#yugi

Omori styled headshots of some puzzle bois! I had just completed (one route) of the game and I always really liked the emotions mechanic and graphics. Also saw other people like to make them, so sure! Why not? And honestly, anything to get me motivated to do art again (ADHD + art slump).

Yugi being happiness, Yami being anger, and my demon au Yugi (sloth) being sadness.

And yes, I refused to use a ruler to make the boxes, because I just didn't want to.

Below the cut are the individual shots

Picture this:

Dark Yugi and his monsters are in a tight spot. One last hit and he's done for. Grasping at the edge of victory, the enemy commands their monster to launch its final attack!…only to realize that their monster isn't actually attacking?!

As the magic circle with its blood-red runes materializes around the paralyzed monster, Dark Yugi reveals his ace-in-the-hole…

Beware the "Binding Hexagram Curse"!

This is an absolute classic of a card, originating in chapter 75, "The Cards Bare Their Teeth"- the same story that the iconic Magic Card "Magical Silk Hats" debuted in!

Now, you'll notice that I show two different variants of this card here. The primary one, featuring a hexagram in the center of the magic circle, is how this card appears in the original Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump run of Yu-Gi-Oh! and the tankobons released alongside it, as well as all English language versions of the original series. My version is, sadly, a recreation of what this original illustration might have looked like in modern color.

The version you see on the right in the second image, "Binding Circle Curse", is the normal way this card appears in the 2016 color bunkbon release of Yu-Gi-Oh!. It stands on its own, but also became the basis for my classic-style recreation as well.

I'm sure there are people out there who may be surprised to see this original version of the card. The hexagram is a symbol with a very, VERY long history behind it, and some of the associations it gained during that time are stronger than others.

I understand if some readers may have a few reservations about seeing a historical symbol on a card like this. As such, I'll briefly go over my understanding of this symbol and why author Kazuki Takahashi may have used it, under the cut.

For now, please allow me to speak on my card creation process.

Let's start with the name. I admit, I handled it in a slightly unusual manner. I understand that a typical reading of this card's Japanese name, 「六芒星の呪縛」, would yield a phrase like "Curse of the Hexagram" or "Cursed Hexagram".

However, to my knowledge the use of 呪 and 縛 together denotes a specific kind of spell or curse that stops something from moving. This is a very notable aspect of the card- it's always shown to stop an enemy monster from attacking when it's used. So I felt that the fact that this is specifically a 'binding curse' needed to be represented in the title of the card.

In fact, this is likely why Konami international decided to call their version of the card "Spellbinding Circle". It's a pretty decent attempt at getting that aspect across, I think!

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work. As a word, 'spellbinding' means something like 'to be fascinated by', or 'to have your attention fully captured by something'. It doesn't mean that you're literally paralyzed by a spell. I appreciate their attempt to be evocative here, but sadly: no dice.

I also decided to change the order of the name for clarity purposes. Again, a common arrangement of 「六芒星の呪縛」 could be something like "Binding Curse of the Hexagram", a title that's far too long to fit comfortably onto the top of a card.

So I thought to myself: what's the real subject of the card here? Is it the hexagram depicted on the card, or the curse the card bestows upon an enemy monster? I decided that, while the hexagram is a vital visual element of the card, the curse itself is what matters most. In the manga, when a monster is affected by this card, the visual of the magic circle surrounds it, but the binding effect is tied to the curse itself. Thus, I decided that 'binding' and 'hexagram' are both properties that the 'curse' the card is named after has.

So that's why I rendered this card's name as "Binding Hexagram Curse" or "Binding Circle Curse".

This card was one of the few cards to have a known colorscheme from the original serialization of Yu-Gi-Oh! in Weekly Shonen Jump. In fact, it's the only Trap Card with this honor!

That's right: no other Trap Card was ever seen in color back when the manga was first coming out!

Panel excerpt from the color title page for chapter 95, "Terror of the Dungeon".

The previous image is partially cut off by a logo, but there's a bit of art underneath that. The above image is from a lower-quality source, but here the covered parts are clear.

It's surprisingly colorful for such a simply-designed card, isn't it? My favorite part of the color version is the fact that Takahashi slipped a little easter egg in the glyphs here; there's an 'M' and a 'W' at the top of this art, referring to the manga's Magic & Wizards card game name!

Stay with me: under the cut, we'll go over my changes to the card's text, and I'll briefly talk about the hexagram as a symbol as well.

Here's a neat little bonus for you all today!

These are the cards that were given to Yugi via an unmarked envelope in chapter 63, "I Won't Lose!!". They're commonly known as the Invitation Cards, and they show up at the very start of the Duelist Kingdom arc.

Interestingly enough, Konami printed versions of 3 of these cards. Their versions were originally given away as invitation cards for Konami's first-ever card game tournament, held at the Tokyo Dome way back in August 1999.

In both the manga and the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, 5 cards were given to Yugi Mutou a short time after he received his duelist's glove, star chips, and Pegasus's Shadow Game-altered 8mm videotape in a separate package.

In the manga, these cards simply exist to state how to get to the Duelist Kingdom tournament, where the tournament is held, state a basic foundational rule, and hint at two of the possible rewards for whoever might win at the very end.

Technically, the two prize cards (on the far right) should be called "Glory of the King's Right Hand" and "Glory of the King's Left Hand", but I couldn't find a satisfactory way to fit the whole name on the top of these cards.

