How Much is Yugi’s Puzzle Worth?

Let’s ignore for a moment that it’s a priceless Ancient Egyptian artifact that has a human soul inside it.

We’ve previously established that the Millennium Puzzle weighs about 2026g.

Currently (Feb 4, 2013), gold is worth US$53.72 per gram. $53.72 x 2026 = $106,810.72

Yugi’s puzzle is worth over $100,000 in gold alone.

DM Episodes 26 & 27: A Duel Between Pegasus and Kaiba Happened, But It’s Not Worth Talking About

In the anime, the Yugi-tachi get past Saruwatari because Mai flirts with him.

In the manga, Jonouchi punches his lights out instead.

 

Related to Jonouchi punching people’s lights out, here’s your characterization note for this episode:

 

Otherwise, there isn’t a lot else to be talked about in this episode in terms of differences. Pegasus and Kaiba dueled, but it goes the same. Next episode is going to be more complicated, because the anime and manga do the night before the finals quite differently.

DM Episode 1: Redux

Because I can feel myself flinch whenever I see that someone is reading older Actual Content posts. All I’m doing here is a brand-new write up of the episodes, without consulting the older one.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (the anime) starts at roughly the same point as Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist (the manga), which means there are seven volumes of the manga that don’t get adapted directly*. While most of the first seven volumes are highly episodic and don’t necessarily *have* to be adapted to tell the card games-centric part of the story, there are two characters that were introduced in these volumes who can’t just be tossed into the first episode as part of Yugi’s circle of friends.

The first of these is Seto Kaiba.

Millennium World: A Start

Per request, I’m going to skip ahead some 170 episodes and put together a 1000-foot overview of the differences between the anime and the manga for the Millennium World/Memory World arc.

Even though I’m still in Duelist Kingdom (and progress is slow, to say the least), I’ve been contemplating how to approach this arc. The biggest difficulty is that the differences are sweeping, confusing, and often times related to poorly-explained elements of the show. They can also be difficult to examine on an episode-by-episode basis, because the anime rearranged some plot points and because MW is less episodic in nature than the rest of the show. I may not end up doing the arc episode-by-episode at all.

I’m only going to scratch the surface here, because trying to do everything would make a post that is TL;DR as fuck. I’m not going to cover any nit-picky stuff here, like how Akhenaden and Akheafjhkadglhgdasf are twins in the anime and not in the manga. I’m also not going to approach any sort of character analysis. Those are all details that are easy to forget, things that aren’t deal breakers for establishing the universe.

This post for things that would make someone go, “You didn’t even look at it, did you?”

DM Episode 25: The Thrilling Non-Conclusion of Anzu’s Story Arc

Kaiba and Bandit Keith have a little back-and-forth in the manga that gets cut from the anime:

It’s the only time the two of them interact, so all you Eliteshippers, go crazy.

(On a very minor note, Bandit Keith presents his chips to enter the Castle *before* Yugi and Kaiba’s duel in the anime, and he does it *after* in the manga.)

I’ll just direct you to what happened in the manga. On the top half next page, Mai says that the Star Chips are a token of her appreciation, and Yugi accepts them. As headlessknight wisely pointed out, this little segment is important because it’s about helping Yugi remember that what he wants and values is important, and he should be willing to do anything to defend them. Pride should not be valued above the things we hold precious.

As for the anime… here’s the thing about the anime: we’re still telling everything from Anzu’s perspective. The narrative of the anime has made the somewhat strange decision to agree with Anzu that she is somehow responsible for Yugi taking back control and losing the duel, as discussed at the end of the previous episode.

This isn’t to say that Yugi doesn’t have any thoughts on the matter:

But these thoughts get crammed aside because this episode is all about what Anzu wants.

This isn’t to say that what Anzu wants is outside the main themes of Yu-Gi-Oh. Her main wish is to defend her friends at all costs – and this is actually the same core issue as the manga’s version of this story segment. And it’s also about her feelings of responsibility – whether or not she’s actually responsible for the events of the previous episode, taking action to solve problems is another core issue of the show.

