#ans yugi being second

[fat-butch-dyke]

The implication that yugi will always be second place to atem in everyone's mind makes me aaaaaaa

[dungeondicedivaarchieve]

A few months ago I typed up some comments about the anime-only scene between Otogi and Honda on the blimp. Found here.

Well... now I'm here to talk about what happened before that scene. Because I read so much more into it.

Let's take a walk.

Please keep in mind that a great deal of this speculation comes from the belief that, despite Mr. Clown not being seen in the anime, he still exists and his relationship to his son is very similar. Also please keep in mind that this is all speculation from someone who has spent waaaayyyy too much time looking into everything Ryuji Otogi says/ does.

~~~

We join our heroes shortly after Yugi's Duel with Bakura. Ryou has fallen unconscious and the stab wound he sustained earlier has re-opened (unless you're watching the dub where blood doesn't exist.)

Otogi's first line comes after Shizuka has asked Kaiba to land the plane, and the camera cuts to her making a pose that demonstrates both uncertainty and discomfort. Kaiba stares at her and Honda and Otogi both get between them... to Honda's annoyance.

More on this in a second.

Kaiba ignores this and turns his attention back to Jonouchi and Yugi, telling them that it was Bakura's choice to Duel and that he will not be held responsible for the repercussions of another's mistake.

This causes Shizuka to shout (probably for the first time in her life.)

Otogi makes this face. Personally, I think it looks like a combination of surprise and concern. But why would he be concerned?

Because Shizuka is a lot younger, a lot smaller, and a lot less powerful (both physically and financially) than Seto Kaiba.

He is fearful of what Kaiba will do in retaliation, ans so.

He gets between Shizuka and Kaiba in hopes of transferring whatever Kaiba's about to do to him instead of her.

Because Ryuji Otogi is an abuse victim that knows what happens when you challenge someone bigger and more powerful than you. They put you back in your place.

Also Honda continues to not like this. Otogi is cutting him off each time he tries to speak, and while this could be seen as Otogi trying to one up Honda (and the dub absolutely took it that way) I can see it taken a number of ways. There's a chance he's trying to team up with Honda and hope that Kaiba won't start anything if it's two against one. It could also be that Otogi's not paying a lot of attention to Honda. He does see Shizuka and start moving in front of her before Honda moves into the frame the second time.

Going on a small tangent here but...

Keep in mind, Otogi stepped into a fight against four other guys and got himself involved in the fight against a cult to protect Honda and Shizuka. Sure, you can say that he did that to have a chance with her, but that's a lot of risk to have a chance with a girl he knows nothing about... especially for a guy who could have any number of girls with minimal effort. He will also shortly after this put up his own body as a gamble to protect Shizuka from a creepy old man that wants to wear her body like a suit. Personally, I don't think Otogi has any romantic feelings towards Shizuka at all, since each time they interact, he isn't so much flirting as he is trying to protect her. He treats Rebecca in a very similar way when he joins the duel between her and Varon under the assumption that Mai is also dueling, and that Rebecca will be outnumbered (and the correct assumption that a 12-year-old is about to pick a fight with a cult member who has the power to steal her soul. I've heard critiques that Otogi is very sexist because he won't let Rebecca nor Shizuka fight their own battles, which, yes, that's one way to take it... or you can take it as him stepping in when people significantly younger than even he is (Shizuka is 13) are put into incredible danger.)

That was lengthier than I meant for it to be, I'm sorry, back to the actual post.

So, despite everyone's best attempts, Kaiba's not landing this plane. Now get out.

Shizuka makes this face as they leave.

She's not having a good time.

Again Honda tries to talk to Shizuka and again Otogi cuts him off. He also grabs her hands and makes a very dramatic show of himself.

He makes this ridiculous face (that the dub skips because right after it, Shizuka blushes, and the dub really wants to portray Duke as the bad option in this love triangle. So we can't let it be known that she's happy he's doing this.)

This. This is not a face you use when you're trying to be suave and impress a girl. Heck, this is not a face we'll ever see him use again. We've seen him be suave and flirtatious, we know what it looks like, and folks, this ain't it.

To me, he knows he's being ridiculous and over-the-top. That's the point. He's trying to make Shizuka smile or at least stop making that face.

Now... this is where things take a turn.

Disclaimer: This might come across like I don't like Honda. I don't dislike Honda at all! It's just the nature of this scene.

Honda volunteers to go look for the Millennium Ring. Yugi agrees that they should all look. Honda says no, Jonouchi and Yugi should focus on their duels.

