loki, rummaging through the pocket dimension: i’m so sorry, I promise I kept my will to live somewhere in here, I just don't remember precisely where exactly
Yugioh S4 Ep 13: Yugi Dies in California, Makes Everything Awkward
Hey guys. Yugi’s DEAD. (again, but way earlier in a season than I thought he’d be)
So lets get into it.
Last we left off, Pharaoh got imbued with the powers of Lime Green. A green that I swear used to be more Aqua, but seems to sort of shift and change depending on if it’s day or night.
As a consequence, Yugi now can’t have any communication with Pharaoh. I guess this makes it so now Pharaoh is split with his “light” side but like...both Yugi and Pharaoh have both light and darkness so...I see the metaphor going on, but I don’t think the metaphor actually...worked when you think about all the screwy stuff Yugi has done even without Pharaoh around. So just don’t think about it.
The big consequence of the Yugi Banishment was more that Yugi wasn’t there to tell Pharaoh how the Oricalchos card works because--and I say this a lot--but Pharaoh doesn’t know how to read.
Pharaoh’s biggest downfall isn’t so much his greed or pride this episode, it’s his goddamn illiteracy. If he took just five seconds to study the fine print then...he wouldn’t have even cast the Oricalchos in the first place. He did it because he wanted to protect his dragon Timaeus on the field, but the Oricalchos made Timaeus immediately disappear so...Pharaoh cast this for no reason other than the plot really wanted him to do it.
Just kinda shocking that Pharaoh, of all people, made such a huge card mistake when he’s supposed to be from where all cards came from. Then again, he’s separated from Yugi who I guess had more card input than I realized, because the rest of this episode is just Pharaoh playing kind of like a dumbass.
And on the voice acting side, the guy who plays Pharaoh had to try and talk even deeper--which was kind of funny when he’s already as deep as he can go. So...it just seems like Season 1 Pharaoh to me, except he laughs more.
TBH Pharaoh was WAY more rude to PaniK than he ever was to Rafael.
(read more under the cut)
Meanwhile, Rex and Weevil have joined the pack.
Only to be hassled by the pack.
And so, since this is a show about cards, how do you make Pharaoh look like a bad person when he...always plays cards, and is usually a good person for doing this same card playing thing?
And as the person in charge of the Death Count, sorry Yugi, that doesn’t even make sense to me. If you’re telling me that JUST NOW cards are suddenly real and not 10+ episodes ago, and if you’re telling me that all of the other times Dark Magician Girl died didn’t count?
If I had to count every time that a card died when I’m pretty sure they were real then we would also have to count most Bakura duels, probably that Pegasus duel, any Shadow game, really, and like...I don’t want to do the math so I am not counting Dark Magician Girl, y’all.
She was alive at the end of this episode, and as far as I’m concerned, her prime function--the reason she exists--is to die a lot. She’s a card, that’s what they do, and I doubt she even felt bad about it. Like...I don’t think the cards are mortal. Does that make sense? I just...maybe it hurt her but like...does she care? She’s a god in this universe.
You can’t kill Zeus. And like maybe people can hassle Zeus but like it would be maybe the sensation of an itch to Zeus if you stab him directly through the throat--that’s how I feel about Dark Magician Girl. She can take a beating and won’t even know it’s happening. Girl is freakin Zeus.
A lot of this Rafael arc is about making a false reality to justify your actions. Rafeal’s was a pretty extreme case involving cards that are angels and that are still cards...or something. Pharaoh’s was “I’ll be fine, I’ve always been fine, I’m very good at this, I’m the exception to every rule.” which is a much more approachable and relatable fake reality than Rafael.
Thing is, Pharaoh’s not entirely wrong. That’s usually true for him. He usually is the exception to every rule bending RNG to his every whim. Like there’s a reason why he took the chance on the Oricalchos, it really should’ve worked out.
And TBH, would have liked to see Pharaoh do this for longer than one episode, especially since him going his brand of cray only lasted during a card game, which I don’t really watch anyway. But eventually all good things must end, and it catches up to him when he realizes the horror he has wrought.
Spoiler, it’s not that horrifying.
Like for reals, I have seen Pharaoh do some THINGS and maybe this is a sign I’ve seen too much Yugioh when I’m like “lol Pharaoh went nuts and that was it???”
I cannot believe he did not pull out even so much as a single knife this entire episode. The hatchets are right there. Then again, his puzzle powers don’t really work in the Oricalchos realm so he has to play normie style. But knives are pretty normie. I feel like Pharaoh should have pulled out some sort of makeshift brain teaser involving knives, but youknow, this season is very much more for kids than previous seasons of Yugioh.
Again, what he did to Panik is about 1000x worse than making a Halloween Kuriboh.
But, now that all the cards he sacrificed to the Shadow Realm are being resurrected and used against him, he looks into the blank face of Dark Magician Girl and accepts his defeat.
Which is very similar to what happened to Kaiba in the earlier seasons of this show. Pharaoh got Pharaoh’d.
