Episode 15: Rend the Darkness! Sealing Swords of Light

[Note: For US broadcast, Episodes 14 and 15 were edited together and shown as one episode. This recap is based on the complete episode included on the US DVD release.]

Now Yugi's the one taunting Panik, renewing his promise to beat him in five turns, and Panik's the one getting nervous. (In the Japanese, Player Killer keeps calling Yugi "Kozou," which means "boy" or "kid.") You've got four turns left, Yugi tells him. And in the Japanese, the turns are counted off by a rush of digits, displaying the number of turns left in big, bright numbers. We don't get the numbers in the US, only Yugi counting the turns off on his fingers.

Panik summons a powerful monster, King of Yamimakai, and send it to attack Yugi's Curse of Dragon. But his attack destroys his own Reaper of the Cards instead, drawn by the Spellbinding Circle.

Yugi plays Swords of Revealing Light, dispelling the darkness hiding Panik's monsters. The Swords also prevent Panik's monsters from attacking for three turns. Panik's getting a little worried now, despite the fact that he has three strong monsters on the field while Yugi's only got Curse of Dragon. His opponents are usually quivering in fear by now, but Yugi's still confident.

Panik plays a magic card, Chaos Shield, combining it with his Castle of Dark Illusions to project a defensive shield over all his monsters, raising their defense points. Mai thinks Yugi doesn't stand a chance, but Bakura tells her she doesn't understand Yugi. But even Joey isn't sure what Panik's chances are. (In the Japanese, Mai isn't nearly so convinced that Yugi is going to lose. In fact, she's pretty impressed by how well he's playing. She comes across a lot whinier in the US.)

Yugi, though, isn't worried. He says he's got Panik all figured out—he's just a bully, trying to intimidate his opponents while hiding and cowering in the shadows. Panik throws more jets of fire at Yugi, trying to frighten him, but Yugi casually shifts out of their way and continues to taunt Panik. Téa tells Yugi to cool it—he's just stirring Panik up, but Mai reassures Téa that Yugi knows what he's doing—she sees that Yugi's using Panik's own tactics right back at him. It's a psyche-out war.

Yugi summons Gaia the Fierce Knight and fuses it with Curse of Dragon to form Gaia the Dragon Champion with an attack of 2600, then ends his turn. Panik can't figure out what Yugi's up to—the Castle of Dark Illusions is still much stronger, with a defense of 3200. I can't risk attacking, he says, which of course he can't do anyway, with Swords of Revealing Light still on the field. He plays Metal Guardian in defense mode, with a defense strength of 2795 points.

Yugi tells Panik that was his last turn, and plays the Catapult Turtle, using it to raise Gaia the Dragon Champion's attack power to 3200, then attacks the Castle of Dark Illusions. Yugi's Dragon Champion is destroyed, and his Life Points go down to 300. The Castle's flotation ring cracks and falls, but the castle appears unharmed. Panik laughs triumphantly. Swords of Revealing Light's magic will end after this turn, and he'll attack with all four of his monsters. (That second monster from the right is given a purple background in the US, which is the color of a fusion monster. In the Japanese, it has an ordinary yellow background, and it is being played as a normal monster.)

But Yugi says the battle is over. The Castle of Dark Illusion's flotation ring was destroyed in the attack, and the Castle is only being held up by the Swords of Revealing Light, and once his turn is over, the Swords will disappear and the Castle will fall, crushing Panik's monsters. And so it does. Panik is defeated.

(Okay, here's what really happened. Catapult Turtle is a an effect monster which allows the player to offer one of his monsters as tribute in order to inflict Direct Damage on the opponent equal to half the tribute monster's attack power. Gaia the Dragon Champion had an attack of 2300, so the attack did 1150 points of damage to Panik, wiping out his remaining Life Points. Yugi shouldn't have lost any Life Points at all. And all that nonsense about the flotation ring being destroyed and the Castle crushing Panik's monsters was, well, nonsense. Although they weren't using the concept of Direct Damage at this point in the show, so I'm not sure what Catapult Turtle was doing. If it had raised Gaia the Dragon Champion's attack to 3200, and Gaia attacked the Castle, which had a defense strength of 3200, the attack should have ended in a stalemate—no monsters destroyed, no life points lost. You can't really destroy part of a monster, which is what happened when the Castle's "flotation ring" fell off.)

A sore loser, Panik activates his jets of flame, turning them up to their highest level, engulfing the whole dueling platform in fire. It looks like Yugi's toast! But his Millennium Puzzle protects him from he flames, and he uses his Mind Crush on Panik, sending him to oblivion. ("I'll show you the real power of darkness," he tells Player Killer in the Japanese.)

Yugi offers Mai her eight Star Chips back, but she refuses, telling him she fights her own battles. Joey grabs them, saying if Mai doesn't want them, he'll take them. Mai's not about to let that darned Joey have her Star Chips! She tries to grab them away from him—and he gladly lets her have them.

As the gang walks away, Mai tells Yugi she'll pay him back. And when they meet in a duel, it will be an honorable one.