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Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters is an anime based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. It is produced by Studio Gallop and Nihon Ad Systems, and the English adaptation is distributed by 4Kids Entertainment.
Summary[]
A high schooler named Yugi Muto and along with his friends and his rival Seto Kaiba battle against evil using the power of a card game called Duel Monsters, and the power of the ancient Millennium Puzzle.
Why It Rocks[]
- It helps newcomers understand the basics of the game.
- Interesting characters.
- Great and memorable dub by 4Kids Entertainment. As they kept their dub very faithful to the anime, and the occasional changes they made actually improved upon some things of the original Japanese version.
- The concept of Pharaoh Atem's spirit living within his reincarnation Yugi Muto is awesome.
- It made the gaming anime sub-genre popular.
- Well-written story.
- The finale was pretty heartwarming.
- Exciting duels.
- Incredibly funny moments. Like these scenes,
- Many over-the-top moments that are actually pretty funny, especially in the English dub. Like this scene.
- The animation is top-notch with CGI using Alias Wavefront Maya software.
- Excellent voice acting in both Japanese and English. Especially Dan Green's performance as Yugi Muto and Pharaoh Atem, Eric Stuart's performance as Seto Kaiba, Wayne Grayson as Joey Wheeler, and Darren Dunstan as Maximillion Pegasus.
- It introduced Yu-Gi-Oh! to the West.
- It was followed up with a sequel called The Dark Side of Dimensions, which is an improvement to Pyramid of Light and Bonds Beyond Time.
Bad Qualities[]
- The Trading Card Game was one of the first Pokémon clones, despite sufficient originality.
- Similar to Naruto, several story arcs were just filler so the Manga could progress. Thankfully, Season 5 was the final season in which Yugi beats Atem, even leaving a tearful farewell.
- Just like the original manga and it's 1998 anime adaptation by Toei, Joey and Tristan used to pick on Yugi when they steal pieces of the Millenium Puzzle.
- Weaker duelists such as Panik who only uses 1000-2000 atk and def points monsters and two spells.
- Some of the censorship in the English dub was poor. Particularly the infamous "Invisible Guns" scenes, and the Shadow Realm plot device to censor characters deaths.
- Most cards don't play the same as the actual game and there are many made up rules. This often causes people who learned about the game through the anime to frequently misinterpret rules when they play the actual card game.
- There are many absurd made up rules, such as Yugi using tidal wave to defeat a fish-type monsters, as well using his Mammoth's Graveyard (a zombie-type monster) to fusion with Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon to causing it to "slowly dying".
- Of course, these issues were at least fixed starting with Season 2, even though some absurd rules were still there.
- There are many absurd made up rules, such as Yugi using tidal wave to defeat a fish-type monsters, as well using his Mammoth's Graveyard (a zombie-type monster) to fusion with Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon to causing it to "slowly dying".
- Some scenes in the English dub were passed of just to progress the story along. For example, in the Marik vs Joey duel, Joey would've won if not for Marik's dark magic.
- Some plotholes, like for example in the first season: Yugi often transforms into Yami and nobody notices this happening.
- Of course, his friends (save for Seto Kaiba) found out that Yami wasn't Yugi when Yugi's soul was taken by the Seal of Orichalcos in order to save Yami from having his soul taken. And in the final episodes, they realize that both Yugi and Yami (or Atem) are separate entities.
- Like most dubs by 4kids, the English has been criticize for removing all references of death and drinking.
- Most of the English voice actors aren't very great either.
Reception[]
Yu-Gi-Oh! received critical acclaim for its story, animation, and style. It has an 8.4 score on IMDb and 7.6 on MyAnimeList. In 2016,the same team released the movie Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions, which provided a really well-done story to close-up the show.