Invid's Bizarre Card Ramblings #1: Theinen the Great Sphinx

[EDIT: Something rather amusing about this article: Since it was originally published, the wiki's anime effect for this card has been corrected. I guess I did a bit of good.] Hey, people who are mostly from DeviantArt who probably care less about the card game than about how awesome GDG's comic craft is! I'm here to talk about cards!

A long-standing gripe I have with the card game is that they monkey with effects for what often seems like no good reason. Other times, there's clearly a good reason. Meet high-class good reason, Theinen the Great Sphinx (link to a picture)!

Theinen (pronounced "Thin-e-in" for some reason) the Great Sphinx (Japanese name: Sphinx Androgynous)
Light Attribute/Beast Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 3000

All versions of the card have the above characteristics. Now, let's turn to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game wiki for the effect of the card in the real life game.

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by paying 500 Life Points when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" (Japanese name: Gynosphinx, hence "Sphinx Androgynous") on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time; then you can Special Summon this monster from your hand or Deck.
When this card is Special Summoned successfully, pay 500 Life Points to increase the ATK of this card by 3000 points until the end of the End Phase.

I recall that this card was touted in promotional materials as "the strongest monster ever made" when the movie came out; I suppose a potential 6500 ATK is pretty impressive.

However, the effect of the card was radically different in The Pyramid of Light. Its ATK rose not to 6500, but to 35,000, which is a rather significant difference. Let's see what the wiki has to say about it:

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Set this card as a Normal Magic/Spell Card. This card cannot be Special Summoned except from your Magic/Spell & Trap Card Zone when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time. When this card is Special Summoned successfully, increase this card's ATK by 30,000 points.

The first part actually makes some sense-Anubis did indeed set the card on the Field, and presumably it was not as a Monster. The part that doesn't: How do you add 30,000 to 3500 to get 35,000? (Another speculative version of the effect mentioned on the wiki involved suggesting that it merely had its ATK multiplied by ten, which would have made sense; more sense than the wrong number, anyway.)

Answer: You don't. They've got it wrong. In fact, it's not even a fixed increase.

How do I know? I checked.

The nice thing about The Pyramid of Light is that the English version is the only English release with readable card text. And while it's a borderline case, I could read it well enough that I can tell you what the effect was (simplified to help the important bits stand out):

When an "Andro Sphinx" and a "Sphinx Teleia" on your Field are destroyed at the same time, pay 1000 Life Points to Special Summon this card. (I don't recall being able to tell if it specified where from.) When this card is Special Summoned, pay 1000 Life Points to increase this card's ATK by the combined ATK of all Monsters in your Graveyard.

Now, it's possible that someone affiliated with the wiki examined the footage and concluded that this couldn't have been the effect. They're wrong, but it's understandable. Why would they have assumed it was incorrect? Because several cards clearly must have had different effects in Pyramid of Light, and they would have assumed they didn't, because that's just how they think over there.

Specifically, in the TCG, Peten the Dark Clown removes itself from the game banishes itself* in order to summon another copy of itself. If it did so in the movie, the total for Theinen's ATK would have been off; however, it matches if Peten's effect was different and simply activated when it was sent to the Graveyard. (There's a similar issue with the other two Sphinxes, as their TCG characteristics would have meant they'd be banished when the Pyramid of Light card is destroyed, but one can easily come to the same conclusion regarding those. Another issue of sorts involves Life Point totals, as Anubis inherited Kaiba's Life Points and the other Sphinxes needed 500 Life Points apiece to be summoned, but one can assume that's another difference. There may be other points of divergence, but I don't recall at the moment.) If Theinen's effect is based on the ATK of Monsters in its Graveyard (which Anubis again inherited from Kaiba), it would also explain the "dead souls set free" remark.

Which makes me wish the animators had cared enough to depict the "dead souls" as the spirits of Kaiba's monsters, so that the audience could more intuitively understand just what Anubis was doing.

So, myth busted mystery solved.

*I'm super happy about this new piece of terminology. It's great that they've simplified an aspect of the game so much with a single piece of changed terminology. I'm sure they more or less ganked the idea from Magic: The Gathering, but that's not really bad...

-Signing off.

Little Voices: Page 38-55

Good GRIEF it's about darn time I did another commentary. And it only took several months and ribbing from Invid, too. We'll only be going to page 55, because going all the way to the end is just too much in one sitting.

So last time we left off, Ryou had discovered the other Bakura was still living in his head, and that Bakura has amnesia. On page 38, we see that he's taken off and Téa has no idea where.

A lot of stuff changed at the last minute in this set of pages. First of all, I was originally going to have some pages involving Kaiba's storyline right after Ryou discovers Yami B is still alive. I decided that would be too confusing and therefore pushed the pages back, instead moving into this scene right away. I mentioned this in the DeviantArt artist's comments. What I didn't mention is that, originally, I had intended to show Ryou and Téa's parting, a short conversation that I've been wrestling with on and off for two years. I had finally come up with a version that I liked, yet ironically, the page count was getting much too high and the story was getting a bit ponderous and bloated.

Furthermore, I wanted very much to show Tristan getting back from Singapore, but every idea I had for a page that did so was bland and not nearly informative enough (After all, we already knew from Duke that he was on vacation.) I am of the opinion that every page should either be interesting, funny, or at least move the plot along. While I wanted Tristan to show up more in the story (I hate it when people forget he exists) the pages I was coming up with just weren't enough of any of those requirements. So I grafted the two scenes together, discarding Ryou's actual departure in favor of showing a homecoming by Tristan instead. The original discussion between Téa and Ryou was two pages, so I cut three pages down to one.

(This is another place where I might consider posting the discarded first drafts someday.)

Tristan knows that Kaiba is sick and that he collapsed at a tournament because it was all over the tabloids. (The Big Eye: "Seto Kaiba at DEATH'S DOOR!?? Tournament Collapse!" There would be a quote right on the cover from Kaiba, too: "I'm not dying!" says CEO.) Also his friends tell him about these things.

I love page 39 for like a gazillion reasons. CX I probably should have done something with Marik's subplot (the Ishtar clan revealing itself to the world and promptly getting into a legal fight with the Egyptian government) during Magic Light, but quite frankly Magic Light didn't have "room" for that part of the story, and anyway I tend to think the reveal happened either before or after Magic Light's time period. I do, however, think that "Marik VS The Supreme Council of Antiquities" makes an awesome title for a story. XD There will be a lot more of that plot to show up, and I plan on doing a short (non full length story, so it doesn't count as one of the seven) set of pages involving the conflict coming to a head in between Little Voices and the next storyline. Marik will have a lot of fun and so will you.

His conflict with the Egyptian government is slightly inspired by the trouble that Native Americans still have dealing with the United States government, incidentally. Ironically, the United States will eventually become one of Marik's better allies in the matter. I don't see any conflict with what would happen in reality at all here: the US loves to make up for its mistakes by helping the wrong people. (Not that I think the US shouldn't help people. We just shouldn't do it for some of the reasons that we do, we should do it because we're nice people.)

Anyway, there's a bit of confusion between whether Ryou just opened the door through brute force or picked the lock. My original intent was that he picked the lock, so automatically that he didn't quite realize he was doing it, but I also don't really see a need to make that clear in the comic. The scene's funny, that's what's important.

