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A review by millennial_dandy
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duelist, Vol. 6: The Terror of Toon World by Kazuki Takahashi
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
<i>"I was feeling happy, thinking people might call me a real duelist... But now... If all a real duelist cares about is pride -- I don't want to be like that!!"</i>
Another A+ entry in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist series. In the first half of the volume, Takahashi slows things down to let the characters get philosophical and actually <i>react</i> to the incredibly intense duel that just happened between Yugi and Kaiba in volume 5.
This is where we really cement each character's core beliefs that will continue to be built up and/or challenged from this point forward.
Kaiba sneers at Yugi for having shown him mercy and compassion (even without knowing what Kaiba was fighting for), but Tea isn't having it. She gives a somewhat more convoluted version of her speech from the anime. In the manga, both she and Kaiba use an incoherent metaphor to basically argue about who the real loser of the duel is. Kaiba says that it was Yugi because, objectively, that's true: Yugi lost the duel. Kaiba claims that the outcome of winning or losing is what matters; not how the outcome is arrived at. He also claims that winning is so important that it's something on which you have to be willing to stake your life, or you'll always be a loser.*
Tea pushes back, arguing that the means are more important than the ends. She says the real loser behavior is valuing your life so little that you're willing to gamble it over something as unimportant as being the best: "<i><b>Real</b> courage is protecting that chip [of life] you have in your hands...no matter what!"</i> And Joey/Jounouchi chimes in that it <i>matters</i> that Kaiba only won the game because Yugi chose mercy over victory. That it <i>matters</i> that Yugi valued Kaiba's life more than Kaiba did himself.
In other words: in the Yu-Gi-Oh!-verse, being strong is very closely tied to a recognition that we are more than the sum of our victories.
But Kaiba isn't particularly interested in mulling this over because now that he's fulfilled Pegasus's arbitrary demand that he defeat Yugi before he can face Pegasus in a battle for Mokuba's freedom, he's ready to enter the castle.
In the anime, what follows is a drawn-out panic response from Yugi over the fact that Yami Yugi's moral compass is dangerously close to Kaiba's, and he's freaking out because of his fear of what could happen if he allowed Yami Yugi to duel again. I think that was far more interesting and internally consistent than the version of this in the manga wherein Yugi hesitates to accept extra starchips from Mai because he's afraid that Kaiba's right about him being a loser who can't succeed without Yami Yugi dueling for him(???) and she's like: "no, don't let your pride get in the way of saving your grandfather and take these chips because I want to pay you back for helping me out earlier." And Yugi's like: "Do you know what? Ok."
Meh.
But then we get into the Pegasus-Kaiba duel over Mokuba's soul. And honestly, the manga does such a better job developing Pegasus as a villain, because we really get to see just how much he enjoys pretending that Kaiba ever had a chance to rescue Mokuba, how much he enjoys using the power of the Millennium Eye to humiliate him before finally crushing him in the duel and sealing his soul in a 'soul prison'. Considering all of Pegasus's unhinged, sadistic behaviour in Duelist Kingdom, it was kind of a wild decision to rehabilitate him in Waking the Dragons by framing him as a sympathetic side-character. And then the audacity to gaslight Kaiba when he reminds everyone about said unhinged, sadistic behavior. Blech! No.Justice.For.Pegasus.
But I digress...
Despite it being ultimately very one-sided, we get a pretty satisfying duel as Kaiba struggles (unsuccessfully) to beat Pegasus at his own game (literally). We also get a teaser for future Blue Eyes lore when Pegasus comments on Kaiba's love for the dragon.
The rest of the volume comprises of some filler involving Tristan/Honda and Bakura running around the castle in the middle of the night and a conversation between Yugi and his grandfather's soul, still housed within a digital camera (I will say it every time: literally why do this?). Yugi is still grappling with feelings of helplessness after his duel with Kaiba, and it’s implied that this is because he doesn't have it in him to be as ruthless as Yami Yugi and he's concerned that Kaiba was right about ruthlessness being a necessary trait for a strong duelist.
In a very on-the-nose, but still compelling counter-argument, Grandpa lays out the three types of people upon whom the "God of Duelists never smiles."
<b>1.Cheaters</b>, who will do anything to win.
<b>2. Cowards</b>, who fear defeat.
<b>3. The Arrogant</b>, drowning in their own powers.
And this is the framework upon which the outcomes of most of the duels in the rest of the series are based. You <i>can't</i> win in any of the aforementioned cases, but, we learn, sometimes it's morally correct to lose because your humanity and capacity for compassion are always more important than victory.
I like it; I think we get some good discourse out of this moral underpinning.
So, we end the volume with Grandpa reassuring Yugi that his empathetic notion of justice is a necessary counterweight to Yami Yugi’s arrogance and Machiavellianism.
Let's see how it plays out in Yugi's duel against Mai in Volume 7...
<b>*</b> I do want to point out the plot hole in the logic here created by the fact that Yami Yugi staked his life in the shadow game vs. Shadi in volume 3 to protect an illusion of Joey/Jonouchi. In the sense that, what was the actual difference, considering that Kaiba actually stakes his life here in order to try and save Mokuba? So what exactly what Kaiba being punished for? I think it just got a lil convoluted because of two dueling (forgive me a small pun here) plot threads. Plot thread 1 being: Kaiba needs to defeat Yugi to get one step closer to rescuing Mokuba. To do so, he threatens to off himself if Yugi doesn't throw the match (which, under these exact extreme circumstances is... understandable? Maybe even reasonable?) And then plot thread 2 being: we need to establish that Yugi is a better person than Kaiba because Kaiba values winning over compassion (which is true, but not directly relevant in this duel).
