Yu-Gi-Oh! Volumes 25-31

Over the course of the duel, Joey figures out that Odion isn't Marik. Because Odion has fought fair, and Marik doesn't. Marik tells Odion to use the counterfeit Ra in his possession to convince him that he is in fact Marik.
Odion summons Ra and tries to make it attack, but the dragon strikes lightening down upon him. One of the bolts hits Joey as well, and both of them fall down. Odion is unable to stand, but Joey gets to his feet.
Yami Marik then proceeds to unveil and reveal himself to be Marik.
Due to unconsciousness, Odion loses his duel, and Joey moves on to the next round.
The next duel is between Marik and Mai. Yami Marik turns it into a Shadow Game, natch. Cords of light lead between the duelists and their monsters. Monster gets damaged, your own body reflects the damage they took.
Marik brings out Vicer Des to torture Mai's monsters. It's invincible for three turns after summoning. Vicer Des attaches itself to one of Mai's Amazons, so Mai sends it to the graveyard so she can use its special ability to steal the real Ra from Marik's deck, and to stop the excruciating pain. However, she can't read the ancient Egyptian on the card. Marik repeatedly attempts to torture Mai into submission, but she keeps getting out of them creatively. Mai then summons up her Harpies and Kaleidoscopes them so she can summon Ra. It then refuses to unfurl as if it's a Bakugan without a metal base to activate on. Mai attempts to set up Mirror Wall to block Marik's offense, but he uses Vicer Shock to send it back to her hand. He then activates both Vicer Shock and Vicer Des to drain Mai's life-points. He then reads the Ancient Egyptian off the card and activates Ra. A single shot from Ra and she's on the verge of actual death. Joey rushes up to the battlefield to try and get Mai out of the torture machine, but Marik fires a beam from Ra. Yami takes the blast on his back, and the volume ends.

Yami Marik is declared the winner. He then traps Mai's mind in an hourglass with mind-eating bugs. Death in twenty-four hours. He delivers an ultimatum to Yugi and the gang, kill him in a day or Mai dies.
The next duel is between Kaiba and Ishizu. The appearance of his older sister begins tearing Marik and Yami Marik apart, but Yami Marik overwhelms him. Ishizu uses her Millennium Necklace to predict what she thinks the outcome of the duel will be. She uses her knowledge of Kaiba's actions to counter his every move. She allows Kaiba to activate his Crush Card Virus, but she activates Exchange of Spirit to reverse the effects of those cards. This places all of Kaiba's deck into his graveyard, and gives Ishizu back most of hers. She keeps tossing his cards into the graveyard with traps. He's left with only one option. Use Soul Exchange to sacrifice some of her monsters to summon a high-level monster of his own. She places Blast Held By Tribute on one of her monsters so she can destroy Obelisk if he attacks with it. She rightfully predicts that he'll summon Obelisk with her monsters on her turn. Kaiba almost attacks with Obelisk, but The Millennium Rod in Marik's hand and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon in his own call out to him. He sees a vision of himself before a stone slab of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. He makes his decision, and uses Silent Doom to sacrifice a monster from his graveyard to summon up his Blue-Eyes, subverting Ishizu's predictions and winning the duel.
Meanwhile back in the command-center, Mokuba Kaiba has been using their computers to try and translate the ancient Egyptian on the card. When Seto comes to check on him, he finds that he can read it like it was his native language.
After the duel, Ishizu explains to the gang what's going on with her brother. They went out of their little cave where they lived to explore the outside world. There they ran into Shadi, who told them about some of the things that would soon happen. They went home, found their father found out they left and tortured Odion in an attempt to kill him and then tried to do that to Marik. Yami Marik then took the blade in the Millennium Rod and flayed the skin from his fathers back.

Ishizu gives Yugi her Millennium Necklace. Get all seven of the items, place them in the tablet and Yami's memories are restored.
Yami Marik roams the hallways and goes to Odion's room to kill him, but Yami Bakura stops him. Actual Marik's spirit accompanies him, and they challenge Yami Marik to a duel.
The Shadow Game that they play is different from that of the one Marik played with Mai. You lose parts of your body when you take damage to your life-points.
Yami Marik doesn't draw Ra, but Yami Bakura plays a spell-card to put it in his hand. He then makes Marik discard his entire hand at the cost of 100 of his own life points per card.
Marik then draws Monster Reborn, and uses it to bring back Ra, and to activate its special power. Give your life-points to Ra to increase its attack points. He does that, giving all but one to it. He uses that one attack to obliterate Yami Bakura, and claim the Millennium Ring for himself.
Marik goes over to Téa and possesses her so he can tell his sister to save Odion. As such, when Yami Marik breaks back into Odion's room to try and kill him, he's not there.
While Yugi is asleep, he senses something wrong inside the room of Yami's soul and goes to check it out. He converses with Yami, and he mentions that he can't find out which of the doors leads where. A wide shot of the room shows Yami Bakura hiding behind the architecture within.
The next day, the blimp lands on Alcatraz Island, the old weapons manufacturing facility from when Gozaburo Kaiba ran the show. In the center of the destroyed factories lies the Duel Tower, the final stage of the Battle City tournament.
The pairings for the finals are determined by a four-way duel. The two who lose first duel each other. The other two duel each other. Everyone has to present a card from their deck, and turns proceed in descending order of attack points. The order goes Kaiba, Yami Marik, Yugi, and then Joey. The duel begins, and despite his best efforts Joey takes quite a bit of damage straight off. Joey is determined to face off with Marik in the end, and Yugi and Kaiba want to take on each other.

