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anzu-kaiba · 3 years

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Some thoughts on Hocus Pocus, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Magic Zine Tarot Deck & Spell Book, Part 1 (The Major Arcana)

As I mentioned in my previous post on Hocus Pocus, the Yu-Gi-Oh! magic [fan] zine, I have some specific and detailed thoughts on the included Tarot deck and spell book, which I paid extra to get.

Below, a New Moon reading I did using the deck:

Above, left to right, top to bottom:: Queen of Pentacles Reversed, The Emperor, Knight of Swords Reversed, The Moon Reversed, Two of Wands Reversed, Page of Swords Reversed.

First, a disclaimer: I’ve been reading Tarot for about 20 years now, and am most familiar with Rider-Waite-Smith decks, which are one of the two most popular modern Tarot deck styles. While I do bring up history/Tarot tradition in my review of this deck, this review is opinion alone.

Some need-to-know facts about Tarot decks today:

RWS decks are named after the publisher/author/artist behind the Tarot deck (respectively): William Rider & Son, A.E. Waite, and Pamela Colman Smith.

Thoth decks are the other style, created by Aleister Crowley, with art by Lady Frieda Harris.

RWS decks use imagery for all of the cards, not just the Major Arcana (as was the style for centuries before). This helps evoke specific meanings from the scenes, rather than just showing a tableau of five swords, for example.

Additionally, RWS decks switch the position of Strength (8) and Justice (11) compared to Thoth and other historical decks, where Strength is 11 and Justice is 8. This was done to further associate Strength with Leo/the Lion and Justice with Libra/the Scales.

Some Major Arcana cards have had their names changed as well, e.g., the Hierophant instead of the Pope, and the High Priestess instead of the Papess.

Thoth decks have slightly modified suits and court card names compared to RWS: Pentacles/Coins in Thoth decks are called Disks; instead of a Page, Knight, Queen, and King, Thoth decks have a Prince, Princess, Queen, and Knight (in the same order, so a Knight is higher than a Queen in the Thoth style).

Thoth deck cards also have alternative or secondary names, like Abundance, Lust, and Adjustment; or “Lord of Sorrow,” and “Lord of Despair.” (They’re not all depressing-sounding, though.)

As far as the Hocus Pocus deck goes, each of the Major Arcana cards is done by a different artist (with some repeats), while each of the Minor Arcana suits are done by a single artist (e.g., one artist for Wands, another for Swords, etc.)

The accompanying booklet dives right into the meanings of the cards, with no introduction to Tarot in general, spreads, or anything like that.

While I think it’s awesome that it’s so easy to find out who designed which cards and who wrote what interpretation, it is a bit frustrating that, if I’m on page 26, I can’t readily tell what Suit it’s for without either flipping back to the start of the section or carefully reading each meaning to see if the suit itself is mentioned. It would also be helpful to have illustrations of each card in the book, so that someone knows not only what suit is what, but if they’re looking at the right card (assume they want to look at the image and not read the tiny text at the bottom of the card).

Let’s begin at the beginning: with The Fool.

I’m glad the Hocus Pocus deck went with Yuugi for The Fool; he’s the perfect character for the card, and it matches at least one version of the “official” Yu-Gi-Oh! Major Arcana:

Yuugi’s dressed in clothes that closely resemble a court jester, which is a...choice, but it makes sense if that's the immediate association people have with “a fool.” He’s carrying what appears to be a large carpet and some juggling balls, and behind him there are signs pointing left and right, but other than that, we don’t get a real sense of his “foolishness,” which you typically see with The Fool about to walk off a cliff while sniffing a flower or similar. The point is that he’s meant to be wide-eyed, off on his first adventure to seek his fortune. The expression on Yuugi’s face in this deck, at a minimum, captures that.

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As for The Magician, if a Yu-Gi-Oh! Tarot deck doesn’t depict Mahad/The Black Magician or Mana/Black Magician Girl, they’re simply Doing It Wrong™ IMO. I’m glad this deck not only has an incredible piece of art done by @yearslateforyugiohshippings, but that it captures the essence of RWS Magicians in showing the Black Magician using his tool to “activate” the powers of all four suits/the elements: a cup (water), a coin/pentacle (earth), a sword (air), and another wand/stick (fire). Positively stunning.

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The art for the High Priestess, featuring Isis is equally stunning. She’s not my favorite character, but @ruiojousama‘s art is SO DAMN AMAZING that I would seriously consider getting a print of this card to hang up somewhere. It is gorgeously detailed, making it clear that yes, this is the Priestess Isis you know from the series, but also it features a few elements from RWS Tarot Decks: she’s holding a tablet of “secrets,” in this case, a piece of stone that’s cut to resemble the Millennium Pendant/Puzzle. The headdress Priestess Isis wore in the manga also resembles the one associated with the goddess, who often bore symbols of both the Sun and the Moon.

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The Empress is where I got a little peeved. First, the card name is spelled incorrectly, as “Emperess.” Second, The Empress is one of the most feminine cards in the entire Tarot, and while I understand that a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck has limited female characters to choose from it does not have NONE. Where the official Yu-Gi-Oh! Tarot depicts Mai, the Hocus Pocus deck inexplicably chooses Atem, perhaps solely so that it can “pair” him with the character featured on The Emperor card, Seto Kaiba.

A few things to know about The Empress: she's associated with Venus, the planetary ruler over Libra (Pegasus, Sugoroku) and Taurus (maybe Honda, maybe Priest Shada). While Mai is canonically a Scorpio, she is probably the most overtly feminine character in the series, openly acknowledging both her “feminine wiles” and her willingness to use them. The Empress is also traditionally depicted as pregnant; she’s the “mother” in the cycle of the maiden-mother-crone triad. While we don’t have any explicit, living, recurring mother characters in Yu-Gi-Oh! (even Yuugi’s own mother only appears once or twice, and I believe at least one of those appearances got cut from the dub), they do exist.

Choosing to make Atem the Empress actually kind of pisses me off, because both as a character and astrologically, he has nothing to do with the aspects of the Empress. The character is canonically listed as being born on the 19th day of the third/final month of the harvest season, or “Shemu.” I calculated this in a previous Tumblr post as being equivalent to March 8 (although there are other possibilities that also make sense), a Pisces, ruled by Neptune nowadays and Jupiter in the past.

