"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

ojamayellow:

Whenever he’s on screen.

Okay, to be honest, I have a few.

When we first see Manjoume, we see him as a snobby Obelisk Blue, ready to take down anyone who stands in his way, especially any Osiris Drop Outs. (I prefer to say Slifer Slackers but, yeah). Eventually however, we see that he’s more than that, and that there’s a reason why. His family. His family are the proud type who are leaders, and push their youngest to be the best, which gives Manjoume a sense of duty, having the “I’m the best, only strong Duel Monsters matter” type attitude for his own reputation and belief given by his older brothers. And after with his duel with Misawa, he left to find his own path to greatness, which led him to North Academy.

This is one of my favourite moments, as without it, we wouldn’t have the Jun Manjoume we all know and love.

After running out of drinking water,ending up in a submarine, meeting Ojama Yellow, being shot out of the water, finding 40 Cards to be granted entry into North Academy… And this is all on the ice. Damn.

Anyway, after all that, he faces numerous students to challenge and ends up defeating the top students, making him the new ‘King’ of North Academy. And this was all without his original Cthnonian deck. This was out of 40 odd cards (including Ojama Yellow). Manjoume is a strong duelist and he continues to show it with his new persona (Manjoume Thunder!) when he represents his new school at a rivalry face off with Duel Academy.

This was where Manjoume’s character was developing, but it wasn’t ending there.

At the duel with him and Judai, he had his two older brothers watching. They told him to use Duel Monsters cards that they had, all rare and powerful monsters guaranteed to knock out the competition. But Jun only used the Armed Dragon deck North Academy provided, and ofc Ojama Yellow. As evident from his talk from his family and breakdown in the bathroom, Manjoume knew he had to win for the sake of his family and reputation. Not to mention the duel was being held live on TV. Being pushed to make your family proud is a heavy subject for a few, and one I can heavily relate to (in fact, my earliest GX memory was watching these two episodes on weekday morning TV!)

Anyway, Manjoume loses, despite doing his absolute best. His brothers approach him and yell, making the youngest feel weak. However, Judai steps up and talks against him, with the crowd from both school’s cheering on Jun. “THUNDER! THUNDER! MANJOUME THUNDER!!!!” This results in the older brothers to leave, but as Judai acknowledged, Manjoume didn’t win the duel, but he won the battle against himself and his brothers. (I believe this is right, memory is hazy).

This is so important to Manjoume. Even though he lost, he won. Does this make sense?

And to top it all off, due to his absence and wanting to come back to Duel Academt, he comes a Red! However, being a Red is important, also. Even though he may not admit it, he becomes more comfortable with Judai and the gang, and are good friends. So of course, he can joke around with his new friends and become more obvious with his crush on Asuka, which is downright adorable in my opinion. (It rly bugs me when ppl say his affections ruined his character? Let the kid be, he’s a young teen being a young teen.)

Jun’s duel with his oldest brother Chosaku is an important moment in GX too. I won’t go too into detail with it but basically in order to save Duel Academy’s destruction, Jun must defeat his oldest brother (and his deck of rare and powerful Dragon cards) with cards with only 0-ATK. This goes on to prove that Manjoume is a powerful, strong duelist and person himself, even when facing someone who would put him under a massive amount of peer pressure in the past and present.

I’m also fond of the famous moments of Manjoume being OjaManjoume. It may seem funny that Jun is dressed up as goddamn Ojama Yellow, but it’s a very important part of Manjoume’s life that would help lead to his future career as a Pro League duelist. He goes through the stress, travel and constant work of being Edo Phoenix’s understudy, and gets framed by Mike, resulting in Edo to lose his position in the Pro Leagues. Thus, becomes OjaManjoume with Mike sponsoring him. Edo and Jun duel each other however, and after much realisation, Jun removes his Ojama suit and reveals that he’s no OjaManjoume. He’s Manjoume Thunder!!! He ends up defeating the young prodigy, and with what card? Ojama Yellow.

”You’re the ace of my deck!”

The Ojamas are a very important deck for Manjoume’s character. They are weak by themselves, but when together, they are powerful and can wipe out their opponent with the right cards and tactics. Manjoume understands this, and he also understands through his re-birth from North Academy that Duel Monsters isn’t all about power or the strongest cards. It’s about understanding your deck and that all monsters are useful, even if they are weak.

…..I ended up going on a huge tangent there, my bad. Oops.

Uh, to answer your question, all the moments I’ve mentioned plus the (one-sided) Valentineshipping duel in Season1 are my favourite Manjoume moments. And when he had to duel an Obelisk freshman and even defended his place in Red! (Which got him stuck in Red for another season by mistake… Oops.)

Basically any Manjoume-centric episodes are my favourites. (Except when he died. Yikes.)