Thanks to a combination of his and Kaiba's trap-cards, Joey makes Marik the first one to lose. Kaiba then wipes out Joey's life and the brackets are decided. Joey vs Marik, and Yugi vs Kaiba.
Yami Marik makes their duel into a shadow game, but Joey isn't phased. Marik then attempts to torture Joey using Vicer Des, but he manages to snap out of it enough to function. Unfortunately for him, he kills one of Marik's monsters with a special-ability that forces Joey to discard a random card. Marik then activates Coffin Seller to drain Joey's life-points. He also places Malevolent Catastrophe face-down on his side of the field, to destroy all of Joey's monsters and drain his life-points in one go.
Joey then plays Question. They each have to name the top card in the others graveyard. Joey picks out Marik's but Marik doesn't know what the card Helpomer discarded was, so Joey uses Question to summon Jinzo from the grave. He uses Jinzo's ability to wipe out all of Marik's face-down traps and spells. Joey then wipes out all of Marik's monsters, but Marik uses Dark Wall Of Wind to protect himself. He then plays Lava Golem on Joey's side of the field, sacrificing his Jinzo and Baby Dragon to summon it. If Joey can attack with it, he'll win, but it damages him for seven-hundred points every turn.
Marik then uses Monster Relief to pull Vicer Des off the field and re-summon it so he can use it as a wall against the Lava Golem. He then uses Machine Duplication and attaches all three of his Vicers to all of Joey's monsters.
Joey comes up with a plan to de-activate Monster Relief on the two new Vicers, using Graceful Dice to increase their Attack, causing them to self-destruct. Joey then uses the newly sacrificeable monsters to summon Gilford The Lightening. Gilford destroys the one remaining Vicer with its special ability, and then attacks Marik directly. Marik activates Nightmare Mirror to reflect a thousand of that attack back at Joey and take none of it himself.
Marik then uses Monster Reborn to bring out Ra, and he activates Ra's third special ability. The Flaming Phoenix. It's not enough to wipe out Joey's life-points, but he passes out before he can summon Gearfried and declare an attack. Marik declares that Joey will die if he hasn't already, and Kaiba's medical staff do their best. Yugi is almost entirely disheartened by this, but he touches Ishizu's Millennium Necklace and sees a vision of himself dueling with Joey in Domino City. This bolsters his confidence, and he vows to fight to the end and beat Marik.

The next volume begins with Yugi's fated duel with Kaiba. They exchange some banter before they start.
Joey's EKG (It's spelled ECG but I learned it at EKG) actually starts to move a bit, showing that he's not entirely dead.
Kaiba draws Obelisk on his first turn, but Yugi doesn't get Slifer on the same turn. However, Yugi manages to impale Obelisk with a Lightforce Sword, negating Kaiba's plan to summon it. Yugi comes up with a strategy to win with Slifer, but he doesn't have it in his hand at the moment. Kaiba then uses Voice of the Heavens to pull Slifer from Yugi's deck to his hand, but Yugi plays exchange to get it back, and into his own hand.
Kaiba manages to wait out the Lightforce Sword long enough to summon his XYZ-Dragon Cannon. However, Yugi anticipated his attack on his main defensive monster and activates Soul Rope, and summons Kings Knight, and combined with his previously summoned Queens Knight, special-summons Jack's Knight. This allows Yugi to sacrifice them and summon Slifer immediately. Yugi tries to destroy Kaiba's XYZ-Dragon Cannon, but Kaiba protects them with Interdimensional Matter Transfer. He then sacrifices them on his next turn to summon Obelisk.
Seeing this from the blimp, Tristan drags Joey over to the window in the hopes that he'll wake up because of it.
Yugi uses Slifer's special ability to knock Obelisk's attack down to two-thousand.. He then uses Pot Of Greed to draw two more cards and thus boost Slifer up to five-thousand attack when Kaiba made Obelisk attack it. Kaiba then activates Life Shaver, which makes Yugi discard a card for every turn it's been face-down. It's only been face-down since Kaiba's last turn, so their attacks are equal.
The two gods annihilate each other, and Yugi and Kaiba get a flash from the depths of their ancient memories. With both of their gods destroyed, the two of them get down to fighting for real. Kaiba uses Cost Down to summon his Blue-Eyes with only one monster as a sacrifice. Yugi then uses Monster Reborn to summon his Dark Magician, which was the card he discarded when Kaiba played Life Shaver.
Kaiba figures rightfully that Yugi was planning on activating Spellbinding Circle, so he brings out Lord of D. to protect his Blue-Eyes. Yugi tries to take it out, but Kaiba brings Obelisk back as a shield for one turn, and then uses Flute of Dragon Summoning to bring out his other two Blue-Eyes.
One thing I would like to mention to Kazuki Takahashi if anyone hasn't brought this up already, Joey's upper torso should have been entirely bare. The sensors are supposed to be on the skin, not on the shirt.