Of the other possible signs Atem could have been born under (due to difficulty translating dates from 3,016 years ago), the only one ruled by Venus is Libra, if he was born in early October. The problem is that the Egyptian calendar used three main seasons: Flooding / Planting / Harvest, and another character, Priest Kalim (holder of the scales) was born in the second month of the FLOOD season, and at least one source puts that as being in the second week of October. So either Atem is born in October and is a Libra and ruled by the scales and the Priest of the Millennium Scales is NOT, or Atem is born at a completely different time of year. I think the latter is more likely, given the character symbolism. Atem is not an “empress” figure in any way.

I do appreciate the book pointing out that the Empress, like the Emperor, are not restricted to people who identify as one gender or there other. It’s about energy. But nonetheless, Atem doesn’t display feminine energy throughout the series. He might not be quite as extreme on the scale as, say, Seto Kaiba, Hiroto Honda, or even Katsuya Jounouchi are in terms of masculinity, but he’s certainly not the most “feminine” character in terms of presentation, attitude, or anything.

It bugs me that the characters were drawn simply to be “paired” as Emperor and Empress, and not because the cards actually have a great deal of symbolism associated with them. Yes, the Emperor and Empress are generally considered as married to one another in traditional Tarot decks, but plenty of decks exist that instead have them as “heads of state,” similar to how the Papess/High Priestess is never regarded as secondary to the Pope/Hierophant. If you want to go more mythical, the Empress is Venus/Aphrodite, and the Emperor is Mars/Ares, and you wouldn't dare to tell Venus that she should shut up and go make Mars a sandwich while she stands barefoot and naked in the kitchen. Both archetypes are powerful in their own way, and that should be respected, not twisted to suit a ‘ship.

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I will say that making Seto Kaiba the Emperor makes sense to me. He exudes the traditionally serious, “I am the authority,” energy that is associated with the card.

Fun fact, but Scorpio (Seto’s sign) was ruled by Mars before astronomers and astrologers knew about the existence of Pluto. But if you did want to keep the traditional Mars rulership, then Isis and Espa Roba are both definitively Aries, while Honda falls on the cusp between Aries/Taurus (Mars/Venus).

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The Hierophant is also known as the Pope in some decks, and is supposed to be the card representing tradition, dogma, “the way things should be done,” and so on. The chosen card here is the Black-Clothed Great Sage (Dark Sage), though I think Gozaburo also could have worked here. The official Yu-Gi-Oh! deck has Pegasus, which ALSO makes sense, considering he’s the creator of Duel Monsters and established “how things should be done.” I like how this rendition of the card has the Sage making gestures as if he’s in the middle of casting a spell, much how the traditional Hierophant is often giving blessings to a pair of people, or instructing a pair of priests.

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The sixth card in the Major Arcana is The Lovers. Going back to the different styles of decks, RWS decks tend to feature two (humans) on this card, to better associate with the astrological sign it’s associated with: Gemini, the sign of the Twins. That’s not to say that the Lovers are Twins or anything, just that two/duality is often part of the imagery of this card. Usually Adam and Eve are depicted on this card, with an archangel looking over them. Sometimes you’ll also see the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the serpent, if not the Apple. The Hocus Pocus deck depicts Funny Bunny in the place of the archangel, and Cyndia and Pegasus as The Lovers, dancing atop what is probably meant to be a book of Toon World. It fits, though you would have to think somewhat deeply about Yu-Gi-Oh! lore to be aware of the connection between the characters and one of the lesser-known meanings of the card: CHOICE.

I used to think that the seventh card, The Chariot, was more about choice (left or right? black or white?), but it’s actually more about willpower. I thought that the eighth card in an RWS deck, Strength, was more about willpower (the other name for Strength in older decks is “Fortitude”), but it’s more about self-confidence, a sense of calm/purpose, and control. I suppose you could frame those latter meanings under “willpower,” but I see them as being different in small but meaningful ways.

Going back to the HP deck, I feel it captures the essence of “choice” in there in a subtler way; the official Yu-Gi-Oh! deck, depicting Yuugi and Anzu on camelback in Egypt, doesn’t at all. How? Well, in putting Pegasus and Cyndia in silhouette, we’re left to imagine the expressions on their faces. They seem like they’d be happy, dancing with flowers and vines all around them, but we the viewer/reader know that their love story doesn’t end like the story book they’re standing on. We know that Pegasus makes a choice to try and recapture this feeling and in doing so, sets off the chain of events that make the Yu-Gi-Oh! series possible. Just think: if Pegasus had opted to mourn normally, instead of pursuing the possibility of resurrecting Cyndia again/seeing her again somehow, the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! series would have been different....

As I previously mentioned, the card is associated with Gemini, ruled by Mercury. In that sense, using Yuugi on this card makes sense, as he is a Gemini. Additionally, Mercury/Hermes is the God of Travel (among many other things) so depicting Yuugi and Anzu traveling works, too. Trying to think about all the symbolism rife in a single Tarot card could easily give someone a headache, but it’s there for a reason, and I love it when I see a deck that intentionally makes as much use of the traditional symbols and their meanings while also infusing their own style. In this case, I like how it all works with the Yu-Gi-Oh! characters and story we know and love, too.

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I briefly mentioned that the meaning of the seventh card, The Chariot, in traditional RWS decks deals with willpower. You’ll see a Charioteer having to direct two powerful stallions (sometimes sphinxes; in the case of the Hocus Pocus Tarot, it’s Exodia and Exodia Necross, which are...interesting choices, but at least readily recognizable). I used to think that each of the creatures carrying the chariot were trying to direct the charioteer (in this case, a somewhat cross-eyed Atem) in their own direction, but a better way to think about it would be the rider having control or the creatures having control. Depicting Atem in this manner makes sense, though again, I might have gone with a different Duel Monster over Exodia.

Often there’s a great deal of hidden symbolism throughout The Chariot, including the charioteer’s armor, the chariot’s cover, and what the realm BEHIND the charioteer is leaving behind, but it looks like much of that has been left out in the Hocus Pocus deck in the interest of recognizability. If I were to interpret the symbols that ARE there, the fact that Atem is leaving either pyramids (symbols of death and rebirth) or dunes (symbols of constant change, among other things) implies that he’s headed toward a new life, or alternatively, being stubborn with his “rebirth” and needing to repeat his actions again. The fact that he’s being led by two forms of Exodia, both themselves symbols of ultimate victory and death, helps balance out the symbolism: Atem is moving away from the traditional death/rebirth cycle of Pharaohs and towards another, one that is widely considered impossible or even dangerous (hence Exodia wearing Pharaonic jewelry, but also having broken chains on its wrists).

