Duelist Kingdom is Way Better Than You Remember
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- Опубликовано: 25 мар 2024
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Zexal next?
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Yu-Gi-Oh R? 🤔
I'm skeptical that video would come to reality especially to a season that I'd find to be criminally underrated.
VRAINS please
Definitely do Zexal! It turned into one of my favorite YGO series despite me not liking it at first.
"SAY GOODBYE TO EXODIAAAAA" is such an iconic moment in the franchise.
Also a very necessary one. Without it the writers would've been stuck in a hole where Yugi just has an instant win button at the ready to get him out of any situation.
@@stegomasaurus6737... you mean the millenium puzzle? Aka the this device cheats so you win ANY game you play? That instant win button?
@@Not_An_EV no, no, no, they would have had an even more repetitive and boring win button
@@Not_An_EVnow imagine having that power with the exodia cards in his deck. Would be even worse
my jaw is still dropped from 2002
Duelist Kingdom is one of those arcs that has its faults, but its such a strong arc for being the first major story arc of duel monsters. You can really tell the staying power it has even to this day, as many people who have watched yugioh watched Duelist Kingdom as their first experience with it. And it's honestly good to introduce the characters and monsters that many people still remember to this day. Other than that, welcome back Enigma!
What faults??
@perfectman3077 people don't like that it doesn't follow the rules but there were no rules in season one. If you think of it as a DnD campaign, it's okay.
@@yugi.boomer People are stupid. Even without the rules, it's still an amazing show.
"for being the first major story arc"
Second, but only if you count Season 0. Season 0 had the whole thing with Kaiba and the Game Masters.
@@VestedUTuber That's why I dislike calling it Season 0. I think a lot of people get the idea that it's actually connected to the Duel Monsters continuity, when they're really two different adaptations of the manga. So this really was the first major story arc for this anime.
"Must. Risk. Life. For. Cards." -Joey Wheeler
Tbh his endurance is astounding
Now I gotta watch abridged, thanks!
damn joey be predicting the future
Who needs expensive therapy, when you have expensive trading cards
As a little kid I remember having no idea who would win between Yugi vs Joey. I even thought Bandit Keith would beat Joey cause Yugi facing Joey was a good guy vs good guy fight and id never seen that happen in a show. It never even occurred to me that Yugi could just give Joey the prize money.
I remember that feeling as well. And in hindsight it makes me feel stupid cause we know Yugi by now. It's SUCH a Yugi thing to do, to give someone the money if it could help them. That isn't what he's after. And even if he did have nothing to lose and everything to gain well.
Humph. We've seen what happens when those cards are at play. Atem never should've been in charge during that duel.
I fully expected Joey to win and to surrender the Pegasus fight so Yugi could do it. Having Joey beat Yugi would have been the perfect end to his arc, having him beat stronger and stronger opponents over the arc, finishing by beating the strongest of all. Just wish he’d beaten Kaiba at some point
@TheRibottoStudios I think Atem being in charge that duel was appropriate since Yugi at that point in time didn't believe he was good enough, and Joey deserved the respect of facing Yugi at his strongest.
I always thought "why doesn't he just let yugi win and then he gets the prize money" and I never knew that that wasn't the plan
i love the english voice performances done for kaiba, pegasus, joey and of course yugi. pegasus' voice actor just nailed it, the calm smooth voice he displays for casual audience but as soon as he gets serious, you really know it.
4kids had fantastic casting for yugioh
I still find it hilarious Yami Yugi's English VA did hentai voice acting
@@richborn6700yami yugi and little yugi were both voiced by dan green
@@richborn6700I mean have you heard the pegasus song face up face down? I wouldnt be surprised 😂😂
@@richborn6700Now cluck like a chicken!
Mai is actually a sweetheart in this arc, even though at first appearance she was kind of a bad guy. She manipulated Rex throughout his entire stay on the island, but then:
-She shared rations and shelter with the main crew.
-She gave Yugi and Joey second chances when other opponents stole them from them (Kaiba at the castle's entrance and Keith when he stole Joey's entrance card)
Not only that, but it's MAI not any of Yugi's friends who helps him out of his trauma trap. She's the one who helps him understand he had to come to terms with what the Pharaoh nearly did. And, in doing so, he and Atem were able to reconcile and get the win.
That newfound confidence in his relationship with Atem is what allowed Yugi to be the one to decide to do the Mind Shuffle. A play that would ultimately get them the win against Pegasus. He would also be able to step up and save a mind controlled Joey, telling the Pharaoh to back up and let Yugi handle things. That takes an insane amount of respect and trust.
And they never would've gotten to the point where they could trust each other wholeheartedly and know the other inside and out without Mai Valentine. I honestly love her character so much.
“you had the guts to look inside and face up to what you saw there. You looked your demons in the eye and dealt with them. And that's a lesson everyone should learn. A duelist can learn more from her defeats than from her victories. You taught me to face my fears. So Yugi….have you faced your fears? Whatever happened in your duel with Kaiba, have you come to grips with it?”
It's Mai who teaches us, not Yugi, not Joey, not Tea or Tristan that you need to own up to your screw ups to be better later. We fck up. And you don't understand that until you REALLY fck up.
The Pharaoh fcking up as bad as he nearly did is what helped him grow. Yugi as well to am extent. It's an important lesson to learn.
@@TheRibottoStudiosI think it’s because Mai is an adult, she’s just more mature so she can take a different approach with Yuugi to help him out of the slump while showing her intelligence towards emotions
That’s actually a really good point
I had a huge crush on her as a kid! Mai rules.
She also beat Yugi's ass in the quarterfinals
This is one thing people don't realize about Duelist Kingdom:
It's a closer to a RPG not a card game in how it plays. They haven't made the real card game so that is how they do it.
Just imagine playing D&D with a chill Dungeon Master. You get a cool idea and the DM is like: Eh, it sounds like something the thing can do so I'll allow it. And if it doesn't sound possible for the thing it wont happen. Honestly, with my perspective on Dungeons and Dragons that concept sounds pretty cool and I appreciate Duelist Kingdom more now than I did as a kid getting into the card game.
