Predictions and Observations:
The Heart of the Cards - The Legendary Great Moth (2)

The Heart of the Cards | The Gauntlet is Thrown |
Journey to the Duelist Kingdom | Into the Hornet's Nest (1) |
The Legendary Great Moth (2)

The Heart of the Cards - 11/4/06
"You play only for power, Kaiba, and that is why you lost. But if you put your heart in the game, there is nothing you can’t do!”
I'd also like to say a word or two about The Heart of the Cards (the episode). It's been so long; I feel like we've somehow been grounded again, reminded of how it all began. After having discovered the show long after it began and having only seen this episode a couple times, its events are such established fact that to see it itself is like witnessing the actuality of a myth.
Also, I found it very interesting how different the voices are than how we know them today. The largest difference is in Yugi and Atem's voices, and it's a very interesting one, too. In this episode, they were very similar, but as the series went on, it seems, Yugi's got higher-pitched and Atem's voice became lower-pitched. It really does help to differentiate, though the really interesting part is that in the Final Duel, the point was that they had both learned enough from one another as to be equal. Yet as they became more equal to each other, as they learned, their voices became less and less alike. Ironic, isn't it?
In addition to that, I very much noticed the music in this episode. For one, if you listen to the Music to Duel By CD (and it's good), Tea's friendship speech right there is *very* familiar, and I should've known they'd have taken the actual dialogue. Moreover, the song "Exodia" was used to great effect toward the end of the duel (naturally), and I really noticed it. Also, Kaiba's line right at the start of the duel should sound quite familiar to "Duel Madness" fans. The first common series music I heard was the kind of quick-paced percussion used when someone's in a rush (the main example I think of is Friends `til the End III when Mai makes that wacky U-turn and zooms off toward the dock (Tristan and Duke in the back seat nearly losing their lunch), though that's just because I'm frighteningly familiar with that particular duel), though before that I heard a lot of music that I was quite unfamiliar with; there was this other sort of percussion that seemed to be almost Kaiba's theme. Since Kaiba wasn't exactly as we know him today, I'm curious as to whether that unusual theme will re-surface in, oh, say, Give Up the Ghost. A lot of promises made in this episode ended up coming to pass sooner or later; Joey and Kaiba dueled, just as they threatened; when Grandpa begged Yugi to teach Kaiba respect, to show him what Duel Monsters is all about, the thought that entered my mind was, if only they knew how much Yugi would end up fulfilling this wish! Kaiba's a different person today, and it all started here.
The initial main characters, no more no less, were introduced: Yugi, Atem, Joey, Tristan, Tea, Kaiba, Grandpa, and Mokuba. However, Bakura's foreshadowed; we see the back of his head a few times when Yugi and Joey duel at school. I also noticed the interesting connection that the show starts and ends with an exchange between Yugi and Joey: Yugi's first ever line is to Joey, and the last words of the show are, (Joey)"At least give one a' your little wrap-up speeches, Yuge." (Yugi)"Well, sometimes the end of one adventure is just the beginning of another!" (Joey) "Ah, much better!"
Note: Posted jointly with GX’s Mirror, Mirror II and Capsule Monsters’ The Fiendish Five I

