Penalty Game
From Janime
Penalty games are a recurring theme in the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe. A penalty game is the supernatural punishment to the loser of a Game of Darkness, and they can only be inflicted by the owner of a Millennium Item. The punishment may be darkly suitable to the loser, or simply be death. As the series progresses, penalty games become increasingly fatal. Whilst penalty games are important in the manga and Toei Animation's Yu-Gi-Oh!, they are rarely mentioned in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.
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[edit] Dark Yugi's Penalty Games
Dark Yugi is the first character in the series to inflict a penalty game, in Duel 1 (the first chapter of the manga). He uses the penalty games for vigilante justice, after defeating his opponents in Games of Darkness. His penalty games tend to be blackly humorous and appropriate to the crimes of the criminals he punishes. They usually involve manipulation of the minds of the criminals to put them in a nightmarish situation which only they can see. These weaker penalty games seem to wear off after a time, as shown by the recoveries of Seto Kaiba and Mokuba Kaiba.
Dark Yugi continues to inflict penalty games into Duelist Kingdom. His last penalty game is given to the Player Killer of Darkness. Pegasus J. Crawford does not receive a penalty game despite losing a Game of Darkness. Katsuya Jonouchi wonders why this is, but Anzu Mazaki realizes that if Yugi dealt Pegasus a penalty game it would prove right what Pegasus had previously said: that the Millennium Items hide an evil intelligence.
From Battle City onwards, all the Games of Darkness that Yugi plays have fatal penalty games, but these are not mentioned as these games are set up by other Millennium Item-wielders. In the final Game of Darkness Yugi takes part in (in fact the last of the series), the unmentioned penalty game is dealt to Dark Bakura, and the punishment is death.
| Penalty Game Name | Penalty Game Recipient | Penalty Game Description |
|---|---|---|
| Greed (Illusions of Avarice) | Tetsu Ushio | Believes that dirt and garbage is money |
| Mosaic Illusion | Director | Vision blurred by censorship mosaic |
| Beat Festival | Sozoji | Own heartbeat becomes unbearably loud and fast |
| Fire~!! | Escaped Prisoner 777 | Burned alive |
| The Cowardly Resting Easy | Kokurano | Knocked into deep sleep by chloroform |
| Bombed by Ice | Goro Inogashira | Burned by explosive chemicals |
| Face Puzzle | Ms. Chono | Excessive makeup shatters like pieces of a puzzle |
| Poison Revolt | Owner of the Junky Scorpion | Stung by scorpion |
| Experience of Death | Seto Kaiba | Believes self to be turned into a Magic and Wizards card and experiences death in Magic and Wizards world |
| Mine Bait | Hirutani and gang | Electrocuted by stun gun in puddle |
| Maze of Fire | Trio of Delinquents | Burned by spray paint set alight by a discarded cigarette |
| Hell Capsule | Mokuba Kaiba | Believes self to be trapped inside giant Capsule Monster Chess capsule |
| Poison Food | Mokuba Kaiba | Poisoned by poison inside hamburger |
| Mind on Air (Unmasking True Natures) | ZTV Producer | Admits own true greedy desires out loud to a studio audience |
| Face Collapse | Koji Nagumo | Held down by Monster Fight figures and darker soul eaten |
| Xing Zhen Hu | Hajime Imori | Soul sucked into Chinese Dragon Cards soul-eating jar and eaten by 25 dragons |
| Mind Crush (Mind Collapse) | Seto Kaiba | Heart and mind shattered |
| Illusion Puppet | Illusionist of the Dead | Believes self to be trapped in the body of puppet |
| Bottomless Darkness | Player Killer of Darkness | Believes self to be hanged at the gallows and falling into darkness |
[edit] Shadi's Penalty Games
The mysterious Egyptian, Shadi, is the second character seen to inflict a penalty game. Upon travelling to Domino, Shadi heads to Domino Museum to punish those who have defiled the 'territory of the gods'. His first target is the then-owner of the museum who funded an expedition into the Valley of the Kings, Mr. Kanekura. Shadi weighs Mr. Kanekura's sins on the Millennium Scales against the Feather of Ma'at by asking the man several questions on morality. In accordance with the scene of the Final Judgment in chaper 125 of The Book of the Dead, if the sins of the person on trial weigh more than the Feather of Ma'at then they will be fed to the beast Ammit.
The Millennium Scales judge Mr. Kanekura's crimes to weight more than the Feather, and his chair transforms into the drooling Ammit. The penalty game is death, and Mr. Kanekura is trapped in an illusion in which Ammit devours him. He is found dead the next day from what is said to be a shock-induced heart attack, but the coroner says there is evidence to suggest that the death was unnatural.
| Penalty Game Name | Penalty Game Recipient | Penalty Game Description |
|---|---|---|
| "Mind Room" Where Ammit Resides | Mr. Kanekura | Believes self to be eaten alive by Ammit the demon; dies |
[edit] Dark Bakura's Penalty Games
Dark Bakura's penalty games are based off his host Ryo Bakura's love of tabletop role-playing games. He uses the Millennium Ring's power of sealing spirits into inanimate objects to put people's souls into Ryo's lead Monster World figures. Dark Bakura claims to do this in order to grant Ryo's wish that he could play with his friends forever, and thus anyone who plays a tabletop role-playing game with him goes into a permanent coma and their soul-vessel figurine is added to Bakura's collection. He is shown using this penalty game on a P.E. teacher at Domino High School, Mr. Karita. He uses the same power, Mind Doll, to seal the souls of Yugi, Jonouchi, Honda and Anzu into figures during his Monster World Game of Darkness.