Kaiba attacks with his three Blue-Eyes, but Yugi uses the side-effect of the Flute of Dragon Summoning to pull out Joey's Red-Eyes Black Dragon. He also uses Magic Cylinder to destroy the Lord of D., allowing him to use Spellbinding Circle on one of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes, and destroy it with the Red-Eyes. The one remaining Blue-Eyes destroys Yugi's Beta The Magnet Warrior.
Joey weakly opens his eyes and sees Yugi and Kaiba dueling, which boosts the gangs spirits to no-end. Joey then gets up and they run to the tower to let Yugi know.
Kaiba uses Monster Reborn and Polymerization to create his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Yugi then uses Double Spell to bring back Buster Blader, and fuse it with his Dark Magician to create The Dark Paladin. Buster Blader has a special ability which boosts its power in the presence of dragons. The Dark Paladin inherits this power, and its 2900 attack is boosted by by a thousand by the presence of the Red-Eyes and the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Yugi uses Magic Formula to boost Dark Paladin's attack, but Kaiba uses Absorb Spell to counter. Yugi then falls back to De-Fusion to split the Ultimate Dragon into the three component dragons, boosting Dark Paladin's attack to 4900. On his turn, Yugi plays Diffusion Wave-Motion to target all three Blue-Eyes at once and win the duel, and Obelisk The Tormentor.
Joey and the gang meet Yugi at the top of the tower and congratulate him on his victory.
On their way back to the blimp, Mokuba and Seto run into Ishizu. She mentions to them that the inscription on the Pharaoh's tablet was signed by the priest who buried him. The previous owner of The Millennium Rod, none other than the priest Seto. Kaiba almost leaves the tower, but Mokuba convinces him to stick around. He then gives Yugi the one card which can boost his chances of beating Marik, Devil's Sanctuary.
It all comes down to this. Yami Yugi vs Yami Marik. And this time, the other half of their souls are on the line. For Yami Marik and Marik, one can go without the other being consumed, which is how Yami Marik intends to survive. For Yugi and Yami Yugi however, they're so interlinked that if one of them goes they both do.
Yami Marik places Ra in his graveyard so he can put one of his monsters in defense-mode. All he needs then is Monster Reborn and he can attempt his one-turn kill. With the help of Left Arm Offering, he discards his entire hand to pull it from his deck. Fortunately for Yugi, he drew Card Exchange and played it face-down. He takes Monster Reborn from Yami Marik, halting the attempt at summoning Ra in its tracks. Yugi then manages to pull out his Knight trio to both defend himself with and as sacrifices for when he draws Slifer or Obelisk. Thanks to Yami Marik's Card of Sanctity, he does. He summons Slifer with six-thousand attack-points thanks to that same card, but Yami Marik activates Revival of the Dark to bring out Monster Reborn and summon Ra. In its final form, Ra is immune to even Slifer's summoning weakening attack. Ra obliterates Slifer, and Monster Reborn goes back to Yugi's graveyard. That's when Yami Marik activates Zombies Jewel, which lets him do that all over again. The only difference is that Yugi is allowed to draw a card from his deck as compensation.