I love drawing Marik. I love drawing Marik, and I love fiddling with his jewelry instead of just keeping it to what we see during the series. :) I also love lotus blossoms. 'Nuff said.

I suspect that Marik watches Duel Monster tournaments and has actually noticed Yugi acting like Atem all on his own, but he probably also keeps a certain amount of contact with Yugi, and with the others.

Marik is adorable when he's being socially awkward. XD

Page 40 was originally going to be over hot tea, but it occured to me that Ryou probably came in from at least ninety-degree weather (That's about thirty-two degrees Celsius). So yeah, nix on the hot tea.

Ryou gets a lot of weird flak over the fact that he writes letters to Amane. Personally I think the people who fetishize it have more wrong with them than Ryou does: it would be much creepier if Ryou kept a little RPG style doll of her and talked to it. There are a lot of ways of grieving, and writing letters to the lost is one of the more common ones, both in Japan and America.

On the other hand, a lot of people also feel alone in their grief, and it wouldn't shock me if Ryou does too-- he doesn't seem to me like he took her death well, and it also doesn't seem like he and his father pulled together over the loss of his sister and mother at all. So there's him worrying about whether it makes him crazy.

Again, Marik is uniquely suited to talk to Ryou about that kind of thing; he's not only lost quite a lot more than the average modern teenager, he's from a culture that really valued the importance of communing with the dead as part of dealing with loss, and there's no way an ancient Egyptian would have told Ryou writing letters to a dead person and then offering them up to her was crazy or even remotely creepy.

Panel 1-3 of page 41 is pretty much a recap, but it seemed sort of necessary for the characters to lay out what's on the table, just to lead into the final panel. Naturally, Ryou's a little shocked. Personally I feel he's a little disturbed at the idea of owning someone. There's also just the fact that he's so damn tired of dealing with Yami B at this point.

I think on page 42 what Marik means by "taking him off" Ryou's hands is, quite simply, that Marik's responsibility as a Tombkeeper includes things like Yami Bakura.

There's a certain section of the fandom who insist that Marik is still totally going to be messed up Yami Marik style, even after the series, and that the only thing that will get rid of Yami Marik is years and years of therapy.

No. I have taken a class in psychology and totally understand their reasoning, but that is not what happened at the end of Battle City. Yami Marik may have started as a mental disorder, but he didn't end as one, whatever he was. Because he could strap Marik's soul up in the corner the way he had separated Yugi and Atem to do the same thing, he and Marik are clearly distinct souls. Because Marik could "visit" Odion when his soul had been mostly eaten up, they are clearly distinct souls.

So my post-series Marik is relatively mentally stable and no longer has dissociative personality disorder, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. Magic has been shown in Yugioh to clearly be able to fix brains anyway (Kaiba). Marik probably still needs a bit of therapy, but not so much that he can't help Ryou with his problem now.

I tend to think the reason he knows how Ryou should go about calling Yami B forth has either something to do with my mildly random rant, with the fact that he's been talking to Yugi, or simply with the fact that Marik seems to me to be rather educated, magic-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if the heads of the Ishtar clan classified as being some level of sorcerer.

Ryou goes along with it on page 43 because he doesn't know what else to do more than anything. I like this page because it shows how fully in control Ryou actually is, whether he realizes it or not-- not only is Yami B being very childlike (the way the shadows hide his face was intended to call back to the way his face was mostly hidden by shadows when he witnessed Kul Elna's destruction) but he's also being totally compliant to Ryou's will, despite the fact that it's difficult for him. Ryou doesn't help him for several reasons, one of which being that he's still a little afraid of actually approaching Yami B, but also because he simply wants to make Yami B do things for himself. He's a compassionate guy, but he's not THAT warm toward Yami B yet.

The series had several interesting ways to show one soul switching out for another, usually between Yugi and Atem. The "hands touching" method isn't the most original, but it's also one of my favorites. Go figure.

Marik doesn't expect Yami B to remember him on page 44 (although Yami B himself is frustrated and more than a little upset that he doesn't). Once again I went for "little kid Bakura" faces, because that's what I wanted to show: Everything that made him crazy has been blasted away. A frightened child is all that's left. Obviously he's still himself, which is what I wanted to be seen with the serious face he makes when he calls himself an avenger, but he's also more himself than he's been in several thousand years. (If that makes sense.)

The line "I wanted Ryou safe" is both a self-reassurance that he's not a bad person, despite the fact that he's sure he's done something wrong, and an admonition toward Marik himself. "I wanted Ryou safe, and you wanted to let a big red dragon spit on him!!" Not that Yami B actually remembers this; it's more like he's looking in on things inside Ryou's memories. That's also why he "fled."

I love Roo's face in the second panel of page 45. Also, Marik's not sure how much sense Ryou's explanation actually makes. B[

One of the commentors made the best statement in regards to page 46: that Yami Bakura being human means that he can change. Yes. This is exactly it. The other point of this page was to point out the fact that yes, I DO know that I draw Bakura taller than he was in the series. XD

Ryou develops a slight case of Yami B's eye shadows on page 47. Uh oh. Also I finally stopped copping out and actually tried to draw Odion's facial tat. Booya.

We have another cameo on page 48; Angela the dragon, who belongs to Lady Blackwings of Deviantart. She's a nice lady and does pretty colors. O_O Poor Yami B is basically the kitten in Ryou's basement right now. I also feel that this page shows one of the ways that Ryou IS a good person, despite everything: He doesn't trust the guy and dislikes that he's basically been forced into nursing him, but the sad puppy face Yami B is making still works on him, and he's still being kind to him.

I've always been mildly fascinated with Thief King Bakura's life before he became part of the Yami Bakura entity. Invid and I agree that what happened in the Millenium World arc couldn't have been exactly what truly happened in the past (more like a "summary" of what had happened, altered by the modern elements added to it and by the fact that it was actually a role-playing game), so there's a lot of questions left unanswered. But he was probably the one character who was up to the most interesting mayhem.

On page 49 I chose to add the "meanwhile" note, something I don't normally do, mainly because the Bakura scene set was so long. I have always had it in my head that Bakura's visit to Marik takes place around the same time or slightly after Yugi, Joey, Serenity and Rebecca visit the Kaiba mansion, but I was concerned that chopping the scenes apart would be too confusing, and I really don't like being confusing. :x (I'm aware of the fact that I still am anyway.)

I love that Mokuba screams Yugi, Joey, and Serenity's names in all capital letters, but Rebecca's name is said with normal capitalization like it's just sort of added on. Also, that last panel was one of many panels that was a lot easier to draw because Invid is nice and lets me borrow his portable DVD player: Instead of trying to dig up my manga volumes, which are notoriously insidious to find (I swear they're alive and do it on purpose) I could just grab one of the Duelist Kingdom DVDs and put the DVD player on my desk. XD (This is one of many reasons why I simply find it easier to write a story following mostly anime continuity- that and the fact that parts of the manga send my suspension of disbelief crashing through the floor, and then it drowns in the sea below while flailing around for a tiny key that probably floated a hundred feet away by the time it should have reached my poor, poor suspension of disbelief. >_<)

And since I got a laptop recently, it's going to be even easier than that- Now I can just save screenshots and use those. Yay, technology! XD

I love Roland to pieces. I sort of ad-libbed a lot of the furniture on page 50, but I figure if Kaiba really does have OCD or something, it probably gets moved around enough that it doesn't matter. Kaiba's bed is a totally different one from the one that is briefly shown in Magic Light. I could say something like "Well, this is a fancomic and I was being less careful about references and junk during Magic Light YOU'RE NOT PAYING ME to read this so don't complain," but that's not how I feel about it: The fact that I'm not making any money off this doesn't mean I don't care about it. So my official explanation is actually that Kaiba was sleeping in a guest room that one time, because burning his clothes in a wastebasket filled his room with a smoky smell that he couldn't sleep with. XD (Well sure, it was on a balcony, but he left his door open, so the smell still got in.) (Yes, this is how much of a nerd I am.)

