Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Duel Monsters

Yuugi Mutou is a naïve and lonely high school student who is fascinated by games. While staying with his grandfather, the owner of a game shop, he comes across an ancient Egyption relic known as the "Millennium Puzzle." Rumored to grant any wish to those who solve the Puzzle, Yuugi becomes determined to solve it to wish for some friends. After years of struggling, Yuugi manages to complete the puzzle and mysteriously finds that his wish has been fulfilled.

Meanwhile, a new card game known as "Duel Monsters" starts rising in popularity. In this game, players called duelists fight against each other with "monsters" by using magic and trap cards to foil their opponent's plans. Yuugi quickly becomes skilled at the game and lives a peaceful life with his newfound friends.

However, Yuugi's peace is short-lived. The undefeated duelist and egocentric billionaire Seto Kaiba suddenly abducts Yuugi's grandfather, forcing him to duel against the rare "Blue Eyes White Dragon'' card. Yuugi is thrown into a new world of fierce battles and the stakes continue to rise as dark forces interfere from the shadows. After unexpectedly defeating Kaiba with the help of his "other self"—the spirit of a nameless pharaoh—contained in the puzzle, he unofficially becomes the top duelist known as "The King of Games." However, this new title will attract covetousness and Yuugi will have to use all his intelligence and willpower in order to protect what he holds the dearest to him.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yami Yuugi Main

Kazama, Shunsuke Japanese

Kaiba, Seto Main

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Jounouchi, Katsuya Main

Takahashi, Hiroki Japanese

Mutou, Yuugi Main

Kazama, Shunsuke Japanese

Mazaki, Anzu Main

Saitou, Maki Japanese

Honda, Hiroto Main

Kondou, Takayuki Japanese

Yami Bakura Supporting

Matsumoto, Rica Japanese

Bakura, Ryou Supporting

Matsumoto, Rica Japanese

Ishtar, Malik Supporting

Kimura, Akiko Japanese

Crawford, Pegasus J. Supporting

Takasugi Jay, Jiro Japanese

Kobayashi, Noriko Producer

Sugishima, Kunihisa Director

Hiramitsu, Takuya Sound Director

Kasai, Kenichi Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 2, 2013

Kyuutoryuu

Recommended

I think the fact that YuGiOh (along with Pokemon) was the first anime I ever watched is enough to give this series a 10. That and the fact that this is one of the very few solid English dubs out there.

Great story, plot, ingenius card game (think about it, Kazuki pulled the entire YuGiOh ruleset out of his ass and it's incredible!), along with enjoyable dialogue make this series a 10/10. Honestly, if you've never seen YuGiOh and you're on MyAnimeList to decide if you should watch it, then go ahead and do it. You've been missing out.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Nov 22, 2012

angelsreview

Mixed Feelings

Well here is a flashback to my childhood. When I was younger, I had the cards, played the card game, and tried to watch the show rather religiously. Now as I have gotten older, the first series to me is the best out of them all. It was simple during that time, no pendulum summons, no ‘playing on motorcycles’ and so on. I will try hard not to spoil anything but it is really hard not to when the whole show is based Tournament style.

To talk about the story, one must first remember I watch English dubs, so this will all be based on the ... English dub that I know has been changed around because of 4Kids… which means I am also looking at the second anime. Yes, there were two Anime (this surprised me as well when I was looking it up) There is an anime that was before the one we all know and love. The second thing to remember is that in the world this show is based off of, Dual Monsters is based off of an Egyptian game played thousands of years ago. A lot of which means HUGE SPOILERS that will make the story have no sense until those spoilers are brought up within the show. Basic just of the show is Yugi is (I think) a middle school boy who one day gets a strange puzzle from his Grandfather to put together. He actually does figure it out and is made the host of a mysterious spirit from Egyptian times who was within the puzzle. From there, every time him and his friends are in trouble, this spirit comes out and duals the person bothering them. That’s basic just of this series as there are a bunch of ‘arcs’ in it.

The first arc is Yugi’s Grandfather being kidnapped by Pegasus… excuse me, just Yugi’s Grandfather’s soul if you want to get technical. This means Yugi and his friends end up going to Pegasus’ Island to Battle in the Duelist Kingdom. The second arc is the Battle City Arc where Kaiba learns of three powerful god cards and wants to take them for himself so Yugi and the gang end up dueling in that. The Third Arc was basically Dual Monsters with Dice which didn’t last too long, followed by Legendary Heroes which was an arc that took place within a virtual game. That Is all the arcs I remember at least and who stood out.