As Yugi is about to draw his free card, Yami Marik begins taunting him. He points out that Bakura is missing, and then whips out the Millennium Ring and gloats about how he's going to kill Yugi the sake way he killed Bakura. Yugi draws the card and plays it face-down on the field. Then, Marik uses Monster Reborn once again to bring out Ra, and he sacrifices all but one of his life to boost Ra up. He even sacrifices one of his monsters to boost it further. On his attack though, Yugi reveals his face-down card to be none other than Devil's Sanctuary. The card summons a Metal Devil, which has as many attack as the opponent does life. In addition, the damage it takes is inflicted upon the opponent. However, Yami Marik plays De-Fusion to separate himself from Ra.
Yugi then uses Multiply to triplicate Metal Devil and sacrifice the three of them to summon Obelisk The Tormentor. Obelisk's direct attack drops Yami Marik to seven-hundred life. However, Ishizu suspects and Yami Marik later confirms that this was all a ploy so he could activate Metal Reflect Slime. He uses this to create a reflection of Obelisk with 3/4's the originals attack. On his next turn he summons a Revival Jam and plays one card face-down. On Yugi's turn he tries to destroy the reflection of Obelisk, but Yami Marik fuses the Metal Reflect Slime with the Revival Jam, making the Obelisk clone immortal. He then plays Bowganian (One of my favorite cards) which will damage Yugi for 300 points ever single turn it's alive. Yugi tries to wipe it out with his Dark Magician Girl, but Yami Marik activates Jam Defender, which makes the Obelisk copy defend all attacks. Yugi shows some hesitation in his attempts to win the duel because of the other Marik. Marik, who has since made his peace with his family, uses Téa to tell Yugi to not worry about him.
Yami Marik then plays Magical Stone Excavation to bring back Monster Reborn, and with it, Ra. Together, Yugi and Yami Yugi come up with something they think might work to kill Yami Marik and leave regular Marik alive.
Yami Marik attacks with Ra, but Yugi uses Monster Reborn to bring Slifer back to shield Obelisk from the attack. Yami Marik then activates Surprise Attack From The Darkness to bring Ra back again. He fuses with the monster, and sacrifices all of the monsters on his field to raise Ra's attack far, far above that of Obelisk's. Yugi counters with Soul Taker, and sacrifices the God Slime to give Marik a thousand life-points. Yugi uses this to activate Obelisk's Soul Energy Max power. Unfortunately, it doesn't scratch Ra. As Yami Marik is about to attack Obelisk, Yugi activates Dimension Magic to sacrifice Obelisk and the King of Mythical Beasts to summon The Dark Magician and The Dark Magician Girl. He uses their combined abilities to kill the fused Ra. The sudden appearance of Odion allows Marik to regain control of his body, and with all but one of his life-points gone, surrenders the duel to destroy his dark half himself. Marik reunites with his brother and sister, and gives Yugi The Winged Dragon of Ra. He also shows him the carvings on his back, and Ishizu explains what it means. It's a prophecy which tells that the one who holds the soul of the pharaoh will possess the forms of the three gods. He also gives Yugi the Millennium Rod and the Ring.
After that, they all board the blimp and leave. On the airship, they find regular old Bakura right as rain, and Mai Valentine has woken up from the coma Yami Marik put her it. Unfortunately, the Kaiba brothers are nowhere to be found as the island explodes. The blimp takes off, and the Kaiba brothers fly out on a massive jet painted to look like a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
The arc ends with Yugi and Joey having one last duel between themselves to conclude the saga of the Red-Eyes Black Dragon.

We're in the home-stretch of this series, and we've only got seven volumes left. Tune in on September 30th for the final part of The History of Yu-Gi-Oh! I know there hasn't been much history for the first several parts of this series, but I'll make up for that at the end. Plus this is the series that started the history, so there's not much to cover aside from the plot for the first series.

If you've enjoyed this series, please consider contributing to my Patreon. Any money you could give me helps a lot.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Volumes 7-12

As I mentioned in the previous article, this volume was my introduction to the Yu-Gi-Oh! comics. As far as an introduction to the series goes, this isn't half bad. It's all killer, and nothing even remotely resembling filler. Even by the high standards of filler in this series.
I won't be recapping the previous volumes of the series mostly to save time, so if you haven't read the last one, just scroll down a bit. Maybe click "Older Posts" if you have to.
The gang makes their way to Zorc's castle, but they find someone lying across their path. The young man tells them that bandits stole his treasure, a sword that can defeat Zorc. They tell him to take them into the forest, and run into a gaggle of powerful monsters.
Joey's character trips and falls, but Yugi tames a monster, Tristan kills another, and Téa nukes the rest with her characters magic.
The young man reveals himself to in fact be Zorc, and uses this surprise to take the first action. He uses this to steal Téa's soul and seal it inside the miniature of her character. Joey attempts to retaliate, but he fumbles and his soul is sealed inside his figure. Tristan tries to attack, but his character fails a courage test and loses the initiative. Bakura rolls a critical and Zorc steals his soul.
The only player left is Yugi, who now has to control everyone. Bakura challenges him to roll for his character, but Yugi tells him to seal his soul inside his characters miniature. Bakura is perplexed, but complies. He's about to claim his prize from Yugi, but instead of falling to the table, Yugi is sitting up straight. Confident. Dice between his fingers, a smirk on his face. Yami rolls the dice and makes Tristan attack Zorc, blowing off the dark lords hand. More monsters spawn from the severed hand, and Zorc retires to his castle, laughing. Joey cuts one monster in half, and Yugi tames the other.
Yami reveals that he knows how Bakura has been getting constant criticals, by spinning the dice on an axis that increases the chance of rolling a critical and tapping the table with his knee to direct the spinning die into another one with an undesirable result. The two agree to stop cheating the dice, and continue on with the game.
The party finds their way into Zorc's castle and fall prey to a trap. Yami solves it, but the trap and Zorc both manage to damage the party. Zorc attacks the tower they were trapped in, but the party managed to run out around behind him and attack. They pour everything into him, but they can't win. Bakura then takes a set of dice and seals a bit of his soul into them to control their results. He uses this to roll a crit in an attempt to wipe them out, but the math leaves them all with one HP left.
Bakura attempts to discern what happened and finds that his left hand has been working all on its own. The actual Ryo Bakura has been controlling this hand, and used this control to keep Zorc from killing the party.
Then Joey gouges out Zorc's eye, and we find that Yami Bakura apparently tied his soul a bit too closely to his in-game avatar. When the players manage to damage Zorc, it reduces Yami Bakura's control over his host-body.
A new round starts, and Téa tries to heal the party, but Zorc's initiative is tied with hers. They have to roll-off to see who goes first. Yami Bakura almost wins, but the dice fall against his favor, giving Téa the opportunity to max out the party's HP.
Yami Bakura finds that the dice he threw were regular dice, and when Zorc goes to attack, his left hand tosses out the brainwashed ones, causing Zorc to fumble and damage himself. Yami Bakura then impales his hosts hand on one of the towers spikes so he can stop it from sabotaging his plans.
This tips the gang off to the fact that this ain't Bakura, but in fact something possessing Bakura.
Yami and Yugi decide to try and use the beast-taming on Zorc and see what happens. Yugi's Beast-Tamer hand pulls the actual spirit of Bakura out of Zorc's stump.
Bakura uses his powers to weaken Zorc enough for Tristan to blast a hole in his side. Zorc then launches his final attack, but Bakura manages to block it with a magic-shield long enough to save the party.
One of Yugi's tamed monsters keeps Zorc's weak-point open long enough for Yugi to bust through it with his magic hand. Joey takes this chance to cut Zorc in half, but the dark lord still lives. It all comes down to one roll, the initiative.
Yami Bakura and Yami Yugi roll off, and they score the same, but Ryo Bakura uses the part of his soul sealed in the dice to shatter them. This gives Yami Yugi the chance to order Téa to blast Zork with all she's got. This cinches the victory for them, and Yami Bakura slumps to the desk. Yami Yugi then uses Cleric-Bakura's powers to transfer his soul back into his own body, and everyone Yami Bakura had sealed in his miniatures is freed.
If you don't know anything about the series, you pretty much have no idea how important this volume is to the overarching story. Everything used in this volume (And in the chapters from the last volume that started this arc) is used by Yami Bakura later on in the series. This is how you introduce your main villain. Hell, this is how you write a main villain. You make him the heroes problem, but you also give a decent climax to their first encounter. You keep bringing him back so he's actually doing things in the story, but prevent the heroes from having any permanent method of killing or defeating him. Make him out to be a threat, but keep his goals mysterious. Then, at the very end, pay off his plans and explore his goals without merely dumping it all upon the heroes and readers at once.
The only thing I can really complain about in this volume is once again, the placement of the chapters. The first two chapters of the arc really should have been moved from the end of the last volume to the start of this one to maximize the impact of the arc.