Still it’s not good for an actual card game
They should release an yugioh rpg like dungeons and dragons
Pegasus being the CEO of a company who promotes cute bubbly characters and merchandising but uses a deck of demonic soul-sucking monsters is almost a bit too on the nose commentary of entertainment company CEOs like... Jump, maybe?
@arikadoriyama4724 I don't think Disney was even that evil back then (late 90s, early 00s).
@@perfectman3077is Disney even doing anything different now than it did back then, besides churning out remakes, Star Wars content, and the MCU?
@@VinTheDirector I don't think they even owned MCU and Star Wars back then.
To be fair to Pegasus, he seemed to be a stand up man before his personal tragedy, which leads him to destiny + literal ancient magic in a bid to get what he wants, and by that point he basically chucks 95% of his honour away in search of his goal. Which is why I don't think your analogy works here.
@@lionofash7700 Sounds like a slightly exaggerated version of Disney. After all, CEOs sucking up to authoritarian governments like China's (including filming in a region known for forced labor camps) just for a business advantage could certainly be seen as abandoning honor.
Waking the Dragons is the most underrated Yu-Gi-Oh arc by far. the badass Seal of Orichalcos theme still goes so hard 20 years later!
The voice casting was so good. As you mention Kaiba already but the Pharoahs voice is iconic
Voice casting and music too is far better in English dub
@@farhatk6054 I prefer the music tracks in the sub for Yugioh HOWEVER, there's quite a few scenes (especially in GX) which has ambient almost nothing music, and maybe that's the point to create an unsettling atmosphere but man I think that was a bad choice. I will say though some of the ENG tracks are chefs kiss.
fun fact Dan Green (not his real name btw) actually voiced a character in a 𐋅𐌄𐌍𐌕𐌀𐌉 which comes off hilarious as he's doing that exact tone of voice.
@@SHADOMEGA7569 Ya it's pretty common actually for voice actors, celebrities, writers, etc to use a different name from their real one. Last names especially it's like how the lead guitarist of of Rush, Alex Lifeson's real name is Aleksander Zivojinovich
Also the animation colors was way better on duelist kingdom then later arcs
The way Yugi gave up the loss to kaiba had me in shock
I mean yes but it bugs me howe the rival only gets one victory and its only because he threatened to commit suicide. To make the rival an actual threat let him defeat Yugi clean. That way Battle City would have been a legitimate tie breaker. Yu-gi-oh has an issue where rivals lose far too often. It took until Kite in Zexal to finally get a rival who was actually untouchable.
@@spartanq7781true , it does suck that Kaiba is consistently umable to beat Yugi, but this "win" is cool thematically. The only time Kaiba won against Yugi is when he swallowed his pride and was willing to die if it meant saving Mokuba. His victory was scummy, but you get why he did it
PS:
To play devil's advocate, Kite wasn't technically the first rival that was an actual threat.
Jaiden techincally didn't have a traditional rival, but the closest one was Zane, who he never actually beat while he was in his prime ( by the time he switched to Cyberdarks his physical condition was alredy worsening)
You could argue Aster was a rical to Jaiden too ss he was his polar opposite and since HE beat Zane when Jaiden, as well as Jaiden couldn't, as well as Jaiden himself, that would mean that, for a time, he was the best duelist st the academy
But once Jaiden started using Neo Spacians he made short work of Aster and I don't think they duel since
And manga Chazz was a *beast* , he was basically considered second ONLY to Zane. Giving a better good why he's in Obelisk Blue in the first place.
Tbf I think that’s because Yuma is a shite duelist anyway, the closest they get is a draw with Zexal transformation.
But Kite and Yumas duel to bring back Kites spirit for duelling probably wouldn’t work if he lost.
Besides him though, Zane never lost to jaden and they didn’t duel after the graduation match.
Tbh I think they should’ve had Zane duel Supreme King but idk.
@@rob19ny Thing is the first series anime and especially manga don't really flow into the second series anime well. Its very different from the original and yes I seen it. The way duel monsters begins is very weird. Yugi already completed the puzzle got friends and has his first encounter and duel against Kaiba. The original did this far better as we got to see that. I love the arc where Yugi and company had to play Kaiba's games and wish that was apart of duel monsters and then we get Duelist Kingdom. Another big issue with duel monsters is its incredibly slow pace and all the changes from the manga.
@@spartanq7781 if I’m correct, Zane never had an official loss to Jaden right? Just draws and wins?
The manga version of this arc is king, set directly after Yugi has fully learnt of the "other me" within him following the Monster RPG and how this is where Dark Yugi has development into the Pharaoh we know. The importance of Yugi being scared of the other him with how unhinged Dark Yugi has been is just... chefs kiss.
@arikadoriyama4724your forgetting the biggest thing, Yami also caused the death and of traumatizing of a lot of people and Yuugi has a good reason to be scared if Yami gets anywhere out of hand
@@gabrieldevoogel6225 Oh yes, all those poor people Yami Yugi took out like the greedy kid who was willing to play a life or death card game just for his ego, or that poor man who beat people up and took their expensive toys and put them on the black market, so pitiable. Or what about that poor, poor escaped inmate that was gonna kill a waitress, how could he be so mean as to burn him up! Truly Yami has only ever punished slight offenses or real sweethearts.
@@motherplayer never said Yami wasn’t justified, please remember that, I’m saying Yuugi was scared because Yami had done that to people before, and wasn’t sure if he’d spare Kaiba (which to be fair he wouldn’t have in that situation lmao)
I just got back into reading the manga again because I never had a chance to finish it back in the day. I forgot how brutal Yami could be and I’m like “yeah, poor Yugi is probably terrified of this guy.”
Granted, I really enjoy how ruthless dark yami is too. He’s very protective of the main crew (thank goodness) but god help anyone who gets on his bad side.
*My least favorite trope about tournament arcs is interrupting the tournament for whatever reason*
FILLER
Honey put down the chicken Enigma uploaded
I read this as in “chicken enigma” and imagined some weird amalgamation of poultry and regret 🤣🤣
Considering that I rewatched Yugioh a few months ago...Yeah, I actually remember just how good Duelist Kingdom was. Heck, it actually felt like a real tournament instead of moving from one scripted event to the next like Battle City was.
Battle city had a lot of potential and some really awesome moments but the biggest issue with that arc was the antagonist's plans made absolutely no sense.
