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Archive for March 2016
Hey guys, kanna here! I haven't had a ton of filming time as of late, but things are slowly and surely starting to wind down, so that reaction to the subtitled Bonds Beyond Trailer is on the way! I did a few test runs on other trailers, and learned that my mic was acting a little weird, so I might need to get a new mic or just speak loud enough to actually be heard.
But enough about that! You guys came to my cafe for a review of Yu-Gi-Oh: Capsule Monsters, and that's what you're going to get! Let's get to it!
For starters, in terms of continuity, I'm honestly not sure where this takes place. I heard it was a spin-off miniseries, but I'm not a hundred percent sure I buy that. But given it's hard to place this in terms of continuity, especially when you consider all we know is that it takes place after Season 0. It can't take place after the fifth season, because...I'm overthinking this, and I don't want to spoil anything. I've heard from some people it takes place between episodes 198 and 199 of Duel Monsters, but...no! I'm overthinking this again! MUST! STOP! OVERTHINKING! *sigh*
Anyway, the interesting thing about this miniseries is that it was 100% 4Kids. This is the only Yu-Gi-Oh animated series to not be released in Japan prior to an American release. Pretty interesting, right?
Anyway, we have all our usual characters. Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan, Grandpa Muto, and...that's actually it. No Bakura, no Kaiba, no Mokuba, just Yugi and the gang on an excellent adventure.
So it all starts when Yugi is having this strange dream about Yami fighting against something that isn't very clear to Yugi, or us for that matter. Yugi wakes up to find it was only a dream, and we learn through a flashback that his grandpa was going on some trip and should have been back by now, but wasn't.
We then cut to Joey, who seems to be on his way to school, before he spots some sort of contest going on where the winner gets a trip to India. So Joey enters the contest, and big shock, he wins. Turns out, it's a trip for four to India. Meanwhile, Yugi is teaching Tea how to play the game that everyone's talking about, Capsule Monsters. However, when Joey gets to school, he tells everyone about the trip he won and invites them. So everyone gets excited, and the next day (at least, I think it's the next day...it's a little hard to tell how much time has passed), they're off to India.
Too bad for them that their plane crashes in the middle of nowhere on the way to India. While the pilots try to radio for help, Yugi and co. decide to have a look around the area, before they find a colleague of Yugi's grandpa's named Dr. Alex Brisbane. He explains that Yugi's grandpa disappeared inside of a pyramid, which didn't belong in a forest-like area. Dr. Brisbane takes Yugi and the others to where he last saw Yugi's grandpa, which appears to be some sort of 3-D model map.
Joey steps on the map and suddenly disappears. Knowing they have to find Joey, Yugi, Tea, and Tristan all step on the map and find strange devices strapped to their arms along with some kind of belt.
Tea, Tristan, and Yugi are in some kind of forest, when they're suddenly ambushed by Kamakiriman and Gokibore. Yugi gets separated from Tristan and Tea as they're running away, and as he runs, he trips over something that looks suspiciously like a capsule. Upon touching it, Celtic Guardian appears and quickly takes care of Kamakiriman. Yugi then realizes that he and his friends have all somehow been transported into a live version of the Capsule Monsters board game...with no way out in sight.
So...what do I give this: um...honestly, I don't know. Let's just go with 4 out of 10.
Why: As much as I want to give this series credit for being entirely produced by 4kids, and I do give them a lot of credit, there just isn't anything that really stands out about this spin-off. It's pretty much Duel Monsters, just with a different game and shortened down to twelve episodes. We don't know where in the series it takes place, the characters haven't really changed much, and the writing is pretty average.
I have nothing to compare this to, so that's part of the reason why it gets 4 out of 10. It kinda stands on its own.
The one thing, if anything, that I really didn't like about this series was that Yami Yugi did LITERALLY all the fighting. Yugi did nothing. Abso-freaking-lutely nothing. Sure, it's the same in Duel Monsters, but at least there, Yugi made SOME contribution and the series revolved around him. Here, Yugi doesn't really do anything other than realize important stuff and act as the "leader" of the group. It's kinda...what's the word I'm looking for...wimpy on his part.
We all know that Yugi is the King of Games, and should be able to handle this stuff on his own. But no, Yami Yugi has to step in and solve all the problems. Heck, Yami Yugi even gets most of the freaking DIALOG compared to Yugi! It's pretty sad when you think about it. Hm...I wonder how Dan Green felt when he saw the script for this. Or how Eric Stuart felt when he heard that Kaiba wasn't going to be in this. Curios, don't you think?
The music is the same theme and ending as the English dub of Duel Monsters, so there's really nothing new there. There isn't even much of a soundtrack to go with this. And as we all know, I am a sucker for a good soundtrack.
Well, that's it for Capsule Monsters. Stay tuned for next Anime Monday (which will hopefully be up on a Monday) when I review Yu-Gi-Oh The Movie: Pyramid of Light! See you then! ~k
But enough about that! You guys came to my cafe for a review of Yu-Gi-Oh: Capsule Monsters, and that's what you're going to get! Let's get to it!
For starters, in terms of continuity, I'm honestly not sure where this takes place. I heard it was a spin-off miniseries, but I'm not a hundred percent sure I buy that. But given it's hard to place this in terms of continuity, especially when you consider all we know is that it takes place after Season 0. It can't take place after the fifth season, because...I'm overthinking this, and I don't want to spoil anything. I've heard from some people it takes place between episodes 198 and 199 of Duel Monsters, but...no! I'm overthinking this again! MUST! STOP! OVERTHINKING! *sigh*
Anyway, the interesting thing about this miniseries is that it was 100% 4Kids. This is the only Yu-Gi-Oh animated series to not be released in Japan prior to an American release. Pretty interesting, right?