So that’s the arcs, what about the characters? Let’s start out with our main character, Yugi. Yugi Muto is a very young looking, kind hearted child who loves games and puzzles. It’s a little hard to talk about him as there are pretty much two sides to him, the normal young and sweet boy and the spirit that lives within the millennium Puzzle. The two blend so well at times that I do consider them one and the same at least till later on in the series. The sad part is that there isn’t much else I could talk about for Yugi. He doesn’t stand out when you look at the fact he is the main character and the one the show is named after. His father is not really talked about really, he lives with his Grandfather managing the family game store, but other then that there isn’t much else.

His friends are a bit more interesting in personality like Joey. Joey Wheeler is one of Yugi’s best friends, but even the show didn’t start out that way really. It started out with Joey and Tristan bullying Yugi which ended up with Joey somehow. Throughout the whole series, Joey grows from a smart ass troublemaker type kid to a more responsible and loyal friend. Yugi pretty much stays the same but this growth is what really makes Joey stand out over Yugi.

Next is Tea. Tea feels much like a token female in the group. She is cheerful, down to earth, and acts like a mother figure when the group needs a shoulder to lean on. Unfortunately, they also made her a stereotype of a girl in at least the 4kids aspect, becoming jealous of other women and in how she talks sometimes. I’m not sure if she is like that in the Japanese version, but there was always something off about her and the way she was betrayed as the weakest of the group.

Tristan sadly feels like the oddball out. I don’t think I remember any time that they centered on him or gave him a chance to stand out. If they did, he really didn’t catch my attention at all during then. Where Tea is the weakest in terms of strength while dueling, Tristan is weakest in terms of just overall personality.

The artwork of this show is really spiky. This is one of those very interesting shows with the overly unrealistic hair style. I do not know how much gel each of those characters use, but I do vote that Yugi uses more then anyone. The show started out rather natural with school boy and girl outfits and normal looking clothing, but as the show goes on it gets more and more punk rocker style. They add chains after chains on them, the belts get a bit thicker, and even Tea started to show off her midrift. The bodies of the characters are normally all very skinny with pretty long legs and arms although its not as crazy as shows like xxxHolic. The lip sink starts out not that good and then gets better with time but considering it was 4Kids who dubbed the show, I chalk it up to them.

So, onto the English voices… This was done by 4kids so how was it? Actually, I don’t think they did half bad. It didn’t make me bleed out my ears, the voices at least sounded reasonable for the people who were talking and even the accents of some of the side characters didn’t bug me. I think the most that bothered me was the script and how dumbed down they had made it. It is really clear how they tried to make the show more American then Japanese and sometimes their ‘teen lingo’ seemed dated. Otherwise, its actually one of the very few that they didn’t butcher.

So what exactly could I say about this? Well, its nostalgia plan and simple. It’s a children’s show and it will always be a children’s show show unless they come out with a new dub for it without cuts. Don’t let the fact that 4Kids had a hand in the show turn you away from at least trying the show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 23, 2016

ggultra2764

Not Recommended

Yu-gi-oh: Duel Monsters was one of the very first anime titles I got hooked on in high school and the trading card game that it promoted was also something that I was a casual player of during my time in college. Focused on teenager Yugi Moto possessing an Egyptian artifact called the Millennium Puzzle that lets an ancient spirit possess him to take on enemy threats in Duel Monsters games, I mainly was hooked on the series since it offered a more darker alternative to the more popular and light-hearted Pokemon franchise. Looking back on it now though, I have come to realize that Yu-gi-oh ... has many issues that plague it throughout its 224-episode run.

The most obvious issue that comes with the series is that it mostly exists as a promotion for said mentioned trading card game. Before I go into more depth with this issue, I should provide some quick history. Before the card game took off, the Yu-gi-oh manga source material created by Kazuki Takahashi was more focused on the ancient spirit of the Millennium Puzzle punishing evil characters encountered by Yugi and his friends with Penalty Games that inflicted ironic and often lethal punishments on the mentioned evil-doers. There is even a late-1990s anime adaptation of said series that Toei created covering these early parts of the manga. The card game end of the series came about in some episode arcs where Yugi and his friends got into the card game craze and crossed paths with diehard collector and game champion Seto Kaiba. This part of the series grew so popular that Konami started up their own version of the trading card game that continues to be popular to this day and said popularity led Konami to persuade Kazuki Takahashi to change up his title's story direction to focus more on the trading card game.

