if it's his only way to win... |
| 374 | * In the Duelist Kingdom arc in the anime, Yugi wears sneakers. But when he turns into Yami Yugi, [[http://www.freewebs.com/ancientmoses/Yugi_oh.jpg his pants apparently merge into his shoes.]] Oh, and he's wearing boots now. What? |
| 375 | ** The boots come from the same place as the extra hair, clothes, muscle and bone that appears whenever Yugi becomes Yami Yugi. |
| 376 | ** Also note the loss of his white undershirt. The anime gives Yami Yugi strange dimension-warping powers that include his clothing (a.k.a. taking their own little liberties with the character designs that don't make sense and giving Yami Yugi the ability to NOT GET BURNED BY FIRE during his duel with Panik). In the manga, Yami Yugi retains the same clothes, height, and muscle campacity as Yugi after the transformation. Even the boots and the white undershirt. The "extra hair" is just a few strands of Yugi's bangs flying up to make him look possessed. You can even compare their hairstyles in the pic shown on the main YGO page and notice that Yugi has more bangs than his [[SuperPoweredEvilSide alter ego]]. |
| 377 | * In the Manga, Yugi and Yami Yugi are horrified by Kaiba saying that he "bets his life" on the card game, saying a life is something too precious to bet. But earlier, Yami Yugi bets his life on pretty much every one of his games, and he isn't wagering for someone he loved. Hell, he bet his life with Haga/Weevil the previous day. |
| 378 | ** Which brings up another absurdity - why would Haga/Weevil want to kill Yugi? At least the anime makes it more plausible by having Yugi wager his deck against Haga/Weevil's other star chip, considering his deck is something Haga would actually want. |
| 379 | ** "I bet my life" could be taken to mean that Yami would serve as Haga's gofer/errand boy for the rest of the tournament (if not the rest of his ''life'') if he lost. Given Yami's temperament at this point (see below) he may very well have killed himself if Haga ordered it. |
| 380 | ** Yami Yugi was still trying to get his head screwed on straight prior to Duelist Kingdom, though some of those games didn't quite give him a choice in what he would lose if he lost[[note]](e.g., Bakura's Monster World RPG, Kaiba's Death-T, and Imori's Dragon Cards)[[/note]]. Also, Haga/Weevil is reluctant to wager both of his starchips at first when he sees that Yugi has only one chip of his own. Plus, Yugi and Yami Yugi are both still pissed at Haga/Weevil for getting rid of the Exodia cards at this point, and that anger is mixed with the drive to rescue Yugi's Grandpa's soul. In contrast, when they come up against Kaiba later, they don't know the full extent of Mokuba's current condition (if they know about it at all, I may be mixing up that detail with the anime since I haven't read that part of the manga in a while) so when they call Kaiba out on betting his life, they do so because they think he just wants to win at any cost. It's not like Kaiba told them all about his motives. Shame, considering Yugi and Yami Yugi would probably have tried to help rescue Mokuba [[PoorCommunicationKills if Kaiba had just taken a minute or two to explain his brother's situation]]. |
| 381 | *** That still doesn't explain why Haga would want to take Yugi's life. |
| 382 | * In the Japanese dub and the manga, part of the prize for Duelist's Kingdom is majority shares in Industrial Illusions. What does Yuugi do with all of those shares? I mean, it effectively means that he owns the company. Does he trade them for new trading cards? Sell them so he can afford to redo his wardrobe entirely in leather? What happened?? |
| 383 | ** My guess is he gave them to Kaiba, who's the only person he knows who has any interest in big business; this is why after Duelist Kingdom, all the dueling technology and tournaments are run by Kaiba Corp. Kaiba might not have wanted to accept a gift from Yugi, but he might accept it as compensation for everything Pegasus put him through. |
| 384 | ** Actually, looking through the manga... where exactly is this mentioned? It doesn't appear in the parts around the finals where the prize is mentioned. |
| 385 | *** Right before Yugi's duel with Pegasus, when Croquet/Crocketts asks to see Yugi's "Glory of King's Left" card, he explains that if Yugi wins he'll be awarded 60% shares in I2. |
| 386 | *** He does only present it as an option. Yugi might just have not taken it. |
| 387 | ** Probably what anyone who owns shares but isn't a businessman does: Do jack all and rake in the dividends. |
| 388 | * Why does the anime version of Dark Bakura want to kidnap Mokuba during Duelist Kingdom and steal the key to Kaiba Corp.'s secret safe? What would be gain by doing that? Were the anime producers on some sort of crack when they wrote the adaptation of Duelist Kingdom? They probably were, seeing as Dark Bakura suddenly starts bringing cards to life to eat up Pegasus's guards and displays powers that are never seen again in the anime. |
| 389 | ** He probably wanted a bargain token with Pegasus in case he failed to take the Millenium Eye by force. In the anime, at least, Pegasus mentions he would lose because he is extremely tired from the battle against Yugi. For all we know, Bakura couldn't take on a full-power Pegasus. As for the random summoning, it isn't very different from the way ancient Egyptians summoned monsters in first place; maybe Bakura was using the same method, only using cards instead of hundred-ton stone tablets. As for why he never used it again, who knows? |
| 390 | ** The powers of the modern-day Millennium Items are limited to starting normal Shadow Games and wagers, along with other unique powers, though. That's a fact that's been ESTABLISHED. If they could still summon ka, there would be ''no'' need to play any game. At all. Especially with the Tomb Keepers, who knew about the ancient Shadow Game played 3,000 years ago which involved summoning monsters. Not to mention, the only way to bring the monsters on the CARDS to life is to start a Shadow Game of Duel Monsters. There aren't actually any Monster Spirits in the cards - the monsters that appear are merely illusions invoked by the magic of the items, except the God Cards. |
| 391 | ** Yami Bakura outright tells Tristan that he wants Mokuba's body so that he can transfer his spirit into it. This would work better for him than his current situation with regular Bakura, as Mokuba's body was an empty shell at the time, since Pegasus had captured his soul. This would ensure that he wouldn't have to worry about the host he was possessing turning against him, like regular Bakura did during Yami Bakura's Shadow Game with Yami Yugi. |
| 392 | ** Dark Bakura wanting Mokuba's body for the purpose of possessing him was only in the English dub, not the Japanese version. And even taking that script change as valid, with the normal Bakura being the ChosenOne to host the Shadow RPG in the final arc, becoming "Dark Mokuba" makes no sense. Not only that, but he was betting on Dark Yugi to win his Shadow Game with Pegasus so he can use the opportunity to take his Millennium Eye, therefore Mokuba's corpse wouldn't have been soulless for very long according to his plans. The only explanation is really just Dark Bakura being really inconsistent in the anime version. |
| 393 | ** I believe it’s stated that the key Mokuba has is actually to the room where [=KaibaCorp=] keeps its contracts. Without them, Pegasus wouldn’t be able to take control of the company. Bakura only leaves to go after Honda when he hears this from Mr. Crocketts; so it seems the most likely explanation is that once he steals the key, he intends to use it to trade to Pegasus for his Millennium Eye (Pegasus isn’t going to need it once he’s beaten Yugi, after all). Sure, Bakura’s expecting Yugi to win, but it never hurts to have a convenient contingency plan if he doesn’t. The real question then is why Pegasus' goons chose to leave something so important on his comatose body instead of taking it… |
| 394 | * Duelist Kingdom. One of the first things Yugi says about the competition is that he doesn't care about the money. Why the hell, after finding out that Joey desperately needs the money for Serenity's eye operation, does he not just go "Oh, hey, if I win I'll ''give'' you the money, seeing as I don't need or want it"? I find it hard to believe that, even worrying about his grandfather, Yugi wouldn't make that connection, especially when it's ''explicitly and repeatedly'' stated by Joey that he's duelling for Serenity's sake. |
| 395 | ** And, in the end, that's exactly what Yugi does. I suppose the argument could be made that the more duelists fighting on Serenity's behalf, the better. (With the real game, this would be true, thanks to {{Metagame}} considerations. If one player is vulnerable only to strategy X, they can get a friend to enter the tournament with a strategy-X-killer deck. But that's getting technical, and really doesn't apply here.) |
| 396 | ** Motivation. Joey wouldn't have learned nearly as much or played half as well if he hadn't had an important reason. |
| 397 | ** In the dub at least, when Yugi gives Joey the Hand Of The King's Glory card, he explicitly states that if they both enter the finals, it will double their chances of getting the prize money ''and'' facing off against Pegasus. |
| 398 | * Another Duelist Kingdom headscratcher: why does the gang brand Weevil and Mai cheaters simply for taking advantage of the field advantages and (let's be honest) basically being better duelists? True, Mai also has her scent trick, although it's doubtful that's against any rules; all she can do is predict her next card, which is information she would find out by... playing the game normally. To be honest, it just comes across as petty whining because the gang can't be bothered to stick near a playing field that is advantageous to Yugi's and Joey's monsters, which would give them an advantage of their own and make much more strategic sense. Something you'd think they'd want, given how much is riding on the competition. |
| 399 | ** Mai's scent trick is flat-out ''using marked cards,'' and is against the rules in pretty much any card game ever. Being able to know what you'll draw on your next turn is an ''enormous'' advantage in planning your current one. In the Japanese version, Weevil is cheating because he has advanced information on the Duelist Kingdom field-effect rules, which players were supposed to find out the hard way during the tournament. |
| 400 | *** Actually, in the Japanese version Weevil was in fact given the info in advance by Pegasus himself as a prize for winning the Japanese championship. In the English dub, this was changed so that Weevil somehow "stole" the info. The former version exhibits an odd sort of... "legal" cheating whereas the latter is flat-out trickery. |
| 401 | *** Mai never used her scent trick to actually know her card ''in advance'', she only ever used it to be able to know the cards in her hand without looking at them. It would still be illegal, but she only did it to play mind games with her opponent rather than for the usual purpose of marked cards. |
| 402 | ** The big problem with the various playing fields is that they encourage exactly that strategy: find a field that benefits you, then spend the entire tournament camped there. Of course, if everybody does that, no duels will take place. ''Someone'' has to be willing to play at a less-than-optimal field for the Duelist Kingdom tournament to work. RuleOfDrama says it's the protagonists. |
| 403 | * Pegasus needed to beat Yugi in an official duel to take control of Kaiba Corp. However, during his duel with Yugi he keeps gloating that he knows what cards Yugi is holding in his hand via the Millenium eye and the duel was going to be broadcasted to the whole world to restore Kaiba Corp.'s reputation. Surely someone would have pointed out that the duel was unfair assuming for example Pegasus has hidden cameras or something, which kind of ruins the whole plan. |
| 404 | ** He probably would have edited the recording before broadcasting. |
| 405 | * Ok, so this might be manga-only, but at one point, Yami Yugi is telling Pegasus that Yugi is ten times the duelist he is because he actually trusts his instincts, is willing to take risks without being certain of the outcome and doesn't resort to cheap tactics (mind reading). Pegasus says that he's a good duelist because he plans so that he can fight without needing to take risks, then his Toon World combo is promptly taken out in one turn. Pegasus then decides to bring up a Shadow Game and specifically thinks "This is a wizard's battle; no normal mortal can endure it. How long can you take the pressure, Yugi-boy?" Soo, Pegasus is trying to prove that he's the better duelist by... cheating so that Yami Yugi can no longer block out the mind-reading techniques because the other half of their Mind Shuffle is unconscious and dying. Really? |
| 406 | ** You answered your own question. Pegasus considers himself to be the better duelist ''because'' he doesn't take risks. Magically gaining an unfair advantage is perfectly in line with that statement. |
| 407 | * Something that's been bugging me recently. In Yugi's duel with Panik, he uses Catapult Turtle to launch Gaia into Panik's castle, knocking its Floatation Ring off so that it'll collapse on his monsters when he ends his turn. Yugi ends his turn and the Swords of Revealing Light are extinguished, with the Chaos Shield leaving Panik's monsters trapped inside. My question is, why didn't Panik simply remove the card from the field? He was monologuing to himself just his previous turn that when the swords wore off he would remove the shield so he could attack Yugi's monsters and win the duel. Yugi ended his turn, so he was free to do so, so what was stopping him from removing the card and saving his monsters? |
| 408 | ** He [[{{Pun}} panicked]] and forgot all about his tactic. |
| 409 | ** Alternatively, he could only remove the shield during his own Main Phase (or at least Turn), and it was technically Yugi's End Phase when the castle fell. |
| 410 | * So, during Yugi's duel with Mai he acts as though the only way he can beat her is to get his hands on the Black Lustre Ritual. Except, he's got a Monster Reborn in his hand, a Dark Magician in the Graveyard, and three turns where Mai can't attack. Why doesn't he do the following--resurrect Dark Magician and take out a Harpy Lady. Mai has two more turns to wait. Take out another Harpy Lady. Mai still has another turn to wait. Take out Harpy's Pet Dragon, who now only has 2300 ATK. Mai can move, but only has one Harpy Lady on the field. |
| 411 | ** Swords of Revealing Light doesn't prevent the setting or activation of Trap Cards or Spell Cards. Mai could have used a Trap Card like Sakuretsu Armor or Mirror Force to destroy Yugi's Dark Magician, and then he'd basically be screwed. Besides, you're forgetting that Yugi actually found out earlier that Mai has Harpie's Feather Duster in her deck -- what if she had used that to destroy Swords of Revealing Light prematurely? Yugi is very low on Life Points at the time and can't afford to take any risks. |
| 412 | *** "Mai could have used a Trap Card like Sakuretsu Armor or Mirror Force to destroy Yugi's Dark Magician, and then he'd basically be screwed." Black Luster Soldier faced the same risk, though. It's not immune to Traps. "You're forgetting that Yugi actually found out earlier that Mai has Harpie's Feather Duster in her deck -- what if she had used that to destroy Swords of Revealing Light prematurely?" That would have caused Yugi to lose even with the BLS strategy. Had she drawn and played Harpie's Feather Duster at any point in the three turns of the Swords, Harpie's Pet Dragon would have attacked Kuriboh for game. I think what Yugi was actually concerned about was the possibility that if he tried picking off Harpie Ladies one-by-one with Dark Magician, Mai would simply play her own Monster Reborn or use another Elegant Egotist or something to make more of them and the Dragon would be back to being stronger. Yugi guessed in a previous episode that this version of Mai's deck only uses Harpie Lady and its multiplied forms (Harpie's Pet Dragon is her secret ace), so it stands to reason that he thinks she has lots ways of replacing lost ones. Hell, she *drew* another Harpie Lady she could have summoned on her last turn — she didn't play it because she wasn't expecting Yugi's deck to contain a 3000 ATK monster, and she even beats herself up about it at the end because summoning it meant she could have won. |
| 413 | ** First, Mai was using the Harpy Lady Sisters, so he couldn't just kill one of them. While they seem to be able to attack as individuals and count as three for effects they're still only one monster, and while it's never said outright it's possible that the Pet Dragon would defend the Harp Lady Sisters (it's not part of the cards official abilities but the anime has never cared about that) if they were attacked which would mean the dragon would need to be killed first. Yugi also doesn't know if Mai has any more buffs or defensive traps to protect her Harpy Ladys in her hand, but he's never seen her play any card that would buff the Pet Dragon. |
| 414 | * Near the end of Yami/Yugi's duel with Pegasus, Yami uses Mystic Box to free his Dark Magician from being an equip on Relinquished (impossible in the real game, but I'll accept that it works here) by switching it with Jigen Bakudan. He then uses Brain Control to take control of Relinquished, then activates Dark Magic Ritual, Tributing his Dark Magician and the Jigen Bakudan to Ritual Summon Magician of Black Chaos. (Again, Tributing the Jigen Bakudan would be impossible in the real game, since Jigen Bakudan is being treated as an equip at this point, not a monster, but we'll let it slide here.) Since Pegasus has no monsters on the field at this point, and Duelist Kingdom rules don't allow direct attacks, Yami ends his turn, Relinquished returns to Pegasus's control, and on Pegasus's next turn, he makes it into Thousand-Eyes Restrict and Yami has to use the Kuriboh + Multiply combo to keep Thousand-Eyes Restrict from taking the Magician of Black Chaos. Except... why didn't Yami tribute Relinquished instead of Jigen Bakudan? It's not clear what would have happened to Jigen Bakudan in that case (in the real game, it would have ended up in the Graveyard, and its effect wouldn't have gone off), but letting Pegasus get Relinquished back, and with no Equip on it at that (meaning it's free to absorb a monster on Pegasus's next turn even if Pegasus hadn't done the Fusion), seems like a pretty bad idea. For that matter, why bother with the Brain Control at all? When Yami played Mystic Box, Pegasus lets out a BigNo because with Dark Magician no longer attached to Relinquished, Jigen Bakudan would only destroy Relinquished. In other words, the coast was clear. All Yami had to do was wait, and let Jigen Bakudan take out Relinquished in a perfect case of HoistByHisOwnPetard. |
| 415 | ** As I understand, the effect of Jigen Bakudan is "exploding after 2 turns and destroying every monsters on player's field, deal half of ATK as damage to the owner". Monsters absorbed by Relinquished are still treated as monsters (hence can be tributed for Ritual Summon). Pegasus'plan is to let Relinquished, DM and Guardian of the Fortress #1 be destroyed. He would take 0/2 = 0 damage, while Yugi took (2500+1200)/2 = 1850 damge. If Yugi didn't trubite Jigen Bakudan, it would still go off, destroy Magician of Black Chaos and deal 2800/2 = 1400 damge to him, enough to reduce his LP to 0. |
| 416 | ** But then he'd have to wait for Pegasus to put something else in attack mode, which he probably would never do. Jigen Bakudan destroying Relinquished wouldn't do anything to his Life Points. With him still having Relinquished, Pegasus gets lured into trying to attack with it, leaving it in attack mode and thus letting Yami take out his Life Points when he attacks. Yami had a defense for when Pegasus would try to take the Magician of Black Chaos, so he's not worried about that. Pegasus could have switched Relinquished into defense mode when his plan didn't work, but he uses it to fusion-summon Thousand-Eyes Restrict, and because he just summoned it he can't change its position that turn. Yami couldn't know he would do that, but it's worth a shot to try to get him to attack and fail. |
| 417 | ** This can actually be easily explained as an AdaptationInducedPlotHole due to the effects of Relinquished and Dark Magic Ritual working slightly differently in the manga compared to their anime and real-life counterparts. In the manga, Relinquished could absorb multiple monsters, and had absorbed Yugi's Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress #1 in addition to his Dark Magician. As for Dark Magic Ritual, rather than merely sacrificing monsters whose level total amounted to a minimum of 8 stars, it instead required a sacrifice of Dark Magician plus two monsters whose combined attack values equal a minimum of 1500 (Black Luster Ritual had a similar effect, but with Gaia the Fierce Knight instead of Dark Magician). Tributing Relinquished would not be possible due to it having a default attack score of 0, but tributing Jigen Bakudan (200) and Winged Dragon (1400) was necessary both to prevent Bakudan's explosion and to keep Winged Dragon from being used as a Sacrifice Shield like with Curse of Dragon[[note]]Relinquished's ability allows it to use the monsters it absorbed as shields to prevent it from being destroyed in battle, with the monster's original controller taking the battle damage. This was demonstrated when Yugi's Dark Magician attacked Relinquished after it had absorbed his Curse of Dragon, costing Yugi 500 Life Points.[[/note]]. |