With Duelist kingdom Pegasus was not only after kaiba corp but he also wanted to duel Yugi to get a hold of millennium item so that he can find a way to revive Cecilia. It was deeper character arc.
Marik on the other just wanted to be Pharoah because he got tired of being a tombkeeper and then he just gets possesed by his evil urges. It just rung very shallow.
@@presde34 Marik is the villain with the second most legitime reason to fight Atem after Bakura.
Litteraly all his life was in the Darkness, a bad father , his back was hurt for Pharaoh 's memories.... Marik always had all the reasons to think he deserved more this power
@@ConstantinDOSSOU-vy1zo I understand the motivation and I do like his character. I just don't understand his plan here. He wanted the power of the Pharaoh by taking possession of the god cards and then winning the puzzle? Like I wish they went more in depth into how he would puzzle to get the power he wanted.
@@presde34 the final arc explained it. The god cards and the puzzle were necessary for all the memorie of atem. And in the world of memorie, he could have steal the power.
I recently read through the original manga and the duelist kingdom arc hits me so differently now. I see it as the arc where yugi and atem are finally able to understand one another and truly become partners
something i wish was touched on more was how scared yugi got of the pharaoh since it didnt care about kaiba killing himself as much and initially declared the winning attack. a combination of tea and little yugi to forcefully take control back of his own body to recall the attack to not kill kaiba. it took several episodes and half a duel of yugi holding the pharaoh back against mai to regain his trust.
A lot of that plot was changed for the dub version. In the original version Yugi got over it more quickly and the reason that the Pharaoh was playing sloppily against Mai was that he was already thinking about the upcoming duel with Pegasus and wasn't taking Mai seriously as an opponent.
Remember as a kid how much I hated Duelist Kingdom since it didn't followed the actual rules at all, until I found out kinda recently that the rules themselves weren't even established when Duelist Kingdom was going on, no we wouldn't get actual rules till like Battle City, which makes that arc even more impactful for the series
That isn't entirely true -- everyone likes to claim that there were no rules back then, but from a functional standpoint, you literally CANNOT play a game that has no rules -- Kazuki Takahashi even detailed the ruleset used during Duelist Kingdom in the manga at one point due to people wanting to know how the game was played. The thought process of there being no rules to the game back then is misinformation spread by people because the rules they played with in Duelist Kingdom were completely different from what people who played the actual trading card game with their own collections. It's even stated in this video that Duelist Kingdom was written before the trading card game itself came out in Japan and was nearly done by the time that people were able to buy their own cards to build decks with and duel other people with; again, you can NOT have a game without rules, because otherwise players will do whatever they want and attempt to outcheat one another, which in turn would lead to increasingly more arguments as both players try to one-up each other, and trying to play a game like that would be nightmarish and frustrating beyond words. In other words: a game needs to have certain rules to be played, both so that the people playing it are able to understand how certain interactions work and make sense of what they should be doing in a game, but also to establish a win condition that both players will be trying to achieve. That said, kids are far more likely to make up their own rules to make the game more fun in their own ways, but there's also the fact that they probably aren't going to be as likely to sit down and read the rules of the game before building a deck and playing with it; this is exacerbated further by the fact that even back then the rules were pretty complex, with the ability to play certain cards and use different effects during your opponent's turn, needing to tribute a monster or two in order to bring out a higher leveled monster, or even the way that card effects can be chained to one another are all aspects that are pretty difficult to learn when picking the game up for the first time. Because of all this, I think that the prevailing thought of the game not having any rules back then is stupid: people just don't understand this because of how much things got changed when the cards were actually printed for the first time
@@matthewkuscienko4616 They clearly don’t mean “no rules” in the literal sense.
There wasn't "no rules".
Duel Monsters in that duelist kingdom arc were more like a RPG like Dungeons & Dragons. You can see this especially if you read the manga.
4:00
I think another way yugioh did a great job avoiding the trap of "oh we know the mc is gonna win when the stakes are high" is by having multiple characters fighting for important causes. Not only does yugi have to fight for his grandpa, but joey has to fight for his sister's eyesight, and kaiba has to fight for his brother. All the main characters are set from the beginning with a will to win motivated by what they could lose, and it makes you tense because youre asking yourself "but they can't all win, what will happen?"
The funny thing about the rules in this arc is they were (when it was written) legitimate. Today they are known as the “junior” rules. And outside of the 2000 lifepoints everything you see in the anime/manga is correct. First turn player doesn't draw on turn one, you can only use one magic or trap card per turn, magic and trap cards have to be set for one turn before activation, and sacrificing was not required. If you ever wondered way Gaia has such bad stats for a level 7 this is why. When it was first released sacrifice summons weren't a thing. And Blue Eyes beatdown was a legit strategy. But about 6 months in though they introduced the “expert” rules. Which are they rules that still exist today. You could still play using the junior rules if you wanted but all tournaments adopted the expert rules.
And a final note on all of this. This only applies to OCG (Offical Card Game) which is Japan, Korea, and China. The TCG (Trading Card Game) is the rest of the world and never had junior rules. The main reason for there being two “different” Yugioh card games is because when Yugioh first came to the States and rest of the world the cards weren’t made by Konami. Instead they sold license to produce the cards for the rest of the world to company call Upper Deck. It was Upper Deck that sanctioned the tournament and made the ban lists outside of Asia. And that's why the OCG and TCG have different ban lists. This ended in 2009 and now Konami makes and distributes cards and runs tournaments for the entire world.
Actually no the TCG and OCG shared a banlist at the start for over a decade I think it was around 2014 it split
It’s why exodia has always been limited despite not doing anything here solitaire exodia was teir 0 in the OCG and that just carried over
It may be just because I grew up with the dub. But I still love the dub for yugioh. Maybe it’s because it’s so cheesy but I can’t say. I still love the drama, the duels, the story and the voice actors are doing a great job. I can’t say why I love the dub with how heavily censored it is. It could be just pure nostaliga blindness.
I love the English dub too.
Whats even funnier is that the Dub sometimes does things even better than the Sub, Like for instance the Zombie Kaiba thing being instead the Dark Half of Kaiba that Yugi sealed away in his first duel.