We cut to Otogi (still holding Shizuka's hands, I think she's okay now buddy you can stop) and he asks if Shizuka wants to help him search (he does not speak for her like he does in the dub.)

Honda insists Otogi come with him and very forcefully shoves/pushes Otogi away from Shizuka (who does, admittedly, look relieved.) When Otogi tries to protest that this isn't what he wants, Honda grabs his face to silence him.

This is not the first time someone has silenced Otogi by forcefully touching his face.

And this is not the expression of someone who is at all comfortable with the person touching him.

Honda then proceeds to drag a flailing Otogi away from the group while covering his mouth.

Otogi is doing everything in his power to communicate that he does not want this without being able to speak or break the guy's hold around his neck and no one is recognizing this as a sign of distress... or they are and they're just not stopping it. Heck, Jonouchi thinks Honda is being nice.

We can also see in this still that Honda's got a few inches on Otogi. Not a lot, Honda is 5'11 and Otogi is 5'8, but that's a considerable difference when you're intimidated.

Honda drags him to the top of the blimp and, while Otogi is looking about the blimp for the ring (what Honda claimed they were going up here to do) Honda stays still. Directly in front of the door. Blocking Otogi from being able to get away. (I can't post any more images in this post I'll have to rely on hyperlinks now.)

Otogi can't get away and he's been pulled away from the group. He is very aware this guy has a problem with him and can very easily overpower him.

So Otogi does what I've dubbed activates smug mode.

I'm going to make another post elaborating on activate smug mode (this one's long enough as it is) but, basically, Otogi only acts this way when he's trying to get the better of someone or when he's feeling threatened. He is also incredibly smug when he approaches his father to tell him that he lost to Yugi, knowing full well how his father will react to that news. It's a defense mechanism. Honda's taller and stronger than Otogi, all Otogi can really do is badmouth him and make him feel smaller in hopes that that will make Honda back off.

He then makes this pose.

I'm no body language specialist, but I worked as a counselor at a battered women's shelter for a while, so I was taught a few things.

1. He turns to his side. When you're intimidated by someone, you don't face them directly. You tilt your body away to give the illusion of distance, and to keep your vitals out of their direct reach.

2. He folds his arms in front of his stomach. Remember, Shizuka crossed her arms in front of her stomach when she was facing down Kaiba. Otogi is masking it a little by pointing and propping his elbow on his hand, but folding the arms over the chest or stomach remains a typical sign of insecurity/fear.

3. He is clutching his arm. This is something people do during severe bouts of anxiety in an attempt to ground themselves.

In conclusion, yes, Otogi sounds very confident and like he's egging Honda on. He sounds confident. Because that's the only thing he really has over Honda. Honda seems insecure about his appearance when compared to Otogi, thus why he gets deeply irritated whenever Otogi gets close to Shizuka. Otogi taps into that and uses it because it's his only defense in this situation. Maybe Honda will get fed up and leave to go lick his wounded pride.

It doesn't work. They throw hands. Well, Honda throws hands. Otogi stays in a very defensive stance the entire time. Fun fact: Keeping your arms raised close to your face and blocking your chest is one of the main stances in the more defensive based martial art of Tae-Kwon-Do.

In conclusion, my name is Axel and I think about this way, way, waaaay too much. I am of the belief that Otogi is very intimidated by Honda. I was going to attach images here of all the times Honda grabs Otogi's shirt/ threatens to punch him in the face but since I can't attach any more images and hyperlinks are a pain, I'll save it for another post. There are at least five instances.

No, I don't hate/dislike Honda, in fact, I'm pretty sure if Honda knew about Otogi's background, he'd feel terrible. The fact is they're both insecure teenage boys, Otogi because of his home life and Honda because of his family's social status and perhaps his lack of success as a duelist.

And... while I've thought about this scene a lot ever since posting that other post, I never realized how sad it makes me. Otogi's not hiding that he's not okay with being manhandled and dragged off, and his friends just sorta. Let it happen. Again, I don't blame any of them. Both Yugi and Jou have a lot on their minds and they don't seem to notice that this is a problem. Probably because 1. Honda and Jou are very physical/ playfully threatening people, that's just how they are. 2. No one knows about Otogi's homelife. They have no way of knowing he would have issue with any of this. They do it to one another all the time.

I have a lot of feelings.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[petiteredlady]

This is not spoiler-free

