“ | Facing yourself no matter how tough things get, and keeping up the fight, that's what games are really about! | „ |
~ Anzu |
Anzu Mazaki or Téa Gardner (4Kids dub) is a close friend of Yugi Muto and a character from Kazuki Takahashi's manga and anime Yu-Gi-Oh! She is a duelist like her other friends. However, she is rarely seen dueling anyone as she seems to be more of an escort. She is often by Yugi's side along with Katsuya Jonouchi (a.k.a Joey Wheeler), Hiroto Honda (a.k.a Tristan Taylor) and Ryou Bakura as part of his regular group of friends. Though Anzu has only ever participated in a grand total of three high stakes duels, she has in fact won every one of them, though only two of them were considered close calls.
Appearance[]
Anzu's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.
In the manga, Anzu originally had a conventional, short hairstyle. Her first color image, seen in Duel 1, featured dark brown hair and amber eyes. As Takahashi continued drawing the manga, Anzu gained more feminine and cute facial features. Her hair style became longer and less conventional. Color images from Volume 3 and onward portray her hair as a lighter brown color. Sometimes her eyes are blue and sometimes they are reddish brown. By the final volume of the manga, Anzu's hair touches her shoulders. Anzu's usual outfit is the standard female Domino High School uniform, consisting of a pink coat, a white oxford shirt, a blue tie, and a blue pleated skirt, though she does not stick to any usual casual outfit and wears several throughout the series.
In the first series anime, her hair and eyes are of a reddish brown color. Her school uniform color differs; her coat is orange and her tie and skirt are green. In the amusement park episode, she wore a light-green bikini.
In the second series anime, she has brown hair and blue eyes. On occasions she wore the school uniform colored in the same manner as in the manga. Her brown shoulder-length hair is sectioned into two layers, consisting of a darker shade of brown inner layer, with the outer layer of a lighter shade.
During the first season of the anime, her usual outfit is comprised of a yellow shirt, which flows like a skirt at her thighs, with a pink waistcoat over it, and a blue miniskirt. A pair of brown knee-high boots completed her ensemble.
In the second and third season, her clothes consist of a light green sleeveless buttoned shirt with yellow collar, pink and blue bracelets, navy shorts with a light blue belt, white thigh-high socks, and blue strapped platform sandals. Prior to being held captive by the Rare Hunters, she also possessed a light-yellow handbag. She also wears a yellow tank-top with the word "SPIRIT" on it (which was removed from the dub) and a red skirt on occasion in the second season.
She also wears another outfit: a yellow tube-top, red choker, light pink shorts, black thigh-high socks, red platform sandals, and a pink jacket. In the fourth and fifth season she wears a black sleeveless shirt that reveals her belly button, a red skirt and a pair of white high-heeled boots. During the trip to Industrial Illusions, she wears a white jacket over a red tank top, a pleated yellow skirt, and tan boots and she also wears the same outfit at the KC Grand Championship.
In the 4th season, she wears a yellow jacket, blue shirt, short shorts, cyan socks and blue and white sneakers. In the 4th episode of said season, she wears a black tank top which slightly covers her belly button, navy short shorts with a gray belt, and yellow wristbands.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters, her clothes consist of a dark pink jacket, light green shirt, with a beige and necktie, an emerald-green skirt and brown boots.
Background[]
Anzu was first introduced as she was saved by Yami Yugi while blindfolded and has since tried to uncover his true identity. Her search had brought her close to Yugi Muto and has since been trying to help him make sense of his millennium puzzle. Throughout the manga, she deals with numerous delinquents at school and tries to help Yugi avoid the wrong sorts of students. Anzu has been taught about how to play the Duel Monsters game. However, at the time, she had less skill for it than he does and similar to her friend, Bakura, views it as little more than an amusing hobby at first. Over time, Anzu comes to the conclusion that the duels Yugi and Jonouchi play are not just games, tests of skill or even mystically importance as much as they are vital tests of character based on the choices one can make and how quickly things can shift.
Anzu spends her spare time watching her friends practice Dual Monsters at Sugoroku Muto's hobby shop and has picked-up a little just from the experiences. Though at first Anzu's primary concern was to figure out the identity and nature of Yami Yugi she has long since become primarily focused on Yugi's safety instead. As the story progresses and Yugi's adventures take him to more far-out locations such as around the city, to private islands and even to Egypt, Anzu always make's sure to remain by Yugi's side to watch out for him.
