Newest Post
// On :Tuesday, December 30, 2014
kanna here! Welcome to Anime Mondays #3!
It was really, really, REALLY hard for me to come up with a good kid-friendly anime. Why? Because there are so many out there. If you watched one as a kid, you felt some kind of connection to the characters that made you think, "He/she is awesome!" If you watched one as an adult that you'd seen growing up, you were given this INCREDIBLE sense of nostalgia. If you watched one as an adult that you hadn't seen before and did not have kids at the time, you probably felt a similar connection to the characters. Something that made you connect with the characters.
So, naturally, having watched anime for nearly eight years (G-d I'm getting old; it's not like I just turned 20 last week), you can imagine how hard this was to choose.
Even so, I put a few titles that I was thinking of on my Facebook. And then, I slapped myself, because I couldn't believe I was being so stupid. I went with all these not too common titles when I could have gone for THE GOLD. So, hold onto your hats and strap on your duel disks! Get ready for one of the ultimate kids' anime series, because...it's time to duel!
Where the crap am I supposed to begin with this AMAZING anime that people are never too old for? Background? The characters? The plot? G-d, there are so many great places to start from! But...context needs to be provided. So, here's a bit of context.
Yu-Gi-Oh! (yes, that exclamation mark is really part of the title) started out as a manga series about gaming written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It became a series in the Weekly Shounen Jump magazine on September 30, 1996.
The manga was so popular that, naturally, an anime was going to be produced. However, this didn't just get one anime adaptation. IT GOT TWO. It also created a huge franchise that included a trading card game and video games. The idea behind the trading card game - which was heavily featured in the video games - is that players used cards to "duel" each other in a mock battle of fantasy "monsters."
One was produced by Toei Animation with the same name and aired from April 4, 1998 to October 10, 1998, and ran for 27 episodes. This anime was never aired outside of Japan, and even now, videos of it are incredibly hard to find. It has only been released on VHS in seven volumes and had no further rebroadcasts in Japanese anime stations. It's hard to find videos unless you want to watch bootlegs. This series, later to become known as "Yu-Gi-Oh Season Zero," was loosely based off of the first seven volumes of the manga. The series went for twenty-seven episodes and also got a short movie, which, like the series, was never aired outside Japan or rebroadcast. It was pretty dark, even with elements from the manga toned down.
Moving on.
The other anime adaptation was produced by Nihon Ad Systems and originally titled Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters in Japan. It was only known as Yu-Gi-Oh in other countries. It aired from April 18, 2000 to September 29, 2004 in Japan and from September 29, 2001 to June 10, 2006 in the United States, running for 224 episodes.
The
general gist of the whole story is that it revolves around a boy
named Yugi who is a freshman in high school (but he really doesn't look
like it). He receives a present from his grandfather, an archaeologist,
called the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi solves it after eight years, and
unknowingly awakened the spirit of the pharaoh inside of it. The spirit
inhabited
Yugi's body and Yugi's life was changed forever. The spirit solves
Yugi's conflicts using card games (and other...fairly dark methods if you've seen season zero).
Yugi, our protagonist, probably experiences the most character development out of all the characters. I'm not saying that because he was the protagonist. Okay, that's partially it. But I'm also saying it because Yugi experienced the most growth out of the characters. He went from being a scrawny, bullied kid who played games all by himself to a kid who had friends, saved the world a few times, and gained a rival or two along the way.
Joey, Yugi's best friend, also experiences a lot of development. He goes from being someone who really wasn't good at Duel Monsters to a great duelist, an even better friend, and even gains a lot of respect from the people around him. He's good at fist fighting, although this quality was EXTREMELY downplayed in the English dub. Yeah...I'll get to the whole "dub vs. sub" thing in a bit. Anyway, he's not just a source of comic relief, even though he can be more than a little rash at times, and is actually pretty funny. He's caring, selfless, and considerate. However, he has a bit of a lack of modesty.
Seto Kaiba is the character I think most people either really like or just love to hate. Personally...I don't really know how I feel about him. Yeah. 224 episodes, a movie, and a number of years later, and I'm STILL not sure how I feel about Seto Kaiba. Anyway, he's the resident anti-hero of the series. He also has a younger brother, Mokuba. He's selfish, arrogant, more than a little egotistic, and a very no-nonsense kind of guy. Despite all that, though, he does have some ethics. He tends to help Yugi and his friends when it's in his best interest, or when he and Yugi are faced with a common enemy. He believes in hard work and determination and hates people who steal or cheat.
Yugi has two other friends, Tristan and Tea, who are two of the most USELESS characters I have ever seen. Tristan doesn't really do much of anything. He's mainly there for comic relief and...yeah, that's about it. He basically just moves the plot along. Even so, he's not as annoying as Tea. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HER. Tea doesn't do much, either, except make friendship speeches. A lot. They're pretty long and more than a little annoying. Tristan moves the plot along a lot more than she does. Oh, and she's MAJORLY into the spirit of the puzzle. They imply that throughout the MAJORITY of the dub. It's actually sad and annoying.
And this part brings me to the whole "dub vs. sub" thing. This could go on for a bit, so brace yourselves.
Fans of Yu-Gi-Oh have argued for a long time over which was better: the original Japanese with English subtitles and nothing being toned down, or the English dub. The original Japanese had NO CUTS and NOTHING was toned down. At all. In fact, you'd never guess it was a kid's show if you saw the original Japanese. People are punching each other, killing each other, and lots of other things.
Remember what I said about how Joey enjoyed fighting? In the original Japanese, he could beat up people bigger than him. This was demonstrated in one episode when he fought against someone named Bandit Keith. In the English dub, this was MAJORLY downplayed, and Joey was the one who got beaten up by Bandit Keith.
Yeah. You'll NEVER GUESS who was in charge of the English dub for this series. I can tell you right now, it wasn't Viz or Funimation. It was...4KIDS!!! Everyone's favorite! To be fair, 4kids did give us a few good TV shows. They gave us Sonic X, One Piece (I think I'm part of a minority who didn't like One Piece, even when it got moved to Toonami), Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, and a few others. But there are a lot of people who hate 4kids for dubbing, and I can see where those people are coming from.
Aside from the changes that 4kids made to the actual episodes, there were changes in the script and names of cards and characters. The translations of the card names actually carried over pretty well. The original "Black Magician" was changed to "Dark Magician" and the original "Dark Magician Girl" was known as "Black Magician Girl," to name a couple. However, the script changes...weren't so great. The dub gave Tea a ton of friendship speeches (ugh) and toned down A LOT of the dialog.
Which do I think is better? I don't think I'm the best person to answer that. I grew up with the dub, so that's what I would probably say. I saw the original Japanese a few years ago, and I liked that as well, so I can't really give an unbiased opinion. I've heard the some of the voice actors from the dub do lots of other work outside of Yu-Gi-Oh, and they're great. Dan Green, the voice of Yugi and the spirit of the puzzle, is a legend among American voice actors. I'm not sure if he's doing anything now. Last I heard, he had retired after his wife passed away. There is a chance he's back at work, but I'm honestly not sure.
Overall, Yu-Gi-Oh is one of the best anime series that I grew up with, and if you haven't seen it (which is probably fairly unlikely), WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? CHECK IT OUT! And if you can find any episodes of season zero, let me know!