I finally saw Yuukyuu no Toki today ! I had a seat almost at the very back of the hall but I still had a pretty nice view of the whole stage. And given how small the hall was, I'm happy I got a seat at all^^ Sambart93 already posted a pretty detailed summary of the stage so I won't go into that much detail about the plot. (Especially since I usually watch Messiah DVDs with my dictionary, so it was harder to follow live XD)

I don’t have a scanner but I’ll see if I can find a good scanner app to share the pamphlet pictures. They’re gorgeous.

Yuukyuu was better than I expected, but I didn't expect a lot to be honest. The "new" Messiah series hasn't convinced me so far. I thought Akatsuki and Polar Night had too many plots with little impact on one another, too many characters, and consequently a lack of focus on character development. I found many returning characters OOC, too. And I liked about half of the new characters^^

BUT I thought Yuukyuu actually did better ! There are still too many plots and too many characters, but at least there was some sort of link between them all. Like Ariga and Itsuki's graduation mission is to kill Ichijima, who is pretending to ally with the Hanged Man, who's based around the Tower of Babel, which is the target of a more general Sakura mission. And the two runaways have a way to hack into the Tower of Babel. Cheka also associating with the Hanged Man was... weird, but given how he ended up in Akatsuki I can believe it. The only thing that felt really out of place was Salyut looking for his father among the Spectres. Like, why now and not while he was working with Cheka ? Why does he have a partner if it's not an official mission ? What's the link with everything else ? I'm sure we'll have answers later, but that's also a thing with the new Messiah : they're too aware they're a series and are bad at foreshadowing ans cliffhangers. In the previous series, while stories were evolving, each stage was a complete story. So yeah, not that it important, but it felt very random.

And despite having too many characters, I thought most of them were well developped. Returning characters did not feel OOC this time ! (Especially Ichijima. I had been so disappointed in Akatsuki and Polar Night despite him being like my second favourite character.) Yugi and Mayo-sama got just the right amount of cryptic discussions to be interesting and likeable while I really didn't like them before. Hinamori's introduction was so, so, so random (almost like Ichijima pulled the first guy passing by and decided he'd be Kogure's Messiah XD), but he had a great personality and Yamamoto Ikkei was so good at playing him, I loved him instantly. I think he and Kogure have great potential to work together !! And I also liked Kogure starting as his usual self and slowly losing it throughout the play ! That gave him depth he didn't necessarily have before. Kuroko and Dr Three were good surprises too. I've been gradually warming up to Kuroko but in general I just find him cringy +_+ And here I think there was just the right balance between comic relief and actual character. He was a great leader for Sakura and I was glad to see Ichijima acknowledge that ! (Actually they were pretty friendly with each other in this play, I was surprised.) Dr Three was still mostly the same character, but I liked that he eventually played along with Kuroko's antics ! He did feel like that kind of character before, and I'm glad he's now allowed to be a bit silly too. Finally, I expected to not care about the two runaways, but they were very very cute. They felt like stereotypical shounen protagonists, though, with their promise from long ago of one day leaving the island together XD I'd be ok with not seeing them ever again, but they weren't the annoyance I feared. I think they were also portrayed very well, because I felt a lot of things from them despite them not having too much stage time. (I was delighted to see Murata Mitsu, but I'm 0 % ok with the plot twist of him actually being an old friend of Ariga =_=)(But that's me generally disagreeing with every new Messiah story XD)(That's a trend they have now where everyone is related to everyone and just NO.)(And having Ariga kill him, even with Itsuki, goes against all the character development he’s had since he killed Mamiya ! He said NEVER AGAIN ><)

Actually, in addition to the "everyone is related" terrible idea, they should really leave alone the people who are gone. Like why did Mamoru and Kaito have to have helped several times in significant ways during this stage ? Aren't there MORE THAN ENOUGH CHARACTERS who could do the job ? And just STOP WITH MAMIYA. Mamiya had an amazing story with a great conclusion, I loved it, but they're really destroying everything that was great about it by just adding and adding. Itsuki trying to play the violin was both OOC and extremely cruel. Good thing he got shot before he could really play, despite it meaning that Ariga has now shot ANOTHER violin-playing Messiah T__T

Other random things I wrote down :

- At several points during the stage I laughed because I wanted to do the Messiah drinking game where you finish your drink when someone should have died from gun shots XD There were SO MANY people who were shot at close range in pretty vital areas and still survived. Sometimes still stood and talked. Special mention to the Hanged Man, who was double shotted by Itsuki and Ariga and still got up to talk then shoot himself XD Honorable mentions : Itsuki, Ariga, Kogure and Mayo-sama ! (And maybe Ichijima. My goodness, my heart stopped when I thought he was shot dead +_+)