I will say that, while the sub and manga have this eery dark feeling that’s unique to Yugioh, there’s a lot of sappiness that was already there and 4kids just knew how to capitalize on it. Téas friendship speeches, for example, were there in the Japanese too, Yugi and the Pharoah always calling each other partners, Joey telling Mai about his reason for dueling, and let’s not forget the smiley face they drew in the first episode.
The cheesiness is already there, and when you consider a lot of the soundtrack and the legendary voices of Dan Green and Eric Stuart, it’s no wonder why so many of us are still fond of the dub.
Just a side note: this is why I admire Kazuki Takahashi so much. In the end he made a very wholesome story about friendship and believing in yourself, and surrounded it with horror, magic, and lots of creepy aspects. But instead of clashing with each other the dark parts just make the hopeful bits more sincere and powerful.
Instead of the story feeling trite or ham-fisted, it feels more genuine and inspiring to people who watched it. I can’t help but think Takahashi wanted to help readers grow and believe in themselves like Yugi did :)
@@EnigmaAnime I think it’s battle city is when people have a big problem with the dub.
I keep thinking back to the duel against Pegasus. How we get a callback to the first episode, with the mark the characters drew on their hands having been erased, but the tight bond still exists. And as Yugi's friends hold their hands together, this blocks Pegasus from reading the Pharaoh's mind. It's extremely cheesy, but feels very satisfying as a way to come full circle.
I had to think about it when rewatching YuGiOh GX season 2, where in the final duel with Sartorius who has the power of destiny on his side, with all things related to chance going in his favor... This power is stopped, by...... it just stopping. There's an implication that Jaden can just win over fate or something, but it feels so extremely hollow and empty when compared to what the franchise managed to deliver before and after....
I feel season 2 of GX is... always the one on rewatch I sorta dislike the most. While it does have amazing moments, the birth of Hell Kaiser, Edo vs Judai 2, Manjyoume breaking free of the control of the society MID duel rather than post duel... the story feels a bit all over the place. Season 1 does sort of meander but I think that was the point, to be an adventure with no real concrete goal at least at the start to build that daily school life feeling. Season 3 and 4 I like a lot, but 2 always... eh.
Though what you mentioned really is an issue because it sort of highlights Judai as absolutely always getting the win without a doubt, it completely destroys the ability to take the other side characters against a major threat seriously ever again. The whole story in Season 2 implicates that only Judai or Edo can actually beat Saioh (and maybe Kenzan because he's an outlier) but after Edo loses, it's clear that Judai is absolutely winning. Then in Season 3 the Kind Darkness element (something I mostly like) really makes it go "well sorry, you weren't born with one of the special powers of the world so, screw you I guess" and that really deepened the problem. The side characters don't even really beat the other side enemies, it's just Judai doing stuff 95% of the time.
I do absolutely love how GX uniquely does feel like "school" and "graduation" and the fact that one year IRL translated to a year on the show was a VERY unique feeling, which really made the graduation and the closure moments of season 4 make the emotional connection you have to the series peak almost perfectly.
@@lionofash7700 I'm actually covering the show on my channel, season by season. I'm in the process of script writing for the third season. It's quite the thing, especially with me initially approaching the show as an adamant hater, now realizing after all these years that it did have quite a bit of merit. I did get some flack for not talking much about Hell Kaizer , but that's because I felt like that lacked closer at the time, and so I'll give him more attention in the next video.
Duelist Kingdom has such a weird place, I remember hating it when I was child for lack of mechanics, but nowadays it stands out really enjoyable to me because it is one of the rarer occasions where characters and plot triumps over promoted card game.
I saw it as the opposite. The anime was the Bible, and cards were the gimmick. For a long time I couldn't understand how it could be impossible to recreate the cards properly and still don't. To me, the game itself is still a failure for not being able to do so, but even back then, having the power 5 dictate the outcome seemed skummy considering most weren't really part of the show. Those were the cards used to "strengthen any deck" according to the original starter deck rulebook, basically the first limited list was already in play from the start, meaning they knew they wanted to turn it into a paying/unbalanced experience from the start.
@@Goblin_Hands There are fan recreations of DK rules and they're no fun lol
I always watch Duelist Kingdom with the internal context that it’s a card game mixed with D&D. Some of the duels are wild, but that’s what made them fun and unpredictable.
I’ve always hated when people go “but that’s against the rules!!” when in reality, there were no rules! The real game wasn’t made yet, and the game in the show is different from the real world one.
As a kid I loved Battle City more becuase it is closer to the real card game, but now as an adult I can see why I remermber Duelist Kingdom duels much more, they are really unique each duel really have something new to offer what we never seen before
@@paradoxzee6834 I love it all! I also loved the Deck Master duels from the Virtual World arc.
@@BensOnTheRadio
The Virtual World arc is my favorite filler arc, I like it even more than Walking The Dragons, deck masters are a nice gimmick but also everyone gets to duel, not only that but we really learn more about Kaiba there
Hey there. stumbled on your content great video. One thing you forgot to mention. While Pegasus did indeed wanted Kaiba Corp his ultimate motive was to revive his dead wife. And to do that he needed to gather all the Millennium Items.. hence why he wanted Yugi so bad.
I also liked the 4kids changed for that rematch with Yugi and Kaiba. In the original, Kaiba threated to jump, but in the dub, he said that the shockwaves from the duel disks would likely push him off, which would've meant Yugi himself would've made him fall. I think its one of the few times the censorship backfired.
Kaiba: "I have to reach Pegasus' island. Fortunately I can pilot a helicopter. Thank God for Microsoft Flight Simulator."
15:25 I wouldn't say that's cheating on Joey's part. It would be more accurate to say Yugi was acting as Joey's coach more than anything. But at the end of the day Yugi didn't win those duels for Joey, Joey won those duels himself but with Yugi's advice.
I think it really highlights what a good foil bandit Keith is for the main cast. Yugi didn't backseat pilot for Joey. He just gave him some hints, so he could figure it out for himself. Whereas Keith didn't trust Bonz to make the right place, or care about his development is a duelist.
@@seanowens5423 yes he straight up was just telling Bonz what to do and not even filling him in as to why at first. Bonz was never using his own strategy or dueling with his own cards really.
Cough Cough Coaching is cheating or an infraction for tournament play, but I get what you mean
@@lionofash7700 by that logic any coach ever is cheating.