In the original version of the fanfic that became this comic, it was actually going to be Serenity that went in to talk to Kaiba, and worse, she visited him alone. I wrote the original idea several years ago, and that's my only excuse. Past-me mostly cared about her agendas, while Current-me cares more about the fact that Joey knows Kaiba better than Serenity does and is more likely to understand Kaiba's hangups right away, and that Serenity is much more timid than Joey is. This is one of the reasons I'm not bothered by my own writing process taking a long time: Fics end up less stupid because of it. I love page 51 because that maid is totally talking in lolcatspeak, and Kaiba totally just nearly dropped an F-bomb. XD The sketch version of this page featured Kaiba snuggling down further into the bedding contentedly before realizing someone (who wasn't Mokuba) was sitting next to him, but it wasn't particularly clear what was happening-- it looked more like Joey was snuggling into Kaiba. For obvious reasons (this scene is homoerotic enough!) I chose to have him say "Mnf?" instead.

Also, Kaiba hires no maids under the age of 25 in my universe. I just want to make that clear: Women who don't look like they could be Mokuba's mom need not apply. XD I gave her a French Maid style costume anyway, just because it's so very anime for her to be wearing one.

In panel 3 of page 52, Kaiba's muffled words are "Oh Gawd!" If you look closely, you'll see that Joey has chosen to wrap his legs around Kaiba's right arm. Kaiba finds this incredibly disturbing. XD

Some of the way Joey's talking about healing on page 53 caused a reader or two to wonder just how sick Kaiba actually is, since a lot of people don't think of the flu as being a life-threatening illness and it almost sounded as though that's what Joey was saying, that Kaiba was dying or something.

The common flu is one of those funny illnesses that, when a person gets it, can either run its course if the person is getting proper treatment, or can, if the person is NOT getting proper treatment, get worse and worse and worse. Kaiba is essentially prolonging the amount of time that he's sick by being difficult to take care of. XD That's part of what Joey's telling him off for, anyhow.

Another side to it is the fact that Joey knows that Kaiba's still a little out of wack over the car accident. This whole scene became a scene about how Kaiba couldn't even apologize to Joey when he thought Joey was awake, and now is the first time Joey's outright told him that it's okay and they can move on. They're communicating better than they were back at Duelist Kingdom, but it's not the kind of communication you normally see between two healthy people. Page 54 turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted it, and while it's not as heavy impact as a scene about Kaiba standing in the rain so nobody bothers him at his father's grave, I'm still quite pleased with the moment and consider it quite important.

At this point in the story, Joey's opinion about Kaiba has morphed into sadness that Kaiba's so messed up.

And of course, the delectable page 55, which I simply cannot leave out. Look at that Roland! Look at hiiim!! XD Mokuba would seem to have funny ideas about how to get people to relax. Also, as noted in the page comments, Earl Grey is considered by some to be a breakfast tea. I thought it was a bit funnier than coffee.

In this fancomic, as a totally random aside, I chose to have Roland's full name be "Roland Isono," as Isono is his Japanese name. This seemed like a fairly economical solution: His dub name is the only given name I've known the character to have, and his Japanese name is the only family name I've known the character to have. And they sound comfortable when said aloud next to one another.

Next commentary, I'll probably try to plow all the way to the end! Yay! XD

It Only Took 28 Episodes

I have a new probable favorite ZEXAL character.

Anna Kozuki, while she's only appeared once, is my vote for best random character to appear so far.

Now, as I've noted, the younger ages of most of ZEXAL's characters is... a bit uncomfortable for me. They're much closer to actual children than most Yu-Gi-Oh! casts. But they don't really draw Anna here as a child (they even have her Gainaxing, for crying out loud!-also note that, if you don't know what that is, you should be cautious about clicking the link) and I guess that means that it's a bit less problematic for me.

Anyway, there are a lot of things about the character that are pretty great, so I'll list a few:

Her first appearance, mere seconds after the episode opens, involves her standing on a roof and sniping at the main characters.

With a cannon.

A cannon that can transform into a small aircraft.

Aside from the fact that she can and does wield a portable cannon with proficiency, even without that we have evidence of her being very strong-at one point, to punctuate a statement, she swings and misses at Yuma, and makes a small crater in a concrete wall.

And now we come to my favorite part of the character. Here we have a minor character (as opposed to an important villain or something, although the intro suggests that she may become a recurring character) who is a female duelist who does not use a single "girly" card.

Folks, that just hasn't been done before in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s various series.

Further, her few monsters are huge. They have a physical presence that's incredibly dominating, giant trains casually circling like sharks around Yuma and his tiny wimps, a presence greater than that of the vast majority of monsters since the Battle City era. And their statistics-one of them, in fact the first one we see, has 5000 ATK-are ridiculously hyperbolic.

So, in short, I think that this alone is perhaps the best thing about ZEXAL so far-equity in deck types. She's manlier than the guys, for crying out loud!

-Signing off.

Y'know...

...when I said that I wouldn't mind seeing more hot moms in ZEXAL...

...I wasn't expecting the series to take me up on that. (For reference, the lady in the above picture is the mother of Yuma's friend Kotori.)

I also was not expecting more hot older sisters akin to Akari, Yuma's older sister and still my favorite albeit fairly seldom seen character. (The new one is the older sister of Yuma's friend Tetsuo-and look at Tetsuo's portrait picture. Seriously).

But lo, they have provided.

(Screenshots ganked off of a mostly-raw posting of episode 19 from one of the less well-policed video sites, with the labels the posters put on to advertise their subtitled version scratched off. Because seriously, guys, you don't own it any more than I do.)

-Signing off.

After 5D's

Well, a couple of months later, and I still haven't posted my final thoughts on the end of 5D's. And of course, I also ought to remark on the start of Yu-Gi-Oh! "unnecessary letters" ZEXAL.

First up: On the matter of the 5D's finale, I've made my position on it known before the fact, and it's a good darned thing that they delivered on that relationship, because seriously, that would have been the third time a Yu-Gi-Oh! series ended with no emotional resolutions for multiple relationships, and as I've stated in the linked post, I'm rather attached to the Yusei/Aki couple.

And it was satisfying. In fact, even aside from the beautiful visuals and direction of The Moment (TM), that was just about the most romantic thing ever. According to the Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki, Yusei told her she had "the best smile in the world," and she responded that he had put that smile there. Take that, Team Satisfaction orgy shippers. (Yes, they exist.)