Personality[]
Like Bakura, Anzu is often the voice of reason and councils her friends to approach a situation with great care so as not to put themselves in unnecessary danger. Anzu has had a crush on Yami Yugi but it appears to have somewhat shifted to Yugi Muto instead. Despite her usual trepidation, Anzu will throw caution to the wind if one of her friends is in trouble, at which point she is all too glad to endorse a decisive course of action. For these reasons, Anzu's widely considered to be highly intelligent as she's able to solve problems which are otherwise too difficult for the others (aside from Seto Kaiba). Anzu would oftentimes brush either side of her thick and brown-layered short hair which would always cause white sparkles to shower down behind her. Also, Anzu has a love for shopping and due to this, she has a massive obsession of talking about it but it's usually when she's alone for unknown reasons. Finally, whenever she is pushed enough during a major confrontation, Anzu has very impressive fighting skills with the addition of having equally impressive running speed. But this doesn't mean that Anzu apparently isn't smart enough to figure out that the odds are stacked against her quick enough until she's backed into a corner, in which case, Anzu will certainly try to flee from any threat she's forced to battle against on her own. And even after being defeated by the enemy, Anzu would mostly use her great beauty as an excuse for why she lost a fight. However, if she is held captive, Anzu will try to fight against her captors. If outmatched, however, Anzu will taunt her enemies by mockingly smiling and ask if the attacks the enemies inflicted on her are the best they can do.
As a young adult woman, Anzu also has a tendency to sometimes walk with great elegance by first letting both of her gorgeous arms hang back while she is walking by slowly moving both of her cute socking-covered long legs. Anzu also moves with great elegance, too. And because Anzu cares a lot about her body, not just her friends, she sometimes talks a little about a certain body part or more for unknown reasons.
Skills, Abilities, and Powers[]
As a normal human girl, Anzu possesses no powers or supernatural abilities (With just one exception listed below). Despite this, she has shown herself capable of many other useful skills.
- Dueling: While nowhere near to the level of Kaiba, Mai, numerous antagonists, Solomon and Yugi (These being a few of many other Duelists in the series), Anzu has been shown to be a capable duelist despite her skill level being recognized as only average and about Joey's level. During her first actual Duel against Crump (After Mai Valentine), Anzu showed a surprising level of competence that eventually allowed her to triumph over the Big Five member, despite his vastly superior experience with the game. Her surprising skills with Duel Monsters stems from her many times watching Yugi, Kaiba and Joey, etc duel.
- Athleticism: Anzu is a very athletic individual and is shown to be very much in shape, which has been especially shown during sprinting; her long legs allow her to run at considerable speeds, which has proven useful when attempting to escape her pursuing enemies. When she was being pursued by the Hitotsu-Me Giants again, Anzu was able to outrun the frightening creatures despite their own great speed and super-human strength.
- Immensely high intelligence: Anzu has constantly proven that she's far more intelligent, aside from Seto Kaiba, than the average person. The biggest example was when she outsmarted the Hitotsu-Me Giants when she escaped from their cave which the creatures didn't know their prey was that smart though they still pressed on with chasing her after they found out about Anzu's escape.
- Breaking the fourth wall: Anzu has the unique ability to break the fourth wall and actually interact with the audience without even uttering a word as she appears to personally find doing that unnecessary (Though there are exceptions). But it seems that not a single soul, including her own friends, know a thing about this.
- Great endurance: Anzu, despite her very fragile appearance, is able to sustain great damage and keep on fighting in physical combat, though this has its limits.
