Yu-Gi-Oh! - Episode 224

The Final Duel - Part 4 is the 224th and final episode of the Yu-Gi-Oh! second series anime.

Major Events

 * Using a "Card of Sanctity" and "Silent Magician LV0" combination, Yugi makes both players draw 5 cards and boosts his Magician's power to 3500 ATK. This enables him to defeat Atem's "Dark Magician" and "Dark Magician Girl".
 * Thanks to Yugi's "Gold Sarcophagus", Atem's final move (resurrecting "Slifer the Sky Dragon" with "Monster Reborn") is thwarted. Yugi attacks Atem directly with "Silent Magician LV5" to win the Duel. Atem/the Pharaoh's spirit is finally free!
 * Despite being sad the Pharaoh has to leave them forever, Yugi Muto and his friends wish him the best of luck in the Spirit World. Then, the Millennium Items fall down a chasm and are sealed forever.
 * Yugi knows that he and Atem will never truly be apart, and thus is able to cope with his closest friend and partner leaving. And as they say, "The end of one adventure is the beginning of another"...

Summary
(NOTE: for steps in the Yami Yugi and Yugi Muto Duel please see the Featured Duel section below)

Yugi's Final Attack

 * During the Duel, Yugi's "Gold Sarcophagus" negates the return of Yami's "Slifer the Sky Dragon": the card Yugi had placed face-down inside the Sarcophagus was exactly the card Atem just activated to resurrect Slifer: "Monster Reborn"!!
 * Mokuba Kaiba: "No way! He just defeated Slifer for the second time!"
 * Joey Wheeler: "Of all the cards to put in that box, how did Yugi know which one to pick?"
 * Tristan Taylor: "What do you expect? He's the 'King of Games' dude!"
 * Téa Gardner: "He must have had this plan from the beginning! I guess after spending so much time with the Pharaoh, Yugi knew exactly what he would play"
 * Yami Yugi: (thinking) "This was the greatest Duel of my life, it's been an honor Yugi." (to Yugi) "Go on, your move."
 * Duke Devlin: "I don't get it, what's Yugi waiting for? All he has to do is attack and the Duel's over"
 * Ryo Bakura: "That's just it. Once the match comes to an end the Pharaoh will be released. And we'll never see him again!"
 * Yami Yugi: (thinking) "It's all right Yugi... proceed."


 * Duel resumes.

Farewell Pharaoh Atem

 * In his final move of the Duel, Yugi uses "Silent Magician" to attack Atem directly and wins. Yugi falls to his knees in tears.

.
 * Yami Yugi: "Congratulations! Well done. (...) Yugi, a champion doesn't belong on his knees. You achieved a great victory for us both."
 * Yugi Muto: "I was focusing so hard on playing the game that I forgot what winning this Duel would actually mean. By defeating you I've sent you away... for good."
 * Yami Yugi: "No, you have opened the door for me! Thanks to you my spirit can finally be at rest once again: I'll be back where I belong. Fate brought the two of us together for a reason, and we fulfilled our destiny. We've protected mankind from the return of the Shadow Games and we've both grown tremendously along the way."
 * Yugi Muto: "I'm gonna miss you!"
 * Yami Yugi: "You do realize we'll never truly be apart right?"
 * Yugi Muto: "Huh?!"
 * Yami Yugi: "The gift of kindness you've given me and the courage I've given you will remain with us, and that will forever bind us together."

The Eye of Wdjat starts shining.
 * Tristan Taylor: "Hey look!"
 * Joey Wheeler: "What's up with the Eye?"
 * Ishizu Ishtar: "Now that the battle ritual is complete, the Eye of Wdjat that guards the door to the Spirit World has awakened, and the Spirit of the Great Pharaoh which was trapped within the Millennium Puzzle for 5,000 years is now free. (...) The time has arrived: tell the Eye of Wdjat your name."
 * Yami Yugi: "I am the son of King Aknamkanon, my name is ATEM"

The Eye of Wdjat opens and reveals a door. Yami starts walking towards it.
 * Everyone: "Pharaoh!"
 * Téa Gardner: "''Don't go!'"
 * Tristan Taylor: "So that's how it ends huh? Nice! You think you can just go up and change everybody's life and then just leave?"

Everyone starts crying.