@@MrEffectfilms Then when Bonz duels for himself in Battle City he is sent to the Shadow Realm by Bakura seemingly forever, lol
I've been rewatching the OG Yu-Gi-Oh and I have something to say about Kaiba's play in his duel against Yugi. I still will always hate Kaiba for his sheer lack of empathy....I think what he did....ultimately. Was a net positive. It forces Yugi to come to terms with the fact that there's an ancient Egyptian spirit of a Pharaoh within his Millennium Puzzle. It forces his friends to start to understand this as well. It forces Yugi to have set boundaries, and get out of his comfort zone.
And it forces the Pharaoh to understand that winning at any cost isn't worth it. I know people think the Orichalcos arc undermines this lesson, but I don't think so.
When you think about it...The Pharaoh had never played a simple game of Duel Monsters. He always played with some stake at hand. Rafael was able to get so deep in his head, he doubted himself. He doubted Yugi. And in those moments of doubt? Where we over think and spiral? It's easy to see why Atem made such a huge mistake. Plus the moment in and of itself is a wonderful way to build up then shatter plot armor.
Before the Waking the Dragons arc the Pharaoh was seen as invincible.
Then we get reminded harshly that he's just a human being. And we're pretty prone to screwing up. A Pharaoh is no exception.
I used to be the only kid who knows the rules in middle school, but no one else agree to play by the rules so it didn't help 💀
You might be the first person I've heard who actually shares m opinion about tournament arcs. It seems like everyone else I"ve heard talk about them always seems to love them.
It feels weird to me to call Duelist Kingdom a tournament arc though. Sure, it is literally about a tournament, but it doesn't really feel like one. I think it's probably because the qualifying games are so unstructured, so they feel more like the parts of Pokemon where Ash is traveling and happens to stumble across someone to fight.
Battle City is like that as well. I think if your only frame of reference is the usual 8 person bracket structure then the way both these arcs work to add a sense of adventure to the rest of the usual procedure does a lot to make them stand out and feel fresh.
@@verymelonman12 True, I don't really think of Battle City as much of a tournament arc either. Except for the finals, which obviously do follow the normal tournament arc structure. And just the finals of Battle City are as long as all of Duelist Kingdom and longer than the rest of Battle City, so it's not even unreasonable to think of them as their own tournament arc separate from the rest of Battle City.
15:12 in the manga its even implied yugi used the millennium puzzles drawing ability to let joey get time wizard
You mentioned that Exodia was representative of the five main characters and what got the arc going, and I think that’s cool.
Then I remembered that in the final stretch of the duel with Pegasus, Pegasus’s Mind Scan gets blocked by Yugi’s friends spiritually assisting Yami, now that Yugi is out and so the Puzzle’s power can’t be used, and Pegasus can’t do a single thing to stop it and win, and that makes this even cooler.
The representation of their friendship starts the story, and what Exodia represents comes out in full force to end the story.
Dang, the (Not) Freaky Fish Guy didn't get a mention.
That Freaky Fish Guy has a Grammy and two Tony Award nominations under his belt
I'll say this a thousand times: Duelist Kingdom is a tabletop rpg with yugioh cards. Everything suddenly makes sense when you look at it this way.
22:53 I highly agree with this point. Also I remember reading from the Kanzenban re-release of the manga, Kazuki Takahashi himself mentioned that he did not want the anime/manga to be a 1 to 1 copy of the card game
Regarding the rules and all the nonsense that ensued, i think TGS Anime put is best; Duelist Kingdom rules are part Yugioh, part DnD. Every card can do something, so long as some logical through-line can be made.
Agreed, although I always get a kick out of how the rules are all loosey-goosey, but then involve really specific math like terrain giving you a 35% attack boost xD
Every time I see something Yu-Gi-Oh I'm reminded to be the American the Japanese think we are. RIP Bandit Toby Keith.
In America
This is where i started with YGO, yeah thats right: I started with the OG anime and been a fan of the series and card game since then!
This arc doesn't get enough appreciation due to its rules which is a shame. Its still an incredible arc with a lot of depth to be found, every duel felt like it mattered in a huge way.
Duelist Kingdom was great. Its afterwards that the show went completely off the rails. But Duelist Kingdom is a timeless and iconic season that still holds up for what it is.
Without 4Kids, we wouldn't have Little Kuriboh's abridged series. I say worth.
One of the greatest shows of all time was made available to foreign audiences in an easy to consume manner. And you wanna say little kuriboh is why it's worth it?
CRINGE
Another thing to remember is that Kazuki Takahashi was a huge fan of games.
Especially Table Top games. So when you think about Duelist Kingdom more as a table top game played with cards. Things make a lot more sense. Since it uses percentages, weaknesses, resistances, combining magic and monster cards in creative ways. It feels more like a roleplaying game.
let's go!! duelist kingdom praise!! I love that arc so much - it is far more chaotic and less bound by rules and IMO that makes it so fun for the back-and-forth
My favorite headcanon of the wonky rules in this arc goes like this: Remember that Duel Monsters were ripped directly from very real magic from ancient Egypt, which the Pharaoh was there for. So while Pegasus put some basic rules in place so it could be played as a structured card game, Pharaoh knows exactly what all of these faithfully-copied monsters are ACTUALLY capable of, and uses them in ways that defy the card text, but honor the Old Ways.
Basically he's the only one that DID know the rules :P
your comment about playground rules makes me wanna share my story about getting into Yu-Gi-Oh:
in 4th grade during snack time a couple guys in my class were playing. i was watching and thought it looked cool. i challenged one of them to a duel "i bet i could beat you" type thing. i knew nothing about what they were playing. never even seen the show. he accepted the challenge for the following Monday. when i got home i told my mom i need to go to Toys R Us this weekend, she tells me if i clean my room and mow the yard that we can go. Saturday morning i watched my first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh. Saturday afternoon i mowed both yards and cleaned my room. Saturday evening we went to Toys R Us. I got the Kaiba starter deck because I hadn't yet awoken to my love of Dark Magician (I'm sorry bby). didn't get any boosters and spent all day Sunday in my basement studying the rulebook with the cards laid out in front of me lmfao
This is soo funny I love it! My older brother told me about the show and when we both got our decks he got the Kaiba starter and so I thought I will be the hero and get the Yugi Starter! We played each other soo many times in our room and I remember every time he summoned the Blue Eyes I hated it because I soon would lose lol
Pegasus setting up a child to beat Bandit Keith is one of the best comedic moments in the anime. Pegasus made a complete clown out of Keith and it was great
Who''d ever heard of a child winning a children's card game!