Isolated in CyberSpace Part 1[]
During Season 3, while everyone was heading to the Duel Tower via the KaibaCorp blimp, Anzu and her friends are abducted by Noah Kaiba and his friends, the Big Five, who all want revenge against her and her own friends and proceeded to take everyone (Seto Kaiba and his younger brother, Mokuba, included) into his Virtual World, planning to steal all of the protagonists' bodies and escape back to the real world while possessing them. Anzu is the last person to be sent to the Virtual World, but before she is sent there, she warns Noah that if he messes with her or her friends at all, she will make him pay, personally, while cracking her knuckles. Not taking Anzu's threat seriously at all, Noah laughs it off and tells her that if she wants to do that, she'll need to get herself prepared for the "fight ahead," confusing Anzu. Noah suddenly teleports in front of the lovely girl and delivers a fatal punch in her stomach which causes Anzu to groan in agony, stepping a few inches back towards the hole that was created for her to fall in. Anzu becomes very angry at Noah for it. Jokingly telling Noah not to mess with her great beauty, Anzu, after briefly brushing her thick and brown-layered hair a few times, causing sparkles to fall down behind her, runs toward Noah and tries to punch the enemy several times but Noah easily dodges all of these. Anzu then tries to kick him with her cute socking-covered long left leg the same number of times as when she was trying to punch him but misses when Noah dodges all of her kicks, causing Anzu to be shocked and a little scared by this, inwardly wondering how Noah has this much speed. Noah declares that this short farce is over and does an uppercut kick which causes Anzu to finally fall in said hole and as she continues falling down, Anzu slowly but surely starts losing consciousness as she weakly asks herself "Is...this...the...end...? The...end...of...this...lovely...girl...? Me...?". Noah decides to send Anzu to a desert with large canyons filled with large rock formations. Awakening inside the canyon, she finds herself alone and her friends missing as she ponders where she is and what has happened to her friends. Anzu becomes very angry after realizing that Noah sent her to the canyon. Frustrated by this, she angrily punches the rocky ground, producing a fist-sized crater. Noah takes a moment to spy on her using his virtual screen projections from his command chair. He decides to make things interesting for Anzu and thus creates four cyclopes-like beasts called the Virtual World's Hitotsu-Me Giants, armed with stone aged weapons and wearing animal skin for clothing. Anzu, meanwhile, was still angry with Noah for making her deal with her problem - getting out of the gorge and reuniting with her friends. After calming down somewhat, the lovely Anzu reminds herself that she must find her friends and that Noah appears to be the least of her problems at the moment as she begins to walk throughout the gorge. She suddenly turns her small head toward the camera and asks the audience if they want her to be careful. After somehow sensing that she's been given a "yes", Anzu keeps walking. But little did the lovely Anzu know, her troubles have only just begun...
Anzu spends sometime wandering through the canyon, hoping to find someone, particularly her friends, unaware that the Hitotsu-Me Giant hunters are hiding behind the rocks of the canyon stalking her as their prey. At some point, Anzu decides to walk elegantly, slowly putting one foot before the other and putting her gorgeous arms back a little. As she elegantly walks, Anzu brushes her beautifully thick and brown-layered hair on the right side of her head a few times, causing white sparkles to shower down on the ground behind her, obviously signifying her beauty. Continuing to walk with great elegance, Anzu stops for a bit to stretch out her long left leg slowly before she reminds herself to keep looking for her friends and resumes her journey across the desert. After this, Anzu then rubs her gorgeous right arm before she questions to herself if her friends are okay at all. Anzu blushes and giggles cutely. Suddenly, Anzu stops and becomes a bit scared for unknown reasons which caused her to inwardly question herself why she's scared but later decides to ignore said feeling. Anzu then brushes her thick and brown-layered hair again in the same manner as earlier. Soon after, Anzu is alerted to their presence after hearing some rocks falling from a nearby cliff. Looking up, it is then that she sees one of the aforementioned beasts before he disappears behind the rocks causing Anzu to be confused and question what it was she just saw while brushing her beautifully thick and brown-layered hair again, causing more white sparkles to shower down behind her; now calm, Anzu slowly leans forward with immense interest at what the lovely girl just saw, before slowly putting out her butt in the process and bending her long socking-covered right leg a bit to keep her balance as she stands on just her long left one, inwardly wondering the same thing and putting her left index finger up to her face, still in great confusion. Anzu then expresses caution on this, inwardly telling herself that she might be in for some major trouble. Suddenly, Anzu's hearing some more rocks tumbling down. Just as suddenly, sensing several hostile presences, the lovely young woman grunts and whispers to herself that she knows where "they" are hiding and her great beauty isn't one to mess with, moving her eyes left and right and looks behind her but fails to find the danger. Suddenly, Anzu's eyes have caught sight of a rock coming at her, forcing her to react fast by catching it with her left hand just in