That the cover of his chariot is purple is a status symbol of his royalty, but that’s an association typically made thanks to more recent European and Mediterranean practices; you don’t see purple in much Ancient Egyptian art, if only because other colors (red, yellow, green, and blue) were more readily available. Red is the “desert” color, while black is the “Nile” color, or more specifically, the lands near the Nile. Yellow/Gold and White/Silver were often paired together, but gold wasn’t particularly rare in Egypt, so it wouldn’t have been used solely for royalty as a status symbol. Some blue and green stones were harder to find, but there were also fairly cheap or readily available substitutes, like faience (glass). Plenty of other colors existed thanks to the blending of minerals and plants, but not all of them survive today, which is why recreations of Egyptian art, or jewelry that’s been preserved or retouched is so colorful; it tells half the story on its own!

Strength in the Hocus Pocus deck features Jounouchi with his Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Traditionally you’d have someone putting their hand into a lion’s mouth (Strength is in the eighth position in RWS decks because of the lion’s association with Leo, the astrological sign ruled by the Lion), but this makes sense to me. Red-Eyes Black Dragon is a fiery creature, and Leo is ruled by the Sun, and is a Fire Sign. Jounouchi might be an Aquarius (Air), but the Red-Eyes is pretty much his signature card by the series’ end. But Jounouchi doesn’t need to put his hand in the Red-Eyes’ mouth, nor does he need to look particularly calm, or conversely, scared. He just looks like himself, which is what the card is all about: authenticity, self-control, calm... when Jounouchi is at his best, he’s not being over-reactionary or bombastic, he’s a damn fine duelist and a good friend/brother.

The official Yu-Gi-Oh! depiction for Strength is, somewhat unsurprisingly, Seto with Obelisk. It’s also using the Thoth numbering, meaning it’s the 11th card, instead of the eighth. The differences in the art is that one version has Seto “declaring an attack” and not looking calm at all, while the other has him standing more stoically, looking a lot calmer. I prefer the latter art for Strength.

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The Hermit is another unusual card in Hocus Pocus, but I like it: it features Kisara in long robes and holding a long cane/staff, surrounded by what appears to be willow vines. Her eyes are closed as she looks down, and she’s holding up an oil lamp lit by a particularly bright, glowing flame.

In the two variations of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tarot deck, the Hermit is either Akhenaden (Akunadin) looming over Priest Seto, or Shimon Muran (Sugoroku Mutou’s previous incarnation, and one of the early wielders of the Millennium Key), holding up the Millennium Item with Exodia in the background, holding its palms together as if readying an attack.

I feel Akhenaden or Kisara make more sense than Shimon do, as The Hermit is meant to be a solitary figure who passes on knowledge, but who is otherwise removed from the world for a reason.

While Kisara didn’t necessarily understand why she was shunned everywhere she went, she did eventually learn, thanks to Seto. In the anime, she chose to take that knowledge and not run away and become a hermit, but to save people: specifically, save Seto, even though she knew doing so would cost her life.

Akhenaden, on the other hand, withdrew from a position of power (third in line to the throne) after the creation of the Millennium Items, because he knew his family (including his young son Seto) would never understand the “sacrifice” he made to save the country. He did, after all, oversee the wholesale slaughter of almost an entire village of people, but it was with the intent of “saving” the rest of Egypt from invaders. He succeeded, but when his brother the Pharaoh discovered what he’d done, it pushed Aknamkanon closer to his death, and he died with regrets, wanting Atem to make up for the lives Akhenaden had wrongfully taken in the name of “justice.” He ended up tutoring Seto without the latter ever knowing that Akhenaden was his birth father until it was too late. Had he actually made his identity known after remaking the Millennium Items (I have to assume Shimon knew, but I don’t know why he would keep Akhenaden’s true birth a secret, let alone not watch over Seto as another heir to the throne), maybe he wouldn’t have become the High Priest of Darkness...

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Fun thing about the Wheel of Fortune is that the official Yu-Gi-Oh! Tarot deck features the Millennium Ring, much as the Hocus Pocus deck does, but it does NOT show Bakura. Instead, the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck shows Dark Malik in one corner, Isis and Rishid in another, and “Papa Ishtar” looming above.

Normally The Wheel is one of the more ornate Tarot cards in a RWS deck. Here’s a description from one of my favorite Tarot resources, Biddy Tarot,’ about the symbols on the card:

The Wheel of Fortune card shows a giant wheel, with three figures on the outer edges. Four Hebrew letters – YHVH (Yod Heh Vau Heh), the unpronounceable name of God – are inscribed on the wheel’s face. There are also the letters TORA, thought to be a version of the word Torah, meaning ‘law’, or TAROT, or even ROTA (Latin for ‘wheel’). The middle wheel has the alchemical symbols for mercury, sulphur, water and salt – the building blocks of life and the four elements – and represents formative power.

On the outer circle is a snake, the Egyptian god Typhon (the god of evil), descending on the left side. The snake also represents the life force plunging into the material world. On the right side rises the Anubis, the Egyptian God of the dead who welcomes souls to the underworld. And on top of the wheel sits the Sphinx, representing knowledge and strength.

In the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card are four winged creatures, each associated with the four fixed signs of the Zodiac: the angel is Aquarius, the eagle is Scorpio, the lion is Leo, and the bull is Taurus. Their wings signify stability amidst movement and change, and each holds the Torah, representing wisdom.

In both the Yu-Gi-Oh! and Hocus Pocus decks, we lose a LOT of that symbolism in favor of the one iconic “round” shape in the series: the Millennium Ring. Sadly, we also lose the implication that The Wheel represents GOOD luck as much as it does BAD luck. Of course, “luck” is always in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? While I can’t think of what the Ring specifically did for Malik (especially in the manga) after he defeated Dark Bakura, the latter probably sees the Ring as the source of bad luck for him (he has it because his entire village got killed) but also good luck (it’s his key to getting revenge against the Pharaoh; it’s his connection to Zork and his powers; it allows him to dowse and find what he wants).