Volume eight brings back the Duel Monsters card game as the international subtitle of "Duelist" would suggest.
A package arrives for Yugi, but he doesn't open it for a while because he's thinking about how he wants to try and go head to head with Kaiba in a tournament.
Speaking of tournaments though, Yugi and the gang have been following the Japanese Duel Monsters championship tournament. It comes down to Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor. Raptor whips out some powerful dinosaurs, but Weevil uses some clever maneuvering to power up his insects and win the match.
Maximilian J. Pegasus, the president of Industrial Illusions and the creator of Duel Monsters presents Weevil the trophy. He also announces the world Duel Monsters championship at Duelist Kingdom.
Yugi opens the package and finds within a glove, two star-shaped chips and an 8mm VHS tape. (God I feel old now) Yugi finds a recording or Pegasus on the tape, and it challenges him to a game of Duel Monsters. The tape predicts the cards Yugi is going to use, and Yugi begins to suspect that this might be a Shadow Game.
Yugi picks a card, and realizes that he didn't even think when he did it. He places the card face-down and asks the others there what the card was. Most of them guess correctly, as does Pegasus. From this,Yugi guesses that Pegasus was actually inserting frames into the video to influence what Yugi would play. Yugi reveals his card was in fact The Dark Magician, and destroys Pegasus's monster. Pegasus reveals that he knew this as well and starts a countdown timer to finish the duel. Yugi almost finishes the duel, but the timer runs out. In order to coerce Yugi into coming to Duelist Kingdom, Pegasus traps Solomon's soul in the VHS tape, and reveals that he holds another Millennium Item, The Millennium Eye.
The next day at school, Bakura sees the gang being all glum and wonders what's going on. He then sees Solomon trapped in the cam-corder, and they start talking about Pegasus's Millennium item. Bakura mentions that his Millennium Ring came from an antique shop in Egypt, and they figure Pegasus might know more about the items.
On his way home, Yugi finds an envelope stuck on the door to the game-store. Within he finds Duel Monsters cards, one with a date and time on it, one with a location, one with the rules, a blank card, and a card with treasure on it.
A mysterious tape comes for Joey, but it's a message from his little sister, Serenity. When his parents divorced, his mother took his sister and his father took him. Serenity is going blind, and has been moving in that direction her whole life. Neither Joey nor anyone in his family has the money to afford the surgery that would fix her vision, but Yugi gives Joey the treasure card and one of his two star-chips. That way they can both enter, and Joey can try to get the prize-money.
They spend the next week training to be better duelists, and come time to set sail, they board. There, they find Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor boarding the ship as well. They also run into Mai  Valentine.
On the ship, Yugi has a conversation with Weevil about the tournament, and about rumors that the second edition of Duel Monsters rules will be unveiled during this tournament. Later on they start discussing card strategies, and Weevil mentions that he's heard rumors Yugi used Exodia to defeat Kaiba. He then asks to see the cards, and tosses them off the side of the boat. Joey leaps off the side of the boat to get the cards, but he only finds two of them. Yugi becomes so angry that he transforms, and declares that Weevil will be his first target.
At Duelist Kingdom, Pegasus introduces the rules of the tournament. Take your star-chips, bet them on the outcome of a duel with your opponent and whoever wins gets the chips. Get ten star-chips, you enter the finals of the tournament to see who gets to take on Pegasus. After two days, whoever doesn't have ten chips gets eliminated and sent home. If you lose all your star-chips before then, you also get sent home. After the tournament starts, Yugi and the gang run into Weevil. Weevil lures them to a dueling box in the woods. Yugi stakes his life and his star-chip against Weevil's two so he can knock him out of the tournament early.
Here we learn about the new additions to the game, field-power bonuses. That's why Pegasus held the tournament on the island, because it's got a varied selection of biomes and landscapes.
Weevil manages to get the upper-hand for a while until Yugi baits him into activating his Mirror Force Trap-card, and destroys all of his own monsters. Weevil then plays his trump card, a cocoon that will transform into the ultimate great moth, but Yugi burns away the field with Burning Land. This removes the defense bonus it gets, destroying the cocoon. However, the monster within hatches prematurely, and begins to attack. Yugi then uses Polymerization to combine Curse of Dragon and Gaia: The Fierce Knight into Gaia: The Dragon Champion. However, the moth has a poison effect that will reduce a monsters attack points over time. Yugi uses Magic Mist to negate the effect, but the moth still blows Gaia away. Meanwhile, Yugi calls on The Summoned Skull to electrocute the great moth, and defeats Weevil. Yugi takes his star-chips and gives Joey Weevil's glove.
Joey gets challenged by Mai, and they both bet a single star-chip on the duel. Mai feigns being psychic to psyche out her opponents, which honestly isn't that much of a stretch in this series.
The decision to divide the series into three (Yu-Gi-Oh!, Duelist, Millennium World) for the international market is one I do not approve of. There's literally no reason for it. It's not like the second animated series was known as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist outside of Japan. We're not looking at a Dragon Ball Z case where the comics were one ongoing thing and the animated series got split into two accidentally in planning, and then the second got insanely popular outside Japan. The first series wasn't all that popular inside Japan for gods sake.