time, causing her to start wondering how and why it happened. Almost immediately afterwards, a large figure throws a pebble at Anzu's forehead, not giving her enough time to catch this one since it was simply too fast for her, striking her there which leaves a small bruise. Anzu was pushed back a bit before she covers her wounded forehead, groaning in agony. After recovering from this, Anzu, simply a bit annoyed, questions herself if that's Noah's best attempt at scaring her. Picking up the pebble that was thrown at her earlier, Anzu stares at it quietly before throwing it away in a fit of anger and, after calming down, asks herself how she couldn't even see it coming at all. Before she could make any logical decision at all in regard to this, Anzu quickly finds herself surrounded by four Hitotsu-Me Giants as they linger on the cliffs and behind the rocks. Anzu says "There you are". Simply annoyed by her predicament, Anzu asks the giants what they want with her but receives no response from them. She attempts to make a quiet escape by walking back very slowly. Her attempt is quickly blundered, however, when the back bottom-tip of her stylish platform-sandal kicks up a loose pebble on the ground, resulting in the lovely Anzu to stumble back but quickly regains her footing. The noise spooks and alerts the Hitotsu-Me Giants to her attempt to flee causing one of them to roar in fury signaling his friends to begin their assault. The first one she saw, who is also the pack’s leader, is the first to attack. He jumps from a nearby cliff and ferociously throws his axe at Anzu with lethal intent. Though her life is spared when the spinning axe barely misses her and instead lands some distance behind her, this was very brief as its impact shoots up dozens of tiny but sharp rocks into the air. One of them ends up hitting Anzu right under her left eye, inflicting a small but painful gash which causes her to start leaning a bit as the attack itself pushes Anzu to her left, standing on her cute socking-covered left foot though the lovely Anzu quickly regains her balance (she does this by kicking the air a few times with her cute socking-covered right leg), causing her to reel as Anzu groans in pain while covering her wound with her left hand. As she groans, Anzu takes off her hand very slowly to look at the damage. She's shocked to see her wound actually ooze out drips of her blood. Soon, Anzu groans a bit louder than before from her wound as it suddenly stings. Said sting causes Anzu to unknowingly drop down to her cute socking-covered right knee as she continues to groan. Due to the injury she had just received, Anzu suddenly coughs up some of her blood as she staggers, causing her to angrily glare at the monsters for this. But the lovely Anzu has no time to recover from said injury as the giants continue their assault. After Anzu gets back up rather slowly, a Hitotsu-Me Giant suddenly jumps to her and punches her in her stomach which causes her to almost fall down backwards, only catching herself after quickly putting her cute socking-covered left foot backwards to do this. Having enough of this, Anzu gets into a fighting stance, standing straight up with her small head held high and her right hand on her right hip. Anzu then bends her cute socking-covered right leg a bit; this is the same fighting stance as when she was fighting against Noah. She inwardly tells herself that if she's going down, she won't do it without fighting. Anzu also inwardly believes that this altercation is what Noah was probably referring to. Now angry with the Hitotsu-Me Giants for even soiling her great beauty, Anzu tells the monsters that she never expected to be forced to dirty her gorgeous body like this and adds that they haven't the slightest idea what she's capable of. After a few more moments of silence, she then starts running towards them and delivers a fatal jump kick on the leader's face but her attack has no effect on him, much to the lovely girl's shock, though Anzu still remains composed. Figuring that the monsters' sole weaknesses are their single eyes being poked, Anzu tries for her next plan of attack by running to the grouped Hitotsu-Me Giants, mainly the leader, again and this time, after dodging an attempted claw attack from him, counters by first jumping very high to the leader's face, pokes his single eye with one of her long fingernails, causing him to snarl in agony, causing her to inwardly ask if that's really all he's got, confidentially performing a backflip due to her immense athleticism before Anzu delivers a furious barrage of punches and kicks on his face although her attacks had no effect on him. Anzu quickly decides to attack from behind the leader but briefly worries about his friends stopping her before brushing this fear off. After shaking this fear off, Anzu goes for her third attack, running towards the pack of monsters from behind and attacks by performing a low sweep at the leader's 2 huge feet, causing him to fall to the ground. But Anzu suddenly gets a punch in the stomach by another Hitotsu-Me Giant, but once again, Anzu perfectly lands on her socking-covered feet though she does cough up a bit of her blood. Realizing that she somehow made it behind him, Anzu tries to do another low sweep but the monster realizes that his prey is attaching the same as before, but not before being forced to fight off three Hitotsu-Me Giants after they get in her way. After dealing with them, instead of falling for this same tactical attack, he counters by grabbing her left leg and slamming her onto the ground on the opposite side, causing Anzu to shout in agony. He then picks Anzu up, causing the lovely girl to inwardly ask what he's doing, and throws the lovely Anzu through a rock formation