Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Duel Monsters

Okay! Let's get into this. Here is my no spoiler review for the anime: Yu-Gi-Oh! DM. This was the first anime I ever watched, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series lol. Anyway, let's get into it! First off, let's talk about the story/plot line. In my opinion, the story is very well thought, and fleshed out. Having its very own lore tied to it and even having its own spin on pre-existing religions. Despite all the filler, it was very enjoyable to watch from start to finish, and always left me wanting more. However, the ending is still amazing, and felt like a nice way to wrap up the story. Going back to the filler, while some people may complain, and while I'm not always a fan of filler myself, I actually think that these unnecessary arcs do actually add something to the end, and make it feel like more of an even epic journey. You get to imagine all the random misadventures that the main characters went on and adds much more to their character development in my opinion. Now back to the story, the way it progressed felt nice and perfectly paced to me, as they don't completely rush into things and actually take time to world build and introduce you to all of the magic that will lead a big role in the story later. One thing I don't like very much is that a lot of the time the story heavily relies on you just 'going with the flow', and there's a few questions that don't actually ever get answered and there are quite a few moments that make you say 'WFT'? However this isn't really an issue for me, but it might be a deal breaker for someone else. Overall, the story in my opinion is pretty remarkable, everything from the random plot twists to the way the story progressed, I am truly a fan of the story. Next is the art and animation. Given the time this came out, of course the animation isn't gonna be perfect. As it is a lot of still frames with fancy dramatic backgrounds and a lot of looping. Some of the attacks the monsters do do look pretty cool though. One thing I'm not a fan of is the lip syncing, or lack there of. I know that a lot of anime follow the same formula, using two or three frames and just looping them when characters talk. But in YuGiOh it sometimes takes away from an otherwise epic scene if a character's mouth is barely moving yet they're supposed to be intimidating. However sometimes the animation does look very smooth and amazing, so it's all up to matter of opinion, which is why I give it a 6/10 in terms of art and animation. Ok, now onto sound. I'm pretty sure by this they mean voice acting, music, and sound effects, so that's what this paragraph is gonna be about (sorry if I'm mistaken). Excluding the infamous 4Kids dub (even though there were a few voices I liked better than their original Japanese counterpart), the voice acting is pretty good. like in all anime, there are parts I think they could have showed more emotion through what they were saying, which is something I think YuGiOh anime especially struggles with. The music, is no doubt (in my opinion) epic. They always put the right music in at the right times and the openings and endings are also pretty cool. I personally am a huge fan of anime openings, and rarely ever skip them, especially ones from the YuGiOh franchise. Lastly for this segment is the sound effects. I honestly think they're pretty great, and often fit in perfectly with the scene. They're never too loud, or too quiet, and they use the perfect ones for each situation. I personally have no problem with the sound effects. Now for my favorite part of every single show, the characters! In my opinion, the main cast of characters (or the ones who play the biggest roles in the show) are all unique and interesting and fun in their own way. I always have a hard time picking my favorite character whenever I re-watch the show. And this is because they all have likable and annoying parts about them. No character in my opinion is completely one-sided, and (even the filler arc villains) everyone has believable reasons and intent behind the good and bad decisions. One thing I will say is that for some of the characters, their development was little to non-existent. A few of them stay the same throughout the entire course of the show, which personally annoys me in the back of my head. However, take the main protagonist: Yuugi Muto, at the beginning of the show, he is a go-lucky, happy, and naive high-school student who loved to play games and was too shy to confront bullies. But, by the end of the show, you can really see how much he matured and developed as a character, and now accepts the major changes he must go through in order for the story to come to a close. Besides all the negative things I said, I am really a fan of the characters in this show, they all feel believable and you can sympathize with most of them. 8/10 for me. Time to nearly wrap things up: the enjoyment of the show. I personally enjoy this show as much or maybe even more than I did when I first watched it when I was around eight years old. I personally love the story because of all the little details that make up the universe of YuGiOh, and I always enjoy re-watching this show from time to time whenever I need something to watch. Overall, I really do enjoy this show. I do understand the complaints people have about it, and why haters hate it, but if you could, take into consideration all the pros and cons I listed, you may enjoy the anime as much as I did/still do. I hope you have a great day and enjoy this show... if anyone is even reading this/actually is interested in this anime anymore, but regardless, yep, I guess that's it. Bye. Overall: 8/10. Good job YuGiOh Dm. You stole my heart xD

