Episode 80, Part 1, Hope You Like Feminist Rants Because Oh Boy. Boys.
This is an episode with a very high exasperation quotient for Mai, and it starts early!
She no longer has the patience to sustain her fantastically dangerous carpool, so they have to walk the rest of the way. (Also apparently Kaiba owns literally this whole street and there are no cars allowed on it, probably to safely facilitate Kaiba’s propensity to walk in the road and duel people in the road.)
Anyway, as they walk, Jou asks Mai why she helped him in Duelist Kingdom when there was nothing in it for her, and she says…
But he’s NOT LISTENING because he’s an immature dipshit and okay look I really want to like Jounouchi but he does not comport himself well in this episode AT ALL. He “wins” by being less of an asshole than a rapey kidnapper.
Anyway it’s a mural (?) advertising the new “Jean Claude Magnum” (I’m calling him JCM) ninja movie (apparently he’s known for ninja movies) (wonder why Kaiba’s allowed them to advertise here) (wonder why these Hollywood ninja movies are so popular in Japan, seems like they’re exactly the country to make their own, superior, ninja-related entertainment) that JCM himself DRIVES THROUGH
IT WASN’T A POSTER, IT WAS A WALL (also everyone’s faces change to surprise except Otogi who still looks like -_- )
This guy is totally getting sued by KaibaCorporation.
NO SHIT I mean turns out he explicitly did this to talk to Mai, if she hadn’t turned back to yell at Jounouchi, she would have just been KNOCKED DOWN by the car-wall combination also wow this car is really strong to have survived being driven through a wall??
maybe it was a fake wall?
… did KAIBA build the fake wall? or did JCM have someone – you know, I don’t care.
Anyway, since JCM is a Hollywood (Hariuddo) actor, he speaks “I swear I’m American” anime-character Japanese, that is, fluent Japanese with the occasional English word or phrase thrown in.
And because JCM’s first language is English, Jounouchi triES TO SPEAK IT
(yes, thank you, subtitles, I, an English speaker who has chosen to use the English subtitles, actually picked up that this isn’t exactly flawless English)
So JCM is all “MAI-SAN!!” and she’s like “new phone who dis” and Jou is like “HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS MAI DO YOU KNOW AN ACTUAL REAL LIFE PROPER CELEBRITY NOT LIKE A LAME DUEL-MONSTERS CELEBRITY LIKE KAIBA OR YUGI??” (this isn’t what he says but I was thinking it)
ALSO those flowers literally materialised from nowhere, he was not carrying them when he blanked Jounouchi.
So JCM reminds Mai of how they met, when she was a professional card gamer on a cruise ship and he was an entitled manchild who hits on women who are paying attention to him because it’s literally their job to do so #donotdothis #yourwaitressisnotflirtingwithyou #yourbaristaisliterallypaidtosmileatyou #dontbeaJeanClaudeMagnum
THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY WHO DOES THIS?? OH RIGHT ENTITLED MANCHILDREN
Why does he even HAVE that thing in his jacket? For JUST SUCH AN OCCASION? And it’s so tackytastically huge! He’d want to be pretty frigging loaded if that’s actually a diamond, that motherfucker must be at least 10 carats, I’d say it must cost at least a cool million USD.
Ineffective mouth-reply though… Because he immediately goes “so if I beat you in a duel you promise to marry me, I’m taking that as a promise, okay not listening anymore!”. But that’s not her fault because only an ENTITLED MANCHILD would hear “sick joke” and think “omg she’s actually gonna marry me if I win a children’s card game”.
Back in the present, Mai’s like “I may have a vague recollection of this”, probably because, as an attractive professional gamer on the ship, she dealt with this kind of overprivileged douchecanoe on a daily basis.
He shoves his tacky-ass diamond in her face and she literally recoils.
So would I. That’s a TERRIBLE ring and stone; the table is out of proportion, the crown is MUCH too tall, the facets of the crown and pavilion are uneven, and the setting is all kinds of inappropriate, that thing’ll fall off that ring within an hour. Plus, diamonds are overrated (their popularity as an engagement ring was entirely engineered by DeBeers in a decades-long ahead-of-its-time advertising campaign), but he seems like the kind of #basic guy to not even consider a sparkly moissanite or a subtle white sapphire, let alone a coloured stone. #mydayjobisgeology
Mai swiftly turns him down, but Jounouchi is WAY OFF MESSAGE
I’m living for Mai’s facial expressions in this episode tbh
So JCM is all, “well I’ll DUEL you for your hand in marriage”
and I’m all, “that is so far away from being okay, this is even worse than that fuckwit who wanted to duel Anzu for a date, you and him can tie yourselves together and throw yourselves in the fucking sea”
Jounouchi [thinking]: … Did he say “our” spots?
Mai [thinking]: He did NOT just say “our” spots.
Yugi [thinking]: He just said “our” spots…
Oh, right, and then, Mai’s like, “let him borrow your duel disk Jou”, and JCM is all “I ALREADY HAVE ONE” and everyone is legit like ‘O’ and Yugi’s like “only the BEST DUELISTS are allowed one of those!!” and I’m like “that is NOT TRUE” but they can’t hear me because they’re inside the computer, so they all freak out and he’s like “I AM one of the BEST DUELISTS”…
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
you litERALLY CAME HERE TO PROPOSE TO A WOMAN
WHY DID YOU DUEL FIVE OTHER PEOPLE FIRST
Oh, is it because the writers wanted THIS to happen?
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TRYING TO UP THE STAKES FROM “HE’S GOING TO TRY TO FORCE A WOMAN TO MARRY HIM” TO “SHE MIGHT MISS THE FUCKING TOURNAMENT FINALS”??? LET ME ASSURE YOU, AS A WOMAN, THE “FORCED MARRIAGE” ANGLE IS SLIGHTLY MORE FUCKING HIGH-STAKES THAN THE FUCKING TOURNAMENT smh
Mai accepts the challenge to duel, and usually I would complain about that, because, as so often happens, there’s no reason why she has to and they were in a goddamn hurry before this wanker drove his car through the damn wall, but her reasoning is actually gold.
Sadly, this does mean we have to suffer through a duel with this asshole.
Happily, much of the duel is just Mai sniping cutting remarks at him.
Then, in a move I did NOT see coming, Shizuka comes over all sapphic.
Shizuka [thinking]: Or girlfriend…
Jounouchi [thinking]: Am I learning something about my kid sister here?
Honda [thinking]: [error 404 not found]
Jounouchi answers that Mai is only into Dueling, not boys (?!?) and anyway…
RUDE. RUUUUUUDE. I assume this is supposed to come off as good-natured teasing? But it’s really fucking rude, especially LITERALLY behind her back while she’s trying to concentrate in a duel.
But on the plus side for feminism, Mai has this SUPER COOL Amazoness card who’s actually really buff, which is rare because usually women don’t get shown with a visibly muscular frame, so hell yes to this!
(although, like, “Amazon” means a female warrior, “Amazoness” is needlessly extra-gendering an already gendered term, it would be like saying daughteress #FIGHTMEPEGASUS)
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