 * Yugi Muto: "What Tristan means is: we don't wanna say goodbye."
 * Téa Gardner: "''Exactly. Pharaoh, I know walking through that door means your spirit will finally be free and it's all for the best, but it doesn't seem fair. I mean, I feel like we're all just getting to know you. In fact you were just beginning to get to know yourself, and now you're being taken away from us! I know we should be happy for you, but it's really hard to do that when you're losing your best friend and you just don't understand why it has to be that way.'"
 * Joey Wheeler: "I guess there are some things we're not SUPPOSE to understand. Just look at me: I go through half my life not understanding what's going on. But I know that true friends may be hard to leave, but they're impossible to forget. And even though his stay wasn't as long as we would have liked, we're lucky we knew him at all."
 * Yami Yugi: (thinking) "Thank you Joey."
 * Téa Gardner: (thinking) "''Goobye Atem... and good luck.'"
 * Joey Wheeler: "Hey Pharaoh, I hate to break the terrible news to ya but you're not going anywhere, 'cause everything you've given us stays right here in our hearts!"
 * Yami Yugi: "Right!"
 * Yugi Muto: "Like we always say: 'IT'S YOUR MOVE'."


 * Yami enters the doorway and his clothes change to those of Pharaoh Atem. On the other side of the portal are his family, friends, and Sacred Guardians (left to right: Karim, Shada, Isis, Mana, Shimon, Aknadin, King Aknamkanon, Priest Seto, Mahad). The doorway closes behind him.
 * Téa Gardner: "''He's gone.'"
 * Yugi Muto: "Well Pharaoh... goodbye."


 * Suddenly the ground and walls start to crumble. The Millennium Stone disintegrates and the Millennium Items fall down a chasm in the ground. As the group runs to safer ground towards the exit, the spirit of Shadi watches them leave as the walls continue to crumble.

A New Adventure?

 * Ishizu Ishtar: "Now that the Pharaoh has returned to the next world, the Millennium Items have been permanently sealed and our duty as the Pharaoh's tombkeepers is finally complete."
 * Tristan Taylor: "So this is the end? Feels weird..."
 * Joey Wheeler: "Yeah."
 * Seto Kaiba: "What were you geeks expecting?"
 * Joey Wheeler: "Fireworks... sappy music... something! At least make one of your little wrap-up speeches Yug!"
 * Yugi Muto: "Well, sometimes the end of ONE adventure is just the beginning of another."
 * Joey Wheeler: "Ah... much better!"


 * After the credits finish rolling, there is a scene with dialogue:
 * Yugi Muto: "Grandpa, I'm going!"
 * Solomon Muto: "Alright be careful!"
 * Téa Gardner: "''Yugi! Good morning!'"
 * Joey Wheeler & Tristan Taylor: "''Good morning!'"
 * Yugi Muto: "Good morning everyone!"


 * The scene continues with a Yugi voice-over:
 * Yugi Muto: (voice-over) "There is something special about a story about a Pharaoh, but everyone has his or her own story. And this is a story that ends in the light. And... my story is just beginning."

Featured Duel: Pharaoh Atem vs. Yugi Muto - Part 4
Duel continues from previous episode.

Turn 20: Yugi Muto


 * Yugi draws.
 * Sets a monster.
 * Switches "Curse of Dragon" to Defense Position.

Turn 21: Pharaoh Atem


 * Draws Spell Card "Thousand Knives" and subsequently activates it: it destroys Yugi's face-down "Marshmallon". Because "Marshmallon" was flipped face-up due to an effect, its effect doesn't activate.
 * Uses "Dark Magician" to attack & destroy Yugi's "Curse of Dragon".

Turn 22: Yugi Muto


 * Yugi draws.
 * Normal Summons "Blockman" (1000 ATK / 1500 DEF) in Defense Position.
 * Sets a card.

Turn 23: Pharaoh Atem


 * Draws Equip Spell Card "Dark Spear" and subsequently activates it, Equipping it to his "Dark Magician" and granting it the ability to inflict Piercing damage.
 * Uses "Dark Magician" to attack Yugi's "Blockman",
 * Yugi activates Trap Card "Soul Shield": Yugi pays half his Life Points (Yugi Muto 800 → 400 Life Points) to prevent his monster from being destroyed and negate all Battle Damage he would take from the attack. Because of that, the attack of "Dark Magician" fails.