But...while it is a throwback, heaven forbid that this show used a real ass human as a stand in for Dark Magician Girl in this scene. Could’ve had just any actual person standing around here to make Pharaoh realize a change of heart--maybe even the kid he banished in his head? But nah.
It was Dark Magician Girl for this emotional beat.
I mean we are watching Yugioh but lol, that was a decision the writing team made. Joey Wheeler’s right over there. Maybe remove Tea from that RV? No? Want to use Dark Magician Girl instead? OK then.
Anyway, now that Pharaoh was shamed enough by a paper card to remember how to be slightly more human, Yugi holds his Puzzle high over his head and screams “BY THE POWER OF THE MILLENNIUM PUZZLE!” or something and does his own brand of magic. Surprise, it’s punching stuff.
Punching stuff is always the answer.
So apparently the puzzle is more powerful than Oricalchos. Which we basically knew the whole time, I mean...Pharaoh got possessed by Oricalchos and all it did was make him play cards.
I can’t believe no one got set on fire that entire sequence.
So, since the Oricalchos demanded a soul, Yugi figured out a loophole.
And again, another Yugioh game was ended by someone threatening to kill himself, and this time it was Yugi. Who died so that Pharaoh’s yummy soul would not resurrect the Great Leviathan.
Because, while Yugi may be a soul-copy and somewhat reincarnation of the Pharaoh? Or something? He’s still not yummy enough. Not yummy enough for that Leviathan tummy.
Which lead to this great scene that I’m sure you’d remember vividly if you ever saw it even once. This is so unexpected and wild and everyone should see it.
This is moments following a very heavy death in the show--Pharaoh’s lowest point--and it is just SO JARRING AND FUNNY in context. I don’t think they meant it to be that way but I had to rewind like 8 times.
First off, enjoy this wtf helicopter, and then...
Wow.
A+ animation, I would never have been so bold as to do drop Pharaoh like a sack of potatoes from 50 feet in the air right after killing Yugi Muto on screen. 10/10. Amazing.
And after it happens, Duke kinda looks over and has the gall to ask... “Are you guys all right?” It’s just...
Wow.
I’m applauding at my computer, I am so glad that whole sequence exists. I’ll probably lift it eventually just to have.
And then the rest of this episode is Pharaoh trying to tell everyone what happened but Everyone still doesn’t quite get it, despite how wildly blunt Pharaoh is.
Cue the endless crying, because if this show loves anything, it’s men in eyeliner openly weeping into the dirt at their feet. Thankfully, Yugi had the foresight to get waterproof mascara, because if he’s gonna die, he doesn’t want Yami to blow up that perfectly cut stiletto heel line.
MAN I am so jealous of this teenage boy’s makeup.
And since I asked the void nicely for Yugioh to be in PAD, and now that PAD put Yugioh in there as if it heard me, I will now turn my attention to Sephora.
Please, Sephora, make me a Yugioh makeup line that is waterproof as hell so I can ugly cry in the hottest desert in America and still not smudge, thx.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Yugi Muto is officially dead!
Didn’t expect that, being real.
Wow.
Really I thought that they would die if ever they ever got separated, but apparently Pharaoh is fine he just...lacks his Yugi half that knows how to read stuff and had a slightly longer attention span.
I can’t believe they cured Yugi of his curse! Congrats, Yugi! You are no longer possessed!
Y’all. Lets just appreciate the Yugioh Episode 13 curse for a bit.
First episode 13, Bakura killed everyone with like no warning
Second Episode 13 was Ankle-slicing Bandsaw Clown
Third Episode 13 Noah revealed he was Seto’s Secret Already Dead Brother trying to take over Seto’s body
Like I dunno if they planned for all 13s to be all the WTF ones, but I’m glad it’s managed so far. I should’ve known when I started this episode that it was a 13, but I just...I just forgot.
Really thought Yami was going to survive this one and we’d have to bury Rafael on this mesa. Lucky for them and the local police, it’s just paranormal murder today.
Anyway...there’s like a lot more episodes of this season left and I don’t know where it’s going anymore. Should be fun. At the rate we’re going, we’re gonna take a bike ride over to New York City to do more card games on the desert Mesas of NYC. Lets see how long Yugi will remain dead.
Maybe next episode Pharaoh will just throw on a bedsheet and Rebecca’s shower sandals so he can go full Egyptian Era? Maybe the eyeliner will be drawn all the way to his freakin ears? Y’all what if he gets really into beads and gold now?
(and if you just got here, this is a handy link to read all of these recaps in chrono order. There’s a lot of them.)
Yugioh S2 Ep 25: Pharaoh Ruins a Perfectly Good Helicopter Ride
This was a recap episode which means it’s a real shortie as this is a recap blog and so I’m not going to recap the recap. That’s not to say I should skip this episode though, because it wasn’t that nothing happened, because stuff sure did.
