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Many American Yu-Gi-Oh! fans were surprised when reading the first seven volumes of the manga, seeing how different the tone was compared to the dubbed TV series shown in the US (Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters) and how the stories that were shown in the manga weren't present in the anime. In truth, before the series that most countries outside of Asia would recognize, there was a series produced by Toei that was based on the game-centered first seven volumes of the manga.

Before I go into review-mode, I'd like to point out that this series IS NOT called "season zero", "The Shadow Games/Yami no Game", or ... whatever other crap people are calling it this week. This was done by a different animation company (Toei) and has nothing to do with the series most of us know in the US, aside from having the same source material (Kaiba's hair is green for heaven's sake!). Calling it the "Shadow Games" is redundant because people seem to forget that the WHOLE manga and anime series is centered around Shadow Games. >_>; And "more violent"? Um, yeah. What part of "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters was dubbed by 4Kids!" don't you understand?

Story - 6

In truth, I enjoyed the first seven volumes of the manga. The first anime series? Well, that's a whole different story. The anime made liberties to the story shown in the manga, most of the time for the worst. A lot of the games that were originally pure genius were altered in the anime or just removed all together. Not to mention, it was comprised of original crap made by Toei and skipped over a lot of the more interesting chapters. I wanted to see the Zombire chapters and the "knife in the mouth" game animated, darn it! They had a lot of material to work with, but Toei decided to screw it up with their oh-so-good fillers.

The basis of the story and the theme is good, which is why I gave it a 6, but the anime was poorly executed, not to mention poorly paced.

Art - 3

The character designers and animators at Toei were smoking something unpleasant when producing this series. Green-haired Kaiba aside, the character designs for all the other characters were needlessly altered from their manga-counterparts and were drawn inconsistently throughout the series. The animation was quite inconsistent in general, and the BRIGHT color palette is a pain in the eyes.

Actually, the opening and ending themes are probably the only half-decent animation work that this series has to offer.

Sound - 6

The best thing I thought Toei did with the anime was the soundtrack, which isn't saying much because it wasn't all that amazing. The opening theme and the ending theme were OK (I especially liked the ending theme the most), but the background music is either a hit-or-miss.

The voice actors were great, but the large gap in tone between Yuugi and Dark Yuugi's voices were quite exaggerated by Megumi Ogata. Still, she made Dark Yuugi sound like a VERY clear-cut badass teenager.

Characters - 6

MOST of the characters retain MOST of their personalities that were shown in the manga. But seeing the alteration to Honda's fairly likable character into a pansy that got beat up in the first episode for no reason, and adding Miho into the story, all I have to say to Toei is...

What the hell were you thinking?!

Enjoyment - 5

If it wasn't for me reading the manga first, I probably would've enjoyed this series more. But I DEFINITELY wouldn't have seen the "lost potential" the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise had if I didn't read the first seven volumes of the manga first... The way the anime was constructed was neither "genius" nor would I see any LITTLE connection this series has to the later series. I probably wouldn't even know what the hell was going on.

Overall - 5

Toei turning something potentially watchable into something quite horrible? That totally never happened before.

If you want a SLIGHTLY more faithful adaptation of the manga, SLIGHTLY better character designs, and SLIGHTLY better animation, watch the second series (Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, subbed). In truth, the second series isn't all that great either, but it's much better than what this series is hyped out to be in the more idiotic portion of the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom. Personally, I recommend staying away from the words "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and "anime" put together, all together.