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A review by millennial_dandy
Yu-Gi-Oh! R, Volume 2 by Akira Ito
4.0
"Bring it on, you filthy, carrion-eating dueling hyena"
Picking up directly where volume 1 left off, volume two begins with the continuation of the duel between Yugi and our season antagonist, Tenma. Except, wait, we still have 3 volumes to go, so there must be something afoot... Is this guy the real 'big bad' of Yu-Gi-Oh! R, or are we in for a twist?
Meanwhile, Kaiba and Mokuba arrive at their Domino headquarters after Tenma shuts down their computer mainframe and puts a tragic end to a tournament the brothers were attending in America. Although, based on Kaiba's commentary, maybe it's just as well. "The skill level of these duelists is lower than I expected...we may have to consider creating a facility to train duelists."
Ah, Kaiba. Always the pragmatist.
And speaking of Kaiba, we can always count on him to bring things back down to earth when the plot comes a tad untethered.
After his arrival at headquarters, Kaiba pulls a massive flex by trouncing one of Tenma's duel professors for no reason since he and Mokuba didn't need one of the keys to get into the building (hello, it's their building), and giving us the scathing burn of the volume by calling the guy a filthy, carrion-eating dueling hyena.
In a conversation in which he lacks all semblance of self-awareness, Tenma explains to Kaiba that they're on the same side, actually, practically brothers, what with their orphanage upbringings and rags to riches tales of being adopted by billionaires, with the one 'blot' on their respective rises to power being Yugi Mouto.
"As one in the same situation as I," Tenma says with all the conviction of a man who doesn't realize how very in the wrong he is, "I would like you to help me."
Seto -- I drove my adopted father to suicide after forcibly taking his company out from under him; yours was murdered/disappeared by a guy who won't even be relevant for another two seasons, and by the way I already had a successful rise to power, how dare you compare me to you, loser-- Kaiba is just like:
'Bruh, you do realize you should have asked for me to team up with you before you invaded my building and took over my computer mainframe, right? Like, why the heck would I help you?'
And Tenma's like:
'Dang. You're right. Well, this is awkward...' before dissolving dramatically into a mass of pixels.
Elsewhere, Yugi has the plot more fully revealed to him as not-Tenma explains that freaking Bandit Keith of all people, made up a story about seeing Yugi steal Pegasus's Millennium Eye and murder him (no one in this evil organization seems to be able to decide if Pegasus is dead or missing).
Not-Tenma goes on to explain that, like Pegasus, Tenma wants to use Kaiba's technology to bring back Pegasus's mind from... the afterlife? The same cyber-space the Big 5 were trapped in? Who knows. Somewhere. And then, he wants to transplant Pegasus's mind into Tea's body.
After the Noah arc in season 3, the idea of people using Kaiba's technology to play musical chairs with people's souls and bodies shouldn't be that big of a surprise, but it is weird that Tea was at the center of a bizarre, forced transgenderism plot twice, first with that penguin-obsessed dude who was really keen on having his mind uploaded into the body of a teen girl, and now Tenma being like: 'surely, this is what Pegasus would've wanted!' It's like Matt Walsh won a contest to choose one of the series plot points.
Poor Tea. Poor Pegasus.
According to Tenma, though, there were super legit reasons to pick Tea, actually.
1. The soul vessel must be physically and mentally fit (I guess soul-switching is hard on a person?)
2. The soul vessel can't be a duelist because it's too difficult to detach the soul of a duelist from their body (source: trust me, bro. Also, it would have saved everyone a heck-ton of trouble if someone would have mentioned this little crumb to Gozaburo and Noah. Ah, well, you live and you learn).
3. The soul vessel has to be someone whose loss would inflict pain on Yugi.
Imagine being Tristan and realizing you got skipped over for the whole 'soul vessel' plot because no one believed your loss would upset Yugi that much. Ouch.
That's the only reasonable explanation for not going with Tristan...one hopes.
We get a great cameo by Bandit Keith, where he dude-bros his way through his dialogue, half of which is him swearing in asterisks and dollar signs. Glorious. 10/10.
