Yugi and his friends disembark from the ship and enter Duelist Kingdom, with Tea briefly spotting Bakura again. Pegasus explains the rules to the duelists. 10 Star Chips are needed to enter the castle, which must be anted on duels. Duels can take place anywhere on the island thanks to his high-tech dueling arenas, which have holograms similar to what KaibaCorp developed. Depending on where they take place, monsters can have field advantages as well.
Yugi gives Joey one Star Chip, making himself an easy target for someone like Weevil Underwood, who threw Yugi's powerful Exodia cards into the ocean. Yugi's ready to take him on, but before he can Weevil runs into the forest to duel, which gives his Insect monsters a field power bonus. Yugi fights valiantly, but not knowing all of the Duelist Kingdom rules puts him at a disadvantage. He uses Weevil's overconfidence against him, however, luring him into a trap that destroys all of his Insect monsters on the field. When Weevil places the Cocoon of Evolution on the field, though, it's only a matter of time before whatever's lurking inside hatches.
This episode contains examples of:
- Attack Reflector: Yugi uses his Mirror Force to reflect one of Weevil's attacks, destroying all of his insect monsters.
- The Bet: Yugi challenges Weevil to an all-or-nothing duel, with both Weevil's star chips on the line. Since Yugi only has one, he instead puts up his entire deck as part of the stakes. (In the original manga, he stakes his life; your mileage may vary on whether this is cooler or just plain silly.)
- Compressed Adaptation: In the original TV airing, 4Kids spliced this episode with the next one, glossing over several moves in a music-video Montage. After the series
took off in the States, though, it was almost always aired in the original two parts. - Didn't Think This Through: Weevil gloats over luring Yugi into a match in the forest because his bugs get a field advantage, not realizing that the area is also part Wasteland, a type which many of Yugi's cards are, nullifying much of the advantage Weevil had planned for.
- Evil Gloating: Weevil does a lot of this in the dubbed version of the episode, though it's at its most noticeable at the end, when footage from the following episode is used when Weevil brags about having a much stronger monster in reserve, whereas the Japanese version ends with Yugi's successful counterplay.
- Geo Effects: Introduced in this episode. Known as a field power bonus, it causes certain types monsters to gain a 30% power-up on the right field. It also negates the effects of all cards equipped to a monster.
- Hey, Wait!: One of Pegasus' mooks says this to Tristan, who's extremely nervous about being caught and kicked off the island. Turns out he just wants to calm Tristan down.
- New Rules as the Plot Demands: Pegasus invokes this a dub-only line, implying Duelist Kingdom's arenas are outfitted with all kinds of secret rules the players can only learn through trial and error. The main duel is fairly light on this, though - at least compared to the rest of Duelist Kingdom. Also, when Yami Yugi has his Horn Of The Unicorn-equipped Feral Imp attack Hercules Beetle, the latter survives and deflects the attack back at Feral Imp due to Field Power Bonuses negating Equip Magic Cards. However, when Basic Insect which is equipped with Laser Cannon Armor and Lv. 2 Power Boost attacks Griffore, the latter is destroyed even though it should have reflected the attack at Basic Insect and negated its Equip Magic Cards due to gaining Field Power Bonus as well.
- Revenge: Yugi's main reason for dueling Weevil right away is revenge for throwing Exodia out.