Joey is distracted by Mai's sleight of hand, enough for her to knock out a good chunk of his life-points. Yugi gives Joey a tiny hint, and while he despairs for a bit over the meaning of it, he smells the perfume on Mai's cards. This helps him concentrate, and he gets his strategy together to beat Mai with Baby Dragon and Time Wizard. Time Wizard throws the clock forward, aging the harpies to weakness and the dragon to strength. He uses the dragon to blow the harpies away and with the duel.
In the next chapter, the gang runs into Mako Tsunami, who shares some of his fish with them. Then he challenges Yugi to a duel. Mako's side of the field is ocean, Yugi's is land. Mako uses the water to hide his monsters until they attack. Yugi tries to electrify the water, but Mako uses his Jellyfish monster to soak it all up. Yugi tries to counter, but Mako floods the entire field with water, leaving two small islands. Yugi plays his Stone Soldier, and uses it to destroy the moon he used to amplify his wolf earlier in the game. This screws with the tides, giving Yugi back his half of the field. He then summons Curse of Dragon and uses Burning Land to vaporize the rest of the water, and beats Mako.
Next chapter, we find that some kid has been stealing star-chips and cards from other duelists. Pegasus's men inform him of the situation and we find out that the thief was a prisoner of Pegasus.
The kid then ambushes Yugi and bets him five star chips. Yugi beats him down to the wire, killing each and every one of his monsters. The kid tries to flee with all the sta-chips, but Yugi grabs his hand and yanks the bandanna off his face. Revealing the kid to be none other than Mokuba Kaiba. Mokuba reveals that Pegasus is trying to take over the Kaiba Corporation with help from The Big Five. Pegasus gets their support if he can beat the guy who put the CEO in a coma. Yugi and the gang convince Mokuba that Yugi can beat Pegasus and he's about to give him his star-chips back when The Hair Guy shows up to try and bust them for cheating. Yugi challenges him to a duel so he can get his star-chips back, but Hair Guy redirects him to a puppet-master who's working a Kaiba marionette. And using Kaiba's deck. Yugi beats one of his monsters, but the puppet-master pulls out one of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons. He uses this to annihilate Yugi's Curse of Dragon and halve his life-points. Yugi uses his Magical Hats to conceal his Dark Magician, and his Spellbinding Circle. He uses the trap to seal up the Blue-Eyes and decrease its' attack points to where the Dark Magician can destroy it. Then the ventriloquist plays the second Blue-Eyes and attempts to attack Yugi, but at that moment Seto Kaiba finishes rebuilding the puzzle of his soul and wakes up. This causes the second Blue-Eyes to stop obeying the puppet-master and self-destruct. This gives Yugi enough time to formulate a strategy. Yugi baits the ventriloquist into attacking and activating his trap-card Mirror Force, but he chains another trap card Negate Trap. After that, Yugi uses Monster Reborn to bring back one of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons, and uses the power of The Mystical Elf to boost his Blue-Eyes' attack to take out the last one on the puppet-masters side, and reduce his life-points to zero. Yugi then imposes a penalty-game on the ventriloquist where his puppets are his masters instead of the other way around.
Meanwhile, what does Seto Kaiba do? He gets his briefcase with his gear and flies himself off to Pegasus's island. Muscles atrophied? Bones weak from disuse? Screw it. His little brother has been kidnapped and his business partner is trying to screw him out of his life's work. Seto Kaiba's got things to do, and health issues ain't gonna stop him.
Mai tricks Rex into fighting for her, and she makes him fight Joey.
Joey draws Baby Dragon and Time Wizard right off the bat, but Rex smashes the Baby Dragon as soon as it's played. Joey keeps trying to use the field to his advantage, but Rex just powers his monsters up and keeps blasting him. Yugi tries to give him advice, but Yami councils against it. Joey finally pulls out The Flame Swordsman and starts cutting up Raptor's dinosaurs.
I like the diversity of content within this volume. There's the payoff to the cliffhanger the previous volume ended on, the encounter with Mako, the run-in with Mokuba, the duel against the ventriloquist, the return of Kaiba, and the start of Joey's showdown with Rex. It doesn't linger on any one thing for too long, while also giving each idea enough breathing room to be explored or set up something for later, as well as advancing the plot forward with each successive chapter.