Can't wait to see what crazy antics we get in volume 3!
Picking up directly where volume 1 left off, volume two begins with the continuation of the duel between Yugi and our season antagonist, Tenma. Except, wait, we still have 3 volumes to go, so there must be something afoot... Is this guy the real 'big bad' of Yu-Gi-Oh! R, or are we in for a twist?
Meanwhile, Kaiba and Mokuba arrive at their Domino headquarters after Tenma shuts down their computer mainframe and puts a tragic end to a tournament the brothers were attending in America. Although, based on Kaiba's commentary, maybe it's just as well. "The skill level of these duelists is lower than I expected...we may have to consider creating a facility to train duelists."
Ah, Kaiba. Always the pragmatist.
And speaking of Kaiba, we can always count on him to bring things back down to earth when the plot comes a tad untethered.
After his arrival at headquarters, Kaiba pulls a massive flex by trouncing one of Tenma's duel professors for no reason since he and Mokuba didn't need one of the keys to get into the building (hello, it's their building), and giving us the scathing burn of the volume by calling the guy a filthy, carrion-eating dueling hyena.
In a conversation in which he lacks all semblance of self-awareness, Tenma explains to Kaiba that they're on the same side, actually, practically brothers, what with their orphanage upbringings and rags to riches tales of being adopted by billionaires, with the one 'blot' on their respective rises to power being Yugi Mouto.
"As one in the same situation as I," Tenma says with all the conviction of a man who doesn't realize how very in the wrong he is, "I would like you to help me."
Seto -- I drove my adopted father to suicide after forcibly taking his company out from under him; yours was murdered/disappeared by a guy who won't even be relevant for another two seasons, and by the way I already had a successful rise to power, how dare you compare me to you, loser-- Kaiba is just like:
'Bruh, you do realize you should have asked for me to team up with you before you invaded my building and took over my computer mainframe, right? Like, why the heck would I help you?'
And Tenma's like:
'Dang. You're right. Well, this is awkward...' before dissolving dramatically into a mass of pixels.
Elsewhere, Yugi has the plot more fully revealed to him as not-Tenma explains that freaking Bandit Keith of all people, made up a story about seeing Yugi steal Pegasus's Millennium Eye and murder him (no one in this evil organization seems to be able to decide if Pegasus is dead or missing).
Not-Tenma goes on to explain that, like Pegasus, Tenma wants to use Kaiba's technology to bring back Pegasus's mind from... the afterlife? The same cyber-space the Big 5 were trapped in? Who knows. Somewhere. And then, he wants to transplant Pegasus's mind into Tea's body.
After the Noah arc in season 3, the idea of people using Kaiba's technology to play musical chairs with people's souls and bodies shouldn't be that big of a surprise, but it is weird that Tea was at the center of a bizarre, forced transgenderism plot twice, first with that penguin-obsessed dude who was really keen on having his mind uploaded into the body of a teen girl, and now Tenma being like: 'surely, this is what Pegasus would've wanted!' It's like Matt Walsh won a contest to choose one of the series plot points.
Poor Tea. Poor Pegasus.
According to Tenma, though, there were super legit reasons to pick Tea, actually.
1. The soul vessel must be physically and mentally fit (I guess soul-switching is hard on a person?)
2. The soul vessel can't be a duelist because it's too difficult to detach the soul of a duelist from their body (source: trust me, bro. Also, it would have saved everyone a heck-ton of trouble if someone would have mentioned this little crumb to Gozaburo and Noah. Ah, well, you live and you learn).
3. The soul vessel has to be someone whose loss would inflict pain on Yugi.
Imagine being Tristan and realizing you got skipped over for the whole 'soul vessel' plot because no one believed your loss would upset Yugi that much. Ouch.
That's the only reasonable explanation for not going with Tristan...one hopes.
We get a great cameo by Bandit Keith, where he dude-bros his way through his dialogue, half of which is him swearing in asterisks and dollar signs. Glorious. 10/10.
Can't wait to see what crazy antics we get in volume 3!