| 418 | * Why do the mooks throw the kids with no star chips out... but don't realize that there are ''three people'' who aren't even ''part'' of the tournament running around? |
| 419 | ** Those three people aren't actually participants in the tournament, and thus aren't subject to the same rules as participants would be; they're essentially just Yugi & Joey's cheerleaders, which Pegasus seems to be okay with. |
| 420 | * Ok, I know it's mostly RuleOfDrama, but why did Joey try to beat Yugi in the Semi finals? It was very clear from the start that only Yugi beating Pegasus could get his Grandpa and the Kaiba Bros. souls back. In comparison, the money was a reward for anyone. Wouldn't it be easier for Joey to take a dive to ensure Yugi could get to the finals? That way, Yugi could get the souls back, then either pay for Serenity's operation, or give Joey the money, so everyone wins. |
| 421 | ** During the duel, their friends explain precisely why. They both duel at their best so the better of them wins. If Yugi can't beat Joey, then it's likely he couldn't beat Pegasus either. Also, they don't think Joey is worse than Yugi, especially when he does very well in the duel. It's also a good way for both to duel each other at their best with important things motivating them (which is why Yugi doesn't say he'll give Joey the money). They have to duel so the tournament has a winner, and have no reason to lose on purpose. |
| 422 | ** Incidentally, in the original manga, Yugi decides not to duel Jonouchi at all, feeling that it would just show Pegasus more of his strategies. Jonouchi just hands over the prize card and basically forfeits the duel before it's even played. |
| 423 | ** Actually, it's stated at the start of Yugi and Pegasus' duel, in the anime, that the challenger that wins, in this case Yugi, could select ''any'' prize that he wanted from Pegasus, that is within Pegasus' power to grant. It's mentioned that this could even be Pegasus' company. Therefore, ''anyone'' that defeated Pegasus could have asked for the souls to be returned to their proper bodies, just as Yugi did. So, both rewards, the money and the souls, were rewards that anyone could have gained. Then there's the fact that none of the friends seem to ever consider the fact that 1)Yugi has stated he isn't in the tournament for the money previously and 2)Yugi could just give Joey the prize money for his sister's operation, which is what ends up happening anyways. The duel then, as others have mentioned, ensures that whoever wins and takes on Pegasus is the better duelist, thereby being the best man for the job. |
| 424 | * If Pegasus can just make any broken card he wants, for example the toon cards then why doesn't he just make a card that says "Player automatically wins the duel, at any point in the duel you can bring this card to your hand, this card effect can not be negated in any way." Yes the puzzle apparently can't be won by cheating....but isn't reading his minds and using the earlier mentioned op toon cards cheating as well? One could to put on a show or pride (and that probably is the answer) but really if I'd think if he wanted this plan to revive his wife from the dead to work he should try to make the plan as foolproof as possible. |
| 425 | ** Because Pegasus is running a tournament. Printing a card like that and then winning with it would be tantamount to the game being rigged from the beginning... which would open him up to lawsuits from every participant for offering a prize that they had no chance at all of winning, as whoever challenged Pegasus would just get "ha! I win automatically" with no way to fight back, making the entire thing a huge waste of time. While the Toon monsters are nigh-unbeatable, making a card that basically says "you win the duel for no effort 100% of the time with no way for your opponent to do anything" would be disrespectful to the game and the tournament, and the entire reputation of the company and the entire game itself would be irreparably damaged by such a flagrant disregard for fair tournament conduct. It would be the equivalent of catching the people running the Olympics setting things so that one country in particular would win; Pegasus' game and company would never be able to recover from such a scandal, and a lot of players would stop playing entirely when they see how little respect the creator of the game has for both it and them. Furthermore, the resulting fallout would probably lead the Big 5 to pull their support from him when faced with the resulting public outrage, rendering his entire goal moot in the first place. |
| 426 | ** Also, as mentioned in a conversation up the page, Pegasus needs to win fairly or the Puzzle would either not work or punish him fighting dishonorably. |
| 427 | * Ok, so the Duelist Kingdom rules were that players couldn't attack each other directly. So what's the point of summoning any monsters in defense position? If your opponent has a big monster you can't get rid of, can't you just leave your field empty since your opponent can't attack? Why throw away monsters to defend yourself when you don't need defense? This gets particularly bad when players started using cards like "Defense Paralysis" to prevent monsters from being in Defense Mode, yet Yugi still insists on throwing monsters out there only for them to be killed. |
| 428 | ** This is particularly bad in his duel against Mai. Where he summons Catapult Turtle in attack mode. If she attacked, he would have lost but bluffed his way out of it. But why couldn't he just activate Monster Recovery right then and there after using Catapult's effect? Why leave a monster out for your opponent to kill? |
| 429 | *** I thinking that Duelist kingdom rules required you to summon at least one monster per turn |
| 430 | *** Exactly that. In the manga, the rules are explicitly stated that you CAN attack directly, but only if you opponent plays no monster (this was how Yugi won his first duel with Kaiba, in Chapters 9-10 of the manga), and then changed to 'if you are incapable of playing a monster, you lose' (this was how Kaiba lost to Pegasus). |
| 431 | * During Yugi and Joey's duel with Para and Dox, they manage to fuse Red-Eyes Black Dragon and Summoned Skull together into Black-Skull Dragon. Then they are told that the Labyrinth Wall is a no-fly zone, and thus can't move because it can only fly. Two things I'd like to ask. '''First''': How do they know that the Black-Skull Dragon can only fly, especially when it has two perfectly good legs to stand/walk on? '''Second''': Considering that Labyrinth Wall has 3,000 DEF while Black-Skull Dragon has 3,'''2'''00 ATK, why didn't they just ''demolish'' the Labyrinth Wall so that they wouldn't need to traverse through there at all? |
| 432 | ** With how weird the Duelist Kingdom rules were, it's highly likely that Labyrinth Wall was being regarded as some sort of bizarre field/terrain, and not a monster, and therefore couldn't be harmed normally. In the manga, the justification is that monsters like Black-Skull Dragon who have wings are unable to FIT inside the labyrinth because of how cramped the space is; which still doesn't make any sense whatsoever. |
| 433 | * How was Rex eliminated from the tournament? He said he won 5 star chips and when he duels Joey, they only wager 2 star chips since that's all Joey has. Joey wins so Rex loses 2 stars, but that still leaves him with 3. |
| 434 | ** Probably a Player Killer eliminated him, and this could also apply to Mako Tsunami, who only bet two of his three chips against Yugi. There were 40 players invited, so 80 Star Chips total to compete for, but only the first four to get ten chips would qualify for the finals, which leaves 40 chips unaccounted for, which were probably won by the Player Killers. |
| 435 | ** The whole reason he duelled against Joey in the first place is because he wanted to duel Mai again. Odds are she got sick of him pestering her, gave him what he wanted and took the rest of his chips. |
| 436 | * Okay I realize this is a world where children's trading card games are SeriousBusiness but why do the characters (especially Tea) act like Joey and Yugi having to duel in the Duelist Kingdom's finals is the equivalent of Pegasus forcing a sadistic fight to the death? It's literally a win-win situation. Yugi wins and then beats Pegasus and he can fight Pegasus have his grandpa's soul free and give Joey the prize money. Joey wins and then beats Pegasus and he has the prize money for his sister's operation and can use Pegasus's one wish to free Yugi's grandpa's soul. |
| 437 | ** There really isn't any explanation beyond that the gang is just kind of ridiculously over the top with the drama in the first season. This is the same group that are convinced that people like Mai can't win a duel because of the crippling drawback... Of competing because she wants the prize money for herself. |
| 438 | * The duel with the ventriloquist (manga)/fake ghost Kaiba (anime). Both versions of the duel have the BEWD self-destruct because of Kaiba (partly because of his hacking in the anime). This happens right in front of one of Pegasus' agents, who sure seems to act like he has judge duties of some sort. Why did he let this stand when it's completely outside the rules (even by Duelist Kingdom standards)? At best the duel should have been declared invalid and restarted; at worst, Pegasus could have achieved his goals right then and there by having Yugi declared the loser due to cheating. |
| 439 | ** They can't really get Yugi on cheating in that match because he couldn't possibly have done anything to make BEWD explode. Because the Duelist Kingdom rules are so insanely customized and hyper-real (dropping a castle on the opponent's monsters makes zero sense in the real game, but is perfectly logical with the level of detail that went into calculating game interactions in the Duelist Kingdom fields), and because the Battle Box tech clearly accepted the action as valid, all anyone watching can really say is that there must have been some weird card lore interaction that neither player knew about. They pretty much have to trust the Battle Box AI's judgment on what flies and what doesn't (I really doubt they have techies monitoring the things and approving "yes, Yugi can attack the moon"). |
| 440 | * Why couldn't Yugi have given a star chip to the duelist who had his star chips and deck stolen by Mokuba? He pulled this off just fine in getting Joey into the tournament, and even noted that having one qualifies you for the tournament. Since he was going to be winning the kid's star chips back anyway, he could deduct one star chip back from the total when he could give them back. |
| 441 | ** It wouldn't have made a difference either way, the guy in charge wanted to be a dick and toss the kid off the island, Yugi giving him a starchip would have made no difference, just as it didn't when he brought the kids chips back. The goons aren't playing fair and the whole thing is just a set up to get at Yugi and the puzzle, nobody else matters. |
| 442 | ** Except possessing a starchip would allow the kid to stay on the island. Unless they're willing to break their own rules (expected, but given they let Joey in despite not even being a participant, that's an odd turnabout), there would've been nothing they could do. |
| 443 | *** I mean, they kind of did just that. Mokuba showed up, flat out confessed that he stole the dude's star chips, and was trying to give them back, and the goon just knocked them into the water and said he doesn't care. |
| 444 | * Pegasus gives out two prizes to the winner of Duelist Kingdom: money, and the right to duel him for whatever the winner wants. Croquet says that he's being cheap because Pegasus expects to beat the winner and take their soul. Except most of the attendees are minors; can't their guardians claim the prize money if the child is in a coma? |
| 445 | ** Not quite. The holder of "Glory of the King's Hand" can only claim the prize money and nothing else, but their soul isn't on the line and they don't have to duel Pegasus. "Glory of the King's Opposite Hand", in contrast, allows the winner to claim whatever they want as their prize, but in return, their soul ''is'' on on the line in the duel and they have to defeat Pegasus for it. |
| 446 | * The Yugi and Kaiba rematch. While Pegasus is basically forcing Kaiba to duel Yugi if he wants a chance to duel him and to save Mokuba, why does Yugi need to agree to this challenge where he gains nothing if he wins and won't have enough star chips to duel Pegasus if he loses. Yugi and Yami allow him the rematch to give him a chance to prove what he's learned, but that barely explains anything with the others even stating he doesn't need to duel Kaiba. |
| 447 | * At the end of the Duelist Kingdom Arc, Yami Bakura goes to Pegasus and [[EyeScream tears out the Millenium Eye]] from Pegasus. Why didn't the latter, y'know, have a glass eye made to replace it? Granted, he keeps it hidden under his bangs, but Kaiba's shocked reaction when Pegasus shows him what's underneath his hair in the Pyramid of Light movie implies that Pegasus ''kept the empty eye socket''. |
| 448 | ** Glass eyes can be uncomfortable for some people, and regardless will invariably cause a few benign, but gross side effects, like occasional mucus discharge. Pegasus may have just decided that it wasn't for him based on all that. |
| 449 | [[/folder]] |
| 450 | |
| 451 | [[folder:Battle City]] |
| 452 | * So one thing about Malik I don't understand... he had two of the Egyptian Gods... he was so protective of Ra that he refused to let anyone but himself use the genuine one... but he gave the equally important Slifer to some random lacky? It was probably just a plot crowbar to get Slifer into Yugi's hands, but still, it seems like Malik really made an asleep-at-the-wheel decision there. |
| 453 | ** It wasn't "some random lacky", but a puppet controlled by Malik. Malik himself used the card and dueled Yugi through his mind-controlled puppet, he just wasn't expecting to lose. |
| 454 | ** And it wasn’t really “equally important”, either. Don’t get me wrong, Slifer’s a powerful card and Marik did want it along with Obelisk to complete the set, but over the course of Battle City it’s well-established that Ra is on a whole different level from the other two Gods and completely eclipses them in both power and importance. |
| 455 | * At the start of the Battle City Arc, in the anime, Kaiba duels a robot that uses the same deck he used back in Duelist Kingdom. After the robot manages to summon the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, he makes a remark regarding how the fear he feels is what Yugi must have felt back during their duel, then noting how Yugi ''couldn't'' defeat the Ultimate Dragon and that in order to reclaim his spot as the number one duelist he'll need to defeat the monster that Yugi couldn't. The thing about that is though, Yugi did defeat the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Kaiba's monster was literally turning into slime. At the very least, it was neutralized and wasn't going to win Kaiba that duel, failing to do so in the end. The ''only'' reason that the duel ends in Kaiba's favor is because Yugi calls off his final attack and gives up. However, he still, unarguably, defeated the beast. So, what exactly is Kaiba talking about? |
| 456 | ** That's a DubInducedPlotHole, as his reaction when Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon is summoned differs in the Japanese version of the anime as well as the manga. In those cases, he wondered if the sensation he felt going up against it was the same sensation that Yugi felt when he faced it at Duelist Kingdom. |
| 457 | * So, how exactly does Kaiba justify giving Joey a 1-star ranking? The dude at the registration office says that Kaiba Corp performed extensive research on all duelists, which they then collected into a database. Even taking into account, as Tristan points out before they get to the office, that Kaiba doesn't like him, Joey's credentials speak for themselves. Second place in Duelist Kingdom. If that's not enough, Mai Valentine and Rex Raptor are both invited to take part in Battle City, through the invitation that Joey doesn't receive. Mai was a Duelist Kingdom finalist and Rex was runner-up in the regional competition that took place before Duelist Kingdom, which secured him an invite to Duelist Kingdom. Joey beat ''both'' of them while at Duelist Kingdom. So, that, on top of his second place ranking in the tournament, seems like it should be more than enough for the database to rank him as a top level duelist. If not, why are Mai and Rex being invited? If it's just Kaiba looking down on Joey, why is he showing any kind of respect to duelists that Joey defeated? |
| 458 | ** Because Kaiba does not like Joey on a personal level. Ergo, Kaiba rates Joey low and thinks nothing of him. |
| 459 | ** Indeed. Kaiba's the one in charge of tournament, which includes dealing out the rankings that determine who gets to participate in it. He doesn't ''have'' to justify it. |
| 460 | ** Doing extensive research would probably include the details of each duel like the finishing move. Joey defeated Mai and Rex by Time Wizard's roulette, and Bonz through drawing Shield and Sword at the last minute. Not to mention Kaiba dueled Joey personally who made the foolish move of summoning monsters in attack mode despite having less attack points than Kaiba's monster. |
| 461 | * After Yami Yugi has summoned Osiris (Slifer) in order to win against Bakura, Marik decides to cheat by using Rishid/Odion, who is posing as him, to use the (fake) Millennium Rod to release Bakura's good half, who is confused and wincing in pain from the injury Marik gave him. Out of concern, Yami Yugi tries to go over to him instead of attacking, but Roland, the referee, tells him not to get closer to Bakura or to continue the duel, or he will be disqualified. Why? Why would you disqualify someone for attempting to assist an obviously injured opponent? And couldn't Kaiba or Mokuba let that slide? Especially since [[TheRival Kaiba clearly wants to duel Yugi later on]]? Even Joey (obviously) cries foul on this! |
| 462 | ** Before Yami Yugi dueled Jounouchi (who at the time was brainwashed by Marik), Kaiba calls him out for believing in friendship. He tells him that Marik will likely use the Millenium Rod to brainwash Jounouchi and pit him against Yugi, which Marik in fact does. He also tells Mokuba that it's a duelist's destiny to challenge anyone who stands in their way, even a friend. This remains consistent with Kaiba, who believes that you have to take down anyone who stands in your way, regardless of circumstances. Kaiba probably thinks that if Yugi doesn't have the resolve to [[KickTheDog attack an injured opponent]], he's not a worthy rival. It's a dick move on Kaiba's part, but again, that's staying consistent with his character. |
| 463 | * I just read the volume of the manga where they start the semi-finals of the battle city tournament, and a question came up: How the hell do they duel on top of a blimp? I know there's a guard rail just in case and that joeys cards get whipped around at one point, and that it's all part of the challenge but there are still quite a few problems with that:1) If they hit turbulence, everyone, especially the duelists and their cards, go flying. 2) It was established they were going at a pretty fast speed, and there are no foot grips or anything so how do the duelists stay standing when they could easily be knocked off. and finally, 3) It's established their high enough up to create a cold windy environment, which is brought up once. Just once. And at that altitude it would be freezing for the crowd too, it would be inhospitable and thus make it near impossible to concentrate. Seriously what was Kaiba on when he designed this, then again [[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries he did say he needed to lay off the drugs]] but still he designs a deathtrap of a theme park and yet he doesn't see all the flaws in this? |
| 464 | ** Sadly I have the answer to my own question: Rule of Cool meets Dramatic Convenience: As impractical as it is Takashi just did it because it looks badass, and similar problems are present with their previous skyscraper duel but it looks so badass, you don't really care. but it still bugs me a bit though. |
| 465 | ** Because it was the only place with a big enough space to hold Kaiba's ego? |
| 466 | ** Kaiba's wanted to show how badass he was, that's why he ordered a blimp and a tower. |
| 467 | ** Kaiba believes that in order to be good enough to deserve the ''honor'' of being in ''his'' tournament finals, you have to be determined when faced with difficult situations. In his eyes, if a little cold or heavy winds are enough to keep you from winning, you're simply not strong enough to be there. |
| 468 | * During Joey's duel with Esper Roba why doesn't Mokuba stop the duel the moment he finds out they are cheating? It's nice and all to be supportive of brothers but it's Mokuba's ''job'' to stop that sort of cheating. What would he have done if Esper had won, go over to Joey and say "I'm sorry you lost while I refused to enforce the rules but at least some siblings are happy"? |
| 469 | ** Espa Roba's brothers count on him as a big brother. Mokuba has a big brother of his own whom he counts on. He feels their pain, so he had to let them off somehow. As he says, "Big brother stories get me every time." |
| 470 | *** So apparently the viewers are just supposed to accept nepotism and arbitrary rule enforcement? |
| 471 | *** You're already supposed to accept the fact that rich people can get away with kidnapping and attempted murder... |
