Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Yu-Gi-Oh!
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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I only worked on the first few volumes of GX, so I don't know. The censorship requirements at Viz would get looser and stricter from month to month, so there isn't necessarily any explanation. |
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YamadaKun
 Posts: 304 Location: Sunny California |
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@ptolemy18 Why do Viz have censorship for even their "13+" stuff? Why? There isn't a good reason. If people under the age of 13 aren't supposed to be reading in the first place, why was Dragonball and "Dragonball Z" so butchered? Why did you censor FMA? Why did you censor so many things?
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White Lightning Alchemist
Posts: 51 |
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I believe Yu-Gi-Oh! R was both written and drawn by Akira Ito, but supervised moreso by Kazuki Takahashi than the later spin-offs. It's probably my favorite spin-off as it carries on the themes from the regular series and not just the characters. But yeah, it's mostly forgettable and the plot just isn't as good. The first 64 episodes of 5D's are also pretty cool too, but after that they forget about all the social warfare stuff that made it interesting and just starting making the mindless card game ad that everyone thinks the franchise is.
I've been a fan of the series for years upon years and like many others here, this was a gateway into Shonen Jump and in turn manga as whole for me. While I had picked up some Dragon Ball and Pokemon stuff in the past, I hadn't read it regularly. Yu-Gi-Oh! made me want to come back for more. I wish the card game stigma wasn't so strong. While Shonen stuff does typically have a stigma around it, this series has an even stronger one due it's card game connections. It's just odd for me to see Bleach and Naruto so widely accepted as actual shows/comics while Yu-Gi-Oh! is dismissed as JUST an ad. |
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Ryusui
 Posts: 461 |
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It was, I kid you not, a scheduling thing. Yu-Gi-Oh! ran right next to the animated adaptation of The Mummy, which bandied about the name "Osiris" a fair bit. So, since kids are morons and couldn't be trusted to keep their Egyptian gods straight between shows, they felt compelled to rename Osiris after one of their own minions. For the record, I'm fine with "Obelisk the Tormentor" and "The Winged Dragon of Ra," but I'm not budging on the "Slifer" issue. Though the biggest problem I have now is that there's no nice and consistent localized "Osiris" name to go with the other two... |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2553 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Yu-Gi-Oh! was a series that I first saw via the anime, which I originally watched as I was weaning myself off of Saturday Morning cartoons; because of that I only enjoyed it but didn't really love it... But then I read the manga.
Those first seven volumes were just so different & an absolute joy to read. Though I hadn't seen the end of Battle City (the Noah/Virtual World filler in the anime made me not want to watch the anime anymore) I decided to read the "Millenium World" release as it was coming out in book form. Man, that last story arc was such a great final arc for YGO!, bringing the series back to its roots (in a sense) while also continuing what had just happened. It was awesome to see the origin of everything important & Dark Bakura is probably still one of the most disturbing & downright evil villains in the history of Shonen Jump; definitely a favorite character of mine in the series. Finally, like Jason said, the end of the manga was just excellent. I think what made me love the manga was that I could see that YGO! was what I like to call a "Selfish Story", i.e. it's all about a personal journey for the main character, with the end result not impacting the world as a whole in any real, important way (a.k.a. the world is not at crisis). 4Kids added in the whole idea of "We must defeat Marik in order to save the world!", but in the manga all of the villains are simply after Dark Yugi for their own personal reasons, just as Dark Yugi's goal is simply to realize his past (specifically his real name). There's great power behind some of the cards, no doubt, but in the end this is a completely personal story, with no "greater good" for the heroes actions to be based around. I really liked that aspect of the story, and the finale really pushed that "Selfish" idea forward, because in the end that's what YGO! was truly about. It wasn't about card games or "Shadow Games" or Egyptian mysticism... It was about the characters, their personal goals, & how they reached them and moved on, both literally & figuratively. I can understand the cynics who put down Yu-Gi-Oh! simply because it's now part of a franchise that's all about selling a "children's card game", but at the same time I think those people are being way too serious for their own good. Yeah, the series does get a giant focus on a card game, and that does bring about a sense of "buy our stuff!", but at the same time there's a great fun in seeing how the games play out, not knowing what card will be drawn next until it happens. YGO! is simple an excellent example of why Shonen Jump can be enjoyed by all ages, even if it's aimed at younger audiences, generally. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must finally get back to the "Duelist" part of Viz's release of the manga... I really should, finally, know how Battle City plays out in the end. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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The first series also did that. They changed all the card games to the Americanized ones, and for some odd reason they split up the manga into three 'sections'. Original, Duelist, and Millennium World. The first is obvious some terrible mandate by Konami which ruins the English release to hear them use silly names like Slifer the Sky Dragon or replacing "black" with "dark", but the later is just confusing and makes no sense. With Dragonball Z at least there was the excuse the anime did that, but 4Kids never did that with Yu-Gi-Oh (well, they did throw in lame subtitles like "Enter the Shadow Realm" and junk but that's besides the point)
Quite the opposite. Yu-Gi-Oh was on the verge of cancellation early on it's in run when it was just 'game of the week' with Yugi, and it was the lowest rated manga in WSJ at the time. The chapters with the card games and Kaiba skyrocketed the rankings and the editors told Takahashi to either bring Kaiba and the cards back or it would get cancelled. After that, the rankings for the manga increased. No in Japan likes the early chapters, and indeed, they're pretty boring. It's pretty much episodic 'game of the day' stuff with no real point and the plot doesn't kick in until Bakura and Duelist Kingdom. Later, when Takahashi removed the card games to do the Memory Arc, the rankings plummeted again because there was no more cards. WSJ noticed this and forced Takahashi to finish it earlier than he anticipated, and all but cancelled the manga. Also at this time Takahashi was suffering from a stomach ulcer so he was in the hospital for a few weeks and there were lots of delays. In the end the ending was a bit rushed because of all of this. however, this is one of the cases where the anime supersedes the manga, and the anime became alot more popular. They fixed some of stuff fans didn't like from the manga and it ended up becoming even more popular and enough to support three spin-off series. At this point, it seems GX and Zexal are the most popular series in the franchise if you go by the fan reception and amount of fanworks there are for the shows. I'd definitely reccomend the anime over the manga as it feels tighter and more concise and better written, plus it's more 'canon' at the end of the day since all the future anime series follow the Duel Monsters anime rather than the manga. It's just a shame the English version of the anime is one of the most butchered dubs in existence. All in all, it's my favorite anime franchise at the moment and Zexal is my most looked forward to show every week. Plus I'm currently rewatching GX and seeing all the parallels and references between GX and Zexal is interesting. 
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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I was the one who came up with the name "Millennium World" for the English edition. I don't remember who actually came up with the idea to split the series into different parts, but since they're basically different storylines it worked for me. |
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rheiders
 Posts: 1137 Location: Colorful Colorado :) |
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Ah, this brings me back. I used to be obsessed with Yu-gi-oh!. I don't remember that much now, but it still holds a special place in my heart. I watched the whole original series and all of GX before I started to grow out of it, and I checked out all of the manga volumes from the local library many times. Some of those volumes were practically falling apart after I was done with them! xD I had a pile of cards too, with a main deck themed around dragons (yeah...not a big CCG player; I mostly just thought the monsters were cool xD). But as huge a fan as I was, it sounds like my library only ever had the middle part of the series. I haven't touched the series in years, but now I really want to read that last arc! xD
Tangentially related- when I was in Japan recently, the subject of our first manga came up in conversation with some friends of my Japanese professor. I mentioned that mine was Yu-gi-oh, and then, on the last day of my stay there, one of the ladies gave me a deck of Japanese cards as a farewell gift! It was one of the sweetest things that's ever happened to me 
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BonusStage
 Posts: 307 |
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Blame 4Kids and LittleKuriboh  They've pretty much ruined it's reputation in America with anyone who wasn't already familiar with the series before it came over. 4Kids' dub being bad and cheesy and horrendous and LK turning it into nothing but stupid internet meme jokes that people repeat for no reason and make no sense so if their first exposure if through the dub or the abridged stuff then of course they'll make fun of it. I'd make fun of it too if I thought those two things were what YGO actually was. 
