Re: How many Yu-Gi-Oh Fans are there on this forum?

Meursalt wrote:
> I had heard that this was the case;
> I just didn't realise how far into the
> storyline Takahashi had gotten before
> the fans persuaded him to develop
> "Magic and Wizards" into a real game.
> Seeing as how different most anime's
> are from their respective original manga
> incarnations (if they had one), I found it
> surprising that the anime writers couldn't
> clean up some of the gameplay in the
> early duels. But being almost completely
> ignorant of the Yu-gi-oh manga, I really
> don't know how feasible this would have
> been to accomplish without impacting
> the storyline. And I'm sure if they had
> done this, more fans would have been
> screaming "You changed it! Sellouts!"
> than would have been cheering
> "Yay! the gameplay is fixed!"

I don't quite understand what you're getting at here. The card game is
broken, but re-writing a work of fiction would not have fixed
that--Konami, the gaming company that owns the rights to make and
distribute the Yu-Gi-Oh card game, are under no obligation to follow
the manga or the anime and in fact have openly deviated from both in
the past. It's Konami's game rules, not Kazuki Takahashi's manga, that
needs to be revised. (as it happens, the anime--and I believe the
manga as well--both eventually updated the rules in order to take
Konami's new rules into account, including adding the concept of
"Tribute" monsters where you have to sacrifice weaker monsters in order
to summon stronger ones).

As for the show and manga, they're actually somewhat different.
Namely, in that the anime (which is actually the second of two Yu-Gi-Oh
anime to be produced, though the two have no connection as they were
produced by different companies) skips ahead to the Duelist Kingdom
story arc, which in the manga is graphic novels #8 through #15. The
anime attempts to play catch-up by going over important pre-DK events
either by the use of flashbacks, or by rewriting important story arcs
so that they're a part of the Duelist Kingdom storyline.

An example of this is that in one episode, Shadow Yuugi duels against
Shadow Bakura in a game where Bakura traps all Yuugi's friends in game
cards. This happened in the Manga too, except in the manga, it
happened IMMEDIATELY BEFORE Duelist Kingdom (whereas in the anime it
happens DURING Duelist Kingdom), and instead of playing Magic &
Wizards/Duel Monsters, they were playing a role-playing game called
Monster World. This story arc is important because this is when
everyone, including Yuugi himself, finally realizes that there's a
spirit living inside Yuugi that sometimes takes over his body.

> Don't get me started on Duel Masters...
> I love this show (hated it at first because
> I approached it as a serious "competitor"
> of Yugi without realising it was more of
> a parody).

I think that was nearly everyone's initial reaction to Duel Masters.
Even I felt that way at first, but I ended up watching the show and,
later, playing the card game.

Duel Masters is in some ways the polar opposite of Yu-Gi-Oh. With DM,
the card game came first, and the show was produced as part of the
success of the game. With Yu-Gi-Oh, it was manga first, show and cards
later.

I've heard that in Japan, Duel Masters aired as a bunch of five-minute
shorts, and was a lot more like a card game-based version of Slayers in
terms of humor--that is, it was silly, but could be serious at certain
times. The dub totally does away with all semblances of seriousness.
In another sharp contrast to Yu-Gi-Oh, I actually don't mind Duel
Masters' dub all that much, and in fact have considered buying the DVDs
of it... though I would like to see the Japanese version one day.

I must admit I haven't played the card game... not with physical cards,
anyway. However I have played the Gameboy Advance game "Duel Masters:
Kaijudo Showdown" which is supposed to accurately represent it. I can
see the similarities to Magic, though I find it's different enough to
stand on it's own.

> No wonder he's the world's top duellist!
> Kaiba just isn't as good at sleight of hand ;)...

I'd actually attribute his success more to that a magical ghost does
all his dueling for him, though that would contradict the ending of the
manga.

I almost wrote a parody once, in which Yuugi duels against Mumm-ra, the
villain from the 1980s cartoon Thundercats. In this parody, Yuugi
watches Mumm-ra transform into a more powerful form, and comments "Wow,
you and me are actually on equal standing!" at which point Mumm-ra
comments "Yes, except I don't use my powers to win TOURNAMENTS!"

(Granted, Yuugi has good reasons, but still...)

> Two more things that should have gone
> into my original post: I find it funny that
> Yugi is this archetypical "goody two-shoes"
> character, and yet he dresses in a mix
> of bondage/goth/punk styles. I guess it's
> an example of the Japanese appropriating
> American fashion without understanding
> or caring much about the cultural and social
> meanings behind it.

Probably. There's a lot, especially in the manga, that seems to be a
direct and intentional homage to American culture. Not the least of
which is that the famous card game itself is (as per the YGO storyline)
initially introduced as being a huge craze in America that only
recently began to appear in Japan, and it's creator Pegasus J. Crawford
is introduced as being an American (in fact, when we get to see the God
Cards in the manga, their card text is in English).

This of course leads to the question of, "what demented parent names
their child PEGASUS?"

> And also, wouldn't the Life Point system
> work equally well if everything was divided
> by 10, or even 5? It's rare to see any value
> that's not a multiple of 10, and when you
> do, it's a multiple of 5. I guess it's a "bigger
> is better" mentality... who would want an
> Egyption God Card with 300 attack points?
> Granted, this gives them more room for
> fine-tuning the game later on, and that
> might be the reason for the large numbers.

Actually, I think this is just because authors of shonen manga love to
exaggerate things.

"My card has an attack power of one million!"

"Oh yea? Well MY card has an attack power of TWO million, and IT has
the ability to go SUPER-SAIYAN!"

Remember, this is Japan: They don't make space stations, they make
SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESSES! ^__^

.

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