Joey keeps up his offense until Rex finally draws one of the other iconic cards in the series, The Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Breaking with tradition, it's actually got red eyes and a black body, unlike the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. With that blue body and white eyes.
Rex uses the Red-Eyes to kill the Flame Swordsman. He then challenges Joey to up the ante and bet his Time Wizard against his Red-Eyes. In-universe it's worth a few hundred thousand yen (A few thousand USD) so naturally Joey accepts. Joey activates the Time Wizards Time Roulette, and it ages the Red-Eyes to death, leaving Joey's one remaining monster to wipe out Rex's remaining life-points. Joey gets the Red-Eyes and Rex's star-chips.
Apparently Pegasus didn't provide the duelists with housing and food, so the gang has to borrow stuff from Mai, and in exchange Bakura prepares dinner.
Mai gets Téa to talk to Yugi. While the two of them are talking, Mai is ambushed by one of the player-killers, PaniK. He out-duels her and tries to take all her star-chips, but Yugi shows up and challenges him. PaniK threatens to choke him out if he loses or tries to run, but naturally Yugi's got some Millennium Magic up his sleeve in the event that he wins.
PaniK plays the Castle of Dark Illusion to conceal his monsters. Yugi sets up his defenses, and then decides to attack to see if his Winged Dragon's attack can illuminate the darkness with its flames, and it can. Yugi uses this information to set up his plan, and his defense to psych PaniK out. PaniK tries to use his Reaper of Cards to destroy Yugi's trump card, but Yugi triggers Spellbinding Circle and freezes it. This lets him use Swords of Revealing Light to negate the Castle Of Dark Illusions effect, but PakiK plays Yellow Luster Shield to boost his monsters defense.
Yugi fuses Gaia: The Fierce Night with Curse of Dragon to make Gaia: The Dragon Champion, and launches them towards The Castle of Dark Illusion with Catapult Turtle. This causes the castles flotation right to be destroyed, and when The Swords of Revealing Light are gone, the castle falls and destroys all of PaniK's monsters.
Pegasus's goons try to assassinate Kaiba, but he tosses them out of the helicopter and flies it to Duelist Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Bakura's Millennium Ring has started glowing, and one of the needles has started pointing towards the castle. Then Kaiba shows up in his helicopter. Yugi gives him his deck back, and Joey challenges him to a duel for what he did to them at Death-T. Kaiba accepts, and uses that duel to test out his Duel-Disk prototype.  He beats Joey and heads off to Pegasus's castle to rescue his brother and probably attempt to kill Pegasus.
This volume features gameplay mechanics that appear to have been an attempt to turn Duel Monsters into a tactical RPG. I don't have any real problem with that, but it's a shame we never saw any of those mechanics in the real-life version of the game. It'd add a lot more cool strategy.