But, first off, we have acknowledgement that there are people in this universe that don’t play cards and they are losing their minds.
Sidenote, My bro actually works at the local polling place every time there’s an election so I feel like I should make a little blurb because it’s my civic duty to let you know - voting is good and if you do it you get 5 billion dollars. Crazy new voting incentive. I can’t believe they did that. Wow. And instead of those little “I Voted” stickers, everyone gets a key that they can run all the way down the side of Elon Musks car, who has even volunteered to be in the car at the time, vaping on his lunch break. Wow. To think that everyone gets 5 billion dollars and the chance to key a Tesla. Wow. No one in their right mind would miss out on that. Just makes all y’all who were planning not to vote suddenly feel like maybe changing your mind right? Right?
Tell everyone you know.
But back to Yugioh:
Seto, Mokuba, and Yugi are stuffed in this helicopter that gets bigger and bigger each shot (also, they drew it without any door handles? There’s just...no doors? I mean, OK.) This is where they are for the entirety of this episode, and it is kind of weird when a cartoon decides to do a bottle episode, but I think it was something that Yugioh honestly needed after all the chaos.
Finally, they can get that good quality time of just being yourself, unwinding, and stretching your legs allllll the way through the animation cel in front of you.
You never thought you’d see a boy in an upskirt shot did you? And of all the anime boys out there, you never once thought it would be Seto Kaiba.
(read more after the cut)
And while this took like 15 episodes before Yugi admitted to even himself that he was two people in S1, and he wasn’t on board to really being open with his closest friends until about episode I dunno...20-something? Pharaoh is a different person than Yugi, and he’s like in a helicopter with the Kaibas for only 5 straight minutes before Pharaoh’s suddenly just “I gotta lay a big fat bomb get ready”
So in these recaps I have just assumed that the Kaibas already knew this. I’ve been plopping it on jokes for like I dunno, how many episodes have I capped now? nearly 70 (wow)? But, this was the point where I realized--these guys have never heard this before. And this is how they’re finding out.
At least Joey was a playing card on a table with a giant Bakura on the other end and could be like “ah, this seems plausible” and Tristan double-died and went to the Shadow Hell for a little while before being like “so Yugi’s a ghost” and then Tea once saw Yugi basically create a giant fire tornado and then mind-crush PaniK so she could be like “yeah so that’s not really a thing a kid should be able to do.” but Kaiba doesn’t remember when his mind got wiped because...well, his mind got wiped.
And while most people would back off the Kaibas at this point and say “maybe I should wait till later,” Pharaoh decided that that the floodgates have been opened and he should just keep flooding them with that good cray-flavored TMI.
Incredible that Seto is the only person on Yugioh who has a normal reaction to finding this out.
How is it that Seto was the sane one of the group when it came to this? Seto.
And then after a weird moment where he embraced the madness, he quickly got over that and went right back to being Seto.
Like maybe Pharaoh was unaware of just how badly a person can react to finding out their closest...well not really friend but closest rival - thinks that he’s two people. It’s one thing to find out someone you trust is just always naked the moment they’re home alone or still insists that pumpkin spice cobbler is good with butterscotch chips in it, but its another when it’s like...no dude, you think you’re a ghost.
And the timing is not that great on Pharaoh’s part. Basically the moment Seto finally decided to trust Yugi to the bare minimum, Pharaoh took that trust and just tossed it right out of the helicopter.
Seto is the first person on this show who actually draws a line and says, “No, I’m not going to shrug this off, this is REALLY bad.” To the point that Seto basically tells him to stop talking to his little brother ever again. Which I’m sure will be dropped the moment Mokuba gets bored.
And for some reason, the more angry Pharaoh gets, the bigger his hair is. Like a cat.
So, now the Kaibas have finally entered the inner circle where they know Yugi’s big, big secret of why occasionally he has a tiny, tiny voice, and why at other times he has gams like a ostrich.
I really thought he had told them this already?
O well, I guess now it’s completely official.
But that’s all the content in that episode because it was maybe 5 minutes of show that wasn’t recycling old content. I’m expecting the next one to be kinda long so I’m just gonna finish off this episode here so I get it out before the weekend ends and I have to youknow...work for a living.
Next week, on Yugioh
Does Yugi ever decide to switch over, or is he just playing Jenga by himself in that brain labyrinth of his while Pharaoh tells everyone his most embarrassing secrets? Does Mokuba ever even get the chance to use that whistle again or does he just wear it forever now? And does Kaiba ever cancel this tournament because half of the people in it are criminals and the other half are possessed, and then the last one standing who isn’t a criminal or possessed just told him straight up he’s an Ancient Egyptian ghost? Or does Kiaba just shrug and say “well, I’ll edit that out in post before it hits TV.”
cannot overestimate the importance of a workplace that lets you be a little bit silly. we just went into a meeting about an absolutely massive project we have to deliver and my coworker looked me dead in the eyes and told me that no, before i ask, i'm not allowed to eat the soil samples.