| 472 | *** To be fair, Mokuba did at least stay for the rest of the duel to make sure they didn't give Espa Roba anymore info. |
| 473 | ** Let's keep in mind that the Kaiba Brothers upholding the rules of their tournament is completely thrown out the window when Seto allows the duel between Yugi and the Rare Hunter that won Joey's Red Eyes to continue. It's noted that the Rare Hunter hacked his way into the tournament, which automatically disqualifies him. Seto refuses to do anything about it for various reasons, one being that he wanted the Rare Hunters to come to the tournament anyways and another being that he enjoyed imagining Yugi feeling fear at facing Exodia, as some type of dumb payback. Mokuba then claims he'll do something, since his brother gave him the job of enforcing the rules for the competition, but never actually does. So, from the very first duel, these guys have already undermined any type of fairness taking place in Battle City. |
| 474 | *** ^ Pretty much all of that was just dub nonsense. In the Japanese version, Mokuba wanted to disqualify the RH because he was using counterfeit Exodia cards, not because he "hacked his way into the tournament". The tournament was specifically organized to get the rare hunters to come out, so they were definitely allowing him and the other [=RHs=] to participate -- no need for them to do any hacking. And Kaiba let the duel go on because he figured Yugi wouldn't be a true duelist if he couldn't defeat someone who uses fake cards, not because he was out for petty revenge. In his mind, if Yugi lost, he wouldn't be worthy of participating and being called Kaiba's rival. |
| 475 | |
| 476 | * In the first volumes of the manga, the part where the series features more variety in games, there's always been something I can't figure out. There are at least two instances where the strap that the Millennium Puzzle is on gets broken. One happens when a street thug cuts it off of Yugi's neck to steal it, the other when Yugi grabs the Puzzle back from Imori. What bugs me is that in each of these cases, someone is wearing the Puzzle a few panels later (the thug and the Pharaoh respectively in each situation) and the strap is whole! There is no knot to indicate that the torn/cut ends have been tied together, there's no tape, no glue, or anything else that might be used to mend a broken strap. So how in the world did the strap get fixed so quickly? |
| 477 | ** I, who work with my hands far too much, wonder the same thing. Possible answer: the strap is not so much a strap and more of a rope/string. If it's as old as the puzzle and from ancient Egypt as well (and the manga seems to imply it is), then it's probably something highly fibrous such as goat hair or plant fibre (probably palm fibre). I know from experience that ropes/strings made out of this kind of thing will simply slide appart if they carry too much weight; a hefty tug will do the trick. But at the same time, a broken string can simply be matted or twisted back together by rolling the two ends in the palms of your hands. This only takes a few seconds and leaves no visible join, so it would be possible that Yugi fixed the Puzzle's cord like this. But it raises another question; if the cord is made of goat hair/plant fibre and is as old as the puzzle, how the hell did it survive 3000 years and near-constant handling without crumbling to dust?! |
| 478 | ** [[AWizardDidIt Yami fixed it.]] With Ancient Egyptian Magic[[TradeSnark ™]]!! |
| 479 | * What purpose would having Odion pretend to be Marik serve for Marik? He wants to win Battle City, and in doing so beat Yugi and get the two god cards. So what purpose does pretending to be benign serve at that point? Considering his entire deck is based around summoning and resurrecting the Winged Dragon of Ra ad nauseum, wouldn't it become obvious to everyone as soon as he dueled? But even if his cover hadn't been blown, what exactly does it gain him? |
| 480 | ** When Yami Malik faced Yami Bakura and Good Malik, Yami Malik specifically mentioned changing almost all the cards in Malik's deck since taking control. We never get to see what Malik's deck was like before Yami Malik took over and made his alterations, so it's very likely that the good Malik's deck ran with a completely different shtick. The closest we may have come to seeing Malik's original deck is when Yami Malik dueled against Mai, and he didn't seem to opt for the summon and resurrect strategy in that duel at all. |
| 481 | *** No, that duel was based around using and abusing shadow magic. Which also might have tipped the others off. And even then Mai would have won easily if she didn't try to summon Ra. His strategy is pretty pathetic, even by the standards of the first series. |
| 482 | *** You have a point regarding the shadow magic abuse, but I was referring to the fact that the duel between Yami Malik and Mai occurred very soon after Jonouchi's duel with Rishid. So it seems like Yami Malik wouldn't have had a lot of time available to completely restructure the Good Malik's deck to best suit his preferred strategy. Heck, maybe he resorted to abusing shadow magic ''because'' he didn't have a chance to rework the deck and it was his way of "compensating." |
| 483 | *** Assuming the cards he used against Mai were his own deck, that would've made things worse for him, as he used cards that the Rare Hunters used like Des Guardius and Revival Jam, so Yugi and Kaiba, who had experience dueling Rare Hunters, would've been able to put two and two together, and realize that he's either the real Malik, or at best they would think he's an underling working for Rishid/Odion, who they assume is Malik at the time. But still, they would be suspicious of the guy whose deck just happens to use cards used by the other Rare Hunters. |
| 484 | ** As for what the purpose of having Odion pretend to be him was, Marik's initial plan at that point was to use Odion (and it had to be Odion, because Joey sees him right before he's brainwashed by Marik) as a decoy to draw the attention of his enemies away from him so that he could work behind the scenes, gather information, and gain the trust of the good guys. Having Odion participate in the Finals also theoretically doubles Marik's chances of winning, while if "Marik" loses then the good guys end up thinking they've won and get lulled into a false sense of security—which makes it easier to beat them when "Namu" inevitably betrays them and reveals the truth. The ploy didn't work, of course, because Odion and Marik's personalities are very different and they didn't predict that Joey would manage to sniff it out, but if it had worked, it might have completely changed everything. |
| 485 | * In the battle city finals duel between Yugi and Kaiba, what difference did the [[ChekhovsGun Red Eyes Black Dragon]] really make? He still would have blocked the first attack with Magician's Selection, lost his Magnet Warrior from the second Blue Eyes, and blocked the final Blue Eyes with Spellbinding Circle. The only thing that would have changed is Kaiba's third attack target (Dark Magician instead of Red Eyes), but the results would have still been the same. It's not like he used the Red Eyes the remainder of the duel anyway. |
| 486 | ** In the anime the Spellbinding Circle only lowers the attack of the attacking monster by 700, so that attack would have won the duel for Kaiba if the Red Eyes Black Dragon were not there to take the attack. Also, by standing on the field it gives a power bonus to the Dark Paladin. |
| 487 | ** RuleOfSymbolism is in full effect here, as Red Eyes was used to emphasize how Joey/Jounouchi was supporting Yugi in spirit, but it had no impact on the duel at all. Like the original post mentioned, one attack destroyed Yugi's Magnet Warrior, one was stopped by Magician's Selection, and the last one was stopped by Spellbinding Circle. Dark Magician would attack the Blue Eyes that was weakened by Spellbinding Circle instead of Red Eyes, with a slight difference in battle damage. Dark Paladin still would've had 4400 attack points because of the three Blue Eyes on the field, and because he attacked them all at the same time with Diffusion Wave Motion, the damage (1400 per dragon X 3 dragons) would still be enough to deplete Kaiba's Life Points. |
| 488 | * When Kaiba defeats the Duel Robot in the Battle City arc, it explodes. Why aren't the 3 BEWD cards (& the BEUD) destroyed? |
| 489 | ** Maybe the cards are made of Unobtainium and therefore indestructible. In the manga, he is able to use a card to block the hammer of a gun to stop one of Pegasus' goons from shooting him point blank. |
| 490 | ** If that was when it blew up from Obelisk's attack, I thought those were virtual cards. I could be conflating that with the "Kaiba vs. three-god-cards-Yugi" battle simulation from TheMovie. |
| 491 | *** The deck the machine used likely ''is'' virtual. While Kaiba could easily afford to buy 3 copies of every other card in his deck, the 3 [=BEWD=] cards are irreplaceable, since there's only 3 in existence, and something tells me that if Industrial Illusions would've been willing to make replacement copies, they probably wouldn't have stopped after 3. |
| 492 | * During Battle City tournament, Yami Yugi has two sources of motivation; his first priority is to learn who he is. As the arc goes on he mostly just wants them all to get out alive so that he can keep his promise about dueling Jounouchi in the finals or after the tournament. Okay, so Battle city finally ends, Kaiba blows up Alcatraz, gang stands on top of the blimp and Jounouchi and Yami Yugi put their decks in duel disks. Back to Domino City we go and there's this double page featuring two of them all ready to duel, with the text "Our battle city isn't over!" Chapter ends. Next chapter: flashback to the time Yugi's grandpa found the Millennium Puzzle. Afterwards the memory world starts and no one ever mentions for the rest of the series that Jounouchi and Yami Yugi had a duel. Or that they were supposed to, which is really weird considering half of Yami Yugi's internal monologue that wasn't about card games was revolving around his friend and how he's looking forward to that duel. I've never really watched the second series of YGO seeing that it never aired where I live, so I don't know if this applies to anime or is it just a plothole the manga has. Maybe Kazuki Takahashi was just plain sick of drawing card games at this point that he didn't want to bother anymore, seeing that Jounouchi would have lost anyway. Who knows. It's still really odd how the whole thing was just skipped over like that. |
| 493 | ** It's the same in the anime. However, I did not think at all that the arc was incomplete, and I certainly wouldn't call it a plothole (maybe an anti-climax). Also, from Jonouchi's POV, it was not about the outcome of the duel, but rather about the duel itself. He didn't want to face Yugi until he became a real duelist. Them facing off at the end means that he accomplished his goal. It doesn't really matter who wins. Personally, I thought it was a great way to end the arc on a positive note. |
| 494 | ** Actually, the reasoning for the duel was that Jounouchi was going to win the REBD back, right? This troper's understanding was their duel was an ante-game just like in Battle City. In the Millennium arc Jounouchi has his REBD back ... so we can draw the conclusion this was a friendly duel that the Pharaoh actually lost. |
| 495 | *** Further to the above, despite Yami's almost perfect win record, this isn't impossible considering the roulette nature of Jounouchi's deck. Throw in heart of the cards, and the REBD being the ante and always being Jounouchi's card in spirit, and the Pharaoh losing so the card can be returned makes sense. |
| 496 | *** As anticlimactic as it is, it's at least consistent. They rarely bother showing the entirety of friendly duels unless something is going to happen (viz. Yami vs. Bakura in Duelist Kingdom). The only thing at stake here is the REBD ante, and they were only playing for ''that'' because Jounouchi wouldn't let Yuugi just ''give'' the card back to him. |
| 497 | *** In the original version, the duel itself didn't have REBD as an ante, but rather Jounouchi's personal condition before he'd be willing to take the card back from Yugi would be when he considered himself a "true duelist", which was a recurring plot point in the arc, and the duel's purpose was to determine whether Jounouchi had become a true duelist over the course of the arc. It's entirely possible that Yugi won, but Jounouchi did well enough for him to consider himself a true duelist and then accept REBD back. |
| 498 | * Yugi's duel with Pandora/Arkana has the stipulation that the loser gets their shackled legs cut off by a rapidly spinning, gradually approaching buzzsaw (or gets sent to the Shadow Realm by a rapidly spinning, gradually approaching Dark Energy Disc, if you prefer). That said, how in the hell was either duelist able to hear themselves ''think,'' let alone hear their opponent, with one in each ear? The way I understand it, even the ordinary buzzsaw in your tool shed is an assault on your ears; I can't really imagine two giant saws spinning fast enough for a relatively clean slice would be any quieter. |
| 499 | ** It was probably meant to strain the victim; not let you think calmly as you can hear the buzz saw spinning closer and closer... |
| 500 | ** The Japanese dub chewed the scenery when explaining the buzz saw gimmick. |
| 501 | ** Besides - maybe the saws only spin when they're moving toward a duelist (for that extra bit of torment)? When life points aren't changing, they stay completely still. |
| 502 | * Do we ever find out why Dark Malik/Marik knows more about Ra than his normal self? Unlike the other spirits, he's only six and was actually created by Malik/Marik, only breaking out twice as far as we know. That, along with him suggesting that he might be the real Marik sounds like some WMG fodder. And was his normal self aware even of him all this time? |
| 503 | ** Dark Malik/Marik isn't a spirit invading Marik, he's a SplitPersonality of Marik. He'd logically share every memory with Marik, since they're still the same person for the most part. Granted, this only explains why he knows what Marik does, not why he knows more. |
| 504 | ** The reason that Dark Malik "knows" the effects of Ra is because he is able to read ''all'' of the text on the card, which is how Kaiba is able to find out all the abilities even before the duel with Jonouchi. As for a reason that Dark Malik could read all the Egyptian text and Normal Malik couldn't -- possibly that was part of the Tombkeeper memories that Normal Malik repressed and transferred to his darker self? |
| 505 | *** Marik/Malik hated his tombkeeper legacy, and thus wouldn't have bothered to learn Ancient Sanskrit past a remedial level. Dark Marik/Malik/Melvin owes his existence to his abusive father, so he didn't neglect his studies. |
| 506 | * In the Japanese version, there is English text on Obelisk and Slifer, which mentions needing to Tribute 3 monsters. But the cards were made before Tributes were introduced, and even then, Pegasus didn't make the Tribute mechanic? So what, did the cards update their text to the new rules by themselves? |
| 507 | ** Tributes existed, just not the concept of Tribute Summoning, so it's possible that if the cards were played before Battle City, tributing 3 monsters would just be considered a cost to summon them. And in any case, the premise is invalid, the actual card writing in the Japanese manga doesn't say anything about having to tribute monsters to summon them. (Obelisk just shows its effect of tributing two monsters to wipe the opponent's field, Slifer shows its effect of depowering opponent's summoned monsters and changing its attack points.) |
| 508 | * In Battle City, Joey's last opponent before the finals is Mako. Joey wins and Mako gives up his Fortress Whale along with The Legendary Fisherman. Here's the thing, why did Mako give away his Fortress Whale card? One, he didn't have to, and two, Fortress Whale is a Ritual Monster and since Mako didn't give Joey the Ritual Magic card, there's no way Joey can summon Fortress Whale. |
| 509 | ** In the manga, it's not a Ritual Monster, just a two-tribute card, so it makes sense to give it to him. The anime changed it and added a Ritual Magic card, but kept Mako giving away only the monster, thus making him look pretty silly. As for why he gave it away in the first place, technically Fortress Whale was Mako's rare card ante of the match. The Legendary Fisherman was only given to Joey because of the meaning behind the card, not because of the tournament. |
| 510 | * When Kaiba uses the 'Enemy Controller' Magic card, look at the controller: it has a D-Pad and 3 buttons labeled "A", "B", and "C". Kaiba usually inputs the code "Left Right A B" and Joey later inputs a different code "Up Down Left Right A". Why was a "C" button included if it was never used? |
| 511 | ** Probably to avoid it looking too similar to an NES controller and risking a copyright suit. |
| 512 | * Why don't they ever take cards from defeated Rare Hunters' decks? I can understand not taking the marked cards, since that would potentially brand them as a cheater, but if their minds are trapped in the Shadow Realm (or whatever it is in the Japanese version), who's gonna miss them? They weren't even supposed to be in that tournament to begin with, so a defeated Rare Hunter whose mind is trapped in the Shadow Realm should equal a big cache of super-powered cards up for grabs. You could say it would be stealing, but how do you think the Rare Hunters got their cards to begin with? |
| 513 | ** Because Yami is an ancient Egyptian, and to him, graverobbing is an unforgivable crime (which is what this would be). However, he has been known to take the rare cards that were wagered, since that was agreed upon before the match, and taking that would be only fair. He didn't take any from Seeker because they were counterfeit and/or marked, and he didn't want to use illegal cards like that. In the manga, he did possibly take a Dark Magician from Arkana; you see him use a copy with the exact same art later on, so he probably took it and used it as a second copy. He obviously took Slifer from Strings. As for Lumis and Umbra, all of their rare cards require another card to work (Mask of Remnants requires Des Guardius requires the common monsters they used, Masked Beast requires a ritual spell), so just taking one would be useless. |
| 514 | *** It's unlikely that Yugi would have taken any of Arkana's Dark Magicians, or at least that he would have used them, because all three of his copies had been illegally trimmed for Arkana's shuffle manipulation trick. Even if Yugi didn't intend to cheat with it, he can't really get around the card being physically modified and would probably not risk putting it in his deck. |
| 515 | ** That same reason is why he didn't take either Destiny Board or Dark Necrofear from Bakura, And he did take the other two gods from Kaiba and Marik. So, either Yugi did take a card from his opponent, or he had a good reason not to (or, at least, not to put it in his deck). |
| 516 | ** His motivation was never to power up his deck. The only cards he ever wins from antes were Red Eyes from Seeker, and the God Cards, and those each relate to some sort of motivation. Yugi took Red Eyes back from Seeker because he took it from Jounouchi. He ended up keeping Red Eyes because Jounouchi didn't feel worthy of owning it, which starts Jounouchi's subplot to become a true duelist. The God Cards are directly tied to the Pharaoh's missing memories, so he needs those cards to learn the truth about his past. It's also later confirmed that Kaiba took Des Guardius from Lumis and Umbra to make sure he went first in the four way duel, since that was decided by choosing a monster, and the order went from highest ATK to lowest. The downside is that whatever card is used can't be used for the rest of the tournament, but that didn't matter in Kaiba's case since he didn't have any other cards that work with Des Guardius. |
| 517 | * In the Yugi vs. Kaiba duel, Yugi gets Slifer on the field, but is afraid to attack XYZ-Dragon Cannon because Kaiba's set card might be the Life Shaver trap. Why didn't Yugi play Pot of Greed before attacking if he was worried about that? If Kaiba's card had been Life Shaver, Slifer would have been reduced to 3000 ATK, which is still enough to destroy XYZ-Dragon Cannon. |
| 518 | * In Yami Marik's duel with Yami Bakura, Yami Marik merges with the Winged Dragon of Ra because his body was the representation of his Life Points. However, when he finally duels the Pharaoh, physical manifestations of Yugi and Marik's souls are the representations for their Life Points, so how come Yami Marik is still the one merging with Ra when he gives it his Life Points instead of Marik? Played out logically, that duel is a decent XanatosGambit for Yami Marik, because if he loses that just means his good side is gone and now he's all Hyde and no Jekyll. Of course, without the Winged Dragon of Ra he has no chance of winning another duel for the Egyptian God cards, but the whole "destroy Ra with Yami Marik attached to it" plan has no basis. |
| 519 | * Even if Yami Marik ''is'' the one merged with Ra, how the hell is "De-Fusion" going to separate them!? You don't de-fuse Life Points from a monster. |
| 520 | ** It's because Yami Marik merged with Ra by sacrificing his Life Points, so it's kind of like saying his body and Life Points are fusion material that fuse with Ra. Therefore, when he does use De-Fusion to separate from Ra, he gets back his Life Points and his body reverts to normal. |