while she screams in agony from crashing through said rock formation, physically damaging her gorgeous body. After slowly getting back up and fearfully realizing that there's nothing more she could do and now terrified for her life, Anzu nervously searches for an escape route and once she does, an exhausted Anzu flees from her cyclopes pursuers. Anzu desperately thinks of a way to save herself as she runs away as the beasts quickly start giving chase; the monsters soon come ever close to catching her. One of the Hitotsu-Me Giant hunters decides to use these small but sharp rocks. He throws it at Anzu and it strikes her right arm, causing Anzu to briefly stop and groan in pain from their second attack, covering the wound which is, this time, located somewhere close to her right shoulder. Again, however, Anzu has no time to recover from her second wound. She began to resume running for her life. However, the same giant who hurt Anzu in the arm earlier is undeterred. This time, in an attempt to slow the cute teen girl down even more, that giant hurls another sharp rock at Anzu, striking her in her right leg, causing Anzu to stumble and she's forced to stop and cover her third wound while kneeling. But despite being severely injured, Anzu still continues to run after getting back up. As she runs, Anzu thinks that her life is in serious trouble if she doesn't get herself out of there. Anzu unknowingly falls into their trap, however. The three cyclopes after Anzu were merely chasing her towards the fourth member of their pack, who was hiding behind some of the rocks after they launched their attack. Lying in wait, the cyclopes patiently waited for Anzu to be led to his position. When she gets in close enough, the giant reveals itself to her, cutting off her escape as he looms over her. Knowing that such a fearsome creature won't let her walk away, the lovely Anzu decides to give the monster a single punch in his stomach but it does nothing. With nowhere else to run and a look of horror on her face, Anzu is left frozen in fear as the cyclopes first grabs the lovely girl's neck just to make her choke as well as keeping Anzu stuck in place with one clawed hand. The lovely Anzu, with all of her remaining strength from all of the running and all of the damage she suffered earlier, tries to pry the Hitotsu-Me Giant's clawed hand off her neck only to fail, causing her to become angry at him and spit at the monster's arm in said anger as she gags. By this time, both of Anzu's cute socking-covered legs are shaking as she struggles in agony. The giant ignores the lovely Anzu's bravery as he raises his other clawed hand high into the air, tightens it into a fist and, as he quickly lets go of her neck, and gives her a punch on the beautiful teenager's stomach (Causing Anzu to scream in agony as said scream echoes from said attack), causing her body to start bouncing around as she keeps grunting with each and every landing, severely damaging Anzu's cute face plus the rest of her gorgeous body before her body finally settles when Anzu falls down what reveals to be a hill, landing on her small head and then on her gorgeous stomach and although she attempts to stay conscious despite the immense pain Anzu just received (causing her to cough up a bit more of her blood as well as start breathing heavily in the process), the poor girl just couldn't, only cursing under her breath and calling the approaching Hitotsu-Me Giants "big jerks" before closing her eyes while jokingly asking one question: "How could I...let myself and...my...great beauty...lose...?", finally falling unconscious with a very weak "No...".
Though the beast’s attack does not kill her, Anzu is left unconscious as she lies on the desert floor, moaning in pain from said attack. Instead of finishing her off, the leader of the pack (responsible for her gash) instead picks her gorgeously unconscious body off the ground and throws her over his right shoulder and causing the lovely girl to briefly cough up a bit of her blood, carrying her as a prize. With the lovely girl turned from prey to captive, the leader marches off with his prize through the canyon with his tribemates following close behind. Sometime after they begin carrying her off, Noah checks in on their progress through his virtual screen projections. The screen shows Anzu as the insensate young woman lies draped from the leader’s shoulder, her beautifully thick and brown-layered hair falling all the way upside and revealing the full of her lovely face which reveals that the poor teenager has been indeed knocked unconscious. By this time, Anzu's lovely face is covered in literal bruises mostly on her left cheek from the monsters' final attack. Noah briefly watches her abduction, laughing with sinister glee as she is carried off deeper and deeper into the gorge. A bit after being subdued, Anzu slowly opens her eyes though still drifting in and out of consciousness. Once she finds herself being carried off somewhere, Anzu could only whisper a single sentence: "This...isn't...over..." before closing her eyes, falling unconscious again. Sometime later, the cyclopes finally make it to their destination, a cave at the base of a large hill. The leader carrying Anzu places her atop of a large stone structure in the center of the cavern. Bringing her there, he unsymmetrically dumps her off his shoulder down onto the surface of shelf which is made of pure hard stone. Landing on its stone surface hip-first causes the unconscious Anzu to grunt in agony as her body squirms, her legs moving up to her waist, her fists tightening and her face clearly showing a frowning expression of pure discomfort. Watching her in agony visibly amuses the cyclopes, as they stand over her with glowing red eyes.
