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sage-nebula · 4 years

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For whatever reason, I started thinking about what I would want to see from a Yu-Gi-Oh! sequel on my drive home from work today. (Note: I’m specifically talking about a sequel to the original manga; the various anime adaptations, sequels, movies, et cetera will have no bearing on this whatsoever. No hate to anyone who likes them, they’re just not my jam. I’m just invested in the manga and the manga only.) Obviously I’d want a female protagonist, particularly since I think it’s pretty ridiculous that we still haven’t received one in the various anime sequels in all these years, but that train of thought led me to think about what that protagonist’s name would be, and from there what her character would be like and what her story would be, and well, these are the thoughts I have so far, though be warned they’re not the most fleshed out in the world.

— As a sequel series, I’d like this series to take place at a specific point of time in the future from when the original story ends—say, ten years. So by this point, the original cast of teenagers are all in their mid-twenties, Mai is in her thirties, so on and so forth. Should they make any on-page appearances, their designs would be updated accordingly, i.e., no one is going to be stuck in a time loop of looking exactly as they did in the previous story.

—— On that note, everyone who died in the original manga is still dead for this story. RIP, Pegasus J. Crawford. —— Also, since the original series ended ~1997 in-universe, I’d imagine that this series would take place in 2007 as a result.

— So, our protagonist. I imagine she should be a teenager, just like our previous protagonist, and we can make her the same age as he was, 15. Her name would be Kusakabe Yuuna, with the kanji for her given name containing the kanji for “play” as Yuugi’s did, as well as the kanji for “bird cage” for some spoiler related symbolism. (I looked this up in a kanji dictionary, it checks out even if I’m too lazy to copy-paste the kanji here, just trust me.)

—— Since Yuuna is 15, that means she would have been 5 when the original series started, aww. —— Also, yes, I’m aware that the . . . Zexal? . . . protagonist’s name was Yuuma, which is close, but it’s still not the same name, so let me live. (Unless the kanji match, but I don’t think they should, but also I’m too lazy to check, so this is where we’re at now.)

— Along with having a name that contains “Yuu” in some form or another, YGO protagonists must also have ostentatious hair. For Yuuna, I’ve decided that her hair is something that actually plays into her backstory and therefore shapes her personality. When she was a child, Yuuna was in an accident with her parents (car accident or train accident, something along those lines). Her parents died (since having present parents is also a no-no for most shounen protagonists, not just YGO ones), but Yuuna was left heavily scarred. She has burn scarring all down the right side of her face, as well as along that side of her scalp which prevents her hair from growing in on that side, at least to any real degree. (Like she might have some stubble there but that’s it.) The stress her body underwent as a result of the accident also drained pretty much all pigment from her hair, so while her roots might still be black (or like a really dark grey), her hair looks white when grown out. So it looks like she’s rocking a half-shave with the hair on her left-side going down to her chin, but it’s not intentional. That’s just how her hair has been ever since the accident.

— When her parents died she was taken in by her aunt and uncle. Her aunt home-schooled her through the rest of elementary and all through middle school, because she felt that the scarring was unsightly and would lead to Yuuna being bullied by her classmates and perhaps even her teachers (which isn’t necessarily wrong; bullying is a real problem). Because her aunt impressed upon her that no one would want to see her scarring / would treat her badly if they did (and because Yuuna herself did receive a lot of staring and whispers whenever she went out without some sort of hood to pull up over her head), Yuuna never ventured out to try to make friends. Instead, she stayed inside almost all the time, entertaining herself with a myriad of games (though she had no one to play with), cartoons, comics, and the radio. (Here’s where a past-series cameo can come in: Yuuna loves games, so she likes to listen to Jounouchi’s radio show since he talks about games a lot, and given that his style of broadcasting is so relaxed and friendly she often likes to pretend he’s talking directly to her, even when she knows he’s not.)

— The problem is, Yuuna’s aunt and uncle had an unhappy marriage. There was never any outright abuse, but due to having to take on the burden of running the household, working part-time, and homeschooling Yuuna due to her husband’s apathy, Yuuna’s aunt was unhappy in the home and was essentially counting down the days until she could leave. You see, school is only compulsory in Japan through middle school. High school is optional. So once Yuuna graduated from middle (home) schooling, Yuuna’s aunt packed her bags and left, leaving Yuuna behind with her uncle. And again, there was never any outright abuse . . . but when he wasn’t at his own job, Yuuna’s uncle usually drank himself to sleep in front of the TV. He never abused Yuuna, but that’s because he was never really aware of her presence enough to abuse her. (Never mind that neglect can be its own form of abuse.) So Yuuna was left without a home school teacher, and thus had to enroll herself in a high school if she wanted to continue her education. Which, she did, but . . .

— Yuuna attended high school for a grand total of one (1) day. The staring, the whispers, the stage-whispered name calling — all of it was too much for someone who wasn’t used to it and whose years of insecurities built up by everything her aunt told her could and would happen whenever anyone saw her magnified everything and made it ten times worse. She ducked out before the day was even through and decided she was never going back.