When Dark Bakura is defeated at Monster World, all the souls of people who were sealed into figures are released back to their original bodies. In the Battle City tournament, Dark Bakura also kills Ghost Kotsuzaka with a penalty game after he defeats him in a game of Duel Monsters (Magic and Wizards in the original Japanese manga), although the penalty game itself is not mentioned.
| Penalty Game Name | Penalty Game Recipient | Penalty Game Description |
|---|---|---|
| Mind Doll | Mr. Karita | Turned into Monster World figurine |
[edit] Pegasus J. Crawford's Penalty Games
When Pegasus J. Crawford defeats Dark Yugi in a Game of Darkness, the penalty game is placed on Sugoroku Mutou. Pegasus seals Sugoroku Mutou's soul into Yugi's television, but Yugi transfers it to his video camera for portable access. On Duelist Kingdom island, Pegasus seals Mokuba Kaiba's soul into a 'Soul Prison' card. This same penalty game is dealt to Seto Kaiba when he tries to save his brother: Pegasus defeats him in a game of Duel Monsters and seals Seto's soul into a second 'Soul Prison' card.
On the way to his duel with Yugi, Pegasus is attacked by Bandit Keith, who demands the Duelist Kingdom prize money. Pegasus's penalty game upon him warps Keith's mind to believe that his own hand has become a revolver, which he promptly shoots himself with. His soul is shattered. Except for Keith's, all of Pegasus's penalty games are undone when Pegasus loses a Game of Darkness to Yugi. The souls of the Kaiba brothers and Yugi's grandpa are restored to their bodies.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! R, Bandit Keith's soul which was shattered by Pegasus is restored by the 'Rebirth of Avatar' project.
| Penalty Game Name | Penalty Game Recipient | Penalty Game Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hand and Gun | Bandit Keith Howard | Believes self to be shot by a revolver formed by own hand |
| Soul TV | Sugoroku Mutou | Soul trapped inside television |
| Mind Card | Seto Kaiba | Soul trapped inside Magic and Wizards card |
[edit] Dark Marik's Penalty Games
The results of Dark Marik's penalty games are invariably death. The victim of his first penalty game is Mai Kujaku, who loses to him at a Game of Darkness match of Duel Monsters. Marik goes deep into her mind to find the most suitable punishment, before knocking her unconscious. In her own mind, Mai is sealed into an hourglass hovering above a beach. Floating around the hourglass are objects from Mai's past. Slowly, the hourglass fills with 'brain insects'. These insects will eat her soft tissue and in roughly 24 hours her real body will die. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters anime, the insects are replaced by regular sand, but the penalty game of death still remains.
Later the same night, Marik plays another Duel Monsters Game of Darkness, this time with Dark Bakura. As per the rules of the game, whenever a player loses Life Points their bodes will be devoured by jaws hidden in the thick fog conjured up by the Game of Darkness. When Bakura loses, his body is entirely eaten.
The next day, at the top of the Alcatraz Duel Tower Marik plays Duel Monsters against Jonouchi in a Game of Darkness. The rule of the game is that the players can feel the same pain that their Monster Cards can feel, so Marik's torture cards wear down Jonouchi resilience. When Jonouchi gains the upper hand in the duel, Marik says that he has decided that his originally-planned penalty game is not cruel enough, so he'll double its effects. Eventually, Jonouchi is presumed to be killed when both he and his card are burned alive by Marik's God Phoenix.
Jonouchi later emerges from his death-like state, and both Mai and Bakura are saved from death when Yugi defeats and destroys Dark Marik in a Game of Darkness.
| Penalty Game Name | Penalty Game Recipient | Penalty Game Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sanity-Feasting Insects | Mai Kujaku | Believes self to be trapped in an hourglass deep inside own mind; eaten by insects; 24 hours to live |
| Victim to the Darkness | Dark Bakura | Body eaten alive by darkness |
| The Phoenix Flutters! | Katsuya Jonouchi | Burned alive by Winged God Dragon Ra in God Phoenix form |
[edit] Seto Kaiba's Artificial Penalty Games
Seto Kaiba does not posses a Millennium Item, so his penalty games are technological rather than supernatural. After losing to Yugi at Duel Monsters, Seto receives a penalty game where he is forced to experience death. Even after recovering from the penalty game, he is still haunted by chilling nightmares. He incorporates his revenge for this humiliation into the futuristic theme park, Kaibaland, and its hidden attraction: Death-T. Seto's artificial penalty games come from the virtual duel simulation box he has developed. The four walls of the duel box project a three-dimensional image, creating extremely lifelike virtual reality.
After defeating Sugoroku Mutou in a game of Duel Monsters inside the box, Seto activates his 'penalty game', filling the box with steam and screaming virtual reality monsters. This is a recreation of his own 'experience of death'. Seto claims that human experiments show that the average person goes inside after being in the box for 10 minutes. Yugi agrees to face Death-T in order to free his grandpa.
Seto's ruthlessness is again shown when his brother Mokuba loses to Yugi at a game of Capsule Monster Chess inside the simulator. He again activates the artificial penalty game, filling the box with terrifying monster projections. Mokuba is rescued from the box by Yugi.