The Yu-Gi-OH! English Dub still brings me a lot of nostalgia. The strength pf Duelist Kingdom were the character arcs. This series is still one of my favorite Animes. I still listen to a lot of the Music To Duel By and Pyramid of Light Movie Soundtracks. Great video!
The rules mean the duels are a bit basic yes and certainly not at the battle city level.
The tournament actually feels like a tournament. Battle city is a tournament but the locator cards are kinda secondary to yugi trying to stop marik
But the story itself is great. Kaiba vs yugi prefinals you can see the desperation of both players where only 1 can get through.
Pegasus in my view is the greatest yugioh villain ever. His character and the sheer 'how are you supposed to beat this guy'.
I'm currently rewatching season 1 now and loving it.
How are the rules basic? Yugi vs Pegasus is a top 1 duel!!
@@perfectman3077 100% agree. That duel is epic, yugi vs kaiba is and the finals matches are. I really like yugi vs panik as well
I meant most of joey duels pre finals are just throwing monsters at each other with time wizard or one spell card. Joey vs Mai and Joey vs Rex etc.
3:42
Ah Japan and their cursed video tapes
Yugi was an innocent little boy. The pharaoh was a confident old being to punished those who cheated. You might view the punishment as "too far", but if you know your history, punishment back in that era was quite rough. So with "Shadow powers" it grew more dangerous.
If only they continued the Uncut dub. I know it wasn't doing well financially, but it was that rare moment of 4Kids actually doing something right for their older audience. The episodes I have seen from the official uncut dub and all of the fanmade clips of the original dub mixes with the Japanese soundtrack and uncensored cards, is a great example of how much potential the dub has. Even if it stuck with the silly jokes, it still would have been passable; especially with the Shadow Realm gimmick they used which is the best they could come up with a fate worse than Death.
When I was a kid, I watched yugioh. I wasn't very wealthy so I couldn't afford the cards. Instead I remember cutting pieces of cardboard into 5.9 cm X 8.6 cm pieces and then proceeding to borrow my friends cards and then sketching them onto pieces of cardboard. It took a lot of hours and time drawing and coloring with colored pencils but I had my own hand sketched bootleg deck.
Now more than 20 years later, I am in a very well paid job...and as a grown man I now earn enough to purchase the cards and I have a big collection although I don't play competitively, I just collect.
Funny how one's childhood affects their psychology as an adult.
When I moved houses as a teenager, my hand sketched deck was thrown during the move. I wish I had kept them.
Duelist Kingdom is unabashedly my favorite arc in Yu-Gi-Oh. My son has been having anime on in the background for naps and bedtime for almost two years. Dragonball, DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, Pokemon Indigo League, and of course Yu-Gi-Oh. We been on Yu-Gi-Oh a few months now and I usually restart the series on Hulu after Battle City. So ive seen this arc, the battle city, and virtual world arcs a bunch of times. I caught it on Kids WB as a kid in bits and pieces but to this day I love the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc with Duke, probably because I caught it all in order
Got hooked immediately as a kid because I love my grandpa. It was way too relatable and I’m hooked ever since. Gx and 5ds arr my favourite though
I remember as a kid how terrified I was of Pegasus for kidnapping Mokuba and stealing Yugi's grandpa's soul. Duelist Kingdom is definitely one of the best arcs in the series.
I actually think the smaller stakes also help Duelist Kingdom.
By the time of Battle City we're engaged in a full blown, world is on the line escalation, which makes the card game conceit a little tougher to swallow. When you're 10 or 12, it's one thing, but it doesn't hold up as you age.
Duelist Kingdom isn't about the fate of the planet, it's about friends and family. A tournament over that is easier to picture. Hell, even if Pegasus had just turned out to be a sadistic twit, in it for money and reputation alone, that would have been enough. The elaborate nature of the tournament a simple extension of his desire to indulge his sadistic side. That it had a motive beyond that, both in what's mentioned here, and in the need to obtain the puzzle, which like all millennium items could only be acquired via the duels, solidified the value of the tournament.
Now, in the world building, because the items can only be lawfully passed through a duel from one user to the next this is preserved in the latter tournaments, same with the god cards, but the repetitive nature of the tactic makes the stories harder and harder to swallow. And actually Marik's ability to take the rod leaves that idea somewhat in doubt. And the higher stakes make it seem even more ludicrous. We do, especially as children, because we're enamored with the world and the characters and I certainly don't intend to take that from anyone. But it's overplayed, and the centrality of the card game to the plot makes it impossible to avoid.
As a kid I always thought kaiba went out and gave it his all and beat yugi because he had to save his brother. I told myself yes sometimes the main character loses. when I understood that kaiba threatened to unalive himself, I was shocked but honestly don't know which is cooler.
so many good moments in the arc, i like how ritual is set up between the two core examples Relinquish and DMoBC, Relinquish all to sacrificing monsters to bring it out - connecting to Pegasus' desire to sacrifice anything for his goals and of course his steal effect
While DMoBC from Yugi and even BLS is about infusing the monster with Chaos - strengthening the monster instead of destroying it
Exceptionally well written video. Great cross referencing with examples & reminding of previous points made for added context. Great work you should do a character study on Kaiba’s philosophy on life
Shoutout to Anzu, who never lost a single game, only undefeated character in DM
The shadow realm is much worse than Death 😂
It is funny that in the 4Kids dub, Umbra ends up having a far worse fate because of the censorship, haha. In the sub, he was just gonna fall to his death, so he had a parachute to protect him. In the dub, the glass pane divides the real world from the shadow realm, so even though he had the parachute, he's still "in" the Shadow Realm, with realistically no way out, lol.
@@GatsbyCioffi This one always puzzled me the most. Why wasn't the threat of falling allowed? In the very next duel Joey and Yugi are tethered to an anchor that will drag them under the water. But they don't say the waters surface is a portal the Shadow Realm, it's just understood that they'll fuckin drown!
