2020 Reflection: Yu-Gi-Oh!

 

Yu-Gi-Oh! was written in September 1996 by Kazuki Takahashi. The series features young Yugi Muto who comes into possesion of an ancient Egyptian artifact called the Millennium Puzzle and becomes inhabited by the spirit of an ancient Pharaoh. Yugi strives to help the Pharaoh spirit regain his memories of his past life so he can be put to rest while defeating various villains that want to use the power of the millennium items or other ancient Egyptian forces malevolently. He does through various games, most famously the card game "Duel Monsters" as a modern day equivalent to the ancient battle of spirits performed by Egyptian Sorcerers. I don't know if this was the same for everyone, but back when I was in school, Yu-Gi-Oh! was probably the single unifying series that everyone liked. Yu-Gi-Oh! was like the most hype series ever. And while in particular the anime tended to devolve down to "oh will Yugi draw the one card he needs to beat the bad man with the really scary monster? That monster sure is scary and everything hangs on him drawing the one card that would be useless in most sitatutions that happens to work here" and he draws it and of course as a child this is obviously the most exciting thing in the universe. This is going to be mostly about the manga, which is my preferred version, although most of the points here apply to the anime as well. The anime skipped the first arc and then added a bunch of stuff, some of which I liked but a bunch I wasn't as fond off.

3 Reasons I love it:

1: Yu-Gi-Oh's cast is the best mixture of having a massive presence and being compelling characters I think I've ever seen. Generally speaking series either have characters that are very potent and demand attention on the screen or they are subdued and complex but lack the immediate presence. The manga arguably has 4 arc villains; Kaiba, Pegasus, Malik, and Bakura. Mailk is a brain washing sadist with a dark alternate identity that is even an even more sadisti psychotic killer and he has imo the LEAST presence which should give an idea. Anzu and Honda may not have a huge presence but Yugi and Jonouchi also have their large presences. Yet all these characters also have actually compelling personalities of their own unique sort of flavor ranging from Kaiba's nigh-infinite sense of ego, ambition and sense of misplaced materialistic rationality to Pegasus' camp eccentric jovial mask over his resentful and vindicitive heart to Marik's vengeful and joyfully sadistic tones to Bakura's serious cunning and conniving. The characters both have the tangibility of a real personality while also having the intensity of an archetypal caricature.

2: Yu-Gi-Oh! is amazing at imbue-ing everything that's happening with a sense of immense grandeur and dignity. A lot of battle shonen are "fate of the world" physical fights because that's a really easy way to get the point across that this is a really high stakes thing, but it lacks much personal attachment. Until the last arc, all of the fights in Yu-Gi-Oh! are pretty strictly smaller personal battles done through games ranging from Yugi trying to help his friends, trying to save his grandpa's soul, trying to gather the god cards and avoid being killed by an insane vengeful man who thinks the pharoah killed his father, and all the while trying to help the spirit of "his other self", the pharaoh regain his memories. All of this is imbued with a grandeur or dignity that an end of the world fight would, despite it being, as often memed, a "children's card game". Part of this is the fact that the whole setting is imbued with the inherent mystique of Ancient Egypt which looms over the whole setting. The alien and mystical world of Ancient Egypt lingers like a spirit over the plot events in aesthetic and plot elements, raising the intensity of the scenes. This is helped by the fact that the "other Yugi" early on and later on after his developement, their enemies are quick to elevate the game to the point of physical or psychological damage or even death. The series is masterful at making everything feel immensely important. 