To be continued...
Isolated in CybeSpace Part 2[]
While she is asleep, Anzu has a dream of herself and her friends, with each one disappearing one by one. As a result of this, Anzu, in the dream, fell to her knees in despair, wishing to herself more power so she can protect all of her friends. Then a voice suddenly shouted, first asking her if this is what she truly wants. Though initially startled by the unknown voice, the lovely Anzu stands and, after failing to find the source of the voice, takes a deep breath and says yes before she explains that her friends aren't the only ones who need protecting but everyone else in the real world. Believing that the unknown voice is coming from somewhere behind her, Anzu turns around then explains that she also wants to prove herself to those people. Sounding impressed by Anzu's bravery, the mysterious voice chuckles and goes "Someday, you will grow strong enough to use me. Strong enough to use 'my' power." When Anzu asks what the voice is talking about, she receives no answer. Instead, a bright golden light suddenly flashes and starts getting closer and closer to Anzu as the sentence "You will grow strong" echoes, causing the lovely young woman to shield her blue eyes before starting to scream until the dream suddenly ends. Hours pass as Anzu lies on the structure, unconscious, until a drop of water from a stalagmite from above lands right on the cut of her left cheek which stings her. Groaning as she comes to, Anzu finally awakens, discovering that most of her wounds from her fight against the Hitotsu-Me Giants have healed. Upon awakening, she initially has no memory of how she arrived at the cave, or even where she is. Remembering the dream she was having earlier, Anzu quietly asks herself what that bright light was and the source of that strange voice she's never heard before, though she notes that the light seems familiar to her somehow. Anzu suddenly coughs up a little bit of her blood which surprised her. Suddenly, a Hitotsu-Me Giant approaches her and suddenly starts to choke her, doing it while raising his prey a bit, which caused Anzu to struggle to breathe while also trying her best to just not pass out. The Hitotsu-Me Giant, the one choking her, then lifts the lovely Anzu up higher in the air as Anzu tries to kick the monster in his cheek but it has no effect on him. When the lovely girl is then punched in her stomach, this caused her to gasp in agony before being dropped on her gorgeous stomach, leaving Anzu to struggle to crawl away from him as the lovely Anzu weakly whispers one sentence: "I've went through worse...", breathing heavily. Anzu suddenly gets herself another big punch in the stomach which causes the lovely girl to shout in agony. After getting up, Anzu tries to fight back by attempting to punch the monster back but this was in vain as the lovely girl suddenly begins to stumble as she tries to reach her target due to her low stamina from the aforementioned fight back in the desert, allowing him to move out of the way easily as she falls onto her knees due to said lack of stamina before kicking the lovely young adult woman, causing her to be flown back to the same spot she was in earlier. The Hitotsu-Me Giant soon starts stomping to Anzu while she stares at the monster and recklessly asks him "Is that the best you've got?". Angered at being insulted, this monster decides to physically torture her some more by putting his big foot on Anzu's head which causes her to start shouting in agony before the monster suddenly stops when he is ordered back to his friends. But before he leaves her alone, this Hitotsu-Me Giant suddenly kicks Anzu again which launches her a few inches away from the monster. Anzu recovers from her most recent wounds after several more minutes. Unfortunately for the lovely young woman, as Anzu ponders a way to escape, she hears a loud roar echo through the cave. Scared at its familiar sounding, she openly asks what it was. Down below, at the bottom of the cave are the Hitotsu-Me Giants, lurking, resting, and relaxing after their successful hunting trip.