Who doesn't know about Yu-gi-oh!? If I had to find a reason why still today this anime is actually decent, it's because of the shear amount of memes it has. Some characters are so ridiculously exaggerated that it's honestly fun. Also, the plot, just like the characters, is exaggerated to the point where in a simple kids cards games lies the future of all humanity. If you watch this with the mentality of laughing at how ridiculous some scenes are, you are in for a fun time. Pro-tip: watch it with the boys! extra lines because MAL thinks my review is to short...

An anime that's not just for selling a card game and that proved fillers can actually be pretty good. I think the success of the trading card game is well deserved because wow, it was such fun to see the characters playing Duel Monsters along the episodes, each dual was a different adventure with different challenges and tactics, and I loved each one of them when I was a kid, specially the first season. The story is more than "the basic general story for an anime" and I feel it suffered a lot with the English adaptation, when I watched it in Japanese, it sounded like another anime in certain moments. The story is simple, but it's well used, it makes us know how it will end and the challenges that show are interesting. The art is a bit unstable depending of what season you're watching, some have amazing quality, others just seem to have been made in a hurry, but in general, the art is very good, specially the character and monster design. The sound was another thing that lost quality because of the English adaptation, I noticed some background music was completely removed from the show. The sound effects are very good, as well as the voice acting for most characters, most openings and endings are very good, the music when be sad when it has to, it can be inspiring when it has to and it's not just some generic soundtrack an anime needs to have, I think the OSTs and BGMs go beyond, offering more emotion and intensity to the story. The characters, oh the characters. Some of them are so well developed and some of them...just...shouldn't be there in my opinion, being just...tiring and getting no development at all. Maybe Yugioh should have focused in less characters, because it has so many and they seem to be dragged along the anime all the time when they really...don't fit, in my opinion, that's what happens with Rex Raptor and Insector Haga. I also missed more participation from side characters that had so much potential, like Duke Devlin- he was brilliant and we only get to see filler duels basically, in terms of dueling skills, I think the anime lost a big opportunity of making Duke Devlin a tough duelist like Joey and giving him more importance, because he had everything to be near as good as Yugi or Kaiba. I loved how Kaiba's background story was worked through the fillers, I really liked the Yugioh fillers, I think that from all the animes I've watched, they're the best fillers because they're cool adventures not just a slow, random break from the main story, they do help in character development, they have good stories and we get to see really cool battles and character interaction and even good villains (something not so easy to have) like Noah Kaiba, oh I really wanted to see more Noah in OVAs or games. I remember when I first bought the mangas and I was like "where's that arc?" and only then I discovered it was a filler. About season 1 versus the other seasons, well, season 1, to me, it was the best season, because I feel like the duels were more free and more unpredictable. From season 2 ahead they defined very precise rules to the card game, and despite that being necessary to sell the cards in the real world and make an official game, in the anime I feel like the creativity got more barriers. In season 1, the game was more RPG like, with map interactions and logical relations, like ground warriors have a hard time fighting flying monsters, but from season 2 ahead the game started to work around more limited conditions such as attack points and direct damage, the duels became more robotic and less "free", but still, I love them, I also wish I had seen more normal Yugi's development through the episodes and more development of Mai, Tea, Serenety and Tristan, they are always there but....they seem to always be the same and act the same every time, even Mai with her antagonistic side, her development seems to evolve and then go backwards just so it can be evolved again into the same spot it was before. I had a lot of fun watching it, I still love the card game and the videogames of the franchise, watching and playing is always fun- the variety of monsters and strategies are insanely creative and interesting. There are some very boring duels but also there are very exciting mind blowing duels. Considering the main public the anime focuses on, it can be very inspiring as we watch the characters learning more about themselves and evolving along the story.

Overall Yu-Gi-Oh is an amazing show. After initially watching as a child and re-watching it recently it certainly lives up to memory. Over the course of the series it shows great character development and gets you invested in said characters and the story-lines they are following. Even the slow moments in the series have there meaning and still help to build character relations and setup future arcs. I can wholeheartedly recommend this show for anyone who was a fan of the series in the past or is looking to try something new. Even though the outcome of duels are often predictable the excitement build while waiting for the finish is breathtaking.