The Gauntlet is Thrown - 11/11/06
"This dark dimension we’re in is known as the Shadow Realm, a mystical place where incredible monsters can be summoned, and the impossible is quite possible."
Lastly, I'd like to once again digress to The Gauntlet is Thrown (this could become a permanent part of the post, as a heads-up). Firstly, I realized something was a bit off. In Freeze Play I, when Crump reads off Tea's statistics (five foot five, size six sneaker…I love this scene, simply because I can calculate other facts from these), he says that she's dueled five times in her life. I had forgotten entirely that Joey and Yugi mentioned how many times Tea slammed Joey in a row. Joey said three, Yugi said five. No offense, Joey, but I'm more inclined to go with Yugi on this one, considering you were in the thick of it and Yugi was just watching, and paying very close attention too. Anyway, that means that Crump's numbers are wrong, because Tea also dueled in Duelist Kingdom, against Mai (Shining Friendship), making a total of six times minimum! Hence, either Crump got faulty information, the writers goofed, or Yugi can't count. It is, in theory, possible; dueling takes very little of such knowledge—Jaden, according to Chazz, can't tell time (A New Breed of Hero I). However, Yugi seems to be a bit more the studious type. I also was quite amused by the preview for Journey to the Duelist Kingdom, and being perverse this way, tried to prove them wrong that there was no duelist scummier than Weevil. So far, in terms of downright foul play and lack of honor, I've come up with Bandit Keith.
Shroud would also rank up there… if he was canonly a duelist, which he isn't. These three, along with Weevil, get the scummy award simply because they actually cheat outright, even when they have nothing too important to lose (I can think of some characters who we like who have cheated because they were *seriously* desperate, such as Chazz in Formula for Success and Kaiba in Face Off III. Chazz didn't really know any better (back then he might just have been a candidate for this dreaded award), and given any choice at all Kaiba would have never even thought of resorting to cheating—it's beneath him, because to cheat would be to give up on your own ability to win, and his pride would never have permitted admitting defeat that way.).
Note: Posted jointly with GX’s What a Doll! and CM’s The Fiendish Five II

Journey to the Duelist Kingdom - 11/18/06
"-How d'you know I'm not official?
- Because the official duelists aren't trying to sneak onboard through the lower hatches!"
Not much to say here, even though it's a personal favorite among the early episodes because the show takes on more dimensions with the introduction of several new characters and their dreams, plans, and opinions, and it's the first time we've seen the show become about more than one fight; we know about Yugi, but now Joey also has a mission, which makes it even more interesting. However, in my continuing quest for chronology, I realize that I had the canon time before Duelist Kingdom as a few days, but now it seems more like about a month between Yugi's defeat of Kaiba and Duelist Kingdom's kickoff, because it was mentioned in The Gauntlet is Thrown that Joey trained with Mr. Moto for a matter of weeks, and now it says that Yugi was notified about Duelist Kingdom two days before the boat sailed.
This also marks the first time it shows what happened previously, and doesn't start with that classic prologue. I don't think it ever starts with that again. Ah, nostalgia…
I couldn't stop laughing at Mai's assessment of Joey: "Look, you're either a champ or a chump- cut this guy loose. He's fashion-challenged and deserves to be crushed in the games!" I found it very interesting that Mai insulted Joey's fashion sense, when there was a point made of Zigfried of all people doing the same ("True, because if I was (you), I'd be a worthless street punk with no talent, not to mention an *apalling* taste in outerwear. / That's it! No one insults my *fashion sense* and gets away with it!" – Down in Flames I). I don't think Joey's fashion sense is all that shabby, though I'm not considered to have a great deal of it myself.

Into the Hornet's Nest 11/25/06
"Welcome...said the spider to the fly!"
And here I thought that once we got a previously, there wouldn't be a prologue! There was in this one; apparently the previously was taken care of via flashbacks.
Joey caught a cold, but Yugi seems just fine; logic states that Yugi, being smaller, would have been more susceptible to getting a bad chill, but since when is this logical? It's a plot device, I suppose; deal with it.
I wonder why Bakura hid? Is there some reason, perhaps, that his alter-ego didn't want Yugi to see that he was there? Or perhaps said alter-ego just likes to mess with poor Tea's head; wouldn't put it past the creator of the shadow realm to enjoy driving people crazy if
he gets the chance.
Okay, so Mako took third in the gigantic 200-person tournament we keep hearing about; I hadn't recalled that, if I ever knew it to begin with.
One of the guys in the crowd sounds exactly like Leon, but this was back before he started dueling in tournaments.
Quite a bit of Millennium Battle was played in this episode, especially when the arena came out of the ground. I also noticed that the arena said I-sub-2 (no way the posting text will suffer a subscript); either they were painted because they belong to Industrial Illusions, or the takeover of KaibaCorp is going well, and the arenas KaibaCorp makes/made now say Industrial Illusions, instead. Either way, you can bet that those arenas were originally made by KaibaCorp, because they're a recent invention, and it's canonly known that Kaiba invented them first (though Zigfried was a breath behind). Therefore, it's rather interesting that they had the Industrial Illusions logo on the side.
"That's Weevil Underwood! But who's the other guy?" It's such a rare occurrence that anyone doesn't recognize Yugi these days! I laughed out loud to remember that back then it really wasn't! Savor this anonymity; it'll barely last a day!
Note: Posted jointly with Capsule Monsters' The True King II

