Anime: Yuu Gi Ou: Duel Monsters 102l1t

Aaaaah, yes Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters.... what a pile pf fucking dog shit that was!

Well, is there something to say about it what it hasn't been said? I mean, fuck everybody in this planet knows about this, mostly from that stupid-ass trading card game that overthrew even the kings of trading card games: Magic: The Gathering and Legend of the Five Rings.

Let's begin with the "story" (I put it on quotes, since I don't think marketing animes have any kind of decent stories, since they are ads for the franchise): Yugi Mouto, a small, shy, timid kid gets from his granpa, an archealogochist, a puzzle dated from the ancient Egypt. Once assembled, he becomes Yami Yugi, a more serious, confident, strategist and generally better form of himself. Along with his friends Joey/Jounouchi, Tea/Anzu and Tristan/Honda, they try to save the world from any dark forces that threatens it with their.... CARDS!!!!! *thunders cracking and dramatic music* Oh yeah, let's not forget and Kaiba, Yugi's rival (and my favourite character) who wants to defeat him since he got his ass handed to him from their first duel (another stereotype from those kinds of anime: the rival). Hey, we didn't promise you its story would be like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. Noooooo, it's just that kind of excuse to see the cards, how to use them and combine them for your RL duels (RL=real life) and of course IF you want to be "cool" like Yugi, Kaiba etc., spend all your fucking money on those cards and spam your parents.

Animation, sound are good, if not decent. Character development? XDXDXDXDXDXD Yeah, right. I think Mickey Mouse has more development than those. One thing that I hate (and you, I assume) is with those friendship thingies and flashbacks. Fuck, we care about the fucking duels, not friendship (I'd watch a coming-of-the-age anime for shit like that)!!

It has a great value, since it's very famous, meaning you will watch it somehow either from the TV, youtube, on your pc ed via torrent. If you will enjoy it, though, that's an entire different story. No matter how many times you watched it, it has this weird thing that makes you wonder how it will conclude (I have it, that's for sure...)

I do believe I should mention that this anime, along with its card game is one of those when it ed to 4kids, it got so heavily edited that it's miles away from its original japanese version. We will talk about both anime and the card game for how they got edited.

Anime: One of the questions that most people will have is what the fuck happened to Yugi's parents? I mean, doesn't he have any parents? He was seeded to the ground and then he popped out like a fucking vegetable? Well, guess what: he has parents!! In the Japanese version, we see Yugi's mom having some appearances. Now, why she was out from the English version that the rest of world knows, is... because I have no fucking idea. In the english version, Joey/Jounouchi helps Yugi in the Battle City tournament to wipe out Marik/Malik and his clan. In the japanese version, Joey/Jounouchi enters the tournament to prove that he is a skilled duelist and doesn't need Yugi's help to beat anybody. Also the japanese version has violence and blood. In the Mai/Marik duel in the English version when someone lost Life Points and part of himself was vanished. In the japanese version however, when someone was losing Life Points he was getting cuts, blood like someone was chopping him (still they were illusions just to fuck up them). In the japanese version we get to see a lot of Mai's past, something that was almost gone in the english version (maybe the shitheads from 4kids thought that kids wouldn't be interested in character development... fucking assholed). That's goes as far for the anime. So, let's move to....

Card Game: Here, the rules weren't edited. Instead the cards were edited. Anything that had to do about nudity, religion and violence was edited. Want examples? Here, they are: the japanese Dark Magician Girl has a big cleaveage, and lots of her legs were shown, so they vanished the cleaveage and longered her skirt. Also, in her necklace and at the backgorund there is a pentagram. Guess what they did...
Another obscure edit was with the Monster Reborn card. We all know how the english one is. Well the japanese one is a completely different thing: it's a fucking ankh, the egyptian symbol of rebirth (I really don't get this one...). There are many more cards that were edited that i'd finish this part in 5 years, so let's put an end here.

In conclusion, 4kids are just a bunch of fucking assholes who think that they can do whatever the fuck they want. Sorry, mates but you ain't the fucking masters of the world.

If you want to watch shit like, then go no further than:
Pokemon,
Duel Masters,
Bakugan,
and its sequels of course: Yu-gi-oh GX and Yu-Gi-oh 5D's
and its parody Yu-gi-oh:The Abgrided Series.