Season 1: 8 The beginning season of Yu-Gi-Oh is pretty weird. Since the rules weren’t developed yet, it had a lot of weird endings. The show introduces us to our main characters in Yugi, Joey, Tea, and Tristan. The characters are good they have a little bit of development, especially Joey. We are also introduced to the main rival of Yugi in Seto Kaiba. The plot of season 1 of Yu-Gi-Oh is pretty straightforward as it takes in the form of a tournament. Get the required battle stars and you advance to the next part of the tournament. The main villain is Maximillion Pegasus who is the creator of the card game. My favorite character in the season is Pegasus because he’s dueling is unique and has a unique personality in the show. Season 2:10 Season 2 is my favorite season of Yu-Gi-Oh because this is the season that implemented the actual rules of Yu-Gi-Oh and made the duels more interesting and strategic. The plot is also a tournament where duelists have to duel for locator cards, but this time the loser of the duel has to give away its more rarest card. This season is fun to watch because we are introduced to new cards and the duels are fun to watch. We also start getting a little backstory on the spirit of the Millenium Puzzle and the history of Duel Monsters in general. My favorite character in this season has to be Joey because we see him become a good duelist and not rely on Yugi to help out. Season 3:7 Season 3 has two arcs Virtual World and Batlle City part 2. This season starts off bad with the Virtual World. Almost everything about that arc was bad, from the duels to the villains. The villains in that city were uninteresting and nonthreatening. But the worst thing that the Virtual Reality does is stop the momentum that Battle City had. Now that my rambling is done, it’s time to tell what are some good things that the Virtual World does. The best thing that the Virtual World does is give us a backstory to Kaiba and Mokuba. After the Virtual World arc, we go back to the Battle City tournament. Battle City part had some of my favorite duels of the entire show. My favorite character in this season is still Marik, he’s even crazier in this season than he was in the last one. Overall, the quality and enjoyment of this season took a hit with the first 20 or so episodes. This season isn’t horrible but it’s not as good as it could’ve been. Season 4: 7 Season 4 takes on a different turn for Yu-Gi-Oh instead of focusing on the Millenium Items and Egypt, it takes our attention Atlantis. I have mixed feelings for this season, on one part it has some of my favorite moments in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! But on the other hand, it had parts that I was really uninterested in. This season introduces us to 4 new characters Raphael, Alison, Valon, and Dartz. Raphael, Alison, and Valon are amazing characters with great backstories. The biggest flaw in this season is the main villain Dartz. Yu-Gi-Oh has had some amazing villains in previous seasons such as Pegasus and Marik are great but Dartz doesn’t seem unique or a huge threat. He isn’t as threatening as Marik was, and his main thing is stealing souls, which we’ve seen already. Overall, this season has good characters, an interesting plot, but it could’ve been great it had a better villain. Season 5: 7 Season 5 starts off with another tournament arc that spans for about 15 episodes. I didn’t care about the tournament and found it boring to watch, as I really didn’t care about the characters dueling. Once the tournament is over we go back to ancient Egypt to finally learn about the spirit of the Millenium Puzzle and duel monsters. This part of the season is just a giant backstory. There aren’t that many duels in this part of the season but the duels are amazing. Especially the last duel, it’s such an amazing duel and a great ending to the series. I thought this season was a good ending for Yu-Gi-Oh, it had good duels, epic moments, cool backstories to some of the characters.

As a Duel Masters guy, i never got into Yu-Gi-Oh that much. I decided to give the anime a run and what do you know i finished it. As the anime had a long run, it had its ups and downs. The main plot of is the card game Duel Monsters, which quite frankly had a spark for me. The problem was the fact that when the card game wasn't around the story got stale quick. I say "story" as in some kind of plot tool. The progression is slow and you need a lot of patience to get to the end of it and there are times when it's forgotten for tens of episodes. There is no need for knowledge about the real game because the anime makes sure to explain all the cards at all times (except Pot of Greed, i never understood what it does). It might be a little confusing at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it it's gone be fine. However, the show it's no masterpiece, therefore i give it a 7/10 with a recommendation for card game players that look for something "new".