On the last bit of the "action" plot, if you were wondering why Yusei and his bike turned gold at the end of episode 150, there is a reason beyond simply imitating series like Dragonball Z.

A musician who performed a huge amount of 5D's music later in the series was Masaaki Endoh. Aside from being guaranteed a spot on any "top ten musicians of all time" list I would ever put together, he's known for performing the opening songs of a number of anime, one of the earliest of which was "King of Braves Gaogaigar" (which I've talked about elsewhere at least a little bit).

In the series, there's a giant robot called Gaogaigar (which roughly translates, by the way, as "growl harm being," i.e. a growling guy that hurts you) who can pick up a hammer called the Goldion Hammer which causes him to turn bright, shiny gold in pretty much exactly the same fashion as Yusei did. If you think that's a coincidence, Endoh also performed the opening theme for another robot-based series called Daigunder, and in the last episode of that the titular robot turned gold for massive damage as the opening song played.

So my conclusion is that Yusei's "Over Top Clear Mind" turned him gold because Masaaki Endoh sang during the series more than once, and apparently that's a law of anime now.

On ZEXAL: It's no 5D's or original series, but it isn't GX yet either.

The emphasis on the new Xyz (pronounced "ex-sieze" for no reason beyond perhaps confusing English speakers) monsters strikes me as a colossal blunder, mostly because they're much lamer than Synchro Monsters. They're simple and easy to summon for the most part, but they generally have pretty limited effects and unpleasant drawbacks which are unnecessary. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if someone figured out how to break the game with the rules weirdness surrounding their non-levels.

So far, it seems to be the Yu-Gi-Oh! series with the smallest amount of ancient civilization references. I can't say I care for most of the characters, although the mystery of Astral is vaguely piquing my interest. (He's a character who literally knows nothing; he wondered why Yuma and his family were eating in one scene.)

My favorite character so far, though, is probably Yuma's older sister, Akari, as she's rather hot and also entertaining.

Of course, she makes relatively infrequent appearances. If this series was about her instead, I'd probably be hooked. As it is, searching for the episodes (since YouTube finally seems to be having some success at keeping users from posting them) feels more like a chore than entertainment.

For that matter, there's just a general lack of attractive female characters in ZEXAL. (Yuma's schoolmates aren't legal.)

Of course, in episodes seven and eight, we get this lady, the mother of the Numbers-possessed duelist of the week...

...and I can't say I minded seeing her. (Incidentally, the wiki doesn't appear to have an article for her yet.)

Of course, seeing her express concern over her son causes Yuma to flash back to a memory of his own hot mom, and while I can't say that I minded seeing the best shot of her that we've gotten so far, it's still a little weird.

Kudos for these being pretty much the least absent of all Yu-Gi-Oh! series' protagonists' parents, as even Dr. Fudo only showed up as a ghost and in a few flashbacks, and it'll at least be possible for Yuma's parents to show up in the series as not-dead people if the information on the wiki is correct.

Also, I think I would watch a show about hot shonen moms.

-Signing off.

Ho Snap

Yusei and Aki Forever Into the Future

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's is ending soon, and I'm of mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, 5D's was far better handled than its predecessor (because seriously, GX, what the heck?!), eventually using its own take on the Yu-Gi-Oh! world to create a story that is fairly unique and its own, and also is completely daft in a lovable way.

On the other hand, perhaps it's better that it's being retired while it's going well, because it looks like the developers are having terrible ideas again. (I'll hold judgment on "Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal [pronounced 'zeal' for no good reason]" until I actually see for myself that it's completely terrible, but it isn't promising.)

I'll still be sad to see it go.

Actually, there's an undercurrent that's been going on as the series has progressed where it seems that the opening and ending sequences have developed a slight disconnect, wherein it seems that Yusei's and Aki's relationship is developing at a slightly different pace than in the series itself.

I'll note that, while I am a dude and thus not much for "shipping" (unlike about a bazillion percent of this fandom), I totally ship Yusei and Aki like heck. But I'm not going to pretend that their relationship in the series even begins to parallel what we see, in the endings particularly.

And to show that I'm paying more attention to these things than is really sane or healthy, I'm going to go through each of the 5D's Japanese series openings and end credits, and list the correct sequences that the characters appear in, in the name of seeing the development of their relationship via spacial arrangements.

In the first opening, the order is Yusei, Jack, Aki, the twins, and Rex Goodwin. In the corresponding ending, only Yusei and Jack appear.

In the second opening, the order is Yusei, Jack (with Carly briefly), Aki, the twins, Crow, Misty and Carly, Kiryu/Kalin, and then Yusei again. In the corresponding ending, we can see Yusei on what used to be the Junkpile of Solitude in the first opening, now crowded with a huge number of people, the closest of which are Jack and Aki. The character order is Yusei, Jack, the twins, Aki, Crow, and then Jack, Aki, the twins, and Yusei again. There's a second character cluster after this that has Aki and Jack a nearly equal distance from Yusei (though Jack is closer, the image is slightly misleading because the characters are of such disparate heights and standing on different levels).

The third opening plays with Yusei, Jack, and Crow as the Three Musketeers/Caballeros/whatever. Character order is Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins (plus a gaggle of those schoolmates who haven't been seen in ages), followed by Dark Glass/Vizor/Bruno and Sherry disguised as a dude (though this was one of the openings that changed over time, and I'm looking at the first version).

Here's where things start getting more interesting. Observe the following screenshot.

Now, what's interesting here is that it looks like Crow is between Yusei and Aki, but he actually isn't-if you look closely, he's actually standing slightly behind both of them.

And here's the last bit of this particular opening sequence:

Aki is wearing skimpier clothes than she does at any point in the series and is looking at either Jack, Yusei, Crow, or the TV Tokyo logo. Since she likes Yusei better than the other two and isn't likely to be breaking the fourth wall, I'd judge she's looking at Yusei particularly.

In the third ending, the first character order is Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins. Then comes Jack, the twins, Crow, Aki, and Yusei... and it's in this Brady Bunch style box, with Aki next to Yusei.

There's a third and a fourth sequence mixed in with each other, but the third doesn't have Yusei, while the fourth is Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins again.

Somewhere in there (I think) is this still image-while the focus is on Jack and Crow, look at Yusei and Aki in back there.

There's also an upward-panning shot which shows Yusei at the top, and Aki is the second from the top, and at the end is a rather... peculiar portrait of Yusei, which becomes the frame for a group shot that shows the gang clustered around Yusei... and Aki is once again standing closest to him.

The fourth opening doesn't have any of those slideshows or such weirdness-instead, it has a sequence which pays attention to normal motion and the laws of physics. (Go figure.) It should be noted that Aki's sexy biker suit makes its first appearance in an opening here.

The ending, however, is something of a whirlwind of sequences, featuring Crow, Jack, Yusei, and Aki, then Jack, Crow, Yusei, and Aki, and then Jack, Yusei, Aki, and Crow. (Whew.)

There's also this brief sequence where we see them walking in line, and Aki is standing in front of Yusei.

And there's also the strongest indicator I've yet listed, this still image:

Yes, it would seem that, in ending sequence land at least, the two are dating by the fourth ending sequence.

And here she is, ensuring that Bruno/Dark Glass/Vizor/Antinomymony keeps away from Yusei.

