Had enough of people fusing their monsters together all the time? Then "De-Fusion" is the card for you!
Funnily enough, Konami international decided not to call their version of this card "De-Polymerization". I believe that was a very wise choice. While "Polymerization" is a fun card name in a vacuum, having to fit that word into other related contexts would get too cumbersome eventually.
You'll notice that this card's type is written so that it's a "Trap Magic Card". This seems to be an evolution of the concept that Takahashi first explored with "Shift Change", as I wrote about in my post on that card. To recap: the idea was that the special "Trap Card" aspect of this card refers to the fact that it can be activated in response to a declared attack with a monster, provided this card was set.
As I said, though, there are many instances of characters responding to declared attacks with a set Magic Card in the manga, so the intended special classification of this card ultimately loses its meaning, sadly.
If you read the manga closely, you might realize that, in the Duelist Kingdom version of the Standard/Expert ruleset, this card is kind of redundant, since using "De-Magic" on a fused monster's active on-field "Fusion" card will accomplish the same effect as this card. However, in the Battle City arc, where the Super Expert ruleset is used, "Fusion" no longer stays on-field when a Fusion Monster is created. So this card has special utility in that specific version of the in-universe rules.
Fittingly, the art on this card shows the two figures from "Fusion"'s illustration being pulled apart. Note that the colorscheme given to the horned monster on the left is orange, as it is in Konami's game (but not the manga, where it's always been portrayed as black with maybe a touch of purple), and the dragon-like monster on the right is green, which is the color given to it only in the "Fusion" illustration seen in the color title page of chapter 104. A very strange mix of inspirations to pull from here!
Okay! Another card down. Thanks for reading. As always, if you want to see any of Yugi's manga cards, let me know and I'll write a post about it here!