| 521 | * How does Malik take his shirt off while wearing the Millennium Ring ''and'' a duel disk? This is pointed out in ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' -- he would totally get stuck in his shirt and it would totally be really funny. Does he have some kind of IntangibleMan powers he also uses to take off his bangles and chokers? Did he just rip his shirt (after all, he seems to have brought a spare, since he [[EvilCostumeSwitch swapped]] his cute lavender top for a plain black tanktop when Yami Malik took over)? Why didn't he just take off his duel disk? |
| 522 | * Was it ever explained why Kaiba made a tribute rule? It seems like that kind of screws over his blue eyes white dragon card, making it a lot less useful. The meta reason I know is to make it more similar to the real game but I just unsure why Kaiba would implement a rule that cripples his best cards. |
| 523 | ** I'm guessing so that the stronger monsters don't wipe out the opponent before they can summon their best cards. For example, the Egyptian Gods, which Kaiba ''wanted'' to be summoned. And basically so that he could screw around with people that decided to make an ass of themselves during the tournament, like the one duelist he Curb-stomped with Obelisk the Tormentor on the first turn, even though he would've needed to sacrifice monsters to summon it at all. |
| 524 | ** This may be headcanoning a little too hard, but I think Obelisk wouldn't let him summon it unless he gave it sacrifices; ancient Egyptian magic made the holograms glitch out or something. So Kaiba played it with the sacrifice rule that's written on the card, saw it worked, and rebalanced the game around sacrifice summons. |
| 525 | * During Weevil's duel with Joey, he mentions that the only monsters that are strong enough to defeat Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth are Gate Guardian and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. I get why he didn't mention the Egyptian God cards (since he didn't know about them), but Dragon Master Knight also fits in the criteria, and technically the same applies to the 5 pieces of Exodia. Why didn't Weevil mention either of those? |
| 526 | ** Dragon Master Knight requires Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon as fusion material, so it's ultimately redundant to mention that card. As Weevil stated, BEUD is strong enough to defeat Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth, so there's no point in summoning Dragon Master Knight when one of its materials is strong enough to defeat his moth, as that would just be overkill. Plus, both monsters have the same flaw, which is requiring three Blue-Eyes to summon BEUD, and at this point, pretty much everyone knows Kaiba is the only one in the world who has the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. As for Exodia, Weevil threw the cards into the ocean on the way to Duelist Kingdom. It's possible he didn't know about Seeker or the fact that the Rare Hunters created counterfeit Exodia cards, and assumed it wasn't a threat. |
| 527 | *** Not to mention, fusion monsters seem to be treated as combining monsters together as-is in the anime/manga, instead of using the materials for a special card like it's done in the OCG/TCG. So basically, Dragon Master Knight wasn't mentioned because it hasn't been tried yet (and rightfully so.) Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon on the other hand ''would'' be mentioned by Weevil because it's a known fusion monster Kaiba's used since Duelist Kingdom. |
| 528 | * So Marik programmed Strings to kill Yami after winning the duel? How would that have worked? It wasn't even a Shadow Game and the Pharaoh was not some helpless guy, I'm sure he would've easily fended him off. |
| 529 | * Given the Exodia Rare Hunter used fake cards in the Japanese version, how were the duel disks able to produce holograms for them and how did Yami learn they were fake? |
| 530 | ** Because Kaiba allowed it. His computers detected the fakes but he let the duel go on, rationalizing that Yugi wouldn't be a true duelist if he couldn't handle an opponent who uses counterfeit cards. |
| 531 | * A has an Egyptian God on the field, B summons Exodia. Which monster would win? |
| 532 | ** Exodia. The Egyptian Gods have been defeated by monsters weaker than Exodia. Once Exodia hits the field, its unstoppable. |
| 533 | * Early in the arc Yugi duels Bandit Keith while this one was being mind-controlled by Malik (and speaking in his voice) in a plot to steal the Millennium Puzzle. After Yugi wins, the mind control is broken. Malik attempts to retake control of Keith in order to take the puzzle, but Keith fights back and shatters the puzzle, saying (in his own voice) basically "This thing is what all this trouble is about!?" Much later on in the saga, Malik explains to Yugi his mind-controlling abilities, and reveals that he can actually have mind-controlled people speak in their own voices, adding Keith was actually still being controlled by him when he shattered the puzzle in what's clearly a retcon. The question is... why? Why retcon that part? It didn't really add anything to the story, other than making Malik's mind-controlling abilities more convoluted and his demeanor more nonsensical. |
| 534 | ** He might've been lying to save face (he didn't ''actually'' lose control of Keith, he just wanted it to look that way! For... reasons), perhaps. |
| 535 | [[/folder]] |
| 536 | |
| 537 | [[folder:Virtual World]] |
| 538 | * How did the Big Five get trapped in the virtual world? Joey, Yugi, Mokuba, Mai, and Kaiba managed to return to their bodies after ther Legendary Heroes arc just fine, and presumably they entered the game the same way. On that matter, how did they even get there? The virtual world from their first appearance was a video game Kaiba Corp. had developed, completely separate from the world Noah was in. I know this was a FillerArc to buy the manga time, but it still needs to make sense. |
| 539 | * This drives me crazy. How is it possible that Kaiba never knew Noah existed until that arc? He explicitly mentions watching Gozaburo on TV a fair bit, you'd think the coma/eventual death of an extremely powerful CEO would make the news. And no one ever mentions this to him? Really? |
| 540 | ** Especially because this could have been easily handwaved. Something like "Okay Mokuba, I knew this guy existed all along but never mentioned him to you because he was dead and stuff and therefore not important." would have sufficed. |
| 541 | ** Noah died AFTER it was decided that Seto was going to live with them, but BEFORE he actually moved in. I can guess that it was reported on the news about Noah's death the day Seto moved in, and given his hellish life there, it's not unlikely he didn't have time to watch TV or read a newspaper. Either that or Gozuboro didn't want to be reminded of Noah's death and payed off every news company in the world to not report the death, because, let's face it, he really did have that much money. |
| 542 | * Less fridge logic, just more a flat out mistake. In a flashback to when they were living in the orphanage, Seto tells Mokuba they would start their own themepark called Kaibaland. This was well before they were adopted. |
| 543 | ** He was obviously already planning to take over Kaibacorp somehow even in the orphanage. |
| 544 | ** Well, "Kaiba" can mean "seahorse" in Japanese (Or so I've heard), and in Japanese "seahorse" is somehow synonymous with "young dragon", and considering that Seto has a thing for dragon, it's not entirely impossible that the fact he wanted to name his theme park this was little more than coincidence. |
| 545 | * In Noah's Arc, each card in their decks was chosen from the Kaiba Corp database. At this point, all three Egyptian God cards were in the database. Why did nobody pick them? They weren't limited by rarity anymore, they could each have the triple set. |
| 546 | ** Highly impractical, since the Egyptian gods require triple sacrifices, and are handicapped in terms of revival from the grave. And even so, a duel finished with one of the gods would have diminished the significance. |
| 547 | *** Then why didn't only Yugi pick those? you know, having them around all the time and by the final battle, summon all of them to the field and blowing the BigBad. |
| 548 | *** It could also be that they wanted to avoid the wrath of the gods that would come from using a digital copy of the cards. |
| 549 | *** After all they all saw what happened to Odion, they probably didn't want to try to test it again. |
| 550 | ** Noah didn't want to allow access to them because they unbalanced the game. As can be seen with his interaction with the Big Five, Noah was ''real'' big on fairness. Also, he didn't want to hand Kaiba an enormous advantage when defeating him was the whole point of the exercise. |
| 551 | * How does a company thats only worth, at most, less than $20 million with very small profit margins manage to get ahold of $100 million? |
| 552 | ** Either through illegal means, or because they're just that good. |
| 553 | ** Presumably the owner himself is worth more than that company, and he dipped into his personal funds to do it. |
| 554 | * I know this series is a poster child for the Screw The Rules tropes, but there's a particularly egrigious example that I felt needed to be mentioned. When Yami and Joey duel the Big Five, Lecter summons the Five-Headed Dragon using a ritual card, stating that he has to sacrifice five monsters, each one with a different attribute. He then proceeds to sacrifice all five of his deck masters. This seems to work at first, until you realize that Nightmare Penguin (Krump's deckmaster) and Deepsea Warrior (Gansley's Deckmaster) have the same attribute. In other words, Lecter not only broke the rules, he explicitly stated what they were before doing so. What the hell is up with that? |
| 555 | ** The dialogue in the Japanese version describes Nightmare Penguin as a Wind monster when the list of sacrificed Deck Masters is read off. Which, since Nightmare Penguin ''isn't a Wind monster'', explains ''nothing''. |
| 556 | *** But isn't it in the anime? |
| 557 | * Seto's big test to prove his worthiness to lead [=KaibaCorp=]. His mission was to turn $10 million into $100 million in one year. He did so by buying a majority stake in a company, then demanding to be bought out at ten times his purchase price, or else he would fire all the company's employees, whom the now minority owner cared deeply enough about to give in. How in the world did that scheme succeed? The idea that said super-protective owner, who apparently had so much surplus cash lying around that paying off Seto's outlandish demand was even possible, would even allow outside investors in his company at all, much less allow someone else to take over majority control, is hard enough to swallow. But why couldn't he have simply used a fraction of that buyout money to start a brand-new company and re-hire everyone Seto fired? It all makes Creator/LittleKuriboh's alternative narrative, wherein Seto simply pulled a gun on the company owner, much more plausible by comparison. |
| 558 | ** It's possible that the old owner owned several companies and had to take resources from all of them to save the one Kaiba took over. Furthermore starting a new company would not be as easy as all that, since the old one may already have control over the market and could continue to do so if Kaiba brought in his own people. |
| 559 | *** If the old owner owned other companies, why couldn't he have those companies absorb the fired employees? And the "control over the market" argument rather assumes customers would remain loyal to a company name, rather than the people who won their business in the first place. |
| 560 | *** Even if the company kept its own clients, it would lose the power of its brand name. A new startup would be perceived as new by those who weren't industry insiders even if it had the exact same lineup as a previous company. Not to mention, many of a company's decisions are made by its investors, who typically ''aren't'' insiders. |
| 561 | *** The company is a funeral home in the Japanese version, that's why the original owner had to give in to Kaiba's demand, though admittedly, that still doesn't explain how he had enough money to obey Kaiba. |
| 562 | * Why did the Big Five and Noah simply not take over the main characters bodies right away? They clearly could do it, and if I was stuck in a prison, I wouldn't set my freedom on winning a card game. |
| 563 | ** Noah ordered them to play the card game and win, and not cheat during it. It's because he wanted to prove to Gozaburo that he was worthy of being the CEO of Kaiba Corp by besting Kaiba and his friends. |
| 564 | *** And, at least in the Japanese version, Noah was lying anyway. He wanted to keep Kaiba's allies busy, and the Big Five were convenient dupes for that purpose. |
| 565 | ** How does beating them at a card game prove that Noah is better at running a buisness? |
| 566 | *** Logically it wouldn't, but then neither Noah nor Gozaburo is exactly logical (or sane). Noah probably just wants to "beat Kaiba at his own game." |
| 567 | *** In the subbed version, Noah says he wants to settle things with a Duel because that is the method Kaiba is most comfortable with and thus he would accept the loss. And if Noah played fairly, he might have. As for Gozoburo, he himself was defeated by Kaiba in a game of chess, a game that Gozoburo himself admits is his favorite. And since he lost, he was forced to adopt Kaiba, who would eventually take Gozoburo’s company from. In short, Gozoburo’s entire life was ruined because of one bad chess game. He challenges Kaiba to a Duel because he wanted his revenge to be a kind of poetic karma. He wanted Kaiba to lose everything in the game that ''he'' loved the most. It’s less about proving who can run a business and more about destroying Kaiba the same way he destroyed Gozoburo. |
| 568 | * Why was Nesbitt so insistent on dueling Shizuka/Serenity besides being the only character who has zero dueling experience? |
| 569 | ** You said it best- she had zero dueling experience, and she would be the easiest to take out. Alternatively, he could've been baiting Tristan or Duke (much more experienced duelists) to take the fall for her (which worked out in the end). |
| 570 | * Why, WHY is the Virtual World arc placed smack in the middle of the Battle City Finals? Granted, it's this troper's favorite arc but 20+ filler episodes (that roughly span a few hours in universe at most) in a middle of a very important "Save the World" plot? Also, this arc gives Kaiba a lot of really good CharacterDevelopment culminating in him finally beating his abusive stepfather... only for him to start Wangsting about it again in the next arc after losing to Yugi. Anyone else think this arc would have fit better ''after'' Battle City completely? |
| 571 | ** The anime writers underestimated how long it would take Kazuki Takahashi to finish Battle City, and caught up to him unintentionally. They had to do ''something'' to give him time to finish. |
| 572 | *** In Japan, all shows have 1 new episode a week, all 52 weeks of the year (rather than taking a break for a few months like US television). It's entirely possible that the anime caught up to where the manga was at at the time, and they threw in a filler arc to pass the weeks until the manga could get ahead, and they could continue the main plot. That's exactly why filler arcs exist in any anime based on a manga or video game series. |
| 573 | * What would have happened if any of the Characters would have played a Card that gives them permanent Control over an Opponents Deckmaster? Esspecially against a Member of the Big 5 who played as their own Deckmasters. |
| 574 | ** They would lose if the monster left the field without being replaced (as per Berserk Dragon replacing Five-Headed Dragon). Only Nezbitt summoned himself during a duel, probably for this reason. The rest of the Big Five only "summoned" themselves to summon Five-Headed Dragon. If they had summoned themselves and been controlled they would either be separated from their body (or be unable to duel) and lose, have to attack their own monster/themselves but duel normally. |
| 575 | * Why didn't Noah make Marik or Ishizu leave the airship with the other duelists? |
| 576 | ** Would you want to drag Dark Marik into your tournament? |
| 577 | *** If I knew who he was, then probably not. But really, doesn't Noah have some sort of camera system that can detect that strange crazy-haired guy standing ''right on top of the blimp''? For that matter, why didn't Ishizu leave? You'd think that with all the weird crap going on inside and outside the airship would tip her off and make her leave her bedroom, wouldn't you? Bakura and Mai were banished to the Shadow Realm and Odion was unconscious, so ''they'' have an excuse, but how did Noah miss the other two duelists on the blimp he captured? |
| 578 | ** Well Noah and the Big Five needed at least six people to take their bodies, and they already had a surplus with the eight people who got off the blimp, so there would be no need for another two. Also, the Big Five likely wanted revenge against Yugi and Joey, and to lesser extent Tristan and Tea, due to how they thwarted their last previous attempt to trap Kaiba in a Virtual world so they could take other Kaiba Corp. Duke and Serenity more or less tag along regardless. Noah also had some information on Yugi and his group, such as knowing about their relationship to Kaiba and Mokuba. Noah likely surmised that Yugi and his friends would undoubtedly follow Kaiba and Mokuba into danger no matter the situation, as they have done before and that is pretty much what happens. Noah wouldn’t have the same info on Ishizu or Marik since Kaiba only just met them, let alone the fact that the former is at best a vague associate and the latter is Kaiba’s enemy. Neither of them has the same investment in Kaiba the way Yugi’s group does, and wouldn’t be interested in helping him. |
| 579 | * How did any of the protagonists from the Nezbitt duel on (except Serenity) know what their Deck Master's ability was when Yugi, Tea and Joey didn't know until their Deck Masters told them? |
| 580 | ** In Kaiba's case it's probably safe to assume he knew about the Deck Masters' abilities already since he designed the game and Noah's warped sense of fair play would stop him from altering the Deck Master ability. For the others, I assumed the Deck Master told them at some point while the audience weren't watching; Duke and Tristan could have "spoken" with their Deck Masters when other duellists were taking a turn, and Yugi has always had a good bond with the Dark Magician that might help him learn what the Magician's ability was. |
| 581 | * What were Johnson and Gansley's reasons for hating Kaiba? Nezbitt had his lab destroyed, Crump had his penguin theme park rejected, and Leichter was demoted from first in line to take over Kaiba Corp to a figurehead. Fair enough, but what did Kaiba ever do to Johnson and Gansley? |
| 582 | ** As individuals, nothing that we know of, but as a group, they're unhappy with Seto for convincing them that Gozaburo doesn't respect them and promising them they power they deserve (however, this may also because of them being power hungry) if they help him overthrow Gozaburo as the [=KaibaCorp=] president only for Seto to not only back out of his end of the bargain, converting the company from war weapons to games but for also supposedly taking whatever power they had. At best, helping Seto was pointless and got nothing from their deal, at worst, they basically lost everything (taken literally in the end). |
| 583 | * What would have happened to Marik's good side if Anzu had lost? |
| 584 | ** My guess is that he'd still be there. Magic and technology would mix weirdly. Marik stuck a piece of his soul into Anzu, while the Big Five take over bodies by overwriting brain waves (or something that doesn't touch the soul). They can't kick him out because their methods don't overlap. |
| 585 | *** The Abridged Series did a take on this: basically, Marik tolerated him for a few episodes before kicking him out once he realized how much of a creep he is. I imagine the same thing would happen in this series. |
| 586 | * This one applies only to the original, since 4kids actually fixed it, but how did Noah not know his father was in the virtual world as well? Even if Gozaburo had somehow managed to hide his presence, you think Noah or the big five would've stumbled on his hideout. |
| 587 | ** The Abridged Series took this view. |
| 588 | [[/folder]] |
| 589 | |
| 590 | [[folder:Doma/Orichalcos]] |
| 591 | * Why did Yami play the Seal of Orichalcos against Rafael? If he hadn't, he would've lost the duel but nothing was at stake. If neither player uses the seal, the loser can just walk away, soul intact. For that matter, why didn't he just rip up the card to prevent it from being used on anyone? |
| 592 | ** That was the point Rafael was trying to make. Yami was so obsessed with winning (not to mention really pissed off) that he played the Seal even though he didn't have to. |
| 593 | ** Actually, didn't Rafael cut down the bridge and then say that the winner would get to leave on a helicopter, while the loser had to stay there (presumably to starve). Then again, my memory of those particular episodes isn't very clear. |
| 594 | ** It's heavily implied that the Seal takes a person's strongest emotion and uses that to manipulate them. |
| 595 | ** It's because Yami has never actually been in a no-stakes duel before. The concept is alien to him. He MUST win, otherwise something terrible will happen. In Duelist Kingdom, his grandfather would be locked away for good. Battle City, he'd be unable to save the world from Marik/he'd get sent to the Shadow Realm. Virtual World, he'd be trapped there for good. It never occurred to him that he can lose a duel and be completely fine because that's never happened until then. If you compare that to the Ceremonial Battle, where he can lose and be okay, it shows just how far he has actually come. Him playing The Seal still doesn't work, but for a completely different reason. |