The fifth opening has an order of Crow, Jack, Yusei, Aki, and the twins, and a cluster of Aki, Crow, Yusei, Jack, and the twins.

The fifth ending finally has figured out how to be internally consistent, because it features the same order-Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins-twice... even though this is the "wheeler order" sequence, where it'd have made more sense to have it be Jack, Crow, Yusei, Aki, and the twins.

Then comes this crowning indicator of where their relationship apparently is in ending land:

The "standing in the forest looking in awe at a giant obscured Duel Monster" stage.

It looks like a pretty serious relationship at this point.

Chances are, there won't really be any more new Japanese 5D's openings or endings (unless maybe the final ending is like what they did for the Duel Monsters series), but perhaps it's for the best. Imagine where it would go from here if one takes into account the fact that apparently their relationship moves faster than in the series itself.

Imaginary ending six still, courtesy of GDG (and with a greyscaled screenshot in the background):

Imaginary ending seven still:

(Don't tell me you don't think Yanagi's qualified.)

And the still from an imaginary eighth ending:

By the twelfth, we'd be seeing them in the nursing home.

...

No, now that I think about it, I want to see that after all.

#@%& it, Konami!

-Singning off. (Gack, stupid keyboard. I knew it would happen sooner or later.)

What is she applying for, anyway?

Because "I don't have any essays finished and the one character study I have in the queue is out of order" is nowhere near a good excuse for the silence on the blog front lately.

Although "I have a roaring headache" is probably a good excuse for this cartoon.

Invid has a guest blog he's working on, but "it's not ready." :P

Some Random Thoughts

Gee, sorry I keep vanishing like that. :P Work's been a bear.

So: Some random things that have occurred to me whilst trolling-- I mean, trawling ff.net's Yugioh forums for blog ideas, things that are pretty much just little statements that I think you'll like, but that I can't imagine doing full essays over.

-Yugioh is essentially a ghost story. Very little fanfiction remembers this at all.

-If you gave Atem his own body and let him kill people, the original manga would be two steps away from a vampire story. XD

-Yugi is totally a Christ figure. O_o Which would make that vampire story kind of awesome, now that my brain is slippering down that slope.

-Spellcheck agrees with me that "slippering" is a word. Invid is disturbed by this.

-Oops, Spellcheck just changed its mind. XD

-Members of the fandom's nerd levels can be quite accurately described using the characters from the show. That guy over there, muttering about how fancards are always stupid and the duels are never written well? He's a Kaiba-level nerd. That chick you know who's dead serious about characterization and couldn't give a bee's behind about those trap cards? More of a Téa level nerd. (Téa's a nerd, just in a different way.)

-So can the roles we actually play in the forums (not role-playing, the way we comport ourselves.) There aren't enough Yugis.

-Honestly, there just aren't enough Yugis anywhere.

-All fanfiction ideas can be done well, but finding them is like topdecking: You can't rely on it. O_o

-Invid hates ff.net.

-I can totally understand. It needs some kind of "number of favorites" or something, or at LEAST some way that's better than communities for people to find skilled writers. (I mean, come on, the third forum from the top in the YGO section is summarized: "I like to hear more about Yami/Tea and any other couples if I like them. I don't want to hear any Yoai or Yuri. I can't stand that." I mean, wat. This is an entire forum?! Streamline your system, ff.net.)

-And here's one from Invid: If Yugi is sort of a Christ figure, then one of the basic premises of YnY (the story, not the blog) makes it sort of like a metaphor about Christianity: People can get really nasty when spreading the message of love and peace, missing the point entirely.

-I'm not at all sure how I feel about this revelation. No more deep literary analysis for YOU, Mister Invid!

(The really odd part about this is that Invid is the one who insists that Duel Tanks would be awesome in the same conversations with deep literary analysis that makes me uncomfortable.)

Character Study: Yami Bakura

Character Study: Yami no Bakura

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Terribly ancient for a sixteen to eighteen year old. (Ha, she thinks she's funny.)
Character Archetype: The Demon in the Dark, the Dark Avenger
Probable Element and Alignment: Dark, changes from Chaotic Good to True Evil
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: Forceful and self-important.

The most difficult thing about getting a handle on Yami B is trying to figure out exactly who he is and how many of him there are. I'm going to tackle him as a combination of Thief King Bakura with some massive Zorc taint and assume that, during some of his stranger moments, Zorc was actually driving the boat. (The Spirit of the RIng is sociopathic, yes, but he's still too quirkily human for him to be Zorc itself- which is essentially hunger and malice personified.) I'm also going to continue calling him Yami Bakura through most of the essay, for the simple fact that there are two characters named Bakura, and "Dark Bakura" is the closest thing he has to his own name.

As with many of the focal characters in Yugioh, Yami B has a drastic character arc and changes quite a lot over its course. One of the things that makes him unique is that we see him first at his ending point, and it takes the entire series before we see that he started as more than a sociopathic Geistermench. At his beginning, he is noble, fierce and very much a man of his own time period. He's a good man, although a bit mistaken about who his real enemies are and much too willing to do anything in his crusade for justice. (Ancient peoples tended to place a lower value on other men's lives, especially where vengeance was involved, but also it's pretty clear to me that Yami B didn't see Atem's subjects as anything beyond Atem's subjects, and a way to hurt him.) He's also in intense emotional pain, for obvious reasons.

I see the "king of thieves" as being a dark knight, although unlike Batman and the criminals of Gotham, the monster Yami Bakura was fighting is the country that exerted authority over his loved ones by murdering them viciously. Diabound's terrifying power developed because Bakura himself was filled with the most hardened resolve, and because he had survived a childhood of horrible trauma and solitude, sharpening him into a steel blade.

Several things might have happened when Bakura aquired the Millenium Ring, some of which are more clear than others. First, he started to honestly go insane. The Items themselves are seething and surrounded with evil; they connect Zorc more tightly to reality and were created by horrific means. More importantly, those horrific means were witnessed by Bakura when he was young and vulnerable, and they involved killing everyone he'd ever been close to. The Ring tapped into this deeper vulnerability, and thenceforth Bakura's motives began to blur with those of Zorc in a way that I'm not sure he even realized was actually happening. Diabound began to twist and darken, a symptom of the infection.

For me, Yami Bakura attacking Aknadin and turning him into what would become Zorc Necrophades is the strongest evidence that he was no longer acting merely as an avenger. Aknadin is the one truly responsible for the massacre of Kul Elna; indications are that Yami Bakura at least sort of is aware of this. Why, then, did Bakura simply pass on the infection, instead of messily dissecting Aknadin while the older man was still breathing? There were other ways "in" to the Pharaoh's court. The most logical answer is that Zorc is happily directing his behavior, whether he realizes it or not. Aknadin was the best suited to Zorc's purposes, and therefore Bakura leaves him alive and doesn't redirect his vengeance from Aknamkanon's son. (Atem, for those of you I've lost.)

In the modern era, Yami Bakura has been driven further insane by the mere fact that he's been aware this entire time, stuffed inside the thing that drove him crazy in the first place. He's also become more demonic in nature, especially since he must act using the bodies of others. The already considerable skills he possessed when he was more truly alive have sharpened over a period of several thousand years, and Yami Bakura now clearly fits the name of "monster."