Fun fact! The "Glory of the King's Left" card actually has an alternate colorscheme that pops up in some chapters:

Sometimes the gradient is yellow! An amusingly minor difference, if you ask me.

These 5 cards are hardly essential parts of Yugi's card collection, but I figured I might as well add them to my project just for completion's sake.

Well, my high-quality sources finally arrived a few days ago! Now that I've scanned and fixed up all the relevant parts of these amazing books and magazines, I've updated various posts on my blog with much better images!

Here's a list of every post that's been updated, with a brief description of what's been changed:

-"Blue-Eyes White Dragon": At the time this post was made, I was forced to use a low-quality placeholder for one of the images showing how this card was depicted in chapter 104. I've now replaced that low-quality image with one that is much better.

-"Saint Dragon- The God of Osiris": In the post-cut section talking about this card's very first colorscheme in chapter 170, "Nearer to God!!", I've added a large image showing this card's very first colorscheme! To complement it, I wrote a paragraph filled with relevant details underneath the new image (and updated the paragraph regarding the digitally-colored version of that same image, to boot).

-"Multiply": The original release of chapter 104, "True Crisis!!", contains quite a few original or unique colorschemes for various cards and monsters. Of them all, the reader gets the clearest view of this card! It's a pretty nice palette, if you ask me.

-"Fusion": This card also appeared in chapter 104, and it has a unique colorscheme there, albeit one somewhat reminiscent of its first color appearance in chapter 95.

-"Giant Stone Solider": Turns out that we get to see this monster's original colors in the chapter 104 color page as well! It's not the card illustration itself, but hey: I'll take whatever small victories I can get here.

Additionally, I updated two older posts a little while ago as well. Take a quick peep at these, if you haven't already.

-"Kuriboh": Added an additional image of this monster's coloring as it appeared in an April 2000 image, likely as a page illustration in the "Valuable Book" card catalogue series.

-"Dark Knight Gaia": In this post, I talk about how this card was a Magical Knight-type (and not a Warrior-type) in the original Japanese manga. I've now added images comparing a key panel from Viz's English translation of chapter 37 with the 2016 color Bunkobon version of that same panel, to make this change absolutely clear.

I'm still working hard on those last few card posts. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy all of the new images in the posts mentioned above!

Reposting the notice from the bottom of my previous post, for those who may not have seen it yet:

Small general update. We're closer to the end of my "Yugi's Manga Decks Project" card coverage than ever before.

There are three unique cards from Yugi's decks left for me to show at this point. All three will require lengthy posts with a very sizable amount of information covering them! I give my all to be thorough in my coverage, as you know.

As such, I will take a (hopefully) brief hiatus from posting new cards while I ensure that the posts centered on those cards are the best I can make them.

That doesn't mean you'll be empty-handed, though. Look forward to a few fun side diversions while I get the endgame to this blog set up!

Now our protagonists are starting to pull out all the stops! Each of them has a special trick for their magician to try out, all in an attempt to gain an edge in this extremely close game.

Both of these cards are used in quick succession and have complimentary effects, so they're closely related in the story. Both also have theming that's less based on the stage magic motif of previous "Magician"-compatible cards and more tied to the general lore surrounding magic-users across history.

The Rite of the Duel is coming down to the wire. Yugi has no monsters to defend himself with, and Dark Yugi commands his faithful "Black Magician" to launch a decisive attack. But all is not lost- the "Magician's Circle" will be more than enough to protect our protagonist!

Like other cards that mention the word "Magician", I've updated this card so that it follows the same quotation-mark style as all other cards that mention that word.

The concept behind this card's illustration is pretty clearly based on the magic circle, a key concept of the practice of magic that dates back to some of the earliest-known human cultures and civilizations. Magic circles in Takahashi's card art seem to be included purely for aesthetic purposes, as the in-universe magic is cast without them as far as we know. Between "Black Magician, his associate "Black Magician Girl", and other cards related to them, magic circles appear frequently, though in the original run of the manga no two magic circles have the same design (though some of them share specific elements, often a central hexagram; I'll get into that more in a future post).

This card's effect is a means of bringing a "Magician" into play, after an opponent declares an attack using their own "Magician". Interestingly, going by the rules established in the previous arc, this means that the newly-summoned "Magician" will become the target of the opposing "Magician"'s attack. Yugi uses this card to Special Summon his "Silent Magician", which would be a concerning move given that it inherently only has 1000 ATK!

Naturally, though, Yugi accounts for this with a combo of his own, building off of Dark Yugi's own "Magician" card (which you'll see under the cut) by responding with "Treasures from Heaven"- a pretty big swing that puts him in the lead!

This is a pretty vital card that tells us more about how the rules of the fictional Magic & Wizards game work. Here, we see that cards that claim to be compatible with "Magician"s don't just work with "Black Magician" and "Black Magician Girl", as we've seen before, but also Yugi's "Silent Magician". So it's logical to think that, if Yugi really wanted, he could probably also use cards like "Magic Box of Death", "Diffusing Surge", "Dimension Magic", and more with that particular member of the Silent duo. Seems the "Magician" support in this version of the game is pretty comprehensive!

(Of course, the vagueness of that text also means that someone could try to use those cards with the Magic Card "Time Magician", since in English it also has the word "Magician" in its name. That's most certainly not how those cards are intended to work together, but the idea of someone- say, Jonouchi- trying to use a card like "Diffusing Surge" with his "Time Magician" is fairly comedic, I think.)

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at Dark Yugi's answer to "Magician's Circle".