| 596 | ** I always thought the Seal was affecting his mind and forcing him to play it. |
| 597 | ** He also had that little bit of green stone - it seems to be required and bring out the darker emotions. Not knowing about it, Yami wouldn't have been on guard against that power influencing his emotions. |
| 598 | ** It's one of the reasons that setup is so obviously filler. They could have had Raphael mention giving him back one of his God cards, or capturing him for Dartz, or SOMETHING, but instead it comes across as an odd no stakes duel in order to lazily set up the conflict. |
| 599 | ** In his mind, he didn't have a choice. He had to win in his mind, and that card was the only thing that would save him. Yes, he should have just accepted defeat instead of playing it, but that was part of his character. He REFUSED to lose under any circumstances. |
| 600 | *** Not really, since he was prepared to lose in the duel against Bakura during Battle City, and would have if Dark Bakura hadn't told him to attack. Developing enough to see that some things are worth more than victory was a big part of his development DK and BC. Case in point, the moment where he nearly gives up fighting in BC after Jonouchi falls into a coma. The duel no longer seemed as important as other things. Orichalcos is a base breaker for a lot of fans because it goes against this development. |
| 601 | *** The difference is he had Yugi influencing him during those points, whereas when Yami played the Seal, Yugi was unable to communicate with Yami, so you can assume any influence Yugi had on Yami is gone. Like he says when he meets Yugi before they duel for the first time, "Without your light to keep me pure, I'm becoming evil." Without Yugi to keep him under control, all he cares about is winning. The point of his first duel with Raphael was to show that. |
| 602 | *** That seems a bit of a handwave to this troper. During the Bakura duel, Yami was very clearly not going to attack until Y Bakura takes over again. In neither manga nor anime does Yugi have to hold him back or tell him not to - he stops all on his own. He shows he doesn't just care about winning. There's also been plenty of episodes where Yugi just vanishes into the Puzzle while Yami does his thing and Yami doesn't go of the rails just because Yugi isn't there to hold him back. And when Yami was alive as Pharaoh and in the Millennium World arc, Yugi isn't around, he doesn't just care about winning but protecting his people. That line about Yugi's light was an add-in to the English dub, and even in the English Yugi tells Yami he has to step up, and it's not about whether he's around or not. He already demonstrated in the Bakura duel that he cares about more than winning, and he's developed far past that point by Season 4, and has shown kindness without Yugi forcing in to plenty of times before. It doesn't make sense to claim Yugi's influence is responsible for all his behaviours. |
| 603 | *** I guess it's just something that's meant to be left open to interpretation then. When I mentioned Yugi keeping Yami under control, I didn't mean him physically having to tell Yami to stop or switching to force him like he did in S1 with Kaiba. What I meant was Yugi may have still had some subconscious control over Yami, due to them inhabiting the same body, like when Yami stopped to think during a duel, Yugi's voice would do the talking (at least in the dub, I'm not familiar with the original so I'm not sure if it carried over from the Japanese version, same with the scene with Yugi and Yami I mentioned earlier). So while Yugi didn't have to actually tell Yami not to attack Bakura, he still had enough control over Yami to not allow him to attack. Whereas in the duel with Rafael, Yami plays the seal in a moment of desperation and since Yugi is locked away behind the seal, he no longer can control Yami, who then begins to play recklessly as his only focus at that point is to beat Rafael as fast as possible to avoid having his soul taken, which is why he uses Catapult Turtle instead of doing the smart thing and simply waiting for the Swords Of Revealing Light to vanish like he probably would have otherwise. That was always what I thought Yami meant by "Without you to keep me pure...", not that he needed Yugi to physically hold him back, just without Yugi's conscience being part of him, nothing was holding him back from doing the same thing he did during his duel with Rafael again. Like I said though, that's just my interpretation, I'm probably wrong. |
| 604 | *** No one interpretation is 'wrong' since the writers didn't make a lot of stuff clear (hence the existence of the Headscratchers). That explanation prob leans a bit too heavy on the dub for me, since in the sub when Yami is in control he does the thinking and strategising without input from Yugi. It could be read that their soul bond influences Yami, but given that he seemed a righteous Pharaoh when he was alive and Yugi was nowhere to be seen I can't really buy into the idea that Yugi keeps him 'pure' just by being around. Also we don't really see that Yami wanted to attack Bakura and Yugi controlled him out of it - if that was the case, Yugi could have just done the same to stop Yami attacking Kaiba in the DK duel. I'm splitting hairs a bit but this part still doesn't make sense to me. (That and Yugi have been puppeetering Yami all this time is kind of a creepy explanation, when you think about it). |
| 605 | ** Ummm... the duel isn't exactly no-stakes. Yami being unable to beat Rafael now would symbolically mean the enemy was too much for him. Plus, at the time he was thinking of the Black Magician Girl as a real person and not just a card (which she kinda-sorta was) and was upset that she was frozen, along with Timaeus. In essence he saw it as saving a friend, similar to how Yami bent over backwards to keep his cards from dying during that Duelist Kingdom battle with Dark Bakura. |
| 606 | * Yami playing the Seal of Orichalcos against Raphael. He plays Card of Sanctity to draw more cards, but laments that he got nothing... except he drew De-Fusion and Hand Control. De-Fusion would have let him split up Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight into DMG and his dragon, at which point he could just re-fuse them. Better yet, play hand control, make Raphael play Necromancy, tribute two monsters for Dark Magician, play De-Fusion, summon Amulet Dragon, and since you have 8 Spell Cards in your Graveyard, you get a 5300 ATK beatstick. And no Seal in sight. He's the King of Games, how'd he overlook that? |
| 607 | ** De-Fusion might not have worked; [[ExactWords after all, the Dragons weren't technically monsters, but their own type of card]], hence out-of-bounds for De-fusion to summon back. And as for the Hand-Control thing, no clue. |
| 608 | *** De-Fusion wouldn't have worked, because the Eye of Timaeus isn't a monster card, and thus can't be returned to the monster zones. The real question is why didn't Yami use Hand Control *before* playing the seal? Even without the seal's power, he can still take out Guardian Kay'est with Dark Magician, destroying Purity of the Cemetery. Raphael can't kill him next turn, because if he attacks one of the defense position monsters left over, it breaks the Crystal Seal, letting him take out Guardian Grarl too, and if he does slay Dark Magician, which is the only one left in attack position, Yami still survives, and is then able to use the Heart of the Cards to grab a spell that can fix things. Dark Magician+Hand Control WAS the solution the Heart of the Cards game him, and he missed it cuz Seal brainwashing. |
| 609 | *** Because that play would not work. Kay'est's effect prevents her from being attacked. Dark Magician wouldn't be able to destroy Gardna or Grarl either, so Purity of the Cemetery would remain in play. Forcing Necromancy via Hand Control would at least reduce the effect damage from Purity (so he'd take 200 damage the next turn instead of 600, assuming he kept all four targets on the field instead of Tributing two of them for Dark Magician), but Rafael could still just stall Yami out. |
| 610 | * Mai's motivation in the Doma arc. She blamed Joey for letting Marik torture her. Quick question, WHAT ABOUT MARIK? She didn't feel anger towards, you know, the guy who actually tortured her? |
| 611 | ** HeelFaceBrainwashing, thanks to Dartz and the Seal of Orichalcos. Dartz used the fear inside of her from her earlier MindRape, leading her to believe that the nightmares of being abandoned and the possibility of dying should she lose another duel were true, so that she would accept the Seal and become his latest recruit. The Seal of course [[PowerCorrupts brings out the worst tendencies out of anyone]], which was brutally lampshaded when Yami activated it. |
| 612 | *** That explains why she wanted revenge, but not against Joey instead of Marik. |
| 613 | *** Again, a result of Dartz [[MoreThanMindControl leading Mai to believe that Yugi and Joey abandoned her, and deserved to be punished]]. Making Marik a target would serve no purpose for Dartz, since Yugi and Joey were both chosen ones, while Marik held no such importance. |
| 614 | *** Probably Marik never appeared because it was a filler arc with no connection to the series. |
| 615 | *** Also, the Marik that actually [[MindScrew effed her up]] is already gone. Mai just plain ''can't'' get revenge on him for hurting her. Going after Joey/Jonouchi is the next best thing. |
| 616 | ** Is this a sub vs dub thing? I just watched these episodes in Japanese, and Mai DIDN'T want revenge... she was traumatized from her ordeal, and feared the possibility of ever being in such a helpless situation ever again. That's why she joined Doma. Her hostility towards Yugi and Jonouchi meanwhile was just the Orichalcos messing with her mind and giving her some idea that if she could finally beat those two, she would never be helpless again. |
| 617 | * Mai blaming Jou and the gang is one thing, but why did she join up with Dartz in the first place? Wanting power makes sense, but she has PTSD over Marik locking up her spirit and slowly torturing her. Why would she join up with Dartz if he wants her to use the Seal - which, if she loses, will subject her to spiritual torture all over again? Isn't this basically the equivalent of a character being tortured by electrocution, let's say, then deciding to use an electric weapon themselves that could go wrong and electrocute them and not their enemy? It seems a little stupid for her to behave this way. Also, why didn't she just talk to the gang? Is she having Aesop Amnesia too? |
| 618 | ** She's been horrifically traumatized and is having her PTSD taken advantage of by Dartz. She isn't thinking clearly. |
| 619 | * In the Fourth Season, after it turns out that Pegasus got his soul taken, Yugi and co. are stuck in America with no way back home. A big to do is raised over the fact that Kaiba is their only way back home. What bothers me is that Pegasus is the one that flew them out. Did he not have the foresight to ensure that their flight was round-trip? The very least he could have done was buy them all tickets back home in advance to give them after he explained everything. Hell, Yugi and his friends could have just explained their situation to Pegasus' staff and gotten back on the plane. Surely his staff wouldn't be that uptight to not fly them back without an explicit say so from a conscious Pegasus, especially if they were clued in to what was going on. |
| 620 | ** Pegasus probably didn't know how long it take them to finish, and thus, couldn't get tickets for the time they would be leaving. As for his staff, they're a game company, not workers at an airport. Lots of companies in real life wouldn't bother with such a thing, as they would see it as a waste of money. Why should we expect the staff of Industrial Illusions to be any different? |
| 621 | * If Atem can control destiny with his will, why didn't he use it against Raphael? Could have saved a lot of angst. |
| 622 | ** Wasn't he only able to control that power after the Memory Arc? Also, he states that Rafael's bond with his monsters gives him the power to alter destiny as well. |
| 623 | ** He probably ''did'' control his destiny in that duel, as well as pretty much any other duel he's ever been in. (Exodia topdeck, anyone?) It's just that he didn't realize he could do that until after the Millennium World arc. |
| 624 | ** Wait... CAN Atem "control his destiny?" Is this a sub vs dub thing? I just finished the Orichalcos arc and am halfway through the KC Grand Prix, and every single time they've talked about choosing your fate, its been in ''metaphorical'' terms--not a literal superpower, more of a "you don't have to be evil if you don't want to" type of thing. As for topdecking, lots of dialogue implies that this is an inherent superpower all passionate duelists have (Kaiba once laments that his drawing is "too good" when he winds up drawing a blue-eyes to throw at somebody). |
| 625 | * Why does the Seal of Orichalcos adhere to the rules at the time? Or any rules at all? The Shadow Games makes a certain kind of sense, as all object being sought had to be won semi-honourably. But why does the Seal adhere to a childrens card game instead of just taking their souls? The wielders are clearly cheating, why even bother playing the game? And why those rules? Why doesn't it follow Duelist Kingdom rules instead - i.e, the rules that are still standard for anyone outside the Battle City tournament. |
| 626 | ** As for the rules, that didn't bug me at all. In my opinion, the duelist kingdom rules were a complete mess. Most of the games were won by things like "Yugi attacked the moon". Not that that wasn't kind of interesting, but the Battle City rules are easier to follow in real life, and Monster Cards with a high attack are less of a GameBreaker. |
| 627 | *** The rules are superior for people watching, but they're still custom rules Kaiba thought up just for his tournament, that became standard rules in his duel academy. As far as anyone else is concerned, in-universe the Duelist Kingdom rules are the actual rules. |
| 628 | *** Maybe he programmed the rules into the Duel Disks so that you can't play by the other rules? Or maybe the rules were so well-received that people started playing by them. I'm at a loss, but as I said, I didn't mind. |
| 629 | *** Well, in the case of Kaiba's programming, in Battle City, Joey tried summoning a high-level monster without a sacrifice, but it didn't work because it didn't follow the rules (this was promptly pointed out to him). So it seems that, yes, Kaiba had programmed them to work under his rules only. As for the seal, it probably follows the rules that either it's user or (if said evil seal has standards) both players decide to use. |
| 630 | *** This makes no sense. First, Dartz's Duel Disks were custom, possibly arcane things. They would hardly be subject to Kaibas rules. Second, the Seal is so unbelievably unfairly broken, that saying its a fair game is just laughable - the user has such a giant advantage, that only one duelist was able to beat someone using Seal without using the similarly broken Legendary Dragons cards - both times against extremely low level players, and both times only with a card he pulled right out of his ass. If you're going to cheat like that, why even bother with the game? |
| 631 | ** It's possible the magic which minds the monster spirits to the card also works on other forms of magic. Once they tried to bring Atlantean magic back into the world, it took the form of trading cards. Same goes for other unrelated forms of magic like the power of the Earthbound Immortals. |
| 632 | * Why didn't Dartz and his men ambush Marik and the Rare Hunters to get the god cards without having to go through Yugi? |
| 633 | ** They might have had a harder time locating Marik, and by the time they did, he was already in the middle of the whole Battle City thing, and that would have made things too complicated. Or they could have been waiting for someone to have all three (Marik never got Obelisk). |
| 634 | ** Also, it's a lot easier to steal trading cards from a high school student instead of from the leader of an ancient organization of thieves that he rules with dark magic and mind control powers. |
| 635 | ** Plus, by the time Dartz's minions would've been able to locate Marik's base of operations, Ishtar had taken Obelisk the Tormentor. Assuming Dartz knew the rules of Battle City, he would've known that whoever won the tournament would have all 3 God Cards in their possession (since, as evident by Kaiba having to wager Obelisk and Yugi wagering Slifer, instead of one of his Blue Eyes[=/=]Dark Magician respectively, it's safe to assume they were the rarest cards in the game at the time of the tournament), so it would've made more sense for him to wait for the end of the Battle City tournament so they'd all be in one place than it would for him to strike mid-tournament (especially since up until the part where they were on the blimp, as far as anyone knew, Marik didn't have Ra on him) or pre-tournament (since at most, they could've gotten 2 God cards - and if Ishtar could keep Obelisk away from Marik, she could keep it away from Dartz) - the only way that plan would've backfired would be in the extremely unlikely scenario where none of the god cards are summoned, since it's never established if what cards are being wagered are shown to the audience. Really, a better question would be what Dartz would've done had Kaiba won the tournament, since odds are that Kaiba would've sealed Slifer (and ''maybe'' Ra) away in a high-security vault, because as shown in ''GX'', he seems to favor Obelisk the most (and would have likely kept in his deck). |
| 636 | * If the Seal of Orichalcos isn't a real card, but a fake made by Dartz, why did it work in Yugi's duel disk? |
| 637 | ** Paradius Corporation had investments in practically every important technology and corporation. |
| 638 | *** It wouldn't be worth it to Doma. We're talking about tampering with the software ''and'' hardware of the pet project of Seto Kaiba, one of the greatest hackers in the world -- not to mention the central piece of equipment in a big-money professional sport. And there's no need to do it -- Dartz's men just use their own Duel Disks that would accept the card normally. Why would they bother to make the card work in anyone else's? Just so Rafael can prove a point to the Nameless Pharaoh? |
| 639 | *** The card itself had magical properties, so it probably didn't even ''need'' to work on any Duel Disk, since it would produce the seal even if they were just playing on a table. |
| 640 | * During the duel with Weevil, why didn't Yami simply tribute sacrifice Poison Butterfly? Is Poison Butterfly that good a card that he would sacrifice that many life-points per turn to keep it? |
| 641 | ** Given that it's a 2700 beatstick with half the damage that even Lava Golem dishes out per turn, it retains some usefulness despite its drawback. |
| 642 | * So the soulless Weevil falls off a train. How'd he get to the hospital, much less the same one as Rex, much less right next to him? |
| 643 | ** People checking on a runaway train thats stopped in the middle of the desert follow the tracks until they find Rex and eventually Weevil. Both are taken to the same hospital and treated for what they assume is a coma brought on by dehydration. |
| 644 | *** Except that Rex wasn't a victim of the train crash; Joey and Tristan carried him along, and then Kaiba arranged for him to be brought to the hospital. |
| 645 | ** In the Japanese version, Ironheart flat-out states that he found Weevil and took him down to the village. The line may have been cut in the dub. |
| 646 | *** In the dub, Ironheart claims that only Yami and Tea were present when he investigated the crash. This leaves Yami to reflect that Weevil was incapable of leaving on his own, and Weevil's fate remains a mystery until the hospital scene. |
| 647 | * What do Timaeus, Hermos, and Critius ''do'', exactly? I thought they made these weird fusions, but they seem to be able to fuse into any monster (and without needing a fusion card to boot), and they even have fairly consistent effects (Timaeus ''always'' fuses with a monster, Critius ''always'' fuses with a trap, and Hermos ''always'' turns the monster it fuses with into an equip spell). And if this wasn't enough, their rules go and turn into ''total'' bullcrap when the three dragons turn into knights. |
| 648 | ** They are deus ex machinas to counter Dartz's henchmens Deus Ex Machina cards. If you want any kind of consistency, Hermos always fuses with a monster to become an equip card with effects vaguely related to the name of the card it fused with - not the effect - Timaeus fuses with a monster to create an effect monster with an effect completely unrelated to the monster fused to summon it, and the Critius always fuses with a trap card to produce a monster card with effects that somewhat resemble the trap used to summon it, except played out indefinitely and weirdly. |
| 649 | ** The way the YGO wiki explains it, their effects can be pulled off in a real life, provided you treat the monsters/equip cards they merge into as separate cards. |
| 650 | ** Criteas, Hermos and Timaeus are basically specialised fusion cards, but each card uses different materials as apart of it's fusion. For the Knights version, instead of fusing they equip cards to them and gain their effects. |