As far as the Ishtars each looking at the Ring differently, that could be one way to interpret the characters featured on the Yu-Gi-Oh! card: Isis and Rishid see the Ring as a powerful tool that should not be exploited; Papa Ishtar either didn’t know about it or had some role in it getting into Papa Bakura’s hands (after all, Bakura got it from his father), and Malik abused its powers to achieve his own gains.

That being said, we get a shirtless Bakura thanks to @ruiojousama, so I really have no complaints about the card otherwise. :P

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Justice is one of the cards with altered ordering in Thoth vs. RWS decks, so while in Hocus Pocus, it’s the 11th card, in the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck, it’s the eighth. In the former deck, it depicts Shadi holding the Millennium Scales, which he’s used in the past to determine someone’s worthiness. We later see Bobasa use the scales to determine who’s allowed to go into the Memory World.

Bobasa reveals he’s an incarnation of Hasan/Shadi, and furthermore is the Spirit of the Millennium Stone where the Items were forged. Unlike the Items themselves that got “Spirits” after Zork and Atem went head to head, the Stone got imbued with the dying wish of Pharaoh Aknamkanon to help Atem “balance the scales” that Akhenaden disrupted by murdering everyone in Kul Elna. This also implies (at least in the manga) that High Priest Shada ≠ Shadi in the future. While Dark Side of Dimensions showed us Shadi incarnated in the 20th century, only to get killed by Bakura, we don't know if that Shadi was a human incarnation of the same Spirit, or what. Can Spirits die!?!?

Anyway, the Hocus Pocus card depicts what looks like Palladium Oracle Mahad holding the Scales in one hand, and a staff in another. Why Mahad? I don’t know; he’s the Black Magician and the holder of the Ring, not the Holder of the Scales (that was Kalim).

I guess if you set that aside, it makes sense; Justice and Scales are commonly paired with one another. RWS decks actually tend to show a woman (Justice the goddess) holding scales in one hand AND A SWORD IN THE OTHER. So I can appreciate this card for at least illustrating Mahad with something in either hand, as opposed to Shadi just holding up his hands and somehow levitating the Scales. If he at least HELD the Key in his other hand instead of just wearing it around his neck, it might capture the same essence, which is “what it says on the tin” —justice, fairness, accountability. The art by @sombreset is rich and moody, and I honestly feel like I’m in an ancient temple about to get JUDGED.

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The 12th card of the Major Arcana is The Hanged Man, formerly known The Traitor (in traditional Italian Tarot decks, anyway). Hocus Pocus uses photography here, and I’m pretty sure the person depicted is meant to be Seto Kaiba, at least based on other photos in the Hocus Pocus zine, but it’s honestly hard to tell. The card is meant to be one of “new perspectives,” as the Hanged Man is not hanging by his neck, but by one ankle. Some say he’s hung himself; the Hocus Pocus Tarot book implies a connection to the Norse God Odin who hung himself from Yggdrasil in order to gain knowledge of the runes. While this is an uncommon interpretation of The Hanged Man in my learnings, it’s not unheard of. I imagine if he’s NOT Odin and yet he’s gaining a new perspective, it's on the actions he took that caused him to be hung/branded a Traitor in the first place.

While typically The Hanged Man is shown with a halo around his head, implying some sort of spiritual awakening or enlightenment, the Hocus Pocus card features Seto (?) surrounded by red and white roses. It almost seems as if the white (whole) roses turn into red rose petals, which is an interesting “evolution,” demonstrating a loss of innocence, or the cycle of things from light to dark, birth to death. Gaining that perspective is one part of becoming older, and accepting hard truths is something Seto Kaiba is arguably great at (pivoted from being an orphan to being a CEO in a few years) to horrible (”magic? reincarnation? What nonsense are you going on about NOW?!”).

If you’ve ever played the Yu-Gi-Oh! video game Duelists of the Roses, it makes Seto into Christian Rosenkreuz and affiliates him with the Yorkists (who used the white rose as their emblem) and Yuugi becomes Henry Tudor (who used the red rose). Together, though, red and white roses represent UNITY.

Flowers and colors have their own whole language, so I won’t get into that here, but it’s interesting to imagine that red, the color of vitality, passion, and life is also the “end of a cycle” in the Hocus Pocus card, representing Seto bleeding out, perhaps, or that which one can never truly regain once innocence is lost.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! deck uses Jounouchi from his duel with Yuugi at the Docks during Battle City instead, and arguably any “halo” he has is artistic more than anything else. Still, if you think he started to “glow” as he realized what Malik was telling him to do Yuugi clashed with his true feelings, that could make for an “enlightenment halo” too. There are only a handful of moments in Yu-Gi-Oh! where you can argue someone had a real “a-ha!” moment, and I think the one the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck picked makes a lot of sense. I’m more unclear on the Hocus Pocus choice, since it doesn’t even look like Seto (?) is hanging. But, perhaps like Jounouchi in the card above, he’s figured out he did something awful the hard way, and that’s why the roses are going from white and whole to red and broken? He does look a bit injured...

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The 13th card in Tarot is almost always Death. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Tarot uses Akhenaden as the High Priest of Darkness here, which makes sense; he’s a truly terrifying character, but at the end of the day, he’s still human, whether or not he’s got both eyeballs.

But Death is traditionally depicted as something INHUMAN, a skeleton sometimes clad in a robe and sometimes in armor. It doesn’t care who pleads before it, it doesn’t care whether men, women, or children fall before its horse’s hooves, nor peasants, serfs, or kings.

The Hocus Pocus deck also depicts a human here: Bakura. I’m not a huge fan of the art style on this card, but it appears to be Bakura holding up a planchette (cursor/pointer) for a ouija board, though the “eye” is very faint and hard to see, so it almost looks like a guitar pick. The dub changed his “killer” five-card combo (depicting five ghostly planchettes spelling out letters) from saying DEATH to FINAL, so I guess the wording on the cursor here makes sense, but there would have been no harm in maintaining the original wording, I feel.

While the background is suitably creepy, with open eyes and wide, grinning mouths, it loses the “all fall before death” feeling, and instead renders the card into something simultaneously sad and twisted.

DEATH IS NOT A BAD CARD. DEATH DOES NOT IMPLY ACTUAL DEATH.