- Ichijima and Kogure went full CLAMP on us, with the only important part of their discussion being whispered in Kogure's ear >o< But omg I was so impressed, because from the beginning there were people speculating on the internet that Ichijima and Kogure were related and I was just rolling my eyes like "Come on, just because he has glasses..." AND YET ! That's what Kogure wanted to ask Ichijima O_O And it was obvious enough that Ichijima guessed it O_O

- Hinamori stole the show for me XD Instantly. And yet his first appearance has him getting into a face-grabbing match with Kuroko XD (He called him Momose-chan and that was the cutest thing ever, too.) I'm forever sad I didn't get exactly WHY he resented Ichijima, though T__T Well, the DVD and my dictionary will be there in due time XD

- Yugi and Mayo-sama managed to break my heart in one conversation. With Yugi saying god doesn't exist and he wants to kill the 'divine child' who lead the cult he was part of. I didn't think he'd open up that much. And Mayo looked so so depressed, but also relieved, because he wants to be killed by Yugi >o< I don't know why him specifically, but apparently Mayo is tired of the fact that he can't die, an interesting twist for a guy with the same curse as Eiri. (Though in Mayo's case it might be litteral XD)

- At the end of the play I almost thought Ariga was really going to kill Ichijima, but then he beautifully mirrored the scene at the beginning when Ichijima spared and recruited him <3<3 Amazing. Thank you Ariga.

- During the play I kept thinking "well Murata Mitsu isn't that tall actually, Nakahara Yuuya and Izawa Yuuki come really close". Then when they were all lined up to bow, I realised that no, he is really really tall, more than anyone else XD

- Itsuki and Ariga's post-graduation outfits were super cool. I loved Ariga's flowing coat and Itsuki had a nice wild style. That made the girls next to me feel better, because during the second half of the play they were all crying XD (I wasn't. But I was gasping a lot^^)

- ... Yamaoki Yuuki is a father ???? I didn't know that. He was the one who had a special speech for the curtain call, and he told us about his son and I was like "YOU'RE THE SAME AGE AS MY LITTLE BROTHER YOU CAN'T HAVE A BABY". Hashimoto Shinichi and Yamamoto Ikkei made fun of him and at some point he lost his train of thoughts XD Then the same thing happened when Izawa Yuuki was speaking and Sugie Taishi was being silly behind his back XD

.... There were other things but this has gotten long enough already^^

[sapiomorph]

I was tagged by @superfuzzyglaceon (thank you!) and thus here we go!

Rules: tag 20 (or less) people you want to get to know better!

Nickname: Doodle, Doods, Leesie, and E, depending on how well you know me. ^^’

Star sign: Libra

Height: 5.....just 5....I can jump like an Olympian tho....

Time right now: 1:25...26....37....46

Last thing you googled: Yugi Muto gif

Fave music artist: ........oof. Um....Second Hand Cinema, Daft Punk, Muse....adsadsghjdf....

Song stuck in your head: Currently, a song from Scott Cawthon’s game, The Desolate Hope, for an area called Beta Grid 0.9, aka: “We Still Have a Chance” by Djridu (the guitar bit really sucks you in. Mmmmmm!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lioh3mC3e9Q

Last movie I watched: Your Name (GO FEFFING WATCH THIS THING!!)

Last TV show I watched: Steven Universe

What I’m wearing right now: Mah Pajammies

When i created this blog: April 2013.....holy sut....

The kind of stuff I post: My art and doodles, memes and funny things, fandom posts(ANS, Yugioh, Undertale, Pokemon etc...) PUNS

Do I do asks regularly: It’s very easy for me to get distracted/delayed with tagged posts and asks(I’m trying to be very good today and catch up), but it makes me super happy to have asks/tagged posts at all because HOLY SUT SOMEBODY THINKS IT’S WORTH IT TO SEND ME THE THING!2!!!1! (the amount of validation it gives me is ridiculous I swear)

Why did I choose my URL: Running awayTraveling from Deviantart.com, I wanted my tumblr space to be different; different content and by extension, a different me. So, I chose NonstopDoodle because 90% of the time, it’s an apt description of me.

Gender: Female

Hogwarts House: ......eh......either a terrible Hufflepuff, or an idiotic Ravenclaw. Probably the latter.

Pokemon Team: Instinct bois!

Favorite color: Blue and black!

Favorite Characters: Obi from Akagami no Shirayuki-hime(ANS), Gladion from Pokemon Sun&Moon, Kaiba and Yugi from Yugioh, Opal and Garnet from Steven Universe, Knock Out and Starscream from Transformers Prime, Shadow the Hedgehog....I could go on....

Dream Job: An animator/concept artist for either games or shows/movie

Number of blankets: like....just mine, or including my husband’s too? Um....about 12 or so.

Followers: 535. I have no clue why, and I want to apologize to every single one of them for being so gosh darn inconsistent. -_-;;;;;;

Thanks again for the tag! I have fun filling these out, but if it’s ok with everyone, Imma tag peeps a bit later. ^^’