A classic from my childhood. Few anime bring me as much nostalgia as Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Duel Monsters. This was my gateway to the franchise and, for many years, practically my only contact with the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe. More than just an anime I watched on television, this was a work that directly influenced part of my childhood. It was thanks to it that I started playing the card game. I still remember taking cards to school and spending hours dueling with friends without fully understanding half the rules. In fact, most children at the time played more based on what they saw in the anime than on the official rules. It was a mix of imagination, invented rules, and lots of fun. Regardless of who won, it was part of a very special time. The most curious thing is that Yu-Gi-Oh! didn't even start as an anime focused exclusively on cards. In the early moments of the story, the concept was quite different. Yugi and the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle participated in various types of games, many of them functioning almost like extreme bets. When someone acted cruelly or unfairly, Yami Yugi would apply the so-called Shadow Games, where the defeated received severe psychological punishments. Over time, the franchise found its definitive identity through Duel Monsters, and that's where the worldwide phenomenon we know today was born. From that moment on, card duels became the center of the narrative, completely transforming the work. It's impossible to talk about Yu-Gi-Oh! without acknowledging the cultural impact it had. Alongside Pokémon and Digimon, it was one of the franchises responsible for further popularizing geek culture among children and teenagers of the 90s and 2000s. Even people who have never watched the anime probably know the name Exodia, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, or the Dark Magician. In Brazil, there is also a curious detail that marked the history of the franchise. For many years, the game was surrounded by controversy and was even called the "devil's game" by some people. As happens with many controversies of this type, this ended up generating even more curiosity among children. I confess that hearing this kind of comment only made me want to know more about the game. Speaking of the work itself, it has a gigantic personality. The visuals of the characters, the monsters, the exaggerated duels, and the absurdly dramatic situations create an identity that remains recognizable to this day. It's the kind of anime you can identify just by looking at an image. A large part of this success comes from the characters. Yugi and Yami Yugi work as excellent protagonists, but the one who really steals the show many times is Seto Kaiba. His gigantic pride, his obsession with surpassing Yugi, and his charisma transform practically any episode into something more fun. Kaiba is one of those rivals who end up becoming as important as the protagonist himself. Another character I really like is Joey Wheeler. Perhaps because he's not a dueling genius like Yugi or Kaiba, he ends up being the easiest character to identify with. His evolution throughout the series is enormous, and many of the most exciting moments in the tournaments involve his attempts to prove his worth. Of course, watching the anime today also reveals several problems. As the franchise was still consolidating the rules of the game, many duels have decisions that make no sense by today's standards. There are cards with inconsistent effects, rules that change according to the needs of the script, and situations that would never be allowed in official matches. But, honestly, I never managed to get too bothered by that. Part of the charm of Yu-Gi-Oh! lies precisely in this creative freedom of the early years. The emotion of the duels was more important than the precision of the rules. In the end, perhaps Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Duel Monsters isn't a perfect work. There are pacing problems, inconsistent rules, and quite dated moments. However, its charisma, historical importance, and the number of memories it created for an entire generation make it an extremely special anime. It's a work that helped shape my childhood and that I can still revisit fondly today. I highly recommend it. Rating: 7/10 =================================================================================================================Versão em Português===================================== Um clássico da minha infância. Poucos animes me trazem tanta nostalgia quanto Yu☆Gi☆Oh! Duel Monsters. Essa foi minha porta de entrada para a franquia e, durante muitos anos, praticamente meu único contato com o universo de Yu-Gi-Oh. Mais do que apenas um anime que eu assistia na televisão, essa foi uma obra que acabou influenciando diretamente parte da minha infância. Foi graças a ela que comecei a jogar o card game. Lembro até hoje de levar cartas para a escola e passar horas duelando com amigos sem entender direito metade das regras. Na verdade, boa parte das crianças da época jogava mais baseada no que via no anime do que nas regras oficiais. Era uma mistura de imaginação, regras inventadas e muita diversão. Independentemente de quem ganhava, aquilo fazia parte de uma época muito especial. O mais curioso é que Yu-Gi-Oh! nem começou como um anime focado exclusivamente em cartas. Nos primeiros momentos da história, o conceito era bem diferente. Yugi e o espírito do Enigma do Milênio participavam de diversos tipos de jogos, muitos deles funcionando quase como apostas extremas. Quando alguém agia de forma cruel ou injusta, Yami Yugi aplicava os chamados Jogos das Trevas, onde os derrotados recebiam punições psicológicas severas. Com o passar do tempo, a franquia encontrou sua identidade definitiva através de Duel Monsters, e foi aí que nasceu o fenômeno mundial que conhecemos hoje. A partir desse momento, os duelos de cartas se tornaram o centro da narrativa, transformando completamente a obra. É impossível falar de Yu-Gi-Oh! sem reconhecer o impacto cultural que ele teve. Ao lado de Pokémon e Digimon, foi uma das franquias responsáveis por popularizar ainda mais a cultura geek entre crianças e adolescentes dos anos 90 e 2000. Mesmo pessoas que nunca assistiram ao anime provavelmente conhecem o nome Exodia, o Dragão Branco de Olhos Azuis ou o Mago Negro. No Brasil, existe ainda um detalhe curioso que marcou a história da franquia. Durante muitos anos, o jogo ficou cercado por polêmicas e chegou a ser chamado por algumas pessoas de "jogo do diabo". Como acontece com várias controvérsias desse tipo, isso acabou gerando ainda mais curiosidade entre as crianças. Confesso que ouvir esse tipo de comentário só me fazia querer conhecer mais sobre o jogo. Falando da obra em si, ela possui uma personalidade gigantesca. O visual dos personagens, os monstros, os duelos exagerados e as situações absurdamente dramáticas criam uma identidade que continua reconhecível até hoje. É aquele tipo de anime que você consegue identificar apenas olhando uma imagem. Grande parte desse sucesso vem dos personagens. Yugi e Yami Yugi funcionam como excelentes protagonistas, mas quem realmente rouba a cena diversas vezes é Seto Kaiba. Seu orgulho gigantesco, sua obsessão em superar Yugi e seu carisma transformam praticamente qualquer episódio em algo mais divertido. Kaiba é um daqueles rivais que acabam se tornando tão importantes quanto o próprio protagonista. Outro personagem que gosto muito é Joey Wheeler. Talvez por não ser um gênio dos duelos como Yugi ou Kaiba, ele acaba sendo o personagem mais fácil de se identificar. Sua evolução ao longo da série é enorme, e muitos dos momentos mais emocionantes dos torneios envolvem justamente suas tentativas de provar seu valor. Claro que assistir ao anime atualmente também revela vários problemas. Como a franquia ainda estava consolidando as regras do jogo, muitos duelos possuem decisões completamente sem sentido para os padrões atuais. Existem cartas com efeitos inconsistentes, regras que mudam conforme a necessidade…