Yet a ghost of his noble origins as avenger remains, twisted into almost a parody. This is where Ryou comes in. Maybe being stuffed into a Ring has let Bakura's social skills atrophy, maybe he's just forgotten how to identify with other human beings. In any case, he's fiercely protective of Ryou, and determined to keep the boy's friends close at hand while punishing anyone who even looks at the kid funny. As manga readers know, this often means sealing people into game pieces, or killing them, depending on his whim. He's impatient with Ryou's apparent softness, probably because of how he himself has been hardened into steel. He doesn't understand why Ryou gets so upset over little things like "belonging." Being disconnected from a body for so long, and having lived through a terrible solitude before that, Yami B also doesn't grasp that part of what Ryou enjoys about human interaction is the actual physical presence of another person.

In other words, Yami Bakura's method of "protecting" Ryou is actually perfectly logical, in Yami B's own mind. He's not exactly trying to be cruel, he doesn't understand how he IS being cruel, and the fact that Ryou responds poorly to his efforts annoys and frustrates him, and fills him with disdain for his host. Think of the hardened soldier who served in World War 2 trying and failing to identify with a sensitive hippy child. The two Bakuras come from drastically different worlds, and they'd have a hard time identifying with one another even in the best circumstances.

It is definitely real protectiveness on Yami Bakura's part, as opposed to the simple self-serving "kill em for the lawls" it's usually explained away as. There is one incident in the manga that makes this absolutely clear: when Bobasa chases Ryou out for having an "impure soul," and Ryou is sobbing by himself, Yami Bakura is shown to be thinking, irritably, that he'll have to "deal with this fool's feelings later."

He should know that this is the endgame, and he's plotting vengeance on Bobasa for making Ryou cry? What the hell, man. You've got it bad when you're doing stuff like that. (Whatever "it" is, I leave to interpretation.) He's irritated no end with how soft he perceives Ryou to be, yet he clearly cares that said soft little boy has gotten his feelings hurt. And he will kill over said soft liitle boy's tender feelings, even though he wishes the kid weren't so sensitive. (I'm not saying I see Ryou as soft. See Ryou's character study.)

It's probably because Ryou fought him for their sakes that Yami Bakura harrasses Yugi and company only minimally as the series progresses. He wants something from them, yes, but he's going to avoid giving them undue grief until absolutely necessary. After all, this is the first time he can remember Ryou showing a spine, even if it's in a direction he dislikes. If Ryou hadn't actively fought Yami Bakura, and Yugi and the others had escaped the first attempt he made to trap them in game pieces, there's a good chance he would have kept trying to ensnare them, harder now that they had escaped once. Instead, he only actively fights them when they're standing between himself and his goals, and even helps them more than once. Bakura has decided to let Ryou "keep" these people, under conditions.

Even in the modern era, Yami Bakura doesn't trust that Atem carries any honor, nobility, or even compassion at all. He knows that Atem will fight for who he cares about, but obviously that doesn't mean THAT much, because everyone does it, right? Through Ryou's eyes he witnessed Atem's willingness to let Seto Kaiba throw himself from the roof of the Duelist Kingdom castle, if it meant Atem would win the duel. This is why he saves Ryou from Slifer; unlike Kaiba, he can't trust enough to throw this particular life on Yugi's mercy. (Yes, it is totally possible to be less trusting than Kaiba.) If it had been his own life, of course, he might have been more willing, but Ryou, however irritating Yami Bakura finds him, is the only living being he actually cares about.

One of the sadder aspects to the series for me is the idea that Yami Bakura apparently "dies" while still twisted up with Zorc taint. One can hope that the defeat of Zorc in the Memory Arc blasted him clean, but whatever truly happened to him isn't entirely clear. (Takahashi would probably tell us he "went away to heaven," the silly old bear. XD) There is plenty of room, however, for his potential survival-- the main suggestion of this has to do with the way he sealed up a portion of his soul in one of the Millenium Puzzle pieces. All that he was doing there was gaining access to the Puzzle's intricacies, but if he could seal part of himself in a mystical Puzzle piece, he could easily seal a part of himself in something else, keeping that part, and himself, safe. A canny fanfic writer can take this and run with it in any direction. I tend to believe that he at least temporarily left an anchor within Ryou, which is how the Millenium Ring kept finding itself back in Ryou's possession, and how he didn't actually die in his first defeat.

The mere fact that he did things like this also shows that Yami Bakura had a much sharper understanding of how to use his own shadow powers than most of the other characters that possessed them. He would seem to have had a natural talent for magic, even before he aquired the Millenium Ring, and existing aware within it for so long would have given him plenty of time to adapt to being a bodiless soul. This probably is a large part of why he could face being eaten up by shadows (within Ryou's body) when defeated by Yami Marik; the other reason is that, while he didn't trust Atem to have compassion for Ryou, he DID trust Atem to defeat Yami Marik, and knew that his condition would be temporary if the pharaoh succeeded.

Several people have complained about the Oreichalchos arc within the anime, because Ryou isn't seen and Yami Bakura doesn't act. Surely, with all this insanity going on, Yami Bakura would try to take advantage of it, right? And if not, he'd try to fight Dartz and keep Atem out of his clutches, so that he could have his own vengeance, right?

Maybe not. First of all, Dartz talked about knowing of Atem since Atem was actually alive, and indicated that it was because of Yami Bakura that he didn't act (I suspect he also just wasn't really ready to take on such a strong opponent.) It's possible that canny villains know better than to get underfoot of one another. It's also possible that the Leviathan and Zorc, wanting something similar, were either in cahoots with one another or were actually the same thing. If that's the case, Zorc may have held Bakura back. Even if it's not the case, Zorc may have held him back in order to see how the Leviathan's gambit would play out.

Secondly, in the anime Yami Bakura informs Ryou that it's time to stop fooling around. I've talked about how Yami B may have been nursing Ryou back to health in the immediate aftermath of Battle City. I've also talked about how Ryou was probably in much worse shape than he appeared to be during Battle City. I'm inclined to think that Yami Bakura was granting Ryou a convalesence period, and didn't want to risk reinjuring him so soon. (He may have, however, clung close by when the God Cards were stolen, and decided that the situation was too much for him to put Ryou through at the time.)

Another aspect I want to emphasize about Yami Bakura is that he's most assuredly human, even though he no longer knows how to act human, or how to relate to other people on a human level. He displays a sense of humor and a sense of amused bewilderment during his duel with Bonz. (I also like his "there is no way there is something more dangerous than ME in this graveyard" attitude.) Despite his annoyance with Ryou Bakura, he desires to protect him on a level that goes beyond conveniance. And his understanding of Atem's own human nature is something an eldritch god would be too large to grasp-- even with the fact that he takes a dim view of human behavior (I see him as adhering to Hobbes's philosophical assumptions: "Humans are evil by nature.")

Invid has suggested one other thing regarding the more savage side of Yami Bakura's nature that I feel should be mentioned for the sake of completeness, and which I find rather appealing: an explanation for his blood fetish. It could easily be written off that he's just crazy, and it is likely that Takahashi just wanted him to be as creepy as possible to the modern mind.