The card is meant to refer to a great transformation, a transition from one stage of life to another. For example, getting Death in a Tarot spread about your career could mean you’re about to lose your job, but are likely to get another one. Death in a relationship spread could indicate a breakup, but it could just as equally indicate marriage, pregnancy, or any number of other “transformative” moments in a relationship. In other words, Death is not a destination, it is a part of the journey, a point in a much longer spectrum.

I would have preferred something like Necrofear here, a card that looks creepy but is actually in something of a “mothering” pose with the broken doll in its arms. Or maybe any number of skeletal Duel Monsters, like poor ol’ Skull Servant (Wight). Or maybe something more Egyptian-styled; Osiris is the God of the Underworld in Egyptian mythology, but would people have picked up on that if the two-headed red dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh! were used here? Hmmm.... There are many possibilities, but at least Bakura makes a degree of sense, even if it misses out on the “transformative” and “unerring” aspects of the card.

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Bakura gets another card in the Hocus Pocus deck with Temperance, depicting him much as he appeared in the episode where he embodied the Duel Monsters card “Change of Heart.” But aside from the black wings and overall shadowier tone to the “Dark” side of the card, he doesn’t resemble “Dark Bakura” on one half and Ryou Bakura on the other. Nor does it appear that the material he is moving from one Cup to another is fire transforming to water, just dark smoke moving from one place to another.

At least Hocus Pocus’ rendition makes more sense than the Yu-Gi-Oh! one, which depicts Mana and Black Magician Girl. Neither seems to be doing any sort of magic or alchemy, which is normally what the archangel traditionally depicted on the card is considered to be doing. But we do see the “transformation” of Mana, a scared, playful young apprentice magician, into a powerful magician and wielder of ka in her own right.

The card is known for showing two halves: on one side of the angel, a body of water, while a lush landscape sits on the other side. Temperance is one of the Tarot cards named for the Four Cardinal Virtues (including Strength and Prudence, which some see in The Hanged Man and others see in The Hermit), representing moderation or balance, This is different from the balance seen in “Justice,” though.

The only change I would make to the HP card is to have the smoke Bakura is moving from one cup to the other change color ever so slightly, to indicate it is not out-of-balance, either within him (a character overflowing with Darkness) or in the world (a world prone to catastrophe).

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And then there’s the 15th card, The Devil. Unsurprisingly, we get Zork for the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tarot card, who’s as good a depiction of The Devil in Yu-Gi-Oh! as any. The Devil isn’t necessarily representative of evil, but more like sin, addiction, or our own failings. For this reason, Zork is one good choice for it, but so is the Hocus Pocus illustration by @mimibanii, which teeters on downright NAUGHTY!

It features a horned and winged Dark Malik wearing next to nothing, one hand clenched in a fist in front of him while the other flexes in claws off to the side. He’s stinking his tongue out in a devilish taunt, and he’s got a demonic third eye on his head that compels you to stare. Behind his wings, serpentine “tails” twist and turn. As far as representing temptation, this card does an excellent job of that!

The traditional RWS Devil often features two people getting tortured or punished, often humans chained up and in the process of transforming into devils themselves. They usually lack the awareness that their imprisonment is one of their own making, and that they are perfectly capable from escaping it should they so desire, but they can’t even think to look at each other, let alone their captor, to consider such a possibility. While those elements don’t appear on the HP card, I like the idea that Dark Malik’s closed fist could be interpreted as holding something (like a rope or chain) or as a subtle warning (”back off! You don’t want to get involved with what I do!”) compared to the clawing, more relaxed and open hand to his side. Overall, his pose is not inviting, it’s warning: “I’m dangerous, don’t mess with me,” but the look on his face is tempting, inviting trouble. This is an excellent card!

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Card 16, The Tower in any Yu-Gi-Oh!-themed Tarot deck is Kaiba-related, no matter what: in the Hocus Pocus deck, it’s Kaiba Corporation HQ surrounded by stormy red clouds; in the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck, it’s Alcatraz Tower, site of the Battle City Finals.

Personally, I like the HP choice better, but I would have kept the traditional RWS depiction of people falling from the Tower--in this case, Gozaburo would have been the apt choice, though I suppose that could be disturbing to see, even if it were as a tiny figure.

Normally, lightning strikes the tower and sets a fire, which is why the people are falling from it, and often the deck depicts a crown falling too, indicating, like Death, that catastrophe and disaster don’t care who you are, and they come in many forms. Also like Death, the Tower isn’t inherently a bad card; while it IS representative of a major upheaval, whether that's good or bad depends on how prepared you are. For example, Kaiba Tower certainly didn’t represent BAD change for Seto, who took over the company and transformed it into something more aligned with his vision and values.

While the HP card doesn’t have lightning, the Yu-Gi-Oh! one does, but it also features Jounouchi and Dark Yuugi looking backward at the viewer, indicating some awareness of what they are about to go and face. However, they had no idea Kaiba planned to blow up the Tower regardless of the results of the Finals, so it just goes to show: there’s only so much planning you can do in life; at some point, you just have to LIVE.

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The 17th card in a RWS Tarot Deck is The Star. Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Tarot deck features Dark Yuugi with Osiris; Hocus Pocus’ features Isis, holding up a glowing ball of light while seated before a river or creek.

The Hocus Pocus deck art here (by @veelucienarts) is absolutely stunning, with a purply-night sky and a shadowy building behind Isis as she practices her magic, tall reeds and palms swaying behind her. The light above her casts shadows on the many folds of her robes, even a section that might be wet because of one of the two water jugs spilling into the river. This illustration captures many of the same elements traditionally shown on an RWS Star card, while still keeping it very much in-theme.

After The Tower, one is back to basics, having to start over anew. While the Isis depicted on this card doesn’t look like she just fell from the Tower or anything, if you imagine her instead as the GODDESS Isis, she just learned her husband has died and been chopped up into bits. She’s got to do whatever she can with whatever she has to find him and somehow make him whole again, with her magic, which is perhaps the most powerful on Earth. Isis here has only the clothes on her back, so to speak; nothing else but her own skill and knowledge to help her get from this dark, wet place to where she needs to be.

This card is meant to depict hope after darkness, faith and renewal, and a sense of purpose or understanding of self after a time of chaos and disruption. Both the illustration and the Hocus Pocus deck do a decent job of capturing this meaning.