For the card game itself please play:
Magic the Gathering,
Legend of the five rings,
World of Warcraft
fuck almost anything than that.

ANIME MARKETING SERIES
Full list of the review series can be found on this page, 3rd post from bottom:
http://anidb.telechargerjeux.org/perl-bin/animedb.pl?uid=251338&show=page&do=blog&blogid=29009&page=0

NOTICE: This review will cover the entire franchise as I won’t bother making different ones for practically the exact same thing: CARD GAME MENT!

THE STAFF
- Animation is done by Gallop, a minor studio whose best works include this one and most of Rurouni Kenshin.
- Directed by Sugishima Kunihisa. I liked what he did in Speed Grapher but all his other works are completely lame (Tekken, Nabari no Ou, Bayblade).
- Based on the manga by some guy who was paid to the game. Other than that, he never had another of his works adapted.

VALUE SECTION: 8/10 [Must… buy… cards…]
Analysis: Historical Value 3/3, Rewatchability 2/3, Memorability 3/4

YuGiOh is famous (or infamous, if you prefer) as the most successful game promoting anime of all times. It is mysterious and cool enough to lure thousands of kids into buying cards and other d works, as well as a nice introduction to the basics of Satanism. It is also hated enough to get its own abridged show.

The trend didn’t start as soon as the game hit the streets. It took many years of proper filtering and expansion, and only after the remake of the original was brought overseas in the eve of the 21st century, while the first version was buried and everybody pretended like it never existed. The reason for that is simple. The original show was mostly kiddie horror around death games with low production values, episodic structure and above all NOT OVERABUNDANT PRODUCT PLACEMENT! Thus the need to lighten the mood as well as throw in more story and card references, the result of which is the show we all know in the west.

ART SECTION: 4/10 [Screw the rules; I have green hair!]
Analysis: General Artwork 1/2, Character Figures 1/2, Backgrounds 1/2, Animation 0/2, Visual Effects 1/2

The franchise was never strong in production values. In fact, it is quite cheap. Animation is kept to minimum, leaving the characters almost always frozen with their mouths flapping monotonously. Coloring is nothing but basic lighter or darker chunks of layers on each side of the characters, making them look like plastic toys. And characters themselves have very basic body forms, with EXTREMELY weird spiky hairstyles. Of course they always dress them in leather and chains to look like pimps and drug dealers so the toddlers watching this can easily be swayed to find all that awesome. But to hell with all the rest; the best part is reserved for the cards and the monsters popping out of them with cheap albeit cool visual effects. Gotta promote the game; ?

SOUND SECTION: 7/10 [In America!]
Analysis: Voice Acting 2/3, Music Themes 3/4, Sound Effects 2/3

The music themes are like the visuals; generic albeit cool. I actually found them very memorable, probably because of too much repeat, yet I will never sing or hum them for any reason.

STORY SECTION: 4/10 [What? A plan that doesn’t involve card games? Are you crazy?]
Analysis: Premise 1/2, Pacing 1/2, Complexity 1/2, Plausibility 0/2, Conclusion 1/2

Story wise, there isn’t much; it always is about some poor excuse to have people playing duels with cards. There is scenario development, there is a mystery, there are revelations and there is a conclusion. But all of the above are presented in an entirely forced and unrealistic way. And by the end of the day, they don’t really matter. Although there is an actual story, which is far more complex than in any other game-advertising series, it all comes down to playing card games.

The original series was practically episodic but then they decided to make it seem more important by throwing in the salvation of the world by ancient demons and academies teaching card games and motorcycle races and whatever, it is all there for the cool factor and the product placement. It all looks eye catchy for the victims… err, the target audience I mean, since most of the times you are made to think that if they lose a single duel, they will be killed in a most horrible and gory way, like being sliced in half, buried alive by rubble, drowning while chained, turning into a mindless zombie and many, many more freakish things like that… Or have their souls trapped in the Shadow Realm, as the dub chose to censor it so it won’t sound mortified as it would sound satanic. Great improvement there 4kids; dying is bad but being sent to hell is entirely different. Still, it doesn’t take more than 5 seconds to realize how retarded it all becomes when you realize nobody in this series can do the slightest thing without playing the game, even when it is a piece of cake to do it without it. By the way, a piece of cake in this series is probably a spell card healing 2000 life points for every fairy on the field.