But this is the important part: To the modern mind. Many cultures surrounding ancient Egypt believed in blood sacrifice, and more importantly in the idea that by consuming blood, one brought the life of something into oneself. (This is why consuming blood is considered not to be kosher.) Bakura was very much a man of his time period; it's not unreasonable to assume he spent some time among people of non-Egyptian culture during his childhood and absorbed part of that attitude.

Which is one of the many reasons I go weird about trying to write people with their cultural background in mind.

Final Distillation:
Yami Bakura transforms from a noble avenger to a demonic monster.
He is very much a man of his time period, which involves a certain amount of natural savagery.
He has been hardened into steel, although he does have his vulnerabilities (which were much more obvious when he was fully human.)
Yami Bakura is extremely skilled at magic, but he also has good natural aptitude.
He is protective, even at his most demonic.
He no longer understands human interaction on a human level.
Yet at the same time, Yami Bakura is human.

Character Study: Ryou Bakura

Character Study: Ryou Bakura

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen
Character Archetype: I hate to say it, but he plays the Damsel in Distress quite well. He's also, to a certain extent, the Wise Wizard, or the Paladin.
Probable Element and Alignment: Dark, Neutral Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: Polite and soft-spoken.

I've always had a rather strange relationship with Ryou Bakura. He was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! character I ever did fanart of, as well as the first I worked with in comic format. (They were kind of... strange... gag things.) Yet I can't be sure I'd call him my favorite character, or even a character I know very well.

Of course, Ryou is something of an enigma. Through most of the series, he's being possessed by one of the following: An ancient, vengeful thief or an eldritch god-- possibly something that is a combination of the two. Dark Bakura is a very convincing actor, and therefore we really can't tell all the time which Bakura is steering the body. (We do know that in the manga, he can be very sensitive about the things Yami B does, especially if he's accused of being evil himself. It's pretty clear that he's the one who broke down in response to Bobasa chasing him away at the beginning of the Memory Arc.) (That incident, by the way, is part of why I like the anime better. I hate to see Bakura cry. :P)

We know that he's fairly polite and quiet, yet the quiet behavior might really be a reaction to the fact that he can't be sure what's going on all the time. He seems like he's probably socially inept, yet how can he be otherwise, with a demonic being chasing anyone who even sort of hurts his feelings into hell, and trapping anyone he acts like he might like into cards and figurines? Ryou can't help but be socially damaged and emotionally shackled; it's a survival trait. (The way he seems to hold himself quietly aloof when being shown around the school by obviously enamoured girls is interesting-- has he simply decided to reserve judgment until they stop fangirling, or is he used to being treated like a doll by the opposite sex and has just learned to put up with it?)

Bakura is also in a state of mourning, which will also skew how a character behaves. He writes letters to his dead sister, asking her how she "and mother" are and telling her what he's been doing. I've seen people call this creepy, but I disagree. If you're going to write a letter to a person, you're going to act like you're having a dialogue; that's how letters are written. He's not any creepier than people who leave flowers and gifts at memorials or stand talking to gravestones in the rain. Grief makes people do odd things.

One thing I know for sure about Ryou Bakura is that I like him when he's angry. We only see a glimpse of this, too; in the manga, during his first appearance, in the anime, during the Duelist Kingdom Soul Card duel. Yet we do see it, and what we see is a frightening determination and resolve, combined with eerie calm. "I will do anything to screw you over, Spirit of the Ring, even if it means I have to die for it." (And yet he'll say it with calm eyes.) Granted, he's in a state of sheer desperation. But perhaps that is something important to remember about him: Ryou Bakura knows what it means to be pushed to the emotional limit, and he's survived it.

I do believe that Ryou is a good person, whatever else he is. If the first RPG that Atem played with Yami Bakura was intended to be symbolic, which it most certainly was (because Takahashi loves that sort of thing) then the white wizard Yugi's character yanked out of Zorc's arm was intended to show Ryou Bakura's truer nature. That character, who was an extension of his will and yet, wasn't quite Bakura himself, not only displayed the same calm anger, but casually gave his own life to restore Ryou's. The total lack of fear he shows in the face of a meaningful death is either something that shows Ryou to be somewhat unhealthy, or far braver than he's given credit for.

During Duelist Kingdom, too, he's the one that puts his hands on Yugi's shoulders after Yugi throws the rooftop duel, in a way that can only be described as protective. It's probable that he understands better than any of the others what's really bothering Yugi (Atem being willing to kill without Yugi's consent), and silently, he reaches out to let Yugi know he's there. This is more likely Ryou acting than Yami Bakura, because Yami B wouldn't think to do it. It's just a sweet, sensitive gesture. In a way, Ryou simply has insight into Yugi's head that the others can't fathom, and that even Yami Bakura probably doesn't understand, because otherwise he would have exploited it.

(I've always suspected that Takahashi intended to give Ryou more character development, btw, he just never got around to it.)

There's no way of telling who's talking through most of Battle City, although I'm quite certain Ryou was totally unconscious from some point while he was in the hospital up to the end of the duel with Yugi, and that Yami Bakura was just pretending to be his host. It seems strange that he would react so poorly to what appears to be a mere gash in the arm, and many people just attribute it to his general tenderness. I'm inclined to think that he must have lost a lot of blood, that the wound was much worse than it looked (we never do see the gash itself, only a bandage and bloodstains) and that the hospital pumped him full of painkillers. Yami Bakura seems to thrive on pain, not to mention he went around eating heavy, rare-cooked foods and doing a lot of other things that the hospital probably wouldn't have approved of. XD

So during Battle City, that body underwent a lot more punishment than just a gash on the arm, and what it really means is that Yami Bakura has a freakish pain tolerance. Meanwhile, all Ryou knows is that he woke up with a gashed apart arm, a roiling stomach, with the strong sense that he's been running around with something very heavy on his injured arm doing only Yami B knows what. He's confused, he's in pain, and there's a damn big red dragon getting ready to snort lightning on his head.

Yeah, I'd freak out (and fall over) too.

The next time we see him, we once again can't be sure it's really him. After all, he just woke up in a strange place. We don't know that his arm is healed or that the drugs have worn off, we don't know that his blood's replenished itself. He's hungry, so he cleans out the kitchen. This could be a sign that Ryou's very practical, or it could be a sign that Yami Bakura is in charge, quietly nursing him back to health.

(One assumes, however, that Ryou probably IS a fairly practical person-- he can't get rid of the stupid Ring, so he just deals. He can't control his situation, so he doesn't get overly upset about it. He lives practically on his own, so he'd have to have a sensible head on his shoulders when it comes to this kind of thing.)

Another side to Ryou that is very firmly his is that he's probably the best duelist we never see play. I don't believe that he had any say in the deck he carries; that belongs to the Spirit that enslaves him, and he doesn't throw it away because he can't. But when Yugi isn't there to explain things (usually because he's the one dueling), Bakura fills the role of ringside commentator, especially during Duelist Kingdom. Other characters sometimes fill the role (Duke is his official pinch-hitter when it comes to this), but Ryou is better at it than most of them. During the duel with Panik, he very clearly has a better grasp on what's happening than Mai, and is the first person to pick up on Yugi's strategy. (Which is a pretty insane strategy, so yeah.) He is similarly canny during the Ceremonial Duel, keeping up at least as well as, if not better than, Kaiba.