@cloudkitt Strings was the one I didn't get. Like, what were the stakes? Yugi's Dark Magician? He just survived a death match with Arkana, and now it's like "Oooh, watch out, I'll take your card if you lose!" 😂
@@GatsbyCioffi In the Japanese version, Marik just told Yugi that he would command Strings to kill him if he loses.
You are wrong here. Weevil Underwood (Haga) is helping Yugi. He throw exodia to the ocean because Weevil know exodia only brick yugi hand.
I am surprised some people have a problem with the inconsistency.
Heck, the OCG rules were originally more or less like the anime: fewer life points, one spell or trap per turn, no direct attacks, and no tributes. But in tournaments in the first year most people made tedious turtling decks, tons of high-defence monsters to play face down until their big guys come along. Just like they play in the anime. But that wasn’t particularly dynamic, so they adjusted to the “master rules” (this phrase is also used in the manga and the Japanese dub). By the time the western TCG came out, the master rules were already out so there was no reason to print anything else.
But as you say, it’s more about the characters and the symbolism. I like how the manga leans into that even after the master rules, especially in R and the GX manga. Some card effects are still very vague (“summon 3 hats”, “summon 4 ice tokens”, etc and what they do beyond that is very situational). It makes it less tedious, and more exciting.
Yeah, for some reason people have the misconception that the show was created around the card game, and I guess they get frustrated when they see all the differences. But, unlike the later shows, the Yugioh manga came first, and the card game only became a thing because the readers loved it so much.
With the story coming out first and Konami scrambling to find out how to balance the rules and cards, it was actually the OCG/TCG that decided to change things (and it’s easy to see why they did).
@@VinTheDirector absolutely. No direct attacks was such a mistake for gameplay. But they fixed it quickly enough ☺️
Bandit Keith is the number one duelist
IN AMERICA
Yu-Gi-Oh review/retrospective videos are a great time. Love the longer form videos, can't wait for more and I hope they get longer going forward! Thanks for the content
I re-watched Duelist Kingdom with my partner a few years ago when I was getting back into Yugioh, and honestly, I was surprised by how well it actually held up from a narrative perspective. We had three different characters who could *all* have laid claim to protagonist status in Yugi, Joey & Kaiba, a fun cast of quirky side characters, and a villain with a way more interesting backstory than I had been expecting.
And honestly...at least for Yugi, Joey, Kaiba and Pegasus...the voice acting isn’t bad either.
I also just want to say that in the manga, it becomes a bit more obvious that Takahashi's love of tabletop RPGs actually carried over into Duelist Kingdom. If you really pay attention to what's happening in each card battle, you start to notice that type of logic all over the place. It's especially obvious when you note that the special game tables Pegasus had throughout Duelist Kingdom resembled RPG maps.
(This is purely speculation based on my own observation of the story) Basically, Takahashi was likely suggested by his editor to stick with the card game, but he really wanted to keep writing RPG battles so it's certainly a possibility that he wrote Duelist Kingdom's card battles this way as a compromise while he was figuring out how to actually flesh out the rules of the TCG.
The Mexican voice as Pegasus was the best by far.
One of the things that makes me consider Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters the best season of the anime is that, the duels aren't really just a mean to an end, they also properly reflect their Duelists's personalities, emotions, goals and the duels themselves try to convey messages sometimes. Duelist Kingdom is the best example of that.
Mai, for example, before meeting Yugi and his friends, she's super obsessed with being independent and powerful on her own, and she will use any means necessary to get things her way, whether it's a cheating strategy (the aroma tactics) or even her own charm (making Ryuzaki duel her over the VIP room). That is very well reflected in her cards and strategy. She pretty much limits herself to only using the Harpy Ladies, with almost nothing else in her deck when it comes to monsters. And her strategy consists of powering the Harpies, as if she's empowering herself. But when Jounouchi defeats her by using Time Wizard, which makes her Harpies look super ugly, it's kind of a message of how vanity can ruin yourself over time, and that's what would have happened to her if she remained the way she was.
The duels not having hard set rules during Duelist Kingdom really helped Takahashi's writing of this arc, and it's why I don't care about it not following any of the rules that were created when the card game finally became real.
One of my favorite moments was right at the end of DK where Bakura defeats Pegasus. I liked the way Bakura taunted him and I thought it was a nice end to Pegasus' storyline that he wasn't as heartless as many thought he was. It also helped setup Bakura as the overarching villain of the first Yugioh anime.
By not having rules the Duelist Kingdom arc even elevates the Duel City Arc. Kaiba being the reason we have some of the modern rules and them being introduced not even by the inventor himself but some rich kid who sells accessories and hosts tournaments makes his character seem so much more intelligent and powerful.
"Screw the rules; I have money." ~Littlekuriboh
Yugi vs Joey is the one change from the manga I'm so glad the anime did as it's very well written. Joey throws everything at Yugi and useing every combo and play he has learned throughout his journey on Duelist Kingdom to become a true duelist, even using Yugi's own monsters to power up Red-Eyes. The final turns of the duel is just brilliant as Joey uses the card Yugi gave him on the boat, Time Wizard to try and win the duel. However, it backfires as Joey does not realise that Time Wizard was originally Yugi's monster and it can power up not only Baby Dragon but The Dark Magician as well. It proves while Joey has grown into a strong duelist in such a short amount of time he is still not quite on Yugi or Kaiba's level yet.
Meanwhile, Yugi vs Pegasus is just the perfect climax of the arc. Pegasus starts outplaying Yugi thanks to his Eye and his Toon monsters (which he made personally for his own deck and no one else). However, after both Yugi and the Pharaoh start to pick apart Pegasus' mind scan and the Toons weakness, he shows his true colours with the grossest Illusion monsters and how far the Eye and his goal of bringing back his dead wife to life have twisted him. Yugi and The Pharaoh then counter with their trump card The Magician of Black Chaos which perfectly symbolizes not only Yugi and Pharaoh's unbreakable bond (no matter how Light or Dark it gets at times) but also their unbreakable bond with The Dark Magician. This proving while Pegasus may be the creator of Duel Monsters, Yugi however is the one and only King of Games.