Yes, I’m aware it’s nearly 25 years since this anime came out, but I still had to express my thoughts on yu gi oh because it does have a special place in my heart, I’ll like to note that I’ve only seen season 0 back when I was 12, which I barely remember anything about, of course I went and skipped to duel monsters directly this time since naturally it’s the most known anime out of the series, keep in mind that that this review will be covering the original Japanese anime only! SPOILERS from here onwards!!! SYPNOSIS: Yu gi oh is a card based playing game about a boy named yugi who solved the millennium puzzle making him the heir of the pharaoh soul. The anime starts off quite silly and even funny; it excepts you to know what’s happening and has such a random timeskip right after the first episode, then comes the first tournament! The duelist kingdom arc which takes nearly 40 episodes for no real reason other than yugi/yami losing his star chips every time he manages to get close to collecting them all, or jounochi having his own dedicated duels of gathering the said star chips that he happens to lose too in the process, after some tossing and turning yugi and friends finally manage to get to the finals, bla bla yami/yugi beat evil mind reader pegasus to never be seen again (in the manga he was killed by yami bakura but oh well) in the span of four episodes only, crazy considering how some trivial duels took about the same amount. Then filler time. Second tournament begins which takes longer than the last tournament, battle city arc; in the first part nothing much happens except for the creators obvious favouritism for jounochi, this guy has quite the episodes dedicated for his sake giving off mc vibes, you’ll be able to watch yu gi oh as long as you like him if not then this anime will be hell to get through. So things start to get serious once this malik guy shows up, who tries his best to ruin yami/yugi’s life for totally vague reasons, and right when you think he couldn’t get any bad his yami side appears which is somehow far worse than his original self. He has some good backstory tho. Uh yeah filler time again! Then everyone is like let’s pretend this is never happened! Second part of this tournament that seems like forever, nothing much I could say about this arc other than cool jonouchi’s duel and malik’s defeat which I really don’t feel like talking about. Then a disgusting amount of filler starts on from here to like ep 200. Finally! Last arc, by now the animation has got quite bad for some reason except for that atem and yugi dramatic holding hand scene, ok so at last yami goes on a journey to find his memories which sadly wasn’t as promising as it originally seemed to be, wasted potential, bla bla yami bakura is beaten, bla bla, farewell yugi/yami scene made me tear up, and end. Long summary few… now to the pros and cons: PROS: More of a personal preference but I love the artstyle and atmosphere. The ost is perfect, openings are good when it comes to the songs…yeah except for the last opening visuals the others are lacking. The whole idea and premise is very interesting The show was quite enjoyable, but enjoyable doesn’t equivalence good I like yugi. CONS: The execution was quite messy. This series biggest issue is dragging off, They could ended this whole anime in less than 100 episodes. How the quality of animation drops randomly and way too often. This is totally personal but I wish they explored more on the real bakura’s character and even had him duel I really like him. Also a personal take but I feel they should gave more opportunities to yugi so his victory against atem will feel more plausible. Kaiba exists. In conclusion, yu gi oh holds quite the potentiel I honestly can’t help but like this show despite how terrible it gets at times.