Turn 24: Yugi Muto


 * Yugi draws.
 * Activates Spell Card "Gold Sarcophagus": Yugi selects 1 card from his Deck and removes it from play face-down. If Atem later activates a card of the same name, Yugi can negate the effect of Atem's card by revealing the card that he removed via "Gold Sarcophagus".
 * Activates "Blockman's" special ability: Yugi Tributes it to Special Summon a number of "Block Tokens" (Rock-Type/EARTH/Level 4/ATK 1000/DEF 1500) equal to the number of turns "Blockman" has been face-up on his side of the field. Since it has been two turns, Yugi Special Summons two "Block Tokens" in Defense Position.
 * Tributes his two "Block Tokens" to Summon "Gandora the Dragon of Destruction" (0 ATK / 0 DEF) in Attack Position.
 * Yugi activates the special ability of "Gandora": Yugi pays half his Life Points (Yugi Muto 400 → 200 Life Points) to remove all monsters on the field from the game. (Gandora has a slightly different ability in the real game).
 * Atem activates Trap Card "Dark Illusion": it protects his "Dark Magician" from the effect of "Gandora" and allows Yugi to draw one card.
 * After the effect of "Gandora" resolves, it is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard.
 * Yugi sets two cards.

Turn 25: Pharaoh Atem

(Insert dialogue from Yugi's Final Attack Summary section above)
 * Atem draws.
 * Uses "Dark Magician" to attack Yugi directly.
 * Yugi activates Trap Card "Magician's Circle": it allows both players to Special Summon a Spellcaster-Type monster that has at most 2000 ATK" from their Decks in Attack Position. Yugi Special Summons "Silent Magician LV0" (1000 ATK / 1000 DEF) in Attack Position while Atem Special Summons "Dark Magician Girl" (2000 ATK / 1700 DEF) in Attack Position.
 * A replay occurs, and Atem chooses to have "Dark Magician" attack Yugi's "Silent Magician LV0", but Yugi activates Quick-Play Spell Card "Spell Textbook", discarding his entire hand to draw a card and if it's a Spell Card, he can activate its effect immediately. Yugi has no cards at this point, so he just draws 1 card. Yugi draws "Card of Sanctity" and immediately activates it thanks to "Spell Textbook's" effect: both players draw until they have 6 cards in their hand.
 * The special ability of Yugi's "Silent Magician LV0" activates: its LV increases by one and its ATK by 500 for each card Atem draws. Since Atem just drew 5 cards, "Silent Magician LV0" becomes LV5 and gains 5 × 500 = 2500 ATK ("Silent Magician LV0" → "Silent Magician LV5": 1000 → 3500 ATK / 1000 DEF).
 * Atem activates Quick-Play Spell Card "Magicians Unite": The ATK of "Dark Magician" becomes 3000 for this turn only, allowing Atem to survive the Battle Damage he will take. "Dark Magician" is destroyed however (Yami Yugi 700 → 200 Life Points).
 * Due to the last effect of "Magicians Unite", "Dark Magician Girl" is destroyed.
 * Atem activates Spell Card "Monster Reborn" to Special Summon "Slifer the Sky Dragon"(X000 ATK / X000 DEF) in Attack Position. Since Atem has four cards in his hand, the ATK and DEF of "Slifer" become 4000 (X000 → 4000 ATK / X000 → 4000 DEF). Atem intends to attack Yugi's "Silent Magician LV5" with "Slifer the Sky Dragon" right now in order to win the Duel.
 * The effect of Yugi's "Gold Sarcophagus" activates: the face-down card Yugi selected is revealed to Atem. The card is revealed to be "Monster Reborn". Because Atem activated the same card Yugi removed via "Gold Sarcophagus", Atem's "Monster Reborn" is negated, therefore "Slifer the Sky Dragon" goes back to the Graveyard.

Turn 26: Yugi Muto


 * Yugi draws.
 * Uses Silent Magician to attack Atem directly (Pharaoh Atem 200 → 0 Life Points).

Yugi wins.

Trivia

 * In the English dub, when Yugi Muto reveals Monster Reborn, a passage in which Ishizu Ishtar says it's a "message to the pharaoh, that the dead doesn't belong in this world" has been cut off.


 * This may be the only episode in which somebody is clearly playing a deck with more than 40 cards, because Yugi Muto still had cards left in his deck after it had been thinned by 40 cards.
 * Yugi's Deck had been thinned heavily due to the anime effect of two Card of Sanctity for a total of 12 cards (Yugi's Deck 28).
 * He drew 2 cards each by the effects of Pot of Greed and Awakening from Beyond (Yugi's Deck 24).
 * Various card effects thinned his Deck by 1 card each (Green Gadget, Ties of the Brethren, Soul Rope, Witch of the Black Forest, Gold Sarcophagus, Dark Illusion (anime), Magician's Circle and Spell Textbook) (Yugi's Deck 16).
 * The above, combined with the cards he drew at the start of the Duel (5 cards) and his normal draws at the start of each of his turns (11 turns), would have Decked Yugi out at the beginning of his final Draw Phase, which would count as an automatic win for Atem.

Featured cards
The following cards appeared in this episode. Cards in italics debuted here.