But we’re not talking about Yugi anymore. We’ve deflected the issues away from the main character – the one who is supposed to be learning it, the one who’s making the plot wait for him. He doesn’t tackle them himself. He stares despondently into space. This is a massive departure from his manga characterization.

We do address some of the Yugi’s fears directly, and… even more oddly, it’s *Mai* who gets through to him on them. Mai, the one who’s been set up as an antagonist in this episode. Anzu, our hero, isn’t the one who snaps him out of it at all.

But we don’t address Yugi’s stated feelings of being an obstacle. In fact… it doesn’t really address what Yugi said at the beginning of the episode at all, so why are these words the ones that break Yugi out of his stupor?

Certainly “dueling with strong will and determination” helps Yugi with his feelings of being useless without his other self, and maybe watching Anzu duel this way inspires him. Maybe Anzu’s strong-hearted defense of their friendship reminds him that he should also strong-heartedly defend what is important to him.

What we’ve lost, though, from the manga is… the characters addressing the issue directly. In the manga, we get to see Yugi state directly what he’s feeling, we get to hear the other characters disagree with his beliefs. It’s one of the few times the other Yugi gets called out for being full of crap – remember, Dark Yugi is not supposed to be held up as a perfect character in the manga. And most importantly, we get to see Yugi change his mind. He’s not obliquely inspired to action – he actively refutes his fears, and doing so is an unrefusable call to action.

Characterization Note, Eps. 22, 23, 24

This is how Yami Yugi plays Magic Box in the manga:

Think about what just these few lines say about his character, his sense of humor.

This is how Yami Yugi plays Magic Box in the anime:

Think about what *this* says about his character.

DM Episodes 22, 23, 24: The Celtic Guardian is Disappointed that He Doesn’t Get to Kill a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon

This string of episodes takes an interesting approach to presenting the castle-top duel: it tells it from Anzu’s perspective.

No really.

See, the anime is still in this awkward spot where it hasn’t finished its exposition on what exactly the situation is between the two Yugis. The episodes start out with Anzu thinking it out for us:

which is the first time anyone’s said it that way except for Yugi himself back in episode 13. And that was all “just a dream”, donchaknow.

She then cuts to some flashbacks to fill in backstory that was skipped by the anime. She starts with an abridged account of her meeting with Jonouchi and Yugi in the diner: she talks about how she wants to be a dancer in New York, and Jonouchi and Yugi support her.

The manga goes on to do the scene where Yami Yugi sets the escaped convict on fire. This is Anzu’s first encounter with Yugi’s other self, although at the time she doesn’t know it’s Yugi because she’s blindfolded and they sound that much different.

The anime chooses to create a new Shadow Game in its place, where Anzu is tricked and blackmailed by a perv who wants to shoot a scandalous video of her. Yugi attacks the dude like a little gremlin, gets knocked out, and YY steps in to save the day. This gets framed a little more like Anzu knows it was Yugi, and she’s already formulating the theory that they’re different enough to be two different people. It’s faster than the manga’s version, but the anime has less time to work with.

I was startled to realize that the anime does try to echo the scene by the ocean before Mai gets attacked by the Player Killer of Darkness

and it does it right here

because I thought it hadn’t. It’s not really to the same effect, but it does exist.

The anime fixes a small error in the manga’s version duel regarding Kaiba’s hand.

Now, at the end of the duel, regular Yugi wrestles control away from Yami Yugi and cancels the Celtic Guardian’s attack on the weakened BEUD. In the manga, he does this with no input from anyone else. In the anime, Anzu is doing this slow-mo “NNNOOOOOOOOOOOO…” run when they change places:

which, -to me- subtly implies that she has some impact on Yugi’s decision. *This isn’t necessarily true* – we have no idea what’s going on in Yugi’s head in the anime, and we’re also telling this whole duel from Anzu’s POV. Maybe we’re just getting a sample of her want/belief that she has an influence on Yugi. But this is an element that isn’t there in the manga.

