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RIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Yu-Gi-Uh-Oh


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John Casey



Joined: 31 May 2009
Posts: 1853
Location: In My Angry Center
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 11:14 pm Reply with quote
How did Yugioh get to be as popular as it was....or, still is?

I mean...both Pokemon and Magic utterly dwarf Yugioh in terms of card mechanics and tactics. Not to mention originality... The character designs are beyond horrendous - my five year old nephew once caught an ad on TV, and even told me himself it's ugly. Five-years old. And the story is...ueh...um... I've got nothing to say on the matter?

And as far as kids' anime goes, I mean....there's Digimon, right? Which is like a thousand times better as I remember when I used to watch it.

How did a show as irredeemable as Yugioh get to be such a huge hit? Confused I know it can't be all in the marketing... Cause I've seen crap whored a lot more, and more so effectively, without a single product selling. What gives.
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Unholy_Nny



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
Posts: 622
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 12:33 am Reply with quote
John Casey wrote:
How did Yugioh get to be as popular as it was....or, still is?

I mean...both Pokemon and Magic utterly dwarf Yugioh in terms of card mechanics and tactics. Not to mention originality... The character designs are beyond horrendous - my five year old nephew once caught an ad on TV, and even told me himself it's ugly. Five-years old. And the story is...ueh...um... I've got nothing to say on the matter?

And as far as kids' anime goes, I mean....there's Digimon, right? Which is like a thousand times better as I remember when I used to watch it.

How did a show as irredeemable as Yugioh get to be such a huge hit? Confused I know it can't be all in the marketing... Cause I've seen crap whored a lot more, and more so effectively, without a single product selling. What gives.

I dunno, I found it enjoyable as a young teenager. The card game wasn't really the most complex thing around, but it was easy to grasp and fairly fun.

So, not really sure what it was, but I liked it.
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tuxedocat



Joined: 14 Dec 2009
Posts: 2183
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 12:55 am Reply with quote
If I had known that there were "up-the-butt" cards, I might have looked into it more.

uh, don't read anything into what I just wrote.....

.....oh, nevermind. Laughing

-- in any case, I always thought Yugi was sorta "goth" for a children's cartoon character. The S&M choker always made me wonder....
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Xagor



Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 2:26 am Reply with quote
The comparative lack of complexity may partly explain the popularity. (There is some complexity as far as single card interactions go but this is more due to Konami and their occasional inability to be logical...) YGO has always been more about fun and fast games at least by comparison to say Magic. Also I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the money comes from kids ( or rather their parents), which is why the YGO and Pokemon TCGs have outsold Magic. I imagine many of the older players nowadays are ones who grew up from being these kids/ teens (myself for example). I imagine there are also some people attracted to the art on some particular cards ( I certainly heard about people being interested in the otherwise fairly bad Charmer cards for being somewhat moe...)
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Gasero



Joined: 24 Jul 2009
Posts: 939
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 7:12 am Reply with quote
Magic can be fun, but the simplicity of Yugioh allows players to have more fun and not worry about "tapping" and all those other small details when playing a card game.

The only real limitation when playing Yugioh is the amount of stars on the cards that determine the summoning level (at least in my opinion).

As to the Yugioh anime. It can be corny sometimes with speeches about friendship and the cards that seem to be so coincidental to the situation that nobody would actually have them, but I like seeing some shonen anime that have more strategy than brute force.

PS. "MIND CRUSH!"
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Uppa



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 31
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 8:49 am Reply with quote
The main Yu-Gi-Oh! storyline becomes oddly compelling as one progresses through the series, owed in part to its strategic leanings--but also because it makes a fervent appeal to that desire to collect and battle and trade. The character designs are charming, too, in a lot of ways--and much of the artwork in general is quite impressive, being laden with screentones, and so forth. Exaggeration is often the order of the day, and it even allows the series to summon loose--yet positive--recollections of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's a visual feast that never becomes so messy that it's difficult to follow: it suggests complexity--and often does some impressive manoeuvrings as players become familiar with cards--but rather adeptly puts this facade up behind an easy-to-follow interface.

Pair all this with characters that are developed to extents not dissimilar to more popular Shounen Jump properties and it becomes less difficult to recognise why it ranked so highly during its run in Shounen Jump. It was eclectic...but that was part of the draw.

Chiefly, though, I think the card-game became successful for its interactive value. Like Beyblades, players come together and trade, collect, battle and generally engage with each-other on the common topic. It develops small communities--and there really is a lot of enthusiasm that can be developed from engaging in these societies. Interaction pushes the experience that step further.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 1:10 pm Reply with quote
Hey, my review made the cut. Awesome. Anime smile

Anyway, I just can't stand to keep hearing how mediocre everything Natsuki Takaya has done outside of Fruits Basket has been. I'm not saying that because I disagree with the assessment, but it's just surprising and disappointing that she has simply not been able to write something with as much staying power as that one series had. Nobody wants to be a one-hit wonder, riding the coattails of the popularity they attained years ago.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 4796
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 5:14 pm Reply with quote
Are we mixing manhwa with manga now accidentally, or are we trying to trick people into reading manhwa in hopes they get pass the whole it's not Japanese thing, or does it just not matter? Wink Still, Laon's a great title. Nice to see it get some more attention.
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Dark Elf Warrior



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 228
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 8:12 pm Reply with quote
John Casey wrote:
How did Yugioh get to be as popular as it was....or, still is?