The only other character I have seen display such a keen understanding when discussing duels from the sidelines is probably Yugi's grandfather. (Not counting Pegasus.) Ryou does claim to enjoy playing the dungeon master, and this might be a sign of why: he enjoys deep-trenched and insane strategem. I'd hate to play chess with him, but I'd love to play one of his RPGs. (WHY would I hate to play chess with him? Because half the time you'd be clueless as to what the hell he just did to snare you in that checkmate, that's why.) (He'd probably be a good sport about it, but that doesn't mean I'd enjoy it.) So Ryou Bakura is definitely very smart, and is at least capable of seeing through other people's deviousness, through their strategy and machinations when even their opponents can't.

Lots of people like to write Bakura as extremely clumsy. I feel that the clumsiness is a combination of a lowered confidence (due to the nature of his possession) and Yami B amping it up deliberately so that Ryou himself seems even less of a threat. So I, at least, am less inclined to writing him as clumsy post-possession.

I mentioned earlier that I dislike the scene in the manga in which Bobasa declares that Ryou can't help with the Pharaoh's Memories because he carries darkness within him. It's not because I don't like what it does with his character, I just found it kind of mean. :P I think that Ryou had really come to consider himself a part of this group of people, that it was the first time in a long time that he felt like he belonged anywhere, and that Bobasa really shook that feeling. (He probably felt a lot better later when he realized that, yet again, it was all Yami B's fault. Yami Bakura, you jerk. XD)

So even though I don't like the scene, I think the way Bakura reacts there is understandable and within his previously established character, and not wussy at all. XD (Gives Ryou a hug)

Final Distillation:
Much of Ryou's behavior is a result of his being possessed. :P
He is emotionally shackled, due to his possession.
He is very calm about his own anger.
He is fearless at the idea of dying in a meaningful way-- he's very brave.
He actually can take care of himself, when he's keeping out of trouble.
He is intelligent, and has a keen understanding of strategy.
He is a good person, and sensitive to other people.
He values the sense of belonging highly.

The Children's Card Game

There's something that my dear sister (GDG-this is Invid) refers to as the "children's card game fallacy."

Simply put, it's the fact that fans of the series view the characters as treating a simple "children's card game" as a huge piece of srs bsnss. (Thanks a lot for that observation, LittleKuriboh. You have officially warped the fandom.)

Well, it's certainly true that they put an awful lot of stock into a game, but it goes beyond being a children's card game.

You see, when Takahashi was writing the early chapters, there was only one card game that was well-known enough for him to be talking about.

He called the game in his manga Magic & Wizards, but he was really talking about Magic: The Gathering.

(Note Grandpa's emphasis that it was the card game that "is such a hit in America." If you ever get pestered by people talking about the purity of the card game in Japanese due to its origins, there's a stick to hit them with. Yeah, the game is different-but Takahashi thought of it as an American game.)

You might dismiss this as an unfounded theory, but aside from the obvious fact that Magic was and is the first, biggest, and most-played card game in the entire world, the cards that Takahashi designed are essentially a simplified version of the M:TG cards.

Not necessarily the individual cards (though I'll get to that). If you look at the card back of a manga or anime Yu-Gi-Oh! card, you'll see that it has a dark brown oval in the center, with a brown "background" and a tan border.

Check out this article on the M:TG site, which showcases the game's card back (with a hypothetical variant back that never was). The proportions are rather different, but it's essentially what Takahashi was building from.

The fronts have some similarities, too; when Takahashi designed his cards, he put stars on them, possibly because he didn't know quite enough about M:TG to know just what the mana cost on a Magic card meant. (By the way, if you ever wondered about the "spell card" change in Yu-Gi-Oh! because you weren't following the game, it's all Hasbro's [M:TG's proprietary company] fault. They thought the use of "magic" was a misleading use of their trademark, as Magic players refer to their cards in a similar fashion. Never mind that Hasbro can't actually trademark the word "magic...")

It does, in fact, go further.

Check out this old picture of the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and then compare it with this picture of Shivan Dragon, one of M:TG's old famous cards.

Note the general similarity of the poses.

There's another one that has similarities to an old school Magic card, Summoned Skull. Compare this manga image to Lord of the Pit:

This is further highlighted by Takahashi's anniversary art version of Summoned Skull, which in homage to its origins has the same color scheme as Lord of the Pit, though its appearance has diverged along different directions from the "traditional" Summoned Skull design most of us know from the anime.

(Note that, in the two games, their positions of power relative to each other are essentially reversed. Lord of the Pit is [mostly] stronger than Shivan Dragon but less practical, while the same is true of Blue Eyes White Dragon compared to Summoned Skull. Not that any of the cards are competitive in the modern games...)

Of course, any discussion of the early manga version of Duel Monsters/Magic & Wizards would be highly incomplete without looking at Seto Kaiba, everyone's favorite psycho player.

Takahashi has apparently stated that Kaiba was based on somebody who was a huge jerk to one of his friends originally, but the character has obviously moved away from his humble, cruel-guy origins.

I have a theory as to why the character evolved the way he did, and I'm going to share it here. It's pretty crazy, and it hinges on a completely insane coincidence, but I'm sticking with it.

Flash back to 1999. This was during the early days of the anime, more or less. Guess who was rocking the Magic: The Gathering world at that time?

His name was Kai Budde.

Now, Kai Budde is not Japanese (although Japanese players have traditionally had a pretty big impact on the game). He's German. But if you parse his name, well... It's not much of a stretch at all to notice the similarities between Kai-ba and Kai-Budde.

They even look a bit similar, as far as such things go.

(Pictures ganked from the Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki's Kaiba page and Kai Budde's previously linked Hall of Fame bio page. Sorry if it bothers anybody, but I'm doing a historical essay here, and I think it's fair use.)

It's impossible that Takahashi derived Kaiba's name from Kai Budde's-Budde's first victories that propelled him to worldwide Magic fame occurred in 1998, and even presuming an extremely leisurely publishing schedule, "The Cards with Teeth" would have come out well before that, sometime in late 1996 or early 1997. (The Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki, being heavily focused on the card game, doesn't have a date for the chapter itself, and I'm hesitant to guess too closely.)

Anyway, why is it important that Yu-Gi-Oh!'s card game is based on Magic?

Well, according to market research, the biggest demographic of Magic players is in the 15-16 year old age bracket. In effect? The same age as the characters from the series.

Further, it might seem silly, but Magic really is serious business. Aside from the fact that certain old cards from the game are extremely pricy (some go for somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars apiece, which makes participating in a format where those cards are legal very difficult for newcomers), you can actually make big money playing Magic. People do.

There are hundred upon hundreds of players worldwide who compete in sanctioned tournaments, and many of these sanctioned tournaments have large monetary prizes. Kai Budde actually made something of a living off of the game at the height of his career, as I understand it.

Basically, the game we see in the various Yu-Gi-Oh! series is what Magic would be like if it reached the scale of a big-name pro sport.

Which isn't entirely impossible, you know. Just not likely.

Yet.

Why Background Characters In Yugioh Are Awesome

If you look, the other characters in this are also doing entertaining things. X3 (Two of them are staring at Kaiba with either trepidation or awe, while the couple to his right are having an argument and ignoring him completely. XD)