The leader, who gave Anzu her scratch and carried her on his shoulder, is the first to notice that she has awakened. Looking up at her, the fiendish creature gives her a threatening snarl. Upon seeing her captors down below, Anzu gasps in shock as the sight of the monsters causes her to instantly remember. As she finishes recalling the events, Anzu suddenly winces in pain as she once again feels the pain of her cut which continues to bleed (In the U.S.A. dub, Anzu's cut simply starts stinging her). Soon afterwards, Anzu suddenly starts groaning in pain while lifting her sleeveless white shirt up a bit to check out the source of the pain and thus, much to her surprise, Anzu's stomach is all bruised up, causing her to suddenly (briefly too) groan in agony "Ngh...". She then starts slowly getting up, fearing that if the monsters will somehow find a way to reach the real world, she believes that none of her friends, not even Yugi, have what it takes to stop them. Anzu then declares to herself that she'll save her friends.
Trapped on the shelf and the cyclopes down below, Anzu has seemingly no way of escape. With nothing else to do, she spends some time watching the beasts from the shelf as they continue to lurk below. Though they are aware the lovely girl is awake, they leave her be for the time being, convinced she has no way to escape what they have in store for her. Meanwhile, Anzu suddenly coughs up much more of her blood, annoying her and causing her to whisper to herself "They'll pay for this.". Anzu stands and, after spotting a rock that's quite big enough to carry a human, walks to it slowly with great elegance and sits down on it, putting her cute socking-covered right leg on top of the other one. After a few minutes of thinking, Anzu creates a fool-proof plan which makes her happily giggle a bit.
However, she knows that her plan is a risky one and she must execute it carefully or she could be eaten or, otherwise, killed, causing Anzu to shiver in fear at the thought of it. The giants then bring out a huge cauldron and light it over a fire. As the water inside boils, Anzu believes that they are readying for dinner. The leader releases a sinister laugh as he boils the cauldron, looking forward to the feast to come; a feast that includes Anzu’s flesh. Realizing this, Anzu gasps in fear and instantly looks for a way to escape before she is turned into “Anzu soup”. Anzu whispers to herself that certain parts of her plan require some changes as she quickly realizes that she has but one shot at executing her plan perfectly. Noticing that the only way out is the hole in the ceiling, Anzu finds a loose vine and begins to climb along the walls of the cave. As she climbs, Anzu brushes the right side of her hair back several times, causing even more white sparkles to shower down to the ground below before she continues climbing.
Her feet end up kicking down some rocks alerting the giants to her escape. Furious that their meal is getting away, the giants shake their weapons and all of them start roaring in anger towards Anzu as she hastens her climbing. She manages to make it to the top but is nearly out of breath upon arriving. After standing up, Anzu decides to, as always, brush her hair back a few times which would cause sparkles to shower down behind her. However, she has no time to rest as the giants have already started climbing after her, causing her to make a swift run for it.
She has gained much distance by the time the Hitotsu-Me Giants reach the top, but still, they are undeterred. The giant that ambushed and knocked her unconscious in the canyon is among the first of the pack to reach the top. Now armed with an axe, he furiously throws it at Anzu, hoping to prevent her escape. Thankfully for her, the axe misses its target landing but inches away from Anzu’s feet, though this caused the beautiful teenager to almost trip in a brief state of shock. With no time to lose, she continues running for her life as the Hitotsu-Me Giants chase after her, running on all fours.
Despite their speed, she manages to outrun them and is seemingly on the verge of escaping them for good. This proves all for naught, however, as she ends up being driven to a dead end in the form of a large chasm with a raging river at the bottom. With nowhere else to go, Anzu briefly looks for a way to escape, before noticing the giants are gaining on her position. While doing this, Anzu brushes her hair on the right side of her head a few times which causes white sparkles to shower down behind her. Then, she sees a rope-bridge to her left and runs for it. But as soon as she does make it there, Anzu suddenly hears some breathing sounds behind her. Turning around very slowly while scared, the beautiful teenager is shocked to learn that a lone Hitotsu-Me Giant is standing right in front of her. The monster suddenly attacks by punching Anzu square in her stomach which causes her to be pushed back a few inches in the process while groaning in agony. This also causes her to groan in agony as she also coughs up her own blood while also covering her stomach with her right hand. And she starts dropping down on her cute socking-covered right knee due to said stomach injury while this lone monster leaves to check back and see if his own prey dies later from her injuries. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Anzu shouts in agony as her left arm begins hurting like crazy before the beautiful and young woman grabs onto it and begins to ask herself why it's hurting so much. Remembering back to the very moment she was pushed back by the lone Hitotsu-Me Giant, her left arm must've broken. Anzu than starts simply panting rapidly from her wounded arm until this starts to slow down and eventually stop panting altogether. After recovering from her wounds, Anzu gets up rather slowly but soon remembers the pack of Hitotsu-Me Giants still chasing after her.