The Legendary Great Moth - 12/2/06
“You play dishonestly, so you expect the same of your opponents; but I duel with honor, Weevil, and that makes all the difference!”
I don't know if I'd ever watched this episode before; it's all pretty hazy. I know that when first I saw this, when Duelist Kingdom reran back in Fall 2004, they showed the montage version. While I have a thing for montages, I really enjoyed seeing this. I'm not sure if Mai even appeared in the abbreviated version, and if so, it slipped my mind. In any case, this was better in that it lent a bit more depth to the story; we get a real chance for the group to get to know Mai as a foe or at least as very annoying before Joey takes her on in the next episode. Before, my logic was sorta thus: Yugi and Joey met her on the boat, and I think Tea and Tristan might have eavesdropped on that (it was on the boat deck, and I don't feel like going back and looking), which was originally how I thought they all knew and disliked Mai by the time First Duel rolled around; Joey just noticed she was pretty, Yugi was somewhat uncomfortable because she was *so* interested in his beating Kaiba and because, back then, people getting in Yugi's face made him nervous. If Tea and Tristan had seen/overheard that, Tristan would have seen Mai as something of a jerk, and Tea, of course, would have been angry at her for getting in Yugi's face. Hence, there you go. But this is better, whether it was there in the abbreviated or not. We begin to see, through Tea's extreme dislike of Mai, how much Tea cares about Yugi; a bit of foreshadowing for Shining Friendship and later (in which we also see how much Tea cares about Yugi), when Tea finally duels Mai and it's once again she, the amateur that cares but can't do much (everything Tea said to Mai in this episode just about bounced off), against Mai, the pro. This also shows Mai that Yugi is a person to contend with, and proves her expressly wrong in saying that having friends' support doesn't help. She thought he didn't have a chance, just when he started laughing and informed Weevil that cheats don't win. Mai's respect for Yugi also plays a major role in later parts of Duelist Kingdom; her respect and even admiration for Yugi and, yes, Joey, are what show her that you *can* have friends and duel, and that dueling with honor means something. It means that it doesn't really matter if you duel a friend or a foe, because it's *not* just about kickin' the other guy's butt. She saw in herself what a difference it makes; they dueled against her with honor and extended a hand of friendship, and she realized, as she cared about them more, that doing those things makes everything a lot better. On a last note for The Legendary Great Moth, Yugi smiled so much in this episode; in many later duels, he has the poker face not to break down, but the stakes are far too serious to smile, even though he may at times be having fun. I think I've mentioned that before; you can be having fun, but be concentrating too hard to show it. It's not like Yugi wasn't having fun in later duels, especially because that's part of the Heart and a first rule of dueling Moto-style (by which I mean Yugi *or* Mr. Moto, who taught him that). That part toward the end of the duel- "He's not smiling; I think he's laughing!"- I laughed out loud, because not only was Yugi having lots of fun here, but Yugi laughing is a very sure sign, especially when I'm used to later episodes, that Weevil is utterly toast.
Note: Posted jointly with predictions on GX's Magnetic Personality