| 651 | * Who rides into Death Valley, the hottest place in North America, with no water? Yugi riding on a horse without provisions was reckless enough, but Rex and Weevil qualify as TooDumbToLive for doing it on a bicycle. |
| 652 | ** They were both hasty and desperate to see where he was going. Plus, they were foreigners that probably weren't aware of the local geography, and it was night-time, so they probably weren't aware of it at the time. |
| 653 | * In 10,000 years, no one finds it the slightest bit weird that Dartz is immortal? |
| 654 | ** Dartz could've discovered a way to alter his appearance. People then would've assumed that he was just one of a long lineage of apocalyptic prophets known as Dartz. |
| 655 | * How did Mai get into the elevator ''and'' manage to stand perfectly upright long enough for it to reach the Pharaoh's floor, even though we see later that the first thing she did after losing her soul was ''collapse to the floor'' in the ''boardroom''? |
| 656 | * If, in Rafael's flashback, he was given a Duel Disk by Dartz, did Kaiba really invent them at all? I mean, considering Rafael looked much younger in the flashback. Because there are some remarkable similarities between the two that aren't present in Dia Dhanks... |
| 657 | ** Kaiba's duel disks are meant to be mass-produced; it was only a matter of time before someone came up with the idea, so it's possible that Dartz came up with the idea on his own. And seeing as how CutLexLuthorACheck wouldn't fit within Dartz's plans (he's already rich, and attempting to use patents to get around duel disks would be somewhat pointless, since someone like Kaiba easily could've either afforded to pay the legal fees, or copyright lawyers to skirt around any possible patents), Dartz probably didn't even consider mass-producing them outside of the numbers he needed (assuming they could be mass-produced). They were probably ancient devices used to summon monsters more akin to the Dia Dhanks originally, so he probably "modernized" them so they'd recognize modern cards. It's possible that had the Egyptian God Cards been revealed before the Battle City arc (and Kaiba's duel disks became common), we would've seen the Doma arc play out differently, with them inspiring Kaiba to create the actual duel disks (maybe perhaps they'd forcibly materialize on the opponent's arm when a Doma duelist challenged them). |
| 658 | * Where did the term Doma come from anyway? |
| 659 | ** I ended up looking this up. The names of the Doma members are references to ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'', written by Alexandre ''Dumas''. |
| 660 | * After Arthur Hopkins heard the news of The God Cards being stolen from Mutou family by Doma group, Arthur should've bought some guns as a countermeasure just in case Doma is after him as well. Furthermore, in America, getting guns is not as hard as in Asian countries. But he didn't, therefore he had no chance to defend himself, he got kidnapped and his house along with his findings were bombed. So, why couldn't Arthur have a gun while people like Bandit Keith and Saruwatari/Kemo could? |
| 661 | ** Just because the professor more likely than not had the ABILITY to purchase a gun doesn't mean he would have necessarily thought to do so, or wished to at all. He's not exactly the kind of guy you can picture going to the shooting range. There are tons of people in the U.S. who are anti-gun, gun-neutral, and even pro-gun, and don't own one or feel any need to. Even if his life is in jeopardy, he seems far more the type to call the authorities and have them handle things than the kind of guy who would buy a gun for home-defense in case an angry biker gang came looking for him. If he was really feeling a threat to his home, I would find it more in-character for him to evacuate with Rebecca from their easily-assailed house in the middle of nowhere to somewhere safe (doesn't Rebecca have parents?) rather than prep for a shoot-out with a biker gang that could get his granddaughter caught in the crossfire. |
| 662 | * I get how Dartz's "Trap the souls of innocent people in my Mirror Knights" plan was supposed to stop Yami from attacking, but how was this supposed to make Kaiba hold back? Let's pretend for a second that Kaiba believes that trapping souls inside Monster Cards is possible. The people that Dartz has trapped in Monster Cards are: 1) The guy who shares a body with his dueling archnemesis. 2) The guy who held his brother hostage and tried to take over his company. 3) A person he hates for being a disgrace to Duel Monsters. And 4) Someone Kaiba has no personal connection to. So in summation: Three people Kaiba has a vested interest in never seeing again and one that he doesn't care about. Given that this is Seto Kaiba we're talking about, what part of this was supposed to stop him from deciding that those few souls were an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good? |
| 663 | ** "Someone Kaiba has no personal connection to" applies to every person Dartz captured. He's only doing this to retrieve [=KaibaCorp=]. Since Yami and Kaiba are dueling together, Dartz only has to stop one of them and their teamwork diminishes. |
| 664 | [[/folder]] |
| 665 | |
| 666 | [[folder:Grand Championship]] |
| 667 | * Kaiba creates a tournament? Nothing new. He's too busy to participate? Fair enough. But why is the grand prize a chance to duel Yugi? Kaiba went a little berserk when he heard Yugi lost a duel in the Oricalcos arc, so why would he go and give some of the top duelists in the world a chance to do just that? |
| 668 | ** He thinks Yugi "redeemed" himself by beating Rafael, winning the title back, as well as Dartz, who Kaiba lost to ''with'' Yugi's help. |
| 669 | * Why did Kaiba invite Joey? It's clear that Kaiba has no respect for him, and thinks of him as a weak duelist, so why would he invite him to a tournament where he wanted to bring only the top duelists from around the world? |
| 670 | ** Answer to both questions; Kaiba wanted to use Yugi's image to promote the tournament, and he knew that Yugi couldn't be beat by anyone since even Kaiba himself couldn't beat Yugi. |
| 671 | ** He invited Joey because, for once, the tournament didn't have any stakes to it. If he chose not to invite Joey then Yugi wouldn't be happy. |
| 672 | * In Battle City, one of the Rare Hunters had 3 counterfeit sets of Exodia. Are you really telling me that Kaiba didn't install a deck scanner or something similar on duel disks that would tell him if a counterfeit or banned card card was being used in a deck? |
| 673 | ** Considering Zigfried was willing to hack into Kaiba Corp databases to add fake effects for Golden Castle of Stromberg, it's not a stretch to imagine that he added an exception for the card if Kaiba did. |
| 674 | [[/folder]] |
| 675 | |
| 676 | [[folder:Memory World]] |
| 677 | * The relationship between Yami Bakura/Zorc/Thief Bakura/Good Bakura is really confusing and inconsistent between adaptations. Are Thief Bakura and Yami Bakura the same guy? In the manga and anime, Yami Bakura identifies himself as having been a thief in ancient Egypt since his first appearance. However, it is eventually revealed that Yami Bakura was actually Zorc the whole time. So why did he take Thief Bakura's identity? The anime shows Bakura merging with Diabound to form Zorc, but the manga just reveals that thief Bakura was a servant of Zorc. And lastly, what does good Bakura have to do with all of this? Can anyone explain? |
| 678 | ** For better or worse, I think what has to be kept in mind is that what we see in the Millenium World arc is not a completely accurate reflection of what actually happened. Also, apparently, but maybe that was mostly about the Kisara/Seto part, the story was supposed to go a bit differently. As for what good Bakura has to do with all of this, no explanation is offered, but I suppose the fact that he's writing letters to his dead sister may have something to do with why he's a suitable carrier of a Millenium artifact. However, I'm not entirely sure if the "dead" part is fanon or canon. |
| 679 | *** Honestly it depends if Bakura's habit of writing to his sister was a sign of craziness or simply a way of coping with his loneliness. I think you're right in saying that it was an RPG based loosely on the past. Perhaps the writers just changed thier minds about making Bakura a background villain to Zorc. Early video games show a guy named Darknite who has Aknadin's face and Shadow Magus' armor as the main villain of the ancient Egypt arc. |
| 680 | *** Regarding Amane being dead: it's WordOfGod. Takahashi wrote a book of bonus information called "The Gospel of Truth", which mentions Amane died in a car accident. Personally, based on the letter-writing scene, the contents of the letter, and the fact that Bakura's subplot at that point in the manga is pretty much about him being a NewTransferStudent, I tend to assume her being dead is actually a RetCon. In the letter, he asks how she's doing at school, which is either a pretty batty thing to ask your dead sister or a perfectly normal thing to ask your sister who's alive and well and living in the town you just moved away from. In that case, the letter-writing scene would have just been there to emphasize that he's isolated and homesick, but later Takahashi decided to RetCon her as dead. Which isn't to say it's not also possible that she was actually meant to be dead as of that scene, and Bakura is just a little batty and figures dead people go to school. |
| 681 | *** The school thing could also be a coping mechanism to help him deal with her death. |
| 682 | ** From what I get, Yami Bakura was first a fragment of Zorc embedded onto the Millennium Ring. When Thief King Bakura stole it, the fragment decided to mimic his spirit-thus resulting in a new being whose soul was Zorc, and whose memories were Thief King Bakura. The soul later reincarnated as Ryo Bakura. |
| 683 | ** The manga explains that Dark Bakura is a combination of both the Thief King and a Zorc fragment. Their souls combined after being sealed in the Millennium Ring, and it's implied that the Thief King acted on his own free will the whole time. Where the normal Bakura fits in this, I have no idea. |
| 684 | * Sorry if this is answered elsewhere obvious, but in the Millennium World story (the dub at least), how is Yami Bakura both Zorc and the Thief King? Was he a combination or what? |
| 685 | ** It's been a while since I've seen that, but if I remember right then Zorc and the Thief King were originally seperate entities when everything happened the first time around. (When the Pharaoh was actually alive, not when he was reliving it as a RPG.) I think, sometime near the end of the battle/events, the Thief King merged his soul/spirit with Zorc to gain more power to destroy the pharaoh. Or they just ended up getting stuck together when Atem sealed them both away. |
| 686 | *** I believe Thief King was a citizen of Kul Elna trying to avenge his people by summoning Zork, who bore the hatred of the people used to create the Millenium Items. Presumably the first time 'round, he succeeded in doing that on his own, without Yami Bakura causing a DiabolousExMachina. From there, things probably went as the above poster said, and the resultant combination of Zorc and Thief King Bakura was Yami Bakura. |
| 687 | *** My theory is that Thief King summoned Zorc to avenge Kul Elna. They aren't the same person and never actually merged, Zork though possessed Thief King and actually repressed him. There's a part in the Millenium World story where Zork stops controlling him and he sounds and acts differently than he was. Furthermore the spirit of the ring is only Zorc, Thief King's soul is in the ring too, but like before, its repressed. |
| 688 | * The fact that Ryou Bakura barely reacted to not being possessed any longer. Maybe I skipped the important blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but assuming that he was possessed 90% of the time, shouldn't this have been a big deal? Shouldn't this elicit any kind of reaction? |
| 689 | ** He spends the several days that it took to finally kill Zorc outside the illusion - he probably adjusted to it then, off camera. |
| 690 | ** Well actually, he's not outside the illusion: in the manga, he's still possessed during this time by Yami Bakura when they're playing the RPG, and in the anime, he's sort of... passed out on the floor, and he doesn't regain consciousness until the game ends. And then he passes out again due to starvation. Would you accept him finally getting to eat something as a reaction? |
| 691 | ** The manga has a one month TimeSkip between the Shadow RPG and the Ceremonial Battle. Bakura had plenty of time to get used to not being possessed anymore. |
| 692 | * On the same vein as above, in the manga after Battle City is said and done, Yugi has the Millennium Ring, and hides it from Bakura (which is a VERY good thing). But then why does Bakura have to go out of his way to try and find it and then PUT IT BACK ON?! This has bugged me for a LONG time, since Bakura knows Yami Bakura is in there (he has at least two on-screen conversations with him), and so he has to know what's going to happen when he puts in on. I mean, does YB have the power to wipe the memory of himself from Bakura? Please, someone come up with a better explanation than that. |
| 693 | ** I assume you're going by the manga? Because in the anime, it appears that YB haunts him, and then there's this slightly creepy scene in the church... Anyway, back to the manga. As for the memories, I think it's less of a power to wipe memories, but rather that he doesn't allow him to be conscious at the same time. It was similar with Yami and Yugi, in the beginning. Yugi had no idea what was going on. During Death-T, he finally confesses to his friends that he loses his memories from time to time, and that there is "something" inside of him that scares the hell out of him. Also, Yami tells Anzu not to tell Yugi about their visiting the museum, which means that Yugi was probably somewhere "asleep" in his own spirit room, or something like that (voluntarily, in this case.) As for Ryou putting the Ring back on, it seems that it controls him even if he doesn't wear it. During Duelist Kingdom, he doesn't actually put it on (the others rightfully freak out when they realise that he brought it with him in the first place), but Yugi notices that he zones out when he holds the ring in his hands. I think it can kinda be assumed that the spirit somehow transferred a part of his soul to Ryou (just like he transferred a part of his soul into the puzzle) to make sure he can control him even when the ring is lost. |
| 694 | ** But you're right, it is quite problematic that Ryou KNOWS that the spirit is evil. Maybe that WMG about Ryou being the most evil character is right? My theory is that the spirit somehow (after kind of bonding with the gang in the manga) convinced him that he wasn't evil (anymore), and, just like Yami, he only wanted to regain his memories. |
| 695 | *** He only voluntarily takes it back in the manga (in the anime, he takes it back after being re-possessed). If I recall correctly, Ryou's conversations with Bakura in the post-Monster World manga generally consist of Bakura claiming he's 'changed' and 'wants to help'. If Ryou's as gullible as the rest of the cast (which is entirely possible), that's a plausible enough explanation for him taking back the ring; his normal form can't 'help' as much as Bakura can. I also think the theory about Bakura leaving a bit of his soul in Ryou could be true; considering how CrazyPrepared Bakura tends to be, it seems like the kind of thing he'd do in case Ryou lost the ring. |
| 696 | ** My theory is that the Items have an effect on their users that makes them keep them. Yuugi is uncomfortable in the manga loaning the Puzzle to a museum for one day, and refuses to leave without it. This is even before he knows about his other self. He flatly refuses to leave the Puzzle in a fire even though it might have cost him his life (he even ended up in the hospital afterwards). It's not a stretch to think that the Ring - even without Yami Bakura's influence - could have a similar effect on Ryou. |
| 697 | ** Two words: Stockholm Syndrome. |
| 698 | ** [[https://desertrose3000.tumblr.com/post/145511263929/sonofasphinx-thewittyphantom This post]] goes into a ton of detail about how confusing manga Ryou is. |
| 699 | * What the heck were Thief King Bakura's followers, anyway? Where did they come from? Why are their eyes glowing? Why do they look like zombies? If they are zombies, how did he resurrect zombie henchmen? |
| 700 | ** My best guess is they're some of the souls of Kul Elna giving him a hand? How on earth he got them to be solid I have no idea (maybe they aren't, and they're just an illusion? I don't know, did any of them actually touch a character?), but them being the dead souls sounds good. |
| 701 | ** I like to think that they were some sort of ancient Egyptian [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime ReDeads]] that Bakura managed to enslave or domesticate. Similarly, the mummy creatures from the Pyramid of Light movie were Gibdos. |
| 702 | * When Yugi and his friends found the pharaoh's name, there was only one cartouche in the tomb. Egyptian ''queens'' only had one cartouche, but all Egyptian kings had ''two cartouches'', kind of like how most people today have a first and last name. And also, Egyptians did not write down vowels. (The "ah" sound was combined with a guttural sound for which there is no English equivalent, but it was treated as a consonant, as was the "ee" sound.) So Yugi had no way of knowing if Atem's name was missing some letters. If they technically found only half of Atem's name shouldn't he have been unable to stop Zorc? |
| 703 | ** Yugi showed Atem the Hieroglyphs and Atem was able to read it, because he's egyptian. I don't know why that's so hard to guess. |
| 704 | ** I think his point wasn't about him reading it but rather that part of it was literally not available to be read. But to answer, if it works like a first and last name like you said, then it's possible that only the first name was necessary. |
| 705 | * Somewhat related to my above entry, if Atem was able to use his name to invoke forces powerful enough to stop Zorc, then why didn't he just destroy Zorc in the first place rather than sealing himself and Zorc away for thousands of years? It would have saved a lot of trouble, and by not destroying Zorc in the first fight it seems Atem took a huge and seemingly (to me at least) out of character gamble. Bakura/Zorc basically points out during the Memory World arc, "You idiot, you can't even remember how you beat me the first time!" And then the only thing that guaranteed that Yugi would find his name was rule of plot, not to mention Yugi couldn't even read Egyptian hieroglyphics on top of the fact that Egyptians had a nasty habit of ''not'' writing down the letters they considered to be vowels. And then he had to find the pharaoh in the mess and confusion of battle to actually give him the name.... There were so many little things that had to go exactly right in order for Atem to beat Zorc, otherwise all he did was delay the end of the world by not destroying Zorc 3000/5000 years ago. |
| 706 | ** His name probably only had that much power in the game world. |
| 707 | ** First, he didn't have enough power to summon Horakty the first time around. In the memory world, he had his friends with him. Also, it doesn't matter how many vovels a written language is missing, if you're a native speaker of that language, you can read it. Yugi didn't read the name from the cartouche, he showed Atem the picture of exactly what he saw, and Atem read it. Makes perfect sense to me. |
| 708 | *** While Atem may be a native speaker, he doesn't get his memories back the instant he goes into the memory world and it's been 3000 (or 5000 if you go by the dub) years since he's last needed to read his native language. If I recall correctly, in the Japanese version when Malik showed Atem his back after Battle City, Atem remarked in a voice over/thinking to himself "I have no idea what this says." Or something to that effect and he only figured it out because the placement of the Egyptian Gods was the same as the stone he'd seen at the museum. This kind of makes it seem like those years of boredom he spent stuck in the puzzle caused him to forget how to even read his own language. |
| 709 | *** In the manga, Horakty comments that his name is the 'spell to drive back the shadows' and it's heavily implied several times that the Pharaoh is some kind of demigod. Whether or not he knew the names of the Egyptian Gods originally is debatable, as (also in the manga) Bakura speaking to his past self implies that he was meant to defeat Slifer during the battle between Slifer and Diabound in the city. In other words, the Pharaoh must have been able to summon the Gods in the past to survive the first Diabound battle in the palace. However, it takes Horakty, i.e. the union of the Gods, to defeat Zorc. In other words, the Pharaoh being godly wasn't enough- he needed the unity of the Gods. It makes sense that he needed his future friends to do this, as he only realised the Puzzle's true power was of unity when in the future (in Millennium World he still has his future memories). Perhaps originally he was too concerned with protecting his country to want to put his priests at risk to inspire this power. The potential was there, but as Horakty says, his friends were the keys to bringing it out. |