Anyway, we have all our usual characters. Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan, Grandpa Muto, and...that's actually it. No Bakura, no Kaiba, no Mokuba, just Yugi and the gang on an excellent adventure.
So it all starts when Yugi is having this strange dream about Yami fighting against something that isn't very clear to Yugi, or us for that matter. Yugi wakes up to find it was only a dream, and we learn through a flashback that his grandpa was going on some trip and should have been back by now, but wasn't.
We then cut to Joey, who seems to be on his way to school, before he spots some sort of contest going on where the winner gets a trip to India. So Joey enters the contest, and big shock, he wins. Turns out, it's a trip for four to India. Meanwhile, Yugi is teaching Tea how to play the game that everyone's talking about, Capsule Monsters. However, when Joey gets to school, he tells everyone about the trip he won and invites them. So everyone gets excited, and the next day (at least, I think it's the next day...it's a little hard to tell how much time has passed), they're off to India.
Too bad for them that their plane crashes in the middle of nowhere on the way to India. While the pilots try to radio for help, Yugi and co. decide to have a look around the area, before they find a colleague of Yugi's grandpa's named Dr. Alex Brisbane. He explains that Yugi's grandpa disappeared inside of a pyramid, which didn't belong in a forest-like area. Dr. Brisbane takes Yugi and the others to where he last saw Yugi's grandpa, which appears to be some sort of 3-D model map.
Joey steps on the map and suddenly disappears. Knowing they have to find Joey, Yugi, Tea, and Tristan all step on the map and find strange devices strapped to their arms along with some kind of belt.
Tea, Tristan, and Yugi are in some kind of forest, when they're suddenly ambushed by Kamakiriman and Gokibore. Yugi gets separated from Tristan and Tea as they're running away, and as he runs, he trips over something that looks suspiciously like a capsule. Upon touching it, Celtic Guardian appears and quickly takes care of Kamakiriman. Yugi then realizes that he and his friends have all somehow been transported into a live version of the Capsule Monsters board game...with no way out in sight.
So...what do I give this: um...honestly, I don't know. Let's just go with 4 out of 10.
Why: As much as I want to give this series credit for being entirely produced by 4kids, and I do give them a lot of credit, there just isn't anything that really stands out about this spin-off. It's pretty much Duel Monsters, just with a different game and shortened down to twelve episodes. We don't know where in the series it takes place, the characters haven't really changed much, and the writing is pretty average.
I have nothing to compare this to, so that's part of the reason why it gets 4 out of 10. It kinda stands on its own.
The one thing, if anything, that I really didn't like about this series was that Yami Yugi did LITERALLY all the fighting. Yugi did nothing. Abso-freaking-lutely nothing. Sure, it's the same in Duel Monsters, but at least there, Yugi made SOME contribution and the series revolved around him. Here, Yugi doesn't really do anything other than realize important stuff and act as the "leader" of the group. It's kinda...what's the word I'm looking for...wimpy on his part.
We all know that Yugi is the King of Games, and should be able to handle this stuff on his own. But no, Yami Yugi has to step in and solve all the problems. Heck, Yami Yugi even gets most of the freaking DIALOG compared to Yugi! It's pretty sad when you think about it. Hm...I wonder how Dan Green felt when he saw the script for this. Or how Eric Stuart felt when he heard that Kaiba wasn't going to be in this. Curios, don't you think?
The music is the same theme and ending as the English dub of Duel Monsters, so there's really nothing new there. There isn't even much of a soundtrack to go with this. And as we all know, I am a sucker for a good soundtrack.
Well, that's it for Capsule Monsters. Stay tuned for next Anime Monday (which will hopefully be up on a Monday) when I review Yu-Gi-Oh The Movie: Pyramid of Light! See you then! ~k
Hey guys, kanna here. Hope everything is going well for you guys. After a lot of things going on that have kept me from posting, I am back! And in honor of the new Yu-Gi-Oh movie coming out next month, The Dark Side of Dimensions, I've decided to dedicate these next couple of Anime Mondays to Yu-Gi-Oh.
And what better place to start with than the actual first season of the anime, season 0.
Where to start with this...it's kind of hard to say, since I did a general overview of Yu-Gi-Oh already. So we know how it started, but where did Season 0 come about? And why is it called that, even though it's technically the first season?
Well, Season 0 wasn't even called Season 0. That's just a name that the fans came up with. It was literally just called Yu-Gi-Oh or 湯☆戯☆王. Fans often referred to or subtitled this as "Season 0," "A Game of Darkness," or "The First Season." It was the first anime adaptation of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga series.
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.
This anime had twenty-seven episodes, airing from April 4, 1998 to October 10, 1998. It also got a short movie. The characters all looked and sounded pretty different, too, and they didn't go by their names from the English dub (to be expected, since there names don't entirely translate into Japanese). Tea Gardner was originally Anzu Mazaki, Joey Wheeler was known as Jonouchi Katsuya, and Tristan Taylor was known as Honda Hiroto. As to how they looked...
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| Anzu Mazaki/Tea Gardner |
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| Jounouchi Katsuya/Joey Wheeler |
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| Honda Hiroto/Tristan Taylor |
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| Yugi Muto |
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| Yami Yugi (well, there's a face that will haunt my nightmares) |
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| Seto Kaiba |
Oh, and there was even an exclusive character to this season, Miho Nosaka:
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| Miho Nosaka |
So...yeah. The voice actors are different from the Yu-Gi-Oh we all know and love, as well. They sound...interesting. Not sure if it's in a good or bad way, but they do sound interesting. Some of the voices fit the characters, others don't. It depends on your opinion.
As for characterization, it