The influence of Duel Monsters' product promotional influence is rather obvious with the good majority of its title focus. In the same vain as Dragon Ball Z does for shounen battle anime, many of Yu-gi-oh's trademark card game duels often drag out for several episodes at a time and characters often get in the annoying habit of shouting out their moves, what the effects of their cards are, bragging that their strategies are flawless, and our heroic characters lucksacking (for non-card game players, lucksacking means luckily drawing the right card needed by chance) far too often when it appears they are down for the count. The mentioned lucksacking often involves the enemy duelist having some overpowered card or strategy that makes whatever our heroic characters are doing having them struggle to stay in the game until the hero conveniently draws just the card(s) they need to turn the tide of the duel.

Even with the card game promotion it does, the Yu-gi-oh anime also obviously does not properly follow the rules of the game that you would follow in real life. I will avoid getting into a long-winded rant about what rules are bent by the anime since it is not relevant for the sake of this review. But obviously, the anime will bend things with the rules of the actual game for the sake of plot convenience and advancement. A number of the overpowered cards from the anime when released in a physical format often have their effects altered or nerfed for the sake of gameplay balance in the real-life trading card game. Also, the rules used for playing the game in the anime are often quite different from the actual game and makes the following the anime not the most reliable means of learning to play the card game, especially with the rampant lucksacking and many of the character decks not being tournament caliber. Western players of the card game will obviously notice this with the Duelist Kingdom arc with gimmicks like land stat boosts and no tributes needed to summon higher-level monsters, while anything from Battle City arc and later is played more closely to the current card game rules albeit with lesser Life Points and some additional rules not found in the real-life game. However for those unaware, Duelist Kingdom arc follows an older version of the card game in Japan that is based on gimmicks following similar rules that the arc plays by.

Now let us move on to plot and characters. The gist of the plot involves the adventures of Yugi and his friends as they learn more of the origins of the seven Millennium Items, powerful Egyptian artifacts that possess various magical effects, and the ancient spirit that possesses Yugi's Millennium Puzzle. While the anime offers exploration of these story elements at points throughout the series, they are mostly overshadowed at points by the show's large focus on the card game duels and mostly feels like a backdrop to have a reason for the card games to exist at all. The characters do not get much fleshing out either as they mostly follow standard anime archetypes and exist either as cheerleaders supporting Yugi or other characters during their duels or as opponents built up to be threats until they are inevitably defeated by any major character in the series. Pretty much, plot and characters in this series are nothing but a hollow shell for this series to have its trading card game matches.

Many Western audiences will also be familiar with the infamous heavy editing done to the series by 4Kids. Obviously, many of the changes done to the series were done to make Yu-gi-oh appropriate and accessible to younger American audiences with character name changes, objectionable content such as violence and nudity being edited or removed, additional spoken lines of dialogue added that are not found in the original Japanese version, and removing any trace of Japanese dialogue found onscreen. Yet at the same time, these changes can make the series even more of a chore to watch through as they can be insulting to the intelligence of viewers. Mentions of the Shadow Realm are, in many instances, used for the series to get around cases where characters are in life-threatening situations or just got killed. Removing all traces of Japanese onscreen dialogue makes things ridiculous during the card game duels since the original version of the series had all the card text for the cards on them, while the 4Kids version only has the card graphics, stats, and level of each card played thus leaving some to wonder how characters could even know the effects of their own cards. But perhaps the most annoying addition to the series was its incessant habit of talking about friendship constantly throughout the series (the Japanese version also did this to a degree, but not as rampant) and made the character of Yugi's gal pal, Anzu (or Tea for viewers of the 4Kids version), a very hated character among many of the show's fanbase since she was the biggest offender of being so needlessly preachy with discussing friendship.

Overall, Yu-gi-oh: Duel Monsters pretty much has all the typical flaws you can find with an anime title being a source of product placement with its plot and characters being thinly veiled excuses to promote the trading card game that is a regular sight throughout the series. Unless you are a younger fan who also enjoys the trading card game, I wouldn't even recommend watching through the 224 episodes of this series as there is little memorable to get out of it beyond the game duels.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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