— Of course, games have to be brought back into this at some point, and also there needs to be a plot, so . . . on her way home from school (hood up over her head, probably crying a little) Yuuna sees a little pouch in front of her on the sidewalk. She picks it up and looks inside to find dice — specifically the kind of dice that you use in tabletop games. Yuuna enjoys tabletop games just as much as she enjoys all other types of games, so she shakes the dice out into her palm to examine them . . . and they start glowing as soon as they touch her skin.

— If no one approached her then, Yuuna would figure they were cool trick dice and just take them home with her, no biggie. But at that moment another teenage girl around her age runs up to her, and while Yuuna’s first instinct is to clam up and back away, she doesn’t get much of a chance to do so before the girl is telling her those dice are hers and—oh. They’re glowing? They don’t normally do that . . .

— Long story short, the dice are magic, but they only light up like that when held by someone who has the capability to use the magic within them. So far, no one has been able to get that particular set to light up until now. Yuuna, of course, is skeptical, but the other girl — who tells Yuuna that her name is Kujou — urges Yuuna to follow her to people who can explain everything. Yuuna doesn’t really want to, she’s very much not used to interacting with people, but Kujou isn’t reacting negatively to what she can see under Yuuna’s hood, and Yuuna doesn’t have much else to do, and magic dice sound cool . . . so she agrees.

— Even longer story short, there’s an underground organization dedicated to making change via gaming. They’re made of people from all over the city (perhaps even all over Japan, perhaps even farther than that) who believe in the cause, or have a goal they feel that the organization can / will help them reach, or perhaps have no one else who will accept or have them and so they’ve found a sense of belonging with each other. This organization can and does use magic; Kujou hurriedly tells Yuuna that it’s not cheating or anything like that, but rather, there’s true magic in gaming and that when there’s a special connection between a player and the tools they use, they can draw it out to make a difference. It’s like, Kujou goes on, how certain Duel Monsters specialize in certain cards, like how Mutou Yuugi used magicians and Kaiba Seto relied on the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

—— “But this is . . . real magic. It glows.” —— “Well, yeah, but have you ever seen the recordings of the Duel Monsters matches from like, Battle City? That was real magic, too.”

— Kujou brings Yuuna to at least one of the leaders within the organization, who sees that she can activate the magic in the dice and, as a result, does a very good sales pitch to lure her into the organization; tells her about the people they help with the winnings they make from tournaments, how they’re all like one big family, how they’ll care for her and help her reach her goals, etc. And since it’s not like her uncle will even notice if she’s gone anyway, and since both Kujou and this leader person are being so kind to her (and Kujou even says her hair looks cool), and since she would like to, maybe, at some point have enough money to get surgery to change her face . . . Yuuna agrees and moves into the base this organization operates out of.

— Of course, unbeknownst to Yuuna, she has just joined the villains, dun dun dunnnnn. This “organization” is actually more of a crime syndicate or cult; think like the Ghouls from the original manga, with perhaps a dash of yakuza thrown in. (Could there mayhaps be a Hirutani cameo at some point? Knowing me, if I can get away with it, abso-fucking-lutely.) For about the first third of the series Yuuna is put into tournaments where she essentially crushes characters who would otherwise be the heroes or protagonists of a more straightforward shounen series. You know how people have commented that in recent Pokémon games it feels like you’re the asshole rival? That’s essentially Yuuna. She’s sent in to sabotage tabletop tournaments (despite how bad she feels doing so because she’s a big fan of Spirits & Sanctuaries, a TRPG created by one Bakura Ryou), collect the winnings from Duel Monsters tournaments, etc. (Dice games are her specialty, given her magic dice, but she can draw magic out of other game pieces as well.) Though she feels bad about doing things like this, she has a real sense of belonging in the organization, a nice room, people who are kind to her and want to be around her. While at the beginning of the series she was very withdrawn, she starts coming out of her shell more and being genuinely happy. We’d get to see this unfold over the chapters, the juxtaposition between her performances in game tournaments and the like and how she is with the other members of the organization.

— So Yuuna pushes away any doubts she has over what she’s doing in favor of how happy she is with her new family, and even resolves to stop listening to Jounouchi’s radio show when he warns people about their organization and their “crimes” on a broadcast, because they’re not criminals, that’s not true, and she knows about his history and how he came from poverty himself, so who is he to judge? But then at some point Kujou, whom she’s grown very close to during this time (spoiler: Kujou is both her best friend and love interest) comes to her and is like, hey, I’ve been suspicious for a while, so I’ve done some digging and I think this whole thing is evil. :/

—— “That’s ridiculous. How could you say that?” —— “I’ve got the receipts, on tape, right here on my phone. See?” —— “That’s a flip phone. How am I supposed to see anything on that?” —— “This story is set in 2007. Work with me and let me live.”

— Yuuna still doesn’t want to believe it, so she goes to talk to the leader person about it herself, and whoops, overhears him being evil with other higher-up members in the organization. So she goes back to find Kujou and is like, you were right, they are evil, and Kujou is like, I know, I already packed our bags, let’s bounce.

