When I rebooted this world for the third time, I started the Card Tales and Mysteries post series in an attempt to make this world more than just a repository of card game tips like it’s original incarnation was. Sadly this series of posts ended up dying down due to a lack of time and/or ideas. So as yet another attempt to revive this series, I’ve decided to expand the type of stories it covers. I believe I said at the very beginning of this post series that almost every card has a story behind it. Some of those stories are from the anime, manga, and related videogames. The other stories are the ones hidden and told using the illustrations of many different cards.
But there is a third kind of story that the cards of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Franchise tells, and those are the stories that we attach to those cards ourselves through our personal experiences with them. Practically every card in the game can end up having a special meaning to us. Maybe we found that card during a significant moment in our lives. Or perhaps a card is special because it was used to win a major tournament. Maybe the reason that card is special is because it was a gift from a friend or a relative. It’s these kinds of stories that create the “heart of the cards” that the original anime spoke of so often. I’m going to share the memory of such a card, which is a Spell card that today has probably been long forgotten about.
About the Card
This little Spell card was first released in the U.S. as an Ultra Rare card in the Pharonic Guardian booster set. Question can easily be considered as the gambler’s Monster Reborn. A few of you reading may even recall Question as one of the cards used by Joey Wheeler in his ill-fated duel with Marik Ishtar. As gambling cards go though, Question is one of the safer cards to use. For one thing, it’s easy enough for some decks to change the monster sleeping at the very bottom of the Graveyard. Also, if the monster one is trying to revive is a Dark Attribute monster, the negative effect of Question can be bypassed by using Escape from the Dark Dimension. The big catch that Question though is that the opponent has to pronounce the name of the monster that’s trying to be revived exactly as it’s written on the card, otherwise it’s considered a wrong guess. So it’s best to use Question with monsters that have names that are hard to pronounce.
The Story
The tale I have about this card takes place many years ago when I was still in high school. It was during the summer, if memory serves, and my aunt and I were on our way back from one of our annual trips to the art museum. We decided to make a stop at Shopko or Target (I forget which one) to buy something to drink and do a little bit of shopping. Naturally, I ended up buying a couple of booster packs, while my aunt bought a music CD that she happened to find. As soon as I got back into the car I opened the booster packs, and one of the cards I found was the original TCG Ultra Rare printing of Question. I didn’t have a lot of luck finding Ultra Rare or Secret Rare cards back in those days, so this was kind of a big deal.
Before my aunt and I set off for home, she decided to put in that CD she bought. That CD was a greatest hits compilation album of the musical group, Abba. And it was the very first time I had ever heard of them and their music. My aunt and I ended up listening to most if not all of the CD on the trip back home, as traffic had slowed to a crawl. I believe the reason was because of road construction of some kind. All in all though, it was a fun trip back home, and one I fondly remember to this day.
Sadly, that Ultra Rare copy of Question is no longer in my collection. I think about a year or so later one evening, a friend of mine came over to trade cards and he somehow talked me into trading him Question. What I traded the card for, I can’t remember. I want to say it was for his Jinzo, but I don’t think that’s right. To this day though, I have a bit of buyer’s remorse regarding that trade.
That pretty much concludes the story I have about Question. I have other similar stories involving other cards, and in time I’ll probably share a few of them. And now to close the post, here's the very first song my aunt and I heard as we began that trip home. Dancing Queen by Abba.