The anime covers the bulk of the content of the post-duel wrap-up, but cuts Kaiba’s manga dialogue entirely – the result is an Anzu friendship speech. It’s the exact same stuff, but the things like the “chip of life” were originally Kaiba’s thoughts. He was doing a victory speech that Anzu shoots down. Instead of letting Kaiba speak for himself, the anime has Anzu put words in his mouth. It’s up to you if that makes a difference in their characters.

DM Episodes 19, 20 & 21: The Millennium Items Don’t Have Rules

That is NOT HOW SECURITY CAMERAS WORK.

We don’t see Pegasus for the duration of the double duel in the manga, so basically any time we see Pegasus just sitting around watching the duelists is all anime filler (see: Episode 10).

Anime Kaiba continues to pretend he’s Batman, sneaking around with Hair Guy, lurking in the castle’s dungeon, trying to bust out Mokuba. Of course, the raises the question of what the heck he was doing since he arrived on the island. He got there in the middle of the night, and it’s full daylight by the time he gets to the castle. Did he just wander around the island for like six hours? Did he take a nap?

Manga Kaiba also got there in the middle of the night, but he makes it into the castle while it’s still night, and he…

I…

well…

ok then.

Either way, Pegasus shows off that Mokuba is locked up in his dungeon. Anime Pegasus greets Kaiba in the dungeon, and then does Mind Card to Mokuba right then and there:

…but without playing a game with him first.

I, look. The manga establishes that Penalty Games have rules. They’re a punishment for losing a regular game, just like the IRL penalty games in game shows that they’re based off. The early manga showcases Yami Yugi giving a different penalty game every time; in the anime he always gives Mind Crush. Whatever. The point is that, the Millennium Items oversee the regular game, they judge the hearts of the two people playing, and whoever wins the game is considered to have the stronger heart.

(Tangent – This is the whole damn point of all of Yu-Gi-Oh: the meeting of hearts, shown through the medium of games. This is why every protagonist since the dawn of time has believed all his opponents are his nakama: because he can make a legitimate claim that he knows their hearts.)

If Pegasus can just magically hurt someone without playing a game first, why would he ever play a game with anyone in the first place?

Need Kaiba out of power at Kaiba Corp? MIND CARD. Need Yugi Mutou out of the picture? MIND CARD. About to lose a tournament? MIND CARD. So what if he needs the reputation of being the strongest duelist in order to be hired? Just MIND CARD every who stands in his way!

Ok, I mean, I guess you could make the argument that Pegasus and Mokuba played a game off-screen, and Pegasus just held off on enforcing the Penalty Game to mess with Kaiba. Hell, I can imagine he would do that. But if the show has time to show Pegasus watching everyone like a creep but can’t even be assed to explain why he’s done Mind Card to Mokuba, I think the anime writers just didn’t care.

And if you don’t headcanon that Mokuba himself challenged Pegasus to a game of Capsule Monsters for KaibaCorp, and that’s why he got Mind Carded… I don’t think we can be friends.

There’s no real difference between the duels, so I won’t really deal with it (it’s the duel with the Paradox Meikyu brothers). The manga does have a sequence where the Yugi-tachi try to figure out the exit from the duel chamber that is important for two reasons.

The less important reason is just that it shows some of Yami Yugi’s thought process on how he comes up with the coin trick. Maybe that’s only important to me because I’m a die-hard Yami fan, and I prefer him as a smart asshole instead of just an asshole, so I like seeing how he thinks.

The more important reason is this:

a glimpse inside the relationship between the two Bakuras, as well as a very important character establishment moment for both of them. Yami Bakura uses peoples’ feelings to be a manipulative bastard. Regular Bakura is ultimately heroic, but totally gullible.

This of course is dropped from the anime, because at the end of the duel between Yami Bakura and Yami Yugi, the Yugi-tachi apparently just lets Bakura keep the ring. Despite Yami B stating that he’s an evil spirit inhabiting it. Logic.

There are a couple other moments around this duel that hint toward Bakura’s relationship with the Ring, so it’s definitely worth a read.

Oh yeah, and those skeletons down in the graveyard field?

In the anime, just some props because Pegasus has a “sick” sense of humor.

In the manga, ACTUAL DEAD WORLD WAR II CORPSES.

DM Episodes 17 & 18: Pee Time