For me, my favorite deck, the Hanson-Roberts, happens to illustrate a figure that looks a heck of a lot like Kisara to me, so I wonder what it would be like if the card depicted a Kisara shortly after she first manifested the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and realized just what she was capable of doing. Or perhaps, a Kisara reborn in a new world, without having to worry about being shunned for the way she looks.

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The 18th card, The Moon, like The Star, is another GORGEOUS card, this time illustrated by @kuriiiiiiiiiii. It appears the the two characters depicted are meant to be Mahad and Set, but I could be wrong. It’s an interesting choice, either way, for a card that doesn’t normally depict humans at all, let alone two of them (unless you count the face of a lunar goddess in the Moon itself).

The Moon is associated with Cancer, the Crab (or similar creatures, like lobsters and crayfish), and is traditionally a feminine, watery “planet.” it’s considered mutable, or always in a state of change, which contributes to this card’s association with things that are hidden, confusing, or wrapped in illusion.

Fun Fact, but The Moon (the card) is not actually associated with the moon (the planet). The High Priestess is instead associated with the moon, while The Moon (the card) is associated with Pisces (the zodiac sign), even though that sign is ruled by Neptune/Jupiter. Pisces is the sign of the Fish, and Neptune is the Roman god of the Oceans/Seas/Water, also known as Poseidon in Greek mythology.

Pisces-wise, I think it’s a missed opportunity for Ryouta Kajiki (Mako Tsunami) here; where’s the love for my favorite water-loving, shark-riding Duelist?

The Yu-Gi-Oh! deck uses Dark Malik again here, looking off to the side somewhat solemnly. But note that it tries to incorporate the imagery of a crayfish/lobster with what appears to be a demonic scorpion instead, and the two dogs/wolves are replaced by Egyptian jackals, normally seen as the Guardians of the Underworld. Oh, and the Moon itself is actually RA in Sphere Mode, with an eclipse-like glow around it! Since the moon’s light truly is the light from the sun reflected, I thought this was a nice touch.

What a fascinating choice for the manga deck, but a stark difference to the Hocus Pocus deck, which simply has the two mages standing beside one another in some very ornate—and ahem, tight-fitting—clothing with what looks like a hole in shattered glass behind them. The “confusion” aspect comes through for me here, if only because I am confused about what I am seeing on the card! It’s still beautiful, though.

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Just three more cards to go! The Sun is the 19th card, and traditionally depicts a naked child on a white horse, galloping through a field of cheery sunflowers, daisies, or another “happy” harvest. The sun itself often has a bright, shining face.

The Sun in the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck is a bit cluttered, featuring Dark Malik holding out the Millennium Rod, Dark Yuugi and Jounouchi with their Duel Disks, and Ra baring its teeth behind them. If there’s supposed to be a sense of carefree joy in this card, we don’t get it from the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck.

On the other hand, the Hocus Pocus deck features Mana, Mahad, and Atem, with the latter apparently manifesting a hot (if the sweat on Mahad’s face is any indication), glowing ball of light. While I don't recall ever seeing Atem manifest magic in this way at any point during the series, I think it’s a fun concept, and the look on Mana’s face certainly seems elated, as it seems like Atem’s showing off to her, or perhaps “gifting” her the glowing ball somehow. So there’s at least some level of happiness radiating from the card,

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One of my FAVORITE illustrated cards in the Hocus Pocus deck has next to nothing in common with its RWS counterpart; the 20th card, Judgement/Judgment often depicts “the resurrection,” or an archangel blowing a trumpet to herald the coming of an (unseen) Messiah. People rise from coffins, naked as the day they were born, raising their arms in happiness.

The Hocus Pocus card instead shows an older Yuugi (in a casual outfit) holding a Duel Monsters card with the completed Millennium Puzzle behind him (he’s not wearing it, so that's how we know it’s not Dark Yuugi). To the side is Yuugi wearing a Battle City Duel Disk and surrounded by an arcing chain, reminding me of the Battle City duel against Jounouchi, especially the look on his face: he’s happy that his friend has snapped out of his trance, but he’s about to make his own great sacrifice. At the bottom is Yuugi in his school uniform, looking frustrated and sad as he tries to assemble the Millennium Puzzle.

It’s worth pointing out that, despite the name, Judgement is not the same as Justice.

If balancing your true nature is what happens on the Millennium Scales (when your heart is weighed against the feather of Ma’at), then facing the Pharaoh and all his High Priests is akin to facing Osiris himself, which is why we get them illustrated on this card in the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck.

But if we look at Judgement instead as Judgement Day (not Terminator style, but in the more Biblical sense), then what’s depicted on the Hocus Pocus card seems a little bit like a chronology of Yuugi’s life: from being desperate for more friends/a deeper friendship to a confident, respected Duelist with many friends around the world. He didn’t wait for the world to evolve to suit him; he evolved to find his place in the world.

If you haven’t noticed by now, the Major Arcana contain some pretty big messages, some recurring themes and cycles. So Judgement is the final “big decision” type of card before the cycle completes once and for all: your last chance to understand the world before things change irrevocably for the final time, and you become set in your ways, and hopefully figure out who you “really” are.

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Last card in the Hocus Pocus Major Arcana is The World, which features Horakhty in the center surrounded by Exodia in the upper left, Ra in the upper right, Obelisk in the lower left, and Osiris in the lower right.

This layout reminds me more of the traditional layout of The Wheel of Fortune, but that’s on purpose: both The Wheel and The World depict a person, an eagle, a bull, and a lion, representing the four fixed signs of the Zodiac (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), along with the four elements (Earth, Fire, Water, and Air, respectively), four compass points, four seasons, four corners of the universe, etc. Four in Tarot is a number representing stability, a good solid foundation, and balance. While Exodia wasn’t part of the original “spell” to summon Horakhty (it was the original three Egyptian Gods), it makes sense to add such an iconic Egyptian Duel Monsters card here, especially lacking other Egyptian God Cards from the actual Egyptian pantheon, like Nephthys, Horus, Anubis, and so on. We saw characters NAMED after Gods (Set, for example), but no other Egyptian God “cards.”