I mean...both Pokemon and Magic utterly dwarf Yugioh in terms of card mechanics and tactics. Not to mention originality... The character designs are beyond horrendous - my five year old nephew once caught an ad on TV, and even told me himself it's ugly. Five-years old. And the story is...ueh...um... I've got nothing to say on the matter?

And as far as kids' anime goes, I mean....there's Digimon, right? Which is like a thousand times better as I remember when I used to watch it.

How did a show as irredeemable as Yugioh get to be such a huge hit? Confused I know it can't be all in the marketing... Cause I've seen crap whored a lot more, and more so effectively, without a single product selling. What gives.


I understand. I wonder that myself, and I actually used to like Yugioh. Also, I did like the character of Yugi, and Bakura was cool, so in some ways it was certain characters that attracted me to the series. There were some parts that seemed to go on forever, and the card games got hard to sit through, and yeah some characters were annoying.

About that last part, I still wonder how Yugioh got to be a hit, I was surprised at it's succes, but like you said, it seems like the crappy stuff get attention. Look at Twilight . Not that all of Yugioh was crappy. Heck, it's better than Beyblade, another game-based anime. They didn't have characters like Bakura, and no brooding characters like Yugi.
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slickwataris



Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 1334
Location: Carol Stream, Illinois
PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 2:50 pm Reply with quote
When did this become a Yu-Gi-Oh! thread? I've been going to Anime Central for about 5 years, and I don't recall ever seeing a manga panel in the programming book. I'm looking forward to reading Laon and Saturn Apartments.
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Teriyaki Terrier



Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Posts: 5689
PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 2:59 pm Reply with quote
tuxedocat wrote:
If I had known that there were "up-the-butt" cards, I might have looked into it more.

uh, don't read anything into what I just wrote.....

.....oh, nevermind. :lol:

-- in any case, I always thought Yugi was sorta "goth" for a children's cartoon character. The S&M choker always made me wonder....


This does beg the question though. Was there ever such a card as that? I stopped playing the game years ago, but that sounds interesting.

Anyway, Yu-Gi-oh was okay at some point, but like Poke'mon and Digimon, eventually became rather repetitive and some what lackluster. Then again, 4kids didn't help this series at all, but the manga seemed to be better at some point.

Some series should have ended years ago and should been given a great ending like Poke'mon, Yugi and Digimon. Yu-gi-oh isn't a terrible series, its just become repetitive.
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russ869



Joined: 22 Dec 2006
Posts: 422
PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 4:15 pm Reply with quote
Yu-Gi-Oh! got popular because of story and characters, just like every other Shonen Jump manga. The reason so many people hate it is because they're missing the point. It's not all about the card games. Yu-Gi-Oh! wasn't originally even a card game manga; it's the Shonen successor to legendary gambling manga from gekiga. I don't like card games in the slightest and I still enjoy this series. I agree that it does draw influences reminiscent of Jojo's Bizarre Advanture. But hey, if even that show's to weird for you, then what can I say...

Yeah, some character designs are ridiculous, but that's not uncommon in gambling manga (see Kaiji) or Shonen Jump (see One Piece). And as for the story, well, thanks to everything that was lost in the translation from a great manga to a so-so anime (not to mention in the infamously horrible Americanization most people are familiar with) I can count the number of people I know who really have a good feel for what the "story" of Yu-Gi-Oh! is on about 2 fingers. I suggest you check out some chapters of the manga and THEN come back and talk to me about a "lack of story."
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TheRoyalFamily



Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 62
PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 5:23 pm Reply with quote
I think part of the big draw of the YuGiOh card game that let it stand apart from the other lame tie-in games is the lack of resource management that the other big card games have. In Magic you have mana, in Pokemon you have Energy, etc. Yugioh, you've got monsters. Very simple to build a playable deck - you can almost build a deck with 40 random cards, which appeals to kiddies. But to make a cool/good deck can be very complicated, because of all the completely nonsensical good cards and crazy mechanics that are super-specific with very limited use. The show/manga is ridiculous with the card combinations that come out of the character's rear end...and the card game has come to reflect that. So the hardcore tournament types can get into this too, and the kiddies who don't really know what they're doing can have fun and keep buying cards instead of being bored after the first month or so playing.

As far as the manga itself, I think it really went downhill once they introduced the card game. It was at first pretty dang cool; as in HOLY S--- DID YUGI JUST MAKE THAT GUY LIGHT HIMSELF ON FIRE AND THEN WALK AWAY LIKE IT WAS NOTHING?! Then it was about dragons and Egypt and junk.
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malvarez1



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 1628
PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 7:07 pm Reply with quote
I like Yu-Gi-Oh, but not Yu-Gi-Oh R.
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Youkai Warrior



Joined: 07 Aug 2008
Posts: 505
Location: Sarayashiki
PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 7:24 pm Reply with quote
None of the manga interested me this week. And that one by Hakusensha, as if we need anymore manga like that. It sounds like the mangaka ripped of Black Butler and Ouran High School Host Club.

I'm surprised that there is another YuGiOh. I thought there was just the three series. I used to really like YuGiOh, but like Teriyaki Terrier said, it was too long and got repetitive. The story was interesting though, it was about more than just the card games. Still, I don't know if I could sit through it again.

I know this had been said a lot already, but I have to agree with what Carlo said a few weeks ago about how just because Fruits Basket was great, that doesn't mean all of Natsuki Takaya's back catalogue manga should be licensed too. I mean, I know no one wants to be a one hit wonder, but it's gonna happen, and sadly for Takaya, I think she is a one hit wonder manga artist. Fruits Basket was good, but her other manga, including Songs to Make You Smile, aren't as good.
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