Another A+ entry in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist series. In the first half of the volume, Takahashi slows things down to let the characters get philosophical and actually <i>react</i> to the incredibly intense duel that just happened between Yugi and Kaiba in volume 5.
This is where we really cement each character's core beliefs that will continue to be built up and/or challenged from this point forward.
Kaiba sneers at Yugi for having shown him mercy and compassion (even without knowing what Kaiba was fighting for), but Tea isn't having it. She gives a somewhat more convoluted version of her speech from the anime. In the manga, both she and Kaiba use an incoherent metaphor to basically argue about who the real loser of the duel is. Kaiba says that it was Yugi because, objectively, that's true: Yugi lost the duel. Kaiba claims that the outcome of winning or losing is what matters; not how the outcome is arrived at. He also claims that winning is so important that it's something on which you have to be willing to stake your life, or you'll always be a loser.*
Tea pushes back, arguing that the means are more important than the ends. She says the real loser behavior is valuing your life so little that you're willing to gamble it over something as unimportant as being the best: "<i><b>Real</b> courage is protecting that chip [of life] you have in your hands...no matter what!"</i> And Joey/Jounouchi chimes in that it <i>matters</i> that Kaiba only won the game because Yugi chose mercy over victory. That it <i>matters</i> that Yugi valued Kaiba's life more than Kaiba did himself.
In other words: in the Yu-Gi-Oh!-verse, being strong is very closely tied to a recognition that we are more than the sum of our victories.
But Kaiba isn't particularly interested in mulling this over because now that he's fulfilled Pegasus's arbitrary demand that he defeat Yugi before he can face Pegasus in a battle for Mokuba's freedom, he's ready to enter the castle.
In the anime, what follows is a drawn-out panic response from Yugi over the fact that Yami Yugi's moral compass is dangerously close to Kaiba's, and he's freaking out because of his fear of what could happen if he allowed Yami Yugi to duel again. I think that was far more interesting and internally consistent than the version of this in the manga wherein Yugi hesitates to accept extra starchips from Mai because he's afraid that Kaiba's right about him being a loser who can't succeed without Yami Yugi dueling for him(???) and she's like: "no, don't let your pride get in the way of saving your grandfather and take these chips because I want to pay you back for helping me out earlier." And Yugi's like: "Do you know what? Ok."
Meh.
But then we get into the Pegasus-Kaiba duel over Mokuba's soul. And honestly, the manga does such a better job developing Pegasus as a villain, because we really get to see just how much he enjoys pretending that Kaiba ever had a chance to rescue Mokuba, how much he enjoys using the power of the Millennium Eye to humiliate him before finally crushing him in the duel and sealing his soul in a 'soul prison'. Considering all of Pegasus's unhinged, sadistic behaviour in Duelist Kingdom, it was kind of a wild decision to rehabilitate him in Waking the Dragons by framing him as a sympathetic side-character. And then the audacity to gaslight Kaiba when he reminds everyone about said unhinged, sadistic behavior. Blech! No.Justice.For.Pegasus.
But I digress...
Despite it being ultimately very one-sided, we get a pretty satisfying duel as Kaiba struggles (unsuccessfully) to beat Pegasus at his own game (literally). We also get a teaser for future Blue Eyes lore when Pegasus comments on Kaiba's love for the dragon.
The rest of the volume comprises of some filler involving Tristan/Honda and Bakura running around the castle in the middle of the night and a conversation between Yugi and his grandfather's soul, still housed within a digital camera (I will say it every time: literally why do this?). Yugi is still grappling with feelings of helplessness after his duel with Kaiba, and it’s implied that this is because he doesn't have it in him to be as ruthless as Yami Yugi and he's concerned that Kaiba was right about ruthlessness being a necessary trait for a strong duelist.
In a very on-the-nose, but still compelling counter-argument, Grandpa lays out the three types of people upon whom the "God of Duelists never smiles."
<b>1.Cheaters</b>, who will do anything to win.
<b>2. Cowards</b>, who fear defeat.
<b>3. The Arrogant</b>, drowning in their own powers.
And this is the framework upon which the outcomes of most of the duels in the rest of the series are based. You <i>can't</i> win in any of the aforementioned cases, but, we learn, sometimes it's morally correct to lose because your humanity and capacity for compassion are always more important than victory.
I like it; I think we get some good discourse out of this moral underpinning.
So, we end the volume with Grandpa reassuring Yugi that his empathetic notion of justice is a necessary counterweight to Yami Yugi’s arrogance and Machiavellianism.
Let's see how it plays out in Yugi's duel against Mai in Volume 7...
<b>*</b> I do want to point out the plot hole in the logic here created by the fact that Yami Yugi staked his life in the shadow game vs. Shadi in volume 3 to protect an illusion of Joey/Jonouchi. In the sense that, what was the actual difference, considering that Kaiba actually stakes his life here in order to try and save Mokuba? So what exactly what Kaiba being punished for? I think it just got a lil convoluted because of two dueling (forgive me a small pun here) plot threads. Plot thread 1 being: Kaiba needs to defeat Yugi to get one step closer to rescuing Mokuba. To do so, he threatens to off himself if Yugi doesn't throw the match (which, under these exact extreme circumstances is... understandable? Maybe even reasonable?) And then plot thread 2 being: we need to establish that Yugi is a better person than Kaiba because Kaiba values winning over compassion (which is true, but not directly relevant in this duel).