A trio of duelists abduct Joey. They work for the former United States Champion, "Bandit" Keith Howard, and force him to duel one of them, a creepy kid named Bonz.
Yugi takes out a bunch of Bonz's monsters, but he brings them back with Call of The Haunted, which makes the zombies. Since they're in an underground tomb, zombies all get a field-power bonus. Joey tries to take down the zombies, but they keep coming back with more power. Joey manages to pull out the Time Wizard, but it hits a skull on Time Roulette and destroys itself and Joey's Flame Swordsman. Joey manages to keep defending, but Bonz pulls out monster after monster to boost up his offense. Meanwhile, Yugi uses The Millennium Puzzle to find Joey again, and the gang tracks them through the cave.
Joey finally gets his Red-Eyes out, and wipes out the Pumpking Bonz was using to power up his monsters. And since it was played as undead, Call of the Haunted couldn't bring it back. However, the Dragon Zombie manages to wipe out the Red-Eyes and knock Joey down below 200 Life Points. Fortunately, Joey manages to draw Sword and Shield, which lets him wipe out Bonz's life points with one attack from his last monster.
Yugi and the gang find Joey, but Keith and his goons blockade them inside the cave. So they have to follow Bakura's Millennium Ring to try and get out. Keith then beats up his henchmen and take their star-chips so he can get into Pegasus's castle.
The gang winds up in a maze, at the end of which they find The Paradox Brothers, who challenge Yugi and Joey to a tag-duel. A tag-duel that becomes a labyrinth tag-duel. The rules are as follows; Attack-mode monsters can advance spaces in the labyrinth based on their level.
Yugi plays Beaver Warrior and advances into the Labyrinth, but Para merges Shadow Ghoul with the labyrinth and kills it. The brothers bolster their defenses with trap-doors and a tank, but Yugi and Joey slay the wall-shadow, allowing them to proceed mostly unhindered. At least until Para readjusts the labyrinth and cuts Yugi's monsters off from Joey's. Joey then springs the trap-door monster, and one of his creatures gets eaten by a spider. Yugi then shuffles the monsters around with Magical Boxes, killing the spider and allowing The Dark Magician to blast the tank away.
Para and Dox begin to assemble The Gate Guardian, while Dox plays a Dungeon Worm to weed out the rest of the monsters. So Yugi plays Magical Hats to protect The Dark Magician and The Flame Swordsman. After the first attack, Joey uses The Flame Swordsman to incinerate the Dungeon Worm. Dox then manages to find the last card to summon The Gate Guardian. The Guardian tries to attack The Flame Swordsman, but Yugi activates Mirror Force, and uses it to kill one of the brothers monsters. They also find out that the Gate Guardian can defend itself with the various powers it's got. It then floods the labyrinth, killing The Flame Swordsman. This gives Yugi the opportunity to pull out the Summoned Skull, and use that to electrify the water. This, combined with the Spellbinding Circle, allows him to kill one of the component monsters. While Para manages to dispel the Circle, but Joey pulls out the Red-Eyes Black Dragon and Yugi fuses it with the Summoned Skull, creating the Black Skull Dragon.
Reading through the volumes of this arc, you can tell Takahashi wanted to write more than just a simple card-game. I don't blame him, it makes the chapters more interesting to have all of this placement strategy and random chance included in the game. If Yu-Gi-Oh! were actually played like this it would probably be a more interesting game. I for one would love to be able to play gimmick duels like the ones sometimes featured in the series.

Yugi marches his Dark Magician through the maze to the exit and uses Shift to send the Black Skull Dragon to the end of the maze, they blast away what's left of The Gate Guardian with it, win the duel, and get the star-chips they need to enter Pegasus's castle. Yugi then outsmarts the brothers key puzzle and they leave the room.
Meanwhile, Pegasus tells Kaiba that if he wants his brother back he has to beat Yugi. He gives Kaiba five star-chips, and tells him to bet them against Yugi. Kaiba confronts Yugi on the steps leading to Pegasus's castle.
Kaiba challenges him to a duel with the new duel-discs, and Yugi accepts. During the duel, Kaiba reveals the purpose of the Duel Discs. To interfere with and weaken Pegasus's psychic powers.
Kaiba uses the Crush Card Virus to weaken Yugi's deck, and gives him time to summon all three of his Blue-Eyes and use Polymerization to create The Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!
Yugi uses Kuriboh and Multiply as a shield. Yugi then uses Living Arrow to target the Ultimate Dragon with a polymerization of his own, and fuses it with Mammoth Graveyard. The incompatible monsters begin rotting each other from the inside out. Yugi then starts cutting off its heads with The Celtic Guardian.
Despairing over the idea of not being able to save his brother, Kaiba threatens to walk off the side of the castle. Yami is about to call his bluff, but Yugi doesn't want to take the risk, and the two of them clash, eventually leaving Yugi weakened, unable and unwilling to order his monsters to attack. Leaving him open to Kaiba's attack.
At the time these chapters were published, the idea of a fusion-monster was clearly very new. I get the core idea behind most of the fusions so-far, combine elements of the two monsters and give it a power boost or drain depending on their compatibility. The idea of being able to take any monster and combine it with anything else is great. It'd be a lot of fun to just screw around with different combinations and see what works. However, that ain't how it works in real life. You've got to have very specific fusion-cards in order for them to be playable. Which kind of ruins the mechanics of fusion-monsters as they're laid down in the series in the first place. I'll get into that a bit more when I finally cover the card-game.

Alright, we've hit close to the 1/3 mark, but we've still got twenty-six volumes to go! Tune in this Sunday for the next part in this series!
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