By the time she starts crossing the rope-bridge though, she stops as she is extremely nervous to continue due to the bridge’s obviously old age. With the bridge’s poor condition and the giants getting closer to her position, Anzu, after brushing the left side of her hair and causing white sparkles to shower down behind her, despairs and cowers in fear. But she then remembers the bonds she has made with her friends, which inspires her to face her fears and resumes crossing the bridge. She takes it slowly, stepping one foot at a time, all the while trying not to look down. She nearly slips, causing her to look down anyway and briefly panic, stopping in her tracks. She then begins walking again when she looks back sees how close the Hitotsu-Me Giants are to the bridge. She is slow to get across however and is not even half-way when the giants arrive and begin crossing. The monsters appear to have at least some knowledge of rope-bridge's poor condition as two of them, the leader and another member of their pack, communicate to each other by making quiet growls before they and the rest of their pack decide to cross said rope-bridge just as slowly after Anzu.
Anzu attempts to reason with the monsters, telling them to stay away as the bridge will collapse from their overwhelming weight. They do not understand her and begin crossing after her, becoming only a few feet away from her in a matter of seconds. Anzu tries to cross faster and, tired of ever being tortured by the Hitotsu-Me Giants, becomes very angry at them, yelling at the beasts that she won't be beaten by them again. But much to her shock, the giants gain quickly and are mere inches away from reaching her. With clenched teeth, Anzu inwardly asks herself if her end is near. But before they can reclaim their lovely prize, the bridge finally gives out under their weight and breaks in two. Both Anzu and the Hitotsu-Me Giants scream as the bridge falls apart and they fall. However, only the giants fall to their deaths in the raging river below as Anzu has managed to hang onto a half of the bridge that is still hanging from the top. Hanging from the surviving portion of the bridge, Anzu watches as the beasts that attacked, incapacitated, kidnapped, tortured and intended to eat her fall into the river and drown. With that, she then begins climbing the remains of the old bridge to the top of the cliff, complaining the whole way about her ordeal with the beasts and bridge (In the original Japanese version, Anzu grumbles that she refuses to die here).
She reaches the top but passes out shortly after arriving, exhausted from all the running and climbing she has done along with the stress the Hitotsu-Me Giants gave her. When she comes to, Anzu stands up and sighs, now fully aware that the predators are dead before slowly turning around and elegantly walking away to parts unknown as Anzu silently puts on a small smile and quietly giggles, thinking that her aforementioned plan worked perfectly as a flashback revealed that the lovely Anzu actually wanted the giants to chase her to the rope-bridge so she could try to get rid of them somehow once and for all but inwardly admits that she didn't expect the bridge to fall apart so soon. Suddenly, the lovely Anzu stops, turns around slowly and walks towards the camera with great elegance. She then stops, leans forward, momentarily stares at said camera, blows a kiss at it and winks at it and giggles, brushes her thick and brown-layered hair a few times, and cutely waves a goodbye before slowly turning around again (Anzu also leans back slightly as her head is facing the camera before turning it away) and elegantly walking away, continuing on her dangerous quest to search for her friends.
Despite the dangers of the Virtual World, Anzu appears to be continuing to hold her own! But Noah appears to want to unveil her next challenge in this strange dimension of terror! Unless she locates her opponent, the very danger of Anzu losing her very spirit seems indefinite! How is Anzu going to deal with her next adversary? What other cataclysmic experiences will Anzu have to endure in order to find her friends? Will she succeed in finding them? And even if she does, how will Anzu and her friends be able to escape from the Virtual World, defeating Noah Kaiba and the Big 5?!
To be continued...
External links[]
- Anzu on the Heroes & Villains Wikia (English)