If Ra = Light/Fire, Obelisk = Earth, and Osiris = Thunder/Water (only because Thunder = Storms = Rain in my book), then presumably Exodia would be representative of Air somehow. Alternatively, you could look at Osiris as being Air, since it is the Heavenly Saint God Osiris, or perhaps since Osiris is the God of the Underworld, Osiris represents Earth and Obelisk is Fire (being a War God), and Ra is Air, making Exodia Water somehow. You decide.

Normally the figure in the center is dancing, looking back to the past while their body moves toward the future. They have the powers granted by The Magician with them, but they are otherwise unencumbered and are ready to begin a new stage, to be reborn anew. It’s hard to depict this concept any more than it already is on this card without cluttering it too much, so I like the decision to use Egyptian Gods here.

Worth pointing out, but there are two variants of this card in the Yu-Gi-Oh! deck, one depicting the gang with their hands together “marked with a special sign” (a.k.a. the happy face Anzu drew) and their four portraits in the corners: Anzu/Leo/Fire; Yuugi/Gemini/Air; Jounouchi/Aquarius/Air, Honda/Taurus/Earth. You can see we’re missing a Water sign here, but Kaiba or Bakura would have been the Water sign on this card, and they weren’t part of the original “special sign” circle.

The other card shows the Millennium Stone/Tablet-- the thing that held the seven Millennium Items and, as mentioned earlier, “housed” the Spirit that manifested as Hasan/Bobasa/Shadi. Though the Stone has no movement, it depicts the past and the future at the same time: it is where all the heartache of the series began, with the creation of the Millennium Items, but it is also where the series ends, when the Millennium Items are once again placed on the stone, Zork is sealed permanently, and Atem goes to his final resting place.

Neither the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga deck(s) nor the Hocus Pocus deck are perfect; no Tarot deck is. But as far as the Major Arcana in this fan-produced deck go, they are overall VERY well done and do a good job at capturing the essence of most of the traditional RWS interpretations of the Tarot cards.

The cards themselves are buttery soft and high-quality, and come in a beautiful deck box. The back design is thankfully reversible, and looks somewhat like a cross between an Egyptian design and a stained glass window, though I can’t help but see the “flower” on the back as part of an eggplant emoji every time.

...I blame Devil Malik.

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anzu-kaiba · 3 years

Text

Some thoughts on Hocus Pocus, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Magic Zine

A while back I backed Hocus Pocus: The Yu-Gi-Oh! Magic Zine (@ygomagiczine) at the “Breaker The Magical Warrior” level, and not long ago I received my rewards, as pictured above:

Top left corner (and what I was honestly the most excited about): a Yu-Gi-Oh! themed Tarot deck—a complete one, not just the Major Arcana cards

A postcard with the “Eye of Wdjat” on it (sort of; Yu-Gi-Oh! calls it the Eye of Anubis because of that extra “tail” it has going to the left)

An adorable bookmark with chibi versions of the characters in their Monster World outfits (including the oft-forgotten Miho!), complete with little dice on the end (note: keep away from cats who like dangles)

A magnet you shouldn’t stare at too long, lest you get MIND CRUSHED!

A book explaining the meanings of the Tarot Cards

A sticker crossing over Yu-Gi-Oh! with Sailor Moon, with Seto as Tuxedo Mask and Atem as Sailor Moon, holding the Millennium Rod. I have some... thoughts... about it, but it’s generally well-done, a quality sticker, and funny at a bare minimum

The actual Hocus Pocus zine, filled with all kinds of fan art, fanfiction, and other fan creations.

A “spell book” with absolutely GORGEOUS freaking art on the cover

A pin of... somebody (the white haired character with a pink face and red eyes. Is it Bakura? Is it Pegasus? I have no idea)

A pink “Anzu” chain featuring a tiny bottle of pink glitter, a feather charm, and a witch hat charm (which I assume is a nod to Anzu’s RPG character, an Elven Mage) - unfortunately the leather strap popped out of the jump spring when I tried to put it on, but it’s an easy enough fix since I have jewelry tools.

An “Anubis” eye pin inside of a gold “magical runes” circle

All the little jewelry bits came inside those gorgeous drawstring bags you see next to the Tarot Deck-- that same gauzy material most jewelry bags are made of, but with a beautiful metallic screen printing on it that looks like coral or branches of a tree or something. There’s also another, smaller one that has gold roses with silver leaves; reminds me of one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses books.

Okay, so let’s start with the zine itself. I’ll get to the Tarot Deck and Spell Book in another post.

The zine got delayed a bit due to some contributors unfortunately dropping out, but as soon as I heard (and they did have pretty immediate response times on social media and through email), they already had the empty slots filled, so that was reassuring.

Of what ended up in the zine, the art is phenomenal. There’s honestly nothing I can say I dislike at all in terms of the art. My absolute favorite is Magi Magi ⭐️ Magician Girls by @jujuoh; I’m still trying to figure out who each of the “Sailor Senshi” are! (I recognize all of the “Magician Girls” and Mahad, plus Lily, but I’m not sure about the other three in the back. If you know, please tell me!)

What isn’t art is fanfiction though, and here’s where things get a bit tricky for me personally, as I am a devourer of the written word, a librarian by trade, and an editor by profession (part-time).

At the start of the zine, there are the following tags:

Gen

Yugi x Ryou

Bakura x Ryou

Marik x Ryou

Bakura x Marik

Seto x Joey

Seto x Atem

Yugi x Atem

Duke x Rebecca

Yugi x Joey

Yugi x Atem x Seto x Joey

I can understand using the dub names, if the belief is that more of the contributors and readers will use/prefer them. Of course, that makes me the reader think that if a fic is tagged with, say, Duke x Rebecca, then I won’t see the names Ryuuji and Rebecca in the story instead. This is I think why the fandom ‘ship names, like Puzzleshipping and Prideshipping make more sense here, but I get why some people won’t know what ‘ships are what based off those names.

Second thing is that there are NO het ships of any kind on this list outside of Duke x Rebecca, and the fic isn’t really “shippy” at all. That kind of bugs me.

Also, despite Yu-Gi-Oh being about Yuugi, Jounouchi/Joey, Anzu/Téa, Honda/Tristan, Ryou, and Kaiba, with appearances by such famed and important characters as Mai, Pegasus, Isis, Rishid, and Malik, there are scant mentions/depictions of many of them. Anzu, I think, got depicted twice in fanart (I’m counting a comic as fanart) besides the back cover; Isis twice; Mai once. Mana/Black Magician Girl appeared the most out of any female character.