3: The series does a very good job of integrating the literal games being played with both character and thematic development. While it may occasionally might seem a bit unnatural, it's very impactful I found and a great example of how to demonstrate symbolism through the mechanics of what's happening. An example right away as a very clear example of this is during Yugi's duel with Pegasus. After having his toons destroyed, creatures Pegasus reverses as perfect immortal deathless creatures mirroring his obsession with seeing his dead love again, representing Pegasus' jolly cheerful facade Pegasus summons Thousand Eyes Sacrifice, a monster that paralyzes others with it's mystical eyes and forcibly absorbs others, using them as shields, the same cowardly tactics Pegasus uses, using his millennium eye to see into the minds of others and using their loved ones as hostages, trying to take what's not his. He also initiate a game of darkness to tortue young Yugi, his ugly self like Sacrifice being revealed. However Yami Yugi plays Kuriboh, a card seen as totally weak and useless, a tiny monster that represents Yugi that Pegasus the creator of the game can't believe anyone would use and uses Kuriboh's special ability to multiply to cover every eye of Thousand Eyes Sacrifice, just as Hikari Yugi defeated Pegasus' millennium eye strategy. There's a lot of symbolism to this moment but it's a great example of how to integrate symbolism into one's "fights" to make them more satisfying then just an immediate adrenaline rush.

3 Flaws:

1: The second arc of the series, Duelist Kingdom, where they play Duel Monsters version 1 was a long procession of Yugi winning things by weird card interactions the reader wouldn't know about before. I will say this makes more sense in the manga then the anime. In the manga Duel Monsters version 1 is not a "card game" per se but a tabletop game using cards with the computer acting as an automatic Game Master to decide what is and isn't illegal. As such concepts that simply wouldn't be able to translated into a real TCG can be translated under the logic that the computer could rule what is and isn't a sensible idea. This is why you have things like Giant Soldier of Stone destroying the Moon, Launching Gaia the Dragon Champion at Castle of Black Illusions' Floating Ring, and fusing Mammoth Graveyard with Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. However while it makes more sense that only solves part of the problem. In a fictional competition one generally needs to know the rules completely to try and understand the tactics and what the fictional player's options actually are so there's a sense that a victory is earned and not just anything can happen. While it makes more sense in the manga, the rules are still so open-ended that many of Yugi's victories seem less like clever tactical thinking and moreso cases of "wait, he can do that?" It doesn't help that Yugi's deck most for most of the series does not have the clear cohesive strategies of all his opponents and instead seems to contain mostly random associated cards so he can always draw something that seems just particularly suited to whatever the situation is.

2: Yu-Gi-Oh! is full of jobbers. The only people who ever win a duel are Yugi, Jonouchi, Kaiba and one of the main villains. That's technically an exaggeration although not much of one. There's lots of duelists in the series that are supposed to be really good strong duelists that are just informed traits because they always lose. Mai, Haga, Ryuzaki, Ryota. They never win an on page duel. This might seem like a small complaint but to me in particular it really increases the sense that the protagonist have a level of plot armor because nobody else in the series ever makes these spectacular draws or has a great comeback. Mai almost had one against Malik only to be stopped by sudden because Mai can't read the text on the card (something that no real tournament would allow and is basically only allowed because Kaiba wants to see the God Cards used and doesn't care about enforcing a rule more then that)

3: This is more so a personal taste thing but I would have liked a larger variety of games being played similar to the first arc of the manga. This is one of the few times where I think one of the flaws I am listing I think the original writer would agree.  Kazuki Takahashi seemed to want to focus his manga around games in general and only got roped into writing about duel monsters specifically because it was so popular. In the final arc when he doesn't have to, there's only a small handful of duels and that's about what I would want. I wouldn't want Duel Monsters to not be in the series just that they might play a few games and demonstrate different types of strategy.

Favorite Part:

My favorite part is the ceremonial duel. Each part of it could be analyzed from how Yami Yugi's monsters are all powerful past-oriented monsters representing the pride and strength and dignity of the past and Hikari Yugi's monsters are small and cute and seemingly weak but become stronger either by working together or by growing over time like Hikari Yugi, representing the brimming potential of the future. These two souls learned from each other, Yami Yugi learning gentleness and compassion and Hikari Yugi learning courage and perserverence. Hikari Yugi must defeat his other self to finally lay the spirit to rest and in the end he wins by revealing he had placed monster reborn in the gold sarcophagus, negating Yami Yugi's attempted revival of Osiris. There's so much that could be said about it, how Osiris represents the Pharaoh and how Hikari Yugi recognizing Yami Yugi's goal showing how they have grown to mirror each other's strengths. A perfect example of symbolism and character development demonstrated in the mechanics of the "battle".