Last edited by BonusStage on Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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R. Glover
Posts: 96 |
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This franchise was one of the many reasons I started learning Japanese and to get officially thrown in to the world of manga. I started collecting the cards and magazines (the Beckett ones and at least one issue of YGO Magazine) from Dec. 2002-around 2008; the video games from Dec. 2003-Aug. 2008; a few issues of Shonen Jump from Oct. 2003-2011 (I started subscribing to it in 2005 and at one time, I got an Obelisk card as a result), the graphic novels from Aug. 2004-Jan. 2008 (I only had Yu-Gi-Oh! vol. 1, Millennium World Vol, 2, the Yu-Gi-Oh! the Movie Ani-Manga, with a Slifer the Sky Dragon card inside and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX vol. 1) and a few (dub-only) DVDs from Dec. 2003-Dec. 2007. I still remember the Kids' WB! promos for the show and even printed "scanlations" of the manga from the internet, even Japanese-language ones. I even learned about the Japanese versions of the anime, even the 1998 one. However, the Yu-Gi-Oh! lawsuit back in 2011 complicated everything, but now that Konami/4K Media has control of the anime franchise outside of Asia, I've recently gotten back into the franchise. I've recorded the subbed version of episode 1 of the 2000 series (complete with episode preview) on my Nintendo 3DS... or at least I HAD a 3DS before a charging error occurred. However, I still have it on one of my SD cards.
And remember: Nicktoons now airs Yu-Gi-Oh! only on Mon.-Thurs. at 8:30p (Yu-Gi-Oh! has been replaced by NFL Rush Zone: Season of the Guardians every Friday from now on) and ZEXAL Sat. 2:30p and Sun. 11:30a-12:30p. Vortexx's scheduling of both Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL remains the same. |
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Paul Soth
 Posts: 140 Location: Columbus, Oh |
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So you were the one who snuck in the Knights of the Dinner Table references.
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Looneygamemaster
 Posts: 192 |
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BonusStage: Wellll...I think some blame can be given to the second anime adaptation as well. Even a more faithful dub couldn't have changed the fact that this show was pretty much a card-game commercial (with the staff pretty much making Duel Monsters the only game--he's called "The King of Games guys).
Mind you, I don't mind merchandise-driven shows, just as long as they have good writing (Digimon and some Transformers shows come to mind). But I feel that the Duel Monsters anime is weaker than the manga--and as that's what the franchise is most known for, I can understand those who knock it. I just don't agree. 
Last edited by Looneygamemaster on Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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Actually he's called the "Game King" in the original, later "Duel King" when he wins the Battle City. "King of Games" is the dub name. Regardless, the title yugiou stands for a soul contains light and darkness. It's been a recurring theme for all the series (except 5D's, but no one cares about 5D's) It's one of the first things established in the series, actually. And people who knock a show for 'cards' are pretty shallow and easily avoided. But that's not the method I've seen people knock the show for, they knock it in the sense that they quote something from the dub or the abridged series (i.e. one of Dan Green's horribly acted lines, or "card games on motorcycles" or call it a "children's card game" and what have you) Either out of complete gross ignorance for the actual show or because all they can do is communicate in over-done, stupid internet jokes and think they're being clever. I can totally agree those two factors pretty much ruined it's chances in America despite being one of the biggest franchises in Japan. |
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Msag
 Posts: 50 |
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What a wonderfully written article!
I especially love how you didn't make any excuses for your love of this manga too, given how touted it is as a big CCG commercial and never-ending battles etc. I think I understand now why some of my friends really like Yu-Gi-Oh! while I never got around to it. Definitely makes me consider reading the manga now, or at least watch the anime.
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jymmy
 Posts: 1244 |
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This article has convinced me to finish the manga. I've watched the first two storylines of the anime and up through half of Battle City in the manga, and had no inclination to finish the series until now. I'm still probably never going to watch the anime, because eighty episodes is a long time to devote to curiosity or nostalgia, especially since the manga will eliminate the former.
The original arcs were the most fun, but the Duellist ones did have that lousy-but-sickeningly-readable Shonen Jump vibe to them; I read them mostly in libraries and could go through a couple of volumes in an hour. Fun stuff. |
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