Despite the above list of tags, not all of them actually appear in the zine. So if you found your OTP in this list and flipped through trying to find the tag, you might be sorely disappointed. Now, that is assuming that they don’t appear in the stories based on the tag; if they did appear but they weren’t properly tagged, I don’t know about it.

There is a note indicating that the zine didn’t want to impose any styles, ideologies, voices, and formats, which explains why there might be shift in what the tags are vs. what the story uses. However, for a reader, that could potentially be confusing. I mean, it’s a fanzine, so theoretically anyone receiving/reading it should know that Ryuuji = Duke and so forth, but not everyone will. Your friendly neighborhood Tumblr Librarian would like to remind you that zines are often ordered by/donated or gifted to/end up in libraries, and that means people who are unfamiliar with a fandom might pick it up the way they would any other book or magazine.

Finally, while I’m 100% fine with a zine not imposing rules about names, ‘ships, etc., I do think basic grammar is a must. Sentences should end in periods, the font should be legible and printed clearly in a dark ink on a light background, and if you have a piece of dialogue “like this,” it should end in an attribute tag, like so:

“First, I’ll need to get some gold,” Yuugi explained. “Then I’ll need to buy a potion and two elixirs.”

GRAMMAR IS NOT A STYLISTIC CHOICE. It exists to make things readable. (Can you tell I really dislike those pretentious authors who think that capital letters represent The Man or something, or that one space after a period is simply too New School?)

If this is somehow difficult to enforce/gently suggest, an editor is warranted. That editor should have English as their first language and be intimately familiar with both the fandom and the written word. With fanfic online, if I see something that refuses to use periods or doesn’t properly space out its paragraphs (or whatever), I can just click back and be done with it. No harm, no foul to anybody. But with a zine I’ve paid for? I expect to be able to read a good percentage of the stories regardless of whether or not they’re my favorite genre/’ship/tropes. In fact, I feel like being able to read 100% of the zine is warranted, all other things being equal.

Next thing is that there are genre tags:

Fluff

Action/Adventure

Alternate Universe

Slice of Life ← I don’t personally regard this as a “genre” so much as a trope, but okay.

Afterlife ← Also not a genre, but could be a Trope and/or Trigger warning, depending on how it’s used. Except... it wasn’t used. At all, from what I could find.

Hurt/Comfort

These are followed by three handy trigger warnings:

Injury

Violence

Death

These tags are at the BOTTOM of the first page of a story, when they should be at the TOP.

The zine is written in English, by/for English-speaking audiences. We read left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Important information like tags should be presented at the top. Imagine if an archive like AO3 or FFnet hid that information inside a story rather than on a fandom listing page, or a search result page? You’d spend a lot more time sifting through things you really don’t want to read.

As far as the tags go, many fics have multiple tags, which makes sense; plenty of stories can easily fall into two genres, maybe more if you’re pushing it. But these are one-shots (short stories), and I really don’t expect a given story to have more than three tags.

The majority of the stories (8) were tagged Alternate Universe, with only one Hurt/Comfort fic and NO fics using the Afterlife tag that appeared in the beginning. Not to mention, there are plenty of other (hugely popular) genres that aren’t represented at all, like Drama, Romance, or even Comedy.

I’m not sure if the “theme” is meant to be magic (Hocus Pocus being the title and all), or simply a nice nod to the magical nature of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series, but you’d think there’d be more of a balance between in-universe stories and AUs than such a preponderance of AUs over anything else.

Bear in mind that many of the stories were cross-tagged, so an AU might also feature Action/Adventure, or a Slice of Life just happens to be an AU as well.

I don’t have anything against AUs. But if I buy a fandom zine, I want to read stuff featuring the characters, situations, and themes presented in the original fandom, not necessarily people wearing “masks” of those characters but otherwise not acting like them at all.

That being said, I personally differentiate alternate universe stories from alternate timeline stories, where you ask a crucial “What If,” like “What if Atem never forgot his name?” or “What if Atem won the Ceremonial Duel?” or something like that, and canon DIVERGES from a specific point, even one that happened “off-screen,” like the real events leading up to Zork’s original sealing, etc.

I do like how there was more Gen than I initially realized, but it’s harder for me (personally) to enjoy Gen when it’s AU.

There should be additional tags. Some fics had crass/foul language, but there was no “Rating” system in place to indicate that (the MPAA/Fiction Ratings systems have simplified letters to tell you whether there will be mentions of things like sex/nudity, crass/foul language, drug use, and/or violence; tags help clarify WHICH ones will be present for fanfic). Basically, a fic in a zine should utilize the same tags it would on an archive like FFnet or AO3.

Ship tags indicate there will be some level of romance/sex: Name x Name (romantic/sexual), Name & Name (platonic/friendly), or Name/Name (romantic/sexual/usually same sex). If the tags are used to indicate which CHARACTERS are in a story instead (versus pairings), that’s just confusing.

Quiet Friend and Return, Regain, Refresh don’t have any ‘ship or genre tags at all; the latter story only has trigger warnings, which is also confusing.

My favorite stories of the bunch (bearing in mind I did not read any ‘ship stories, for the most part):

A Stranger to Your Soul by Inkyrius - The fandom needs more Mokuba fic. ‘Nuff said.

Two Roads Converge by @mainstream-deviant - freaking adorable, with a touch of “omg pls don’t sweet bebby no” because it’s NOT an AU

You Look Familiar by @ink-flavored - I’m 100% biased because I’m a cat fan, but this is a well-done AU with a fantasy twist. Joey as a werewolf is downright hilarious. Vivid and adventurous in very few pages.

In summary, a high-quality set of fanmade items, though with some weaknesses that I think could be improved upon for either a second printing or a second edition/volume.

I applaud every single contributor, moderator, and artist for the hard work they have put into such a beautiful package of goods for the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom.

As a Tarot reader, I do have some specific, detailed thoughts on the Tarot deck and its accompanying book, plus the only other book, the “Spell Book” that came with the set. But I’ll save those for another time.

#ygomagiczine #Hocus Pocus zine #Yu-Gi-Oh #fanfiction #fanart #fandom #fanzine

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