Yuugi-ou: Omake Three

[branchandroot]

Unacceptable Arcs

I thought it behooved me to state why I totally ignore the existence of the Noa and Doom arcs of the anime. It is not simply because they have no basis in the manga, though that is part of the problem. No, it’s worse than that. It’s because they are so totally out of character.

The entire point of Kaiba’s duel with Isis is that he can finally start to accept what is true and right from his past in order to make a future that is good. It was a beautiful moment of realization. And anyone who thinks that Kaiba’s constant insistence that the past does not matter and he cares only for the future has nothing to do with his foster father has no idea how to read subtext. That duel points us straight toward the final duel with Pharaoh and Seto’s realization that he can’t wait for total victory to release his hate, because the hatred itself will keep him from winning. Between the two, however, we have the go round with Noa and the shade of Gozaburo whom Seto defeats. This utterly destroys the momentum between his duels with Isis and Pharaoh, making the latter a serious anti-climax. Seto has already beaten Gozaburo, so why is he still so mired in hatred for him? Augh!

I also thought it severely out of place to put Mokuba’s struggle with the question of whether Seto loves him here. This does appear in the manga, but it’s at the very start, when Kaiba is a severely messed up person. The anime takes him for the same person the manga gives us by the Battle City arc, and a big part of how he got to be that person was by already working through the things that might make Mokuba not trust him wholeheartedly.

The Doom arc is even worse, though.

First off, I really think Mai has been established as a stronger soul and a truer duelist than to be tempted by Doom’s promises of safety in power. I certainly agree with the idea that her experiences with the Fury might have left serious wounds, but she has already accepted that she is one of Yuugi-tachi’s friends. I don’t find it particularly believable that she would not go to them for help if she needed it. I find it even less believable that she would grudge Jounouchi his fame as one of the four final-finalists in Battle City.

But that’s not the worst.

The worst is what they did to Pharaoh.

We’ve already been over what can happen when he gets caught up in the duel, to the exclusion of other considerations. It happened when he fought Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom. Yuugi managed to stop him then, before they had met face-to-face, before Yuugi had gained strength and confidence of his own, before Pharaoh ever called him aibou. That Pharaoh would not only disregard but violently reject Yuugi’s reservations about the Curse of Oracle card at this point is utterly absurd.

I understand that filler episodes can be necessary. But I cannot forgive that the producers and their writers were so careless of the characters’ integrity and the momentum of the overall story in creating them.