Man when Pegasus switches to his illusion monsters, it’s such a tone shift. The facade revealed. Very freaky to watch, especially as a kid
If you think about it, Exodia deck would have been OP as hell because duelist kingdom didn't have any moments where the opponents can attack your LP directly. So unless you had multiple stop defense or removers, Yugi/Exodia would have basically steamroll duelist kingdom.
I love how you totally mix up the Japanese and English names
I still consider the Duelist Kingdom rules as the official rules. And I gotta say even as a kid I knew Yugi was always going to win it just became exciting to see HOW he was going to on win. And the creativeness of how Yugi won led to some pretty awesome moments like “attacking the moon” or launching Gaia the Dragon champion at Castle of Dark Illusions since every duelist he faced would employ some gimmick or use a single type of monster that would benefit from the “field power bonus.” Also another thing that got left out from the manga was certain monsters being naturally weaker to others like Joey’s warrior and beast monsters being weak to Mai’s flying Harpie Ladies or when Bandit Keith’s Barrel Dragon had “magic resistant armor.”
P.S. I wish there was a version of Yugioh that would let you play with the monsters in a D&D style board game like in the Labyrinth Double duel.
I love tournament arcs… cuz even though you know the script and often the basic outcomes, I can still empathize with the feelings of each of the characters.
Kaiba changed due to "mind crush" after Atem beat him. "OPEN YOUR MIND!!".
Better than I remember? You don't know how immaculate I think Duelist Kingdom is
Awesome video. Your prose is so clear and concise. Really appreciate the upload.
Thanks!
23:10 yes and no. Stakes are the lifeblood of any narrative. A story where the characters have no stakes in success or failure gets boring pretty fast. And here's the thing - you cannot create stakes, you cannot create tension, unless the audience understands the situation. This very much includes rules, and is a thing that comes up a lot when people discuss soft vs hard magic systems in fantasy fiction. If any spellcaster can whip out a spell to get them out of any situation, especially a spell we never saw before or one we never saw them training to learn, then it cheapens the narrative satisfaction of seeing them escape the situation. It's when we understand the rules and we understand the tools that the character has access to, that we get the most entertainment out of a narrative.
THIS is why the wonky rules of Duelist Kingdom are unsatisfying. We had no context to know that dinosaurs were weak vs fire, we had no context to know that Giant Soldier of Stone could attack a spell card. We DO have context that Polymerization fuses two monsters, so seeing Yugi and Joey fuse into Black Skull Dragon is satisfying and makes sense. It even somewhat makes sense when Yugi fuses Mammoth Graveyard to Blue-eyes Ultimate Dragon.
Establishing what is, and isnt, possible in a narrative is a very important part of making that narrative entertaining and not just a deus-ex machina parade.
duelist kingdom wasnt perfect, but it had a good combination of enough of a semi-grounded story plot while setting up the series for more that it created a strong enough base for the series to build off of for people to continue to watch til modern day
14:35
IN AMERICA!
Look, I'm sure I might no have been the brightest tool in the shed when I was a kid, but I remember even my dumb brain went all: "But just how is the hologram going to 'push you back and make you fall' Kaiba? @ 09:52
You just told me.., granted in my dub (the latino), you said "Look at this insanely advanced *holographic* technology muahaha.
See my Battle Ox? Look at it. You can see its perspirations, you can hear its breathing... etc"
Still, loved the whole arc.
Toons being introduce had me at hello.
It's funny with a lot of animes like these that only began airing in the 90's and the they finished making it it a year before anywhere else. Dragon Ball began in 1987, and Dragon Ball Z ended in 1995 with the Buu Saga, and it's like that with Yu-Gi-Oh as well, started well before Anime was even made available outside of Japan.
The side villains are all so silly and memorable… and yet so human with relatable motivations for the most part… and Pegasus is just so fabulously evil… but with a very human motivation. I guess motivation is the key word… that is typically what makes a character engaging.
My favourite thing about Duelist Kingdom was checking what the IRL cards did and trying to figure out if they HAD obeyed the rules but just not explained it. Granted some of the IRL cards were created in retrospect to mirror their anime appearance but still:
Joey's Thousand Dragon nuking Mai's harpies: Time Wizard actually wrathed Mai's board; Thousand Dragon was then fused afterwards by some BS season 1 effect so it one-shot Mai. Yeah it still doesn't quite make sense but...
Living arrow most broken card in the anime. It did whatever you wanted it to
But what does pot of greed do?!
@@Not_An_EV you draw 2 cards. But I'm sure there's a way living arrow could do that too
The explained effect is that Living Arrow allows you to use one of your spell cards on your opponent's monster that normally can't be used on an opponent's monster. Like fusing Mammoth Graveyard into Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon using Polymerization.
The 5th person represented in Exodia is Bakura.
But the anime removes Bakura from his early friend group.
The anime made really stupid decisions like that?
4Kids dub of the original series is surprisingly really good stuff, I still go back to it from time to time, definitely agree that Eric Stuart really knocked it out of the park as Kaiba
"Joey is up against a jobber"
ayye, I see you 'rasslin' fam
I liked Duelist Kingdom because the rules made no sense when compared to the cards, but do make sense in terms of the monsters like when Yugi destroys the castle monster and it falls on the monsters below. Duelist Kingdom has a lot of moments like this and it makes the later reveal in the series that the cards are actually based on real monsters make a lot more sense.
I recently rewatched Duelist Kingdom and enjoyed it a lot more than I remembered. I remember not likening it because the rules were nonexistent. But now I just see it as card game DnD, make shit up and see if it flies. And have a lot of fun with this arc
Holy shit I never thought of Kaiba's win like that, that hits so differently framing it is an ultra-competitor forced to used a cheap tactics for the sake of saving his lil brother
The funny thing about the rules not making sense was also the fact that the dub removed explaining the DK Rules. It’s entirely an issue of the dub.
Watching the Japanese version is your first step down a rabbit hole that leads you to next watch Season 0, follow by chasing it with the ENTIRE manga which will fully change your perception of the plot forever. Like season 0 and the first part of the manga have the same basic flow as 80's Hulk where: shady dude, who then crosses the protag beats up the protag, who then transforms into a power house. Yami just beats ppl in games but like any game, and anything can be a game.