Anyways, the story is practically the hero getting out of bed and having a card duel with his caretaker. If he loses, he will suffer a million deaths. If he wins, he will have breakfast. Then he goes to school where the only study we ever see him doing is playing card games with his buddies. If he loses, he will have bad scores in tests for the next 10 reincarnations. If he wins, he won’t be bullied anymore by some delinquent. Then something happens and the universe is in peril by demons/aliens/mad motorcycle riders and he needs to save the day by playing a harmless children’s card game with them. Repeat a million times with slight variations and you have yourself 4 seasons of hundreds of episodes each. All done with low expenses in production and with minimal effort given to make sense of all that, the rewards of which is millions of kids running to the closest card shop in order to randomly win that cool monster they just saw on the episode in one of the dozens of booster packs they bought with their parents’ hard earned money.

CHARACTER SECTION: 6/10 [Attention duelists! My hair says you will play Duel Monsters.]
Analysis: Presence 2/2, Personality 2/2, Backdrop 1/2, Development 0/2, Catharsis 1/2

The characters remain stale cardboards throughout the series. Yes, Yugi is cool, Jowy is funny and Kaiba with Bakura are insane trendy adversaries. Beyond that, they are shallow and simplistic, who can’t say three sentences without making a card reference. You know, something like “Wow, that girl is so beautiful! Almost as much as my precious Dark Magician Girl card. Yes, the one I sleep with every night.”

There is a huge cast of characters, which changes its secondary ones every now and then. Each one has a really vague backdrop story and a quirk as an excuse for personality. They are either silly or cool in all; but get tiring when you see them acting the same no matter how many episodes . Their actions are also quite illogical and their motives are paper-thin most of the times.

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 2/10 [Look! A pair of breasts, attached to a woman.]
Analysis: Art 0/1, Sound 1/2, Story 1/3, Characters 0/4 [/b]

You know what? I wasn’t annoyed that much by the stupidity of the plot or the shameless product placement. It was mostly the constant deception of its own formula that was getting to my nerves.

For example, you are not really learning the rules of the game by watching the series. Most cards have abilities that only work in the anime, the life points are different, some spell cards aren’t even allowed to be used in normal matches because they are too imba, and for Pete’s sake for a long period of time you could summon the most powerful monsters without any tribute or restriction at all.

Furthermore, all the opponents in this series cheat on the rules all the time. They always find some cheap way to draw cards out of their sleeves or spy on their opponent’s hand against the rules. What is this game telling you, that cheating is fun and easy?

The heroes of course win despite all that by cheating themselves with the most imba power of them all called “Heart of the Cards”. That roughly translates to “I got the only card that could save me in the nick of time because I have the scriptwriter in my pocket; despite the fact I had never put it in my deck and will never see it again for the rest of the show”. That is all too cheap and you mostly think it is all luck and cheating and not actual strategy used to win in most duels.

Watching other game-based anime, like Hikaru no Go or Kaiji, you don’t feel that because it is not easy to cheat there without an ingenious plan or there is very little room for the luck factor. That is what makes them far more enjoyable than this show.

Going further, this game is such an easy way to initiate someone in demonology. I mean, it has to do with losing your soul and paying tribute to demons by sacrificing something living, so they can come and serve you by taking away the lives of your enemies, the reward of which is fame and power. Isn’t that all too satanic for a kid’s show? It’s not even trying to be educational or cathartic as it practically expects you to give your money to buy the game. I may be overreacting but the messages are there and the target audience is people who still mimic everything they see.

Plus, the game itself, even when played normally and without cheating, is mostly based on luck rather than strategy. It is nowhere near the tactical level of Magic the Gathering or Five Rings. I got bored of it fast.

VERDICT: 5/10
-The Heart of the Cards was with you today. – Wasn’t it just darn luck? – Same thing.

And don’t forget to check out Yu Gi Oh! Abridged , the most hilarious parody of a series ever made.