I had to think really hard about what a 10/10 means. If it's epic storytelling, deep philosophical themes, and dynamic characters, then maybe Yugioh is not it. But if it's cultural impact and sheer enjoyment, Yugioh absolutely is a 10/10. This show is my literal childhood, and the childhood of so many kids who got up at the break of dawn every Saturday morning to watch a story about an ancient Egyptian pharaoh in the body of a tiny Japanese teenager who is trying to save the world through a children's card game. To this day I have no idea how to play the card game and have honestly never cared much about it. I watched the show for the cast chemistry and the story itself which was oddly captivating and high stakes. Yugioh is 0% self-aware and has become a literal meme (mostly thanks to the dub and the abridged series), but you laugh with it, instead of at it. It's a little all over the place at times, but its honest charm and heart has carried it throughout all 224 episodes. Every time I rewatch it, it holds up despite its imperfections. There are so many things I could pick apart about this anime. But the thing is...I don't care. There is some sort of bizarre magic about Yugioh that makes me just not care about its flaws because it's that nostalgic. I get literal goosebumps whenever I hear the first three seconds of the English theme song. My inner 11-year-old just activates and the rest is history. --- Also, RIP to the creator Kazuki Takahashi. He died this year at the age of 60 after trying to rescue a woman, her daughter, and an American soldier from drowning off the coast of Okinawa. What a hero and legend.

Yu-Gi-Oh is an anime about a monster card game. This anime makes me feel nostalgic. An old anime that brings a lot of sweet memories. I don't even mind to watch this anime one more time in my life. This Yu-GI-Oh anime was very popular in the 1990s to the early 2000s. Even because of its popularity, Yu-Gi-Oh cards even appear with physical forms that resemble the anime. Not only that, the Yu-Gi-Oh card game series is also made into mobile games and pc games. Yu-Gi-Oh card game is really fun and lots of monsters with cool looks. I was really interested when Yugi played a monster card game and won the match with his clever strategy.

Despite this being considered an anime for children, the story is incredibly underrated, the sagas are very interesting and the duels are amazing. Talking about single sagas: the Duelist Kingdom one is decent, you know, despite that it doesn't follow real game rules at all, the story and the villain are good. The filler Domino City arc was not interesting at all for me, and i found the Yugi vs Duke duel extremely boring. The battle city saga is just incredible. Incredible characters, Outstanding duels, and an extremely well-written villain. The only thing i didn't like about this saga is the conclusion of the final between yugi and marik. I mean, Yugi never had Ragnarok, and he never uses it again, and that card just wins him the duel instantly! wtf. I skipped filler sagas, so we are at the point where the egyptian things lore come out. That is one of the highest point in the show, but Zorc isn't a very good villain (for me).