Yu-Gi-Oh! Kill Count Part 5 - Do You Want To Play a (Card) Game?
Yu-Gi-Oh! Kill Count Part 5 - Do You Want To Play a (Card) Game?
Yugi Walks Into a Saw Movie
On Wednesdays, we’re reading Yu-Gi-Oh! here on JonathanLack.Com – specifically, as explained in Part I of this series, we’re looking at how many people are killed in the surprisingly violent original manga, and which characters rack up the biggest kill counts. And today, we’re continuing with Volumes 18 through 20 of the manga.
There are no deaths to report in Volume 18, but this is the point in the series where Kazuki Takahashi finally formalizes the rules of Duel Monsters into something resembling a coherent, playable game (and the basis for the real Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG). We're almost halfway through the series, so it took a while!
Volume 19 is the exact halfway point of the series, and a new challenger gets on the board, with Marik Ishtar forcing his servant Pandora to commit suicide after losing a duel to Yugi. That’s pretty messed up! 1 kill for Marik.
This is also the duel where Pandora the magician locks himself and Yugi into a contraption where sawblades will cut off their legs if they lose, a trap worthy of the Saw movies. The anime’s English dub recolored the blades blue and changed the dialogue so they send you to the ‘shadow realm,’ but c’mon. We all knew what was happening. In the manga and the Japanese anime, they’re just straight-up saws.
And while this doesn’t count as a kill, I will note that also in Volume 19, Insector Haga sprays this kid right in the eyes with extra-strength insecticide. The kid’s mouth isn’t open, so lethal oral exposure isn’t likely, but assuming there isn’t an eyewash station around, the kid could very well go blind.
Volume 20 finds Yugi battling a Creepy Mime and a God card! No on-screen kills but the mime's backstory is that he murdered both his parents and then went mad, so what the hell, let's put Mime on the board with 2 kills. Good for him.
Also in this volume, we get lots of A+ anime-as-fuck "I'm gonna fight God!" stuff, which is great. Kaiba gets really into it, I mean look at this:
OFFICIAL YU-GI-OH! KILL COUNT AS OF VOLUME 20
Yami Yugi: 11 kills
Seto Kaiba: 4 kills
Yami Bakura: 3 kills
Creepy Mime: 2 kills
Katsuya Jonouchi: 2 kills
Shadi: 2 kills
Baby Joji: 1 kill
Marik Ishtar: 1 kill
Pegasus J. Crawford: 1 kill
NEXT WEEK: Yugi faces a brainwashed Jonouchi, Kaiba commits a double homicide, and we learn the meaning of the phrase “Duelist Chastity Belt.”
Catch Up on the Complete Yu-Gi-Oh! Kill Count Series:
Like anime? Listen to the podcast I host with Sean Chapman, JAPANIMATION STATION, where we review all sorts of anime every week. Watch on YouTube or Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Subscribe to The Weekly Stuff Podcast on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read the book 200 Reviews by Jonathan R. Lack in Paperback or on Kindle