— So Yuuna and Kujou run away together (perhaps bringing a few other trustworthy teens from the organization with them), and then the remaining two-thirds of the story are spent with them fighting against the organization to bring them down, using their own magic (because Yuuna does still have magic and now she knows how to use it . . . kind of . . . mostly . . . she’s trying) to do so.

And that’s all I’ve got for now, but I think it’d be a cool successor to the original manga, with cameos here and there from the adult versions of the original cast. I’m especially quite married to the idea of featuring many games over the course of the story, since YGO was a manga about many games originally, before it became obsessed with Duel Monsters (though a TRPG did play a big role in the last arc and we will forever stan that).

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering: the symbolism in Yuuna’s name is because the two kanji together bring to mind a playful bird in a cage. It’s symbolism because at the start of the series Yuuna is in a metaphorical cage due to all her insecurities and issues and the circumstances of her life, and then even in the organization she’s still caged by them because they’re using her, but her personal journey is breaking free of both cages to release the spirited (playful) person that she is within, becoming more confident and, yes, never getting cosmetic surgery because her personal growth gets her to a place where she owns it and loves herself, scarring and all.

And if you’re wondering why there’s at least a handful of teenagers in this organization, if not more: It’s because they prey on young kids who come from bad homes or have nowhere else to go by offering them a sense of community and belonging, which is something gangs do in real life, and is yet another way the organization is shown to be evil aside from the Board Game Crimes they commit on the daily.

Anyway, stan a YGO manga sequel with wlw protagonists, good night.)

#yugioh #inb4 ''Yuuna sounds like a Mary-Sue'' pls look at every protagonist of every YGO iteration ever #and tell me they're not all equipped with some combo of tragic backstory + unbelievable games talent #being talented with a sad backstory is like a shounen protagonist recipe #not even just within YGO but in general #that doesn't change just bc the protagonist is a girl #so sit down please and thank you #also it didn't come up organically in the summary but yes Yuugi and Jounouchi are married at this point #Anzu's got a successful dance career #everyone's living their dreams and are happy #since we're eliminating DSoD from existence even Kaiba got therapy & his act together & is a good brother to Mokuba #in this universe the miracle did happen

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recentanimenews · 3 years

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The Asterisk War: Gathering Clouds and Resplendent Flames

By Yuu Miyazaki and okiura. Released in Japan by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.

I was going to spend this review of the latest Asterisk War talking about how awesome Saya Sasamiya is, the girl whose main solution to every single problem is “I guess I just need a bigger gun”, but then I looked at my review of the previous volume and realized I’d done that already. But I mean, come on, what do you expect me to talk about? The fights? That said, there is a little bit of non-tournament stuff here. The King Arthur school is back, and one of their members is now mind-controlled and evil, and has a backstory that makes me wonder if the author of Asterisk War read A Certain Scientific Railgun one day and thought “Hmmm”. And we finally get the end of the Sugary Days flashbacks with Akari and Madiath Mesa, which shows off his reasoning for being the big bad of the series, and I guess it’s all right as a motivation, but I dunno, the bad guys in this series just feel really boring. I guess I do need to talk about the fights.

Kirin’s on the cover, but, as with the previous book, isn’t actually the focus. We get instead 1) Ayato vs. Fuyuka, who essentially calls up a spiritual tag team to beat the crap out of Ayato (he still wins – hard to avoid that spoiler given he also fights later in the book); 2) Orphelia vs. Sylvia, which gives us some more of Sylvia’s backstory and thankfully does not kill her off, though it’s a close one; Saya vs. Lenaty, where even the announcers are making fun of Saya (who is, admittedly, wearing what amounts to an elementary schooler’s backpack), and again MORE DAKKA wins the day; and finally Ayato vs. Julis. The last battle you’d think would be called off, as his sister’s “you have a bomb in my body” problem is dealt with here as well, but when Ayato hears what Julis is actually planning to do…

Asterisk War is never going to be winning any “favorite series” competitions – as far as I can tell, its current fanbase is divided between those who hated the Ayato and Julis fight because he was too overpowered and those who hated it because he wasn’t overpowered enough – but it chugs along its fights never wear out their welcome, and, as I said at the start of the book, it has Saya. I was amused at the epilogue, which discusses the finals as if Saya has already lost. Saya, while admitting she thinks the same thing, is rather pissed off about this, but doesn’t want to forfeit even though she’s grievously injured and Orphelia literally tried to murder her last opponent, because she has something she “wants to try out”. Several times she thinks to herself that she’s the weakest of those in the quarterfinals, but now she’s in the semis, and I highly doubt the author will kill her off for drama, so I look forward to seeing what happens.

But that may take a bit. Yes, those dreaded words, we’ve caught up with Japan. The 16th volume is out there at the end of March, but I suspect we won’t see it till the fall at the earliest. Till then, Asterisk War is still coasting on being “okay”, but it has Saya, and that’s good enough for me.

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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