| 710 | *** Or, since the darkness is born of people's hearts, as Zorc says in the manga, it can never really be defeated. Atem had sealed the darkness using himself as the key in the past. He was then fighting just to prevent Bakura winning the game- and since his name technically defeated Zorc in the real world, he needed it to do it again. By winning the game he prevents Bakura resurrecting Zorc in the real world. |
| 711 | * Why in the world were the priests wasting time trying to take out Diabound instead of just killing Bakura. I spotted at least a dozen instances in which Bakura could have been killed, sparing everyone so much trouble... |
| 712 | ** The first time Bakura showed up, the priests had never fought anyone powerful enough to stop them from just sealing the opponent's Ka. Also if they're not attacking Diabound then Diabound is free to blast them. And Diabound was shown several times to be faster than they are. |
| 713 | * Why did Yami Bakura need to know the pharaoh's name? At first it seemed like he needed the name in order to free Zorc, but he freed Zorc before he found the name in the game, and if he'd won the game, than Zorc would be free, name or no name. It seems like the only one who needed the name was the pharaoh. |
| 714 | ** He didn't. He initially thought it was the key to releasing Zorc/himself (and the fragment of his soul presumably never learned otherwise), but the only thing he really needed was access to the Pharaoh's memories. |
| 715 | ** Have to disagree on that- he did need the name, so he could open the door to the afterlife in the real world using the items and free the 'shadow power' on the other side, as he said in the manga. Winning the game would keep the Pharaoh out of the way so he could do that, and unleash the real Zorc. |
| 716 | * After all that time he spent with them, why didn't Ryuji/Duke come with Yugi and co. to the museum/Egypt in the last arc? He even complained about not being invited in the anime. |
| 717 | * In the Millennium World manga/anime, why doesn't anyone move their ka's around more, to try to dodge attacks, and the like? They may be dueling, but they're not playing a card game, and trying to dodge and block would make more sense than letting your monster just float there, waiting to get hit by an attack that you ''know'' is going to hurt. |
| 718 | ** For starters, none of them are exactly well trained in fighting with Ka - Thief King Bakura's first appearance is the first ''real'' fight involving Kas. Everything previous was a CurbstompBattle either through the Millenium Items sealing away the opponent's Ka, or blasting Ka-less people. Secondly, presumably making your Ka move in a complicated manner requires more concentration than just having him stand there. Thirdly, they usually are protecting something or other which restricts their movements. (The Priests were protecting the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh was protecting his father's remains then the people, etc.) |
| 719 | * If Blue Eyes White Dragon is Kisara, then what would that make the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon? |
| 720 | ** The White Dragon God, like in Egypt? |
| 721 | *** [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Triplet]] [[TwinThreesomeFantasy Foursome?]] |
| 722 | * As there isn't a Ceremonial Duel section, I'll ask this here: How did the Pharaoh lose? His hand still contained four cards. Best case scenario (for Yugi/Silent Magician LV5), one of these were Kuriboh, a monster yet to appear in that Duel. Worst case scenario, it was BLS - Envoy of the Beginning, a monster the highly similar [[Anime/YuGiOhGX GX Tour Deck]] shows him to have. Even if neither card were among those four, that still leaves four cards at the Pharaoh's disposal. How could none of them prove of any use? |
| 723 | ** Rule of drama? Both duelists had used up their most powerful/iconic monsters, and ending the duel by running out of cards, the effect of Magical Cylinder, Mystical Refpanel or Catapult Turtle or a single attack by something weak like Celtic Guardian, Sangan or Magician of Faith would be too much of an anti-climax in the mind of the writers. |
| 724 | ** Just because he had cards doesn't mean he could've won the duel. Since neither of them used Envoy of the Beginning during the original series, its possible that Yugi obtained it between then and GX. Kuriboh may have bought Atem a turn, but by that point any card that could beat Silent Magician (who had 3500 attack) was in his grave, and to my knowledge he only had one Monster Reborn. Beyond all that, Atem may have taken Yugi's message to heart (That the dead don't belong in the world of the living, hence why he placed Monster Reborn in the Gold Sarcophagus) and accepted defeat. |
| 725 | * So in Millennium World there was such a thing as magic- both good and bad people alike could summon ka, the reflection of their souls. So why is Atem, supposedly the most powerful character, unable to summon a creature without his Puzzle? Does this apply to the other priests? Mana is clearly able to summon Dark Magician Girl with no item. True, the Pharaoh gains Mahad as a protector but only because the latter sacrificed himself. Or is this also something to do with his name also? Is his real ka Horakty and he needed to remember his name to pull this one off? |
| 726 | ** Probably has something to do with the fact that he was also injured at the time he didn't have the Puzzle- summoning requires energy. Instead, his 'will to fight' calls Mahad. |
| 727 | ** They tell you that people with items can call three monsters from one of the shrines at Wedju. The characters also have personal ka, which they don't need the items for. For example, Duos is Seto's personal ka, while (I assume) he would need the Rod to call Blue Eyes. Same applies to the gods- they are creatures from the shrine. Mahad becomes Atem's personal ka later on. |
| 728 | * Anyone know why, in the manga, Seto laughs like a maniac when told the Pharaoh survived the fall from the cliff? Is it a sign of respect or something? He doesn't seem to be angry or upset, especially when compared with Akhenaden's reaction. |
| 729 | ** I just assumed it was... not exactly happy, but a "triumphant" kind of laugh. Seto wasn't exactly following Akhenaden’s logic of "Become the new pharaoh" at that point, so he was probably pleased at knowing that the Pharaoh was alive; at that point, it was Seto’s goal to protect him, after all. |
| 730 | * Why is the BEWD so strong in the Millennium World, to the point where they say it rivals the three Gods? True, this theory is never tested in battle, so it can't be known what the comparison is, but in the card game the main rival has always been Dark Magician, with 2500 ATK to the BEWDs 3000 respectively. Or is it just that the bond between Seto and his dragon had to be explained, so the need to find people's ka had to be worked into the plot in a fairly legitimate way? If we were talking about Exodia, that would have made some sense. |
| 731 | ** It's possible that all Blue Eyes cards ''combined'' equalled the power of Kisara's Blue Eyes. The Egyptian God cards, which only had one copy each, would therefore seem more potent in card-form by comparison. |
| 732 | *** And, in fact, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon ''does'' have greater ATK than Obelisk, the only one of the three Egyptian Gods to have a fixed ATK in the first place. |
| 733 | * Bakura's Card Killer combo depends on Yugi choosing the Red Box, leaving him with the Black Box, which destroys his graveyard. Supposing Yugi chooses the Black Box? |
| 734 | * Probably a minor one, but: The wikis list (anime!) Thief King Bakura's age as 16 due to the Millennium Guide Book. However, there is a flashback to the Kul Elna massacre happening ''15'' years prior, in which TKB is very obviously older than one year. Did the guide book make a mistake (understandable, considering the amount of time passed)? Or is the flashback not there in the manga, and the wikis just decided to slap the age on anime!TKB as well? |
| 735 | ** The flashback is there in the manga with the same age listed and physical appearance depicted. TKB was apparently a VERY developed one-year-old. |
| 736 | * Whatever happened to the Millennium Tome/Spellbook that, y'know, enabled Egypt's dominance through invincible summoned armies and led to the creation of the Millennium Items? It's not like it was explicitly destroyed/depowered after Zorc was defeated by Horakhty... |
| 737 | ** Presumably destroyed after the items were created, either so that part about 99 souls being sacrificed wouldn't be discovered or its destruction being ordered by Atem's father (not even going to try and spell his name) when he learned about what truly inspired. |
| 738 | [[/folder]] |
| 739 | |
| 740 | [[folder:Other]] |
| 741 | * In the manga (possibly not in the anime), it is revealed that Seto cheated to win the chess match against Gozaburo which led to his and Mokuba's adoption. Which begs the question: ''HOW DOES ONE CHEAT AT CHESS???'' The only two ways I can think of (performing an illegal move and switching pieces around when one's opponent isn't looking) would never succeed against a player of world-class skill, which Gozaburo is clearly stated to possess. Did he read his mind?? HOW DID HE DO IT?? (The cheating was probably put in to illustrate Seto's desperation to get himself and Mokuba out of the OrphanageOfFear and his determination to win at all costs, as well as to provide the moral Cheating Is Bad ("Now remember kids, if you cheat, you will be subjected to years of constant and systematic child abuse..."), but STILL. Has Kazuki Takahashi ever ''played'' chess??) |
| 742 | ** That's why the dub pulls a Woolseyism on this scene: instead of being claimed to cheat at his chess game with Gozaburo, Seto instead won simply by studying Gozaburo's chess strategies, which is much more reasonable. |
| 743 | *** Pretty sure it was the same in the original Japanese anime. The cheating part was manga-only. |
| 744 | ** Even though I believe that Takahashi really wrote cheated (as it appears in the German version too, unless it's a translation of the American version), it's possible that he meant "tricked him", as in "tricked him into thinking that he was a weak opponent when he actually wasn't". |
| 745 | ** There are ways to cheat in chess. If Gozaburo underestimated Seto, the latter could've pulled an illegal move (like intentionally put his own king in check) without Gozaburo noticing. It's all about psychology. |
| 746 | ** Also, Seto could have found a way to sneak some kind of assistance during the game, like having a hidden chess computer giving him moves. |
| 747 | ** At least one translation I read said something like "The whole game was a setup!!", which could be taken to mean ''Gozaburo'' deliberately took a dive so he could have ''two'' kids [[WouldHurtAChild that he could abuse to his heart's content]]. |
| 748 | ** Cheating is one thing. Hustling is another. Kaiba had studied all of Gozaburo’s strategies beforeahnd and he knew exactly how to counter each one of them. When they played, Kaiba intentionally baited Gozaburo into making certain moves, moves which Kaiba already had a plan to counteract. Gozaburo likely believed Kaiba was just making amateur mistakes, and so he confidently played as he normally would, not realizing that Kaiba had planned three moves ahead of him at every turn. By the time Gozaburo realized what Kaiba was really doing, it was too late in the game and Kaiba had him boxed in with no way of getting out. Basically, Kaiba did not cheat, so much as he had done all his homework. Gozaburo simply considers it unfair because he was so woefully unprepared. |
| 749 | ** Okay - so Takahashi eventually elaborated on this in the afterword to one of the ''Bunkoban'' rereleases. Apparently, Gozaburo played Seto ''and'' Mokuba on two boards, simultaneously. Every individual move he'd make against Mokuba, Seto would memorize to build a profile of his likely strategies. |
| 750 | * Here's the big question: Why don't they just shoot Yugi and get over it?!? |
| 751 | ** Because of the Puzzle, basically. |
| 752 | ** Apparently the Puzzle can produce some sort of protective shield, as seen in the anime in his duel against the Player Killer of Darkness in Duelist Kingdom. |
| 753 | ** Because even if they ''did'' just shoot Yuugi and try to take the Puzzle, the Puzzle would not let them. It's shown (in the manga at least) that Atem is capable of creating illusions/hurting people/generally using magic even inside the Puzzle. For whatever reason, I don't think he'd be willing to go happily with someone who murdered [[HeterosexualLifePartner Yuugi]]. |
| 754 | ** In the manga, there's at least two instances of Atem being able to take control of Yugi's body even if Yugi's soul has been trapped in something else. One instance was a soul eating jar, the other was Bakura's lead miniature. And in both the manga and the anime, Atem is perfectly able to stand up and continue the duel with Pegasus even after the strain of the Shadow Game caused Yuugi to collapse. So unless the gunshot physically crippled the body they share, shooting Yuugi would probably do nothing more than bring the wrath of the Pharaoh down upon your head. Even then I'm not sure how safe you'd be from a crippled and pissed off Atem... |
| 755 | ** Also, there's the one chapter with that "medium" who wanted to rape Anzu. He sends off Yugi to the library, where he has planned a trap for him. In the last second, Yugi deciphers the meaning of the "premonition" the guy told him earlier. The bookcases fall, but Yugi (or rather Yami Yugi) stands in the exact same spot, thinking that this was close, and if he had noticed only a little bit later... IMO, this implies that he can shield his body with his puzzle, but maybe only outside of games? Or when the plot demands it? |
| 756 | *** I was always under the impression that Yami just calmly sidestepped the bookshelves at the last possible moment, since Yugi was standing near the end of one of the falling ones. Although in the anime's version (sub and dub) of the duel with Panik, Yami DOES use the puzzle to shield himself from the flamethrowers. |
| 757 | ** I believe this is because the puzzle has to be 'won', not stolen. So if even if you get past the pharaoh and the magic of the puzzle and manage to kill Yuugi, you wouldn't be able to harness its power because it was not won in a proper battle (I think Marik explained this once), you stole it instead from the cold fingers of a dead boy. |
| 758 | *** This is canon according to (at the very least) the English Duelist Kingdom anime and Millenium World manga, as well as the Duelist Kingdom callback episode somewhere around the time of Battle City where Bandit Keith tries to kill Yugi only ''after'' he fails in winning the puzzle for his puppeteer. |
| 759 | * This wasn't in the manga, but it was in the anime and it pissed me off: When Bakura stole the Millennium Eye, Shadi turns up, thinks Yugi did it and went in his mind. Thing I don't get is, when he realised it wasn't Yugi who did it, why didn't he stick around and keep looking for the culprit? If he'd have just followed Yugi for a bit, he'd have seen Bakura and realised that he was the only one who could have committed the crime. Instead, he just buggers off back to wherever the hell he came from, having achieved nothing. Also, if he's meant to be so creepily all-knowing (they showed earlier in that episode that he knew stuff about Pegasus that he shouldn't have been able to know), why didn't he know it was Bakura anyway? I know they were trying to fit a "season 0" plot into the series so we'd know who Shadi was, but it still irritates me. |
| 760 | ** I'm guessing that after Shadi went into Yugi's mind, he realised that it wasn't a simple matter of the Millennium Eye being stolen, but of [[BecauseDestinySaysSo destined events playing out]]. Similar to the Toei anime and manga where his initial reaction to Yugi having the Millennium Puzzle is to try and take it from him. When he realises that Yugi can use its power, he understands that it is ''meant'' to belong to him. |
| 761 | ** Same troper as above, and this is another adaptation of the manga that annoys me. During the duel against Bakura in Duelist Kingdom, they make a big thing about one of the heroes having to be sacrificed to get rid of the Man Eater Bug. Incredibly sad, I'm sure. But then, it's Yugi's turn. Why doesn't he just summon another monster and sacrifice that? |
| 762 | *** Did we see his hand? Perhaps he didn't have another monster? |
| 763 | *** The actual text of Man-Eater Bug allows the owner to destroy any of their opponent's monster cards on the field when Man-Eater Bug is flipped. Even if Yugi had played a crap monster to attack Man-Eater Bug, Bakura would have chosen to take out any of the other monsters in play anyway. The effect doesn't apply to whatever monster attacks Man-Eater bug. |
| 764 | *** The sacrifice wasn't so much as to attack the Man-Eater Bug, as it was a sacrifice to activate the Horn of Heaven card, which in the real game at least requires a sacrifice in order to activate. Though that still leaves the question of whether or not Yugi had another monster card in his hand. |
| 765 | *** At that point, he had already put four of his friends into the game. He was probably worried that he might accidentally play ''himself'' if he played another monster. |
| 766 | *** He had a Magician of Faith face down. If any of his other friends were sent to the graveyard, he could revive them by using Magician of Faith's effect to bring Monster Reborn back from the graveyard and play it. However, if Magician of Faith were destroyed, there would be no way to get Anzu back. Whether he let the Man-Eater Bug activate its effect or played his Horn of Heaven, he'd lose a monster either way, but by playing the Horn of Heaven, he got to choose the monster instead of Bakura, insuring that it wouldn't be [[MoreExpendableThanYou Magician of Faith.]] |
| 767 | ** Bakura's actions in that duel are also bizarre. In the last turn, immediately before he plays Change of Heart in order to (so he thinks) take control of Yugi/Dark Magician, he summons a monster in defense mode. This is pointless, because if he had just attacked with Dark Magician, he would have won without needing any other attacks (and his monster was in defense mode anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered). Because he did this, Ryou/Change of Heart takes control of his own monster, costing Bakura the duel. If he had just [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim played Change of Heart and attacked]], he would have won. The writers kind of wrote themselves into a corner with that one. |
| 768 | ** Bakura actually played Lady of Faith in Attack mode. Now, it might be just me, but if I were to use a finishing move in a duel, I would always have a plan B in mind. Lady of Faith has 1100 atk, while the weakest monster on Yugi's field (In this case, Magician of Faith/Tea, who was also in attack mode due to the effects of being a flip monster) had 300 atk. Yami Yugi had 500 LP at the time, and even if Bakura's Change of Heart didn't work (due to...something?), Bakura would have still had the advantage of winning, as it was still his turn (More specifically, his Main Phase 1 transitioning to Battle Phase). Luckily, due to the Power of Friendship, this never happened. |
| 769 | ** Regarding the same situation as mentioned above, I was always confused as to why Pegasus never forewarned Yugi and co. about Bakura. I know he dies in the manga, so there they have no way of knowing, but in the anime, he is very much alive and could have contacted Yugi privately at any given time to discuss the whole deal. If they can go the whole DOMA arc with directions and clues to defeating Dartz and Paradias and whatnot, then at some point Pegasus can say, "Oh yeah, Yugi-boy, by the way, your pale-skinned, sometimes-evil, antisocial friend tore my Millenium Eye out and then went on his merry way. Take care!" It wouldn't really make much sense, but at least there'd be consistence of some sort. I am forced to believe that either the writers of the anime wanted to imply that the shock of having an eye torn out of its socket for the second time in his life caused him enough trauma to forget what led to the event, or they thought we'd all be stupid and forget that little detail. |
| 770 | *** Bakura had demonstrated before the ability to erase people's minds using his Millennium Ring. |
| 771 | * If Kaiba despises his stepfather so much, why does he keep his name instead of just using his old name? He must have known it when he went to the orphanage. And why does he continue to glorify the name by keeping his company named Kaibacorp and building Kaibaland? Even if you don't despise the previous CEO, changing company name is just good sense when shifting focus. |
| 772 | ** Well, it's possible that by making the Kaiba name associated with him instead of his stepfather and the company name associated with games instead of weaponry, he's achieving a "victory" against his stepfather. |
| 773 | ** Exactly. Seto took the name of Kaiba away from him. |
| 774 | * I was just chatting with a friend, and we realized there are multiple scenes in both the manga and anime where Yugi/Yami end up lying face down on the ground, with the Millennium Puzzle underneath them. I've had to lay on top of objects before, and it's not the most pleasant position in the world. But when it's seen in the manga/anime, Yugi looks as if he's laying flat on a bed without the slightest bit of discomfort of a chunky metal object being pressed into his chest/abdomen by the weight of his body on top of it. How is that possible? |
| 775 | ** In case you haven't noticed, the weight of his body isn't a terribly large amount. |
| 776 | *** Maybe not, but he certainly weighs more than a feather. I'm short and not that heavy either so I'm usually the one who has to crawl into tight places around the house, but if I end up having to lay down on top of something with an edge on it, I'm uncomfortably aware of it. And the puzzle definitely has distinct edges rather than rounded ones... |
| 777 | ** All the times I've seen it, the Millennium Puzzle miraculously swings very left or very right, so Yugi/Yami doesn't suffer pain to their bodies when the Puzzle ends up on his side and not under him. |
| 778 | * The fact that Kaiba changed outfits before going to rescue Mokuba, who had been kidnapped by Bakura, doesn't really bug me, but I think it's just incredibly silly. Am I to assume that he has a secret wardrobe in his office where he stores his duel attire, just in case someone challenges him between important meetings? Does the outfit make him feel stronger? Seriously, what the hell. "Sorry, Mokuba, I'm too late and the bad guy almost killed you, but I really HAD to put on my lucky coat." |
| 779 | ** I always thought the purple coat was more of a housecoat than a going-outside coat. Also, the other coat has gadgets and possibly body armor in it. |
| 780 | *** He was wearing his white suit, not the purple coat. And even if, it was a dangerous situation for his brother; unless he was naked, he should have just stormed out. But I guess I can live with the "gadget and body armour" argument. |
| 781 | *** He has a Batman style elevator that lets him change clothing on the way. After all he needs to be ready to duel at the drop of a hat, and it wouldn't be the first time someone had decided that the fate of Kaiba Corp depended on a duel. |
| 782 | * Why did Joey's parents have a SolomonDivorce? It was obvious that Joey loved his sister, and that it really hurt him to be separated from her. Adding to that, his dad was a drunk and a gambling addict (which I'm going to assume was the reason for the divorce). Why leave a child in that kind of environment? Did she have some kind of vendetta against her son or something? Why the hell would she leave her own son in such an obviously abusive environment? |
| 783 | ** ValuesDissonance. As far as I know, in Japan, the elder child stays with the father, the younger with the mother. I don't know if that has a legal or traditional basis, but unless there's a very good reason for both children to stay with one parent, they don't. Yes, an alcoholic gambler could be considered a good reason, but we don't know if he was one before. Sadly, we don't find out nearly enough about his family. Or anyone's family (including Yugi's!) |
| 784 | * Go to the comics. Take a close look at the players' hands, the way those hands handle the cards. Instead of putting the cards on the Duel Disk, they seem to be magically dropping the cards straight to the field. What? |
| 785 | ** Probably just drawing inconsistency. |
| 786 | * In the Anime, is it ever explained why Yami didn't just Mindcrush Duke's Cheerleaders? They were insulting and physically assaulting Joey the entire time the duel was going on and the gang just let's them off without a word? WhatTheHellHero? |
| 787 | ** Anime Mokuba, manga Keith, and Toei Mr. Karita instances aside, you can't give someone a penalty game without playing a game with them first, and since Yugi was dueling Duke he couldn't do anything until the game was won. |
| 788 | *** Manga Keith both lost ''and'' cheated in a game within Pegasus' tournament, fulfilling not only one but ''both'' required conditions for a Penalty Game. |
| 789 | ** As stated above, if you read the manga (not just the anime, the dub, or the Abridged series) you'll know how the Millennium Items work. You can't punish/kill someone with your Millennium Item unless you beat them in a game first. Otherwise there wouldn't be a need to play ''any'' game to begin with, which would open another headscratcher. |
| 790 | ** It still makes one wonder why Tristan or Tea didn't do anything about it. Deal or not, one of their best friends is being harassed and taunted by a bunch of obnoxious girls, and they're not even going to say one word of protest against it? Even if he wasn't allowed to do physically anything about it, Tristan could've at least said something like "Don't make me come over there!", just to shut them up. |
| 791 | ** Honda and Anzu are considerably worse friends in the anime. In the manga they were quick to support Jonouchi early on in Duelist Kingdom, while in the equivalent anime episode they were putting him down. I'd say not standing up for anime!Jonouchi getting bullied by cheerleaders is almost in-character for anime!Anzu and anime!Honda |
| 792 | * This might be explained in the manga, but I've only seen the anime and I have to wonder... okay, so at the very beginning of the series, Seto challenges Solomon Motou for his Blue-Eyes White Dragon card and, after getting it he tears it up so it can never be used against him. But... why bother? The fourth Blue-Eyes was in the care of an old man who was A) not a professional duelist anyway, and B) considered the card to have too much sentimental value to use it. If Seto had just left it alone Mr. Motou would have kept it in that little wooden box that no one was allowed to touch, and Seto would never have had to worry about it being used against him! |
| 793 | ** He also destroyed it because you can only have 3 of a card in a deck. |
| 794 | ** Well, it's a matter of principle. Also, inevitably, eventually the card would have fallen in Yugi's possession (because Grandpa Mutou probably won't be living that much longer.) In the manga, Kaiba also acquired and destroyed all other copies of the card. |
| 795 | ** Basically, the first half and second half of Episode 1 are very far apart from each other in the manga. In the manga, Seto tried to get Solomon's card before he got the other three. Yami Yugi turned the Blue Eyes against him and made him envision his own death. So, Seto set out to get revenge, and may have held a grudge against that particular copy of the card. |
| 796 | * I know the characters make such a big deal about playing by the rules, but if your life is on the line cheating would be the wise thing to do. None of the villains named ever try to shoot Yugi or his friends right before they lose. |
| 797 | ** Not sure what you're talking about. A lot of the characters (read: villains) DO cheat and, while the anime toned down a lot of the violence to avoid upsetting MoralGuardians, a lot of the villains DO try to use physical force. One good example is Panic in the Duelist Kingdom arc; he used flame jets built into the dueling platform to intimidate his opponents, and upon realizing he was going to lose to Yami Yugi he attempted to burn his opponent to death. It was only Yami's magic that kept Yugi from being killed. |
| 798 | *** Heck even in newer seasons they occasionally just say screw the results of the card game, like in Arc 5 after Yuya won that duel against the guy who stole his pendulum cards, when he won the opponent just told his minions to just beat them up and take them by force. |
| 799 | * Why are all of these "psychic" duelists not instantly disqualified? It doesn't even really matter whether you believe that psychics are real or not. If you don't believe in psychics, then they're clearly just cheating and should be disqualified. If you do believe in psychics, then they're ''still cheating'' by using their powers to gain an unfair advantage over other duelists. It's not even like any of them are subtle about it! |
| 800 | ** Well, Pegasus, at least, was running his own tournament. So, he obviously wasn't going to disqualify himself. Now, Mai? Espa? The others? That's the real question. I guess you could argue that they never came to the attention of the higher ups who were running the tournament. By the time Mai was personally meeting Pegasus she'd stopped her perfume trick. Espa then never made it to the Battle City Finals. The real question is whether or not both characters were still doing that in previous competitions and getting away with it. |
| 801 | ** Mai only used her perfume trick to tell the cards in her hand, not what she was going to draw, which is within the rules. She claimed she could tell more than that but that was just mind games, which are also legal. Espa was cheating and got caught, Mokuba was going to shut them down but decided to cut them a little slack as long as they stopped. Ishizu has genuine magical powers which technically isn't against the rules. |
| 802 | ** It could be that, precisely because Pegasus created the game after gaining mind-reading powers, it's explicitly legal to use supernatural abilities to gain an advantage, but not to cheat through mundane methods. |
| 803 | * Why exactly does Kaiba's reaction to Yugi fluctuate so much? Midway through Duelist Kingdom, he helps Yugi defeat his own Blue Eyes', when being used by someone else. He's cordial enough towards him when he runs into Yugi and the gang later on during the arc, only turning colder when he has to dual Yugi in order to save his brother. However, the two of them part Duelist Kingdom on pretty decent terms, agreeing that what happened during their second duel doesn't count and that the next time they duel they'll determine which of them is truly the best. Yugi even makes an indication that the two of them could move towards being actual friends. However, just a few episodes later (Which couldn't be more than a few days in-story, since it see's Kaiba and Mokuba returning from Duelist Kingdom to get their company back), during the Legendary Heroes Mini-Arc, when Mokuba tells Kaiba that he went to Yugi for help, Kaiba reacts negatively, saying that Mokuba knows how he feels about Yugi and that Mokuba should have asked ''anyone'' other than Yugi for help...What? Even taking into account their rivalry, he openly thanked Yugi for saving him and his brother at the conclusion to Duelist Kingdom. In fact, it's implied that he gave Yugi and the others a ride back to Domino City on his helicopter, since they mentioned that all the ships were gone and were running towards Kaiba asking for a ride. So, why exactly is Mokuba going to Yugi for help such a big deal when Yugi has 1) helped them in the past and 2) was on good terms with Kaiba the last time they spoke? |
| 804 | ** Kaiba is a very prideful person - in the case of the helicopter ride, he had a chance to prove he could do something they couldn't; on the other hand, when Mokuba went to Yugi, it indirectly showed Seto up (since Mokuba didn't even consult Kaiba), so his pride was likely insulted. Odds are that if Kaiba had said something along the lines of "by the way Mokuba, if anything happens to me, go to Yugi for help" before going into the Virtual World, he wouldn't have complained, and if Kaiba is the one who invites Yugi to something, he won't mind Yugi. |
| 805 | *** Not just that, Kaiba seems to like Yugi (as much as Kaiba can like anyone), but also thinks of himself as the better of the two. He's fine with Yugi up until someone implies that Yugi can do something he can't, or that Yugi's better at something than he is, or anything else that would imply that Kaiba is the inferior of the two. It's precisely ''because'' of their rivalry that Mokuba asking Yugi for help was so bad; if Mokuba had brought Yugi to show off, and Yugi just ''happened'' to help of his own accord, it probably would've gone over much better. But with Mokuba specifically asking Yugi to help Seto, he was saying that Seto couldn't handle the Big Five... but ''Yugi'' could. He probably saw it as an insult, even if not an intentional one. As if Mokuba was saying, "Yugi's better than you." |
| 806 | * Pegasus is supposed to be American. This is made plain in any rendition of the series. So ''why'' does he speak with such a horribly accented English in the sub? Disregarding potential voice actor choices, in-Universe, he is established as being an affluent American based primarily in California. So ''why'' is his English so horrendous? Furthermore, why are his ''cards'' in JAPANESE and not English? Is he an OccidentalOtaku and we just don't know? Heck, his INTERNAL THOUGHTS are in Japanese. |
| 807 | ** It's an acceptable break from reality that we just have to accept. Pegasus might speak English, but the average watcher would not. It's the same reason why everyone speaks English in the dub, even though they're technically Japanese; characters speaking an accurate language must take a backseat to them both communicating with each other and with the audience. |
| 808 | ** His accent honestly isn't that bad - At least I could understand what he said despite not being a native speaker (whereas I sometimes need subtitles for alleged Germans speaking German in American media, despite ''actually being'' German). It's the same reason that Yugi and Co all speak Japanese in the US during the Doma and KC Grand Prix arc, and why even Leon - a German ''child'' - speaks Japanese well enough to converse with Rebecca, an American, in Japanese: Because finding [=VAs=] whose English is good enough for that ''and'' whose voices fit ''and'' whose Japanese is good enough (in the case of Yugi & Co) would be pretty hard. I'd guess we're supposed to assume they are, in fact, talking English while in the US, but we're understanding it because Yugi understands it. If Yugi didn't know English, we'd probably be hearing it in English to emulate that. |
| 809 | * ''Why'' did Yugi need to borrow one of Kaiba's duel arenas in order to duel Rebecca? Why not just make their duel an old-fashioned match on a table? |
| 810 | ** He had a bit of a crush on her, and wanted to impress her? |
| 811 | ** The more likely explanation is that Rebecca insisted on it, either out of pride ("You're not seriously expecting the ''American Champion'' to actually Duel you on just a regular old table, are you?") or because she wanted to ensure that the stakes of the duel would be upheld. She's dueling for her grandfather's ultra rare card, after all, and she already thinks the Mutos and their friends are untrustworthy, so dueling in a public place where the duel might be recorded in some objective fashion might have offered her some credibility to indict if Yugi tried to back out of giving up the card after he lost. |
| 812 | ** It might also have to do with how the rules worked for the game at the time. Remember, this is Season 1's weird Duelist Kingdom/Standard rules, and at least in the manga it's implied there's an element of roleplaying involved in them. Playing them on a regular mat this way may require a third person to act as a referee who judges how certain card interactions might work in certain situations (which frames Yugi's early exposition during Joey's game with Tea in the early episodes when she beats him in a different light; he's not merely describing what the cards can do, but actively deciding they can do that), while the arenas used in Duelist Kingdom and at [=KaibaCorp=] presumably eliminate the need for this by using some sort of artificial intelligence or similar system. Playing it the former way is all fine and good if both players trust the one who's acting as referee, but it doesn't work here because the only people who could fill that role would be obviously biased for Grandpa and Rebecca doesn't trust any of them. |
| 813 | * In his introduction, Otogi decides to prove that Yugi cheated in his Duel Monsters match with Pegasus and take the King of Duels title from him for himself by publicly challenging him and beating him in an obscure, (mostly) unrelated dice game invented by him (Otogi) without explaining the rules to Yugi first. Um, ''what?'' What kind of logic is that? |
| 814 | ** Troll logic: If Yugi's the King of Games (plural), then surely he should be able to figure out and master any game with ease, right? If he can't do that, he isn't worthy of the title, and is just the king of ''one'' game. |
| 815 | *** The King of Games title was just some weird dub change. In Japan and the manga the title is called King of Duels instead, clearly referring to Duel Monsters. |
| 816 | * Why is Kaiba still attending public high school? Setting aside the fact that he's the CEO of a huge company and probably doesn't even need school anymore, he's shown to have been put through tons of rigorous advanced studying as a child. Attending Domino High School seems like a big step backwards for his education. |
| 817 | ** Image. It wouldn't reflect well on him or his company if he were a high school dropout. We might know about the advanced studying regimen, but the average businessman would just see that he didn't attend high school. He's probably in a public school rather than an advanced prep school because the work is so easy for him, he can just do his homework quickly and get on to real work. As for why he didn't just test out of high school: allegedly, Japan doesn't work well with prodigies, so if he's a teenager, he attends high school, not college. |
| 818 | * The Ishtars have been living underground their whole lives for their tomb keeping legacy. So the day Marik and Ishizu went to the surface, how does Ishizu know what a t.v. or motorcycle is and how are they able to function in modern society even in their homeland. |
| 819 | * Let's talk about the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc for a second. Ostensibly, Duke's goal in challenging Yugi was to prove Yugi a cheater, as well as secure his agreement never to play Duel Monsters again if he lost. The latter is fair enough, considering Duke's motivations, but how would beating Yugi at Dungeon Dice Monsters prove that Yugi cheated at Duel Monsters? Isn't that like saying that if I can beat a chess grandmaster at shogi, then it proves he must have cheated at chess and doesn't really deserve the title of grandmaster? The two games are similar, but they're different enough that one's skill level in one game isn't necessarily indicative of their skill level in another. |
| 820 | [[/folder]] |
| 821 | |
| 822 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 823 | * The password system in the video games... at least the ones I've played anyway. You enter a code for a card, and you still need to buy it from the store. What's the point? If you know the code, what's the point in having to do that? Why can't I just be able to get the card right away as soon as I enter the code? Or on the flip-side, why can't they just have it available for purchase straight-away so that I don't need to memorize their codes? This is especially frustrating for the games like ''Reshef of Destruction'' where you're charged a ''lot'' of money to even ''try'' entering the code. |
| 824 | ** It depends on the game. Most games that use the passwords at all do it the way you're describing, while a few do just give you the card outright. It's most likely a way of trying to enforce a power curve. Some even go further, and have the codes only work for cards you already have, making the passwords only useful as a way of getting additional copies. As for why they have you put in a code in the first place, it's meant to be a way of rewarding players for actually collecting the cards -- though that one backfires spectacularly, since the real result is that players just look up the codes online. |
| 825 | *** To be fair, when the TCG was first being adapted into games, the internet was still not mainstream even in North America. Nevermind Japan which was even slower in adopting the card game so the whole concept was not as idiotic back than. Don't forget the main demograph was little kids who normally don't websurf back in the early days of TCG. Hell even today you'd be surprised that in this web age era, most kids despite having their own laptops are too busy in their own lives playing video games or sports or whatever that they'd forget something as simple as searching codes online. Being little kids they'd just impulsively buy the cards (and I seen this happen even today). On top of that even among those who used the webs in the 90s and early 2000s, most were adults, PC gamers, or nerds of other hobbies that don't normally play YGO! and thus it took some time before new cards in the latest game got released and internet news spread much slower in the days. I remember back when I had a GBA I couldn't find the code for Blue Eyes Dragon and had to actually purchase one of the decks just to get it. It wasn't until mid 2000s that finally it was easy to find every card in even the newest game thanks to internet being adopted as a mainstream social media. And as I mentioned we're not taking into account most homes didn't have internet, even many libraries outside of cities lacked any web connection. |
| 826 | * The Sacred Cards appears to have been programmed in a bit of a hurry. For example, the game gives you a free locator card for beating Rare Hunter with no notice. Usually, the game tells you when you win a locator card and the duelist who you win it from wagers the card before the duel. This one just appears in your inventory. |
| 827 | ** The duel against Arkana seems to have been added as a last-minute idea. In order to initiate the duel, you have to challenge one of the countless NPC characters in the overworld, ''THEN'' start a conversation with him. There's no indication that this character is special or that you should engage him again after beating him once. |
| 828 | * If the Puppeteer of Doom from the manga and Mimic of Doom from the anime both exist in ''VideoGame/YuGiOhReshefOfDestruction'' how did that world's Duelist Kingdom go in regards to the Kaiba ruse? |
| 829 | ** I could see it going like, BAD GUY: Haha, I am Kaiba's soul! YAMI YUGI: Dude, I just went through this with somebody else. BAD GUY: Oh, okay... ummm.. I am the ghost of Christmas! YAMI YUGI: Fine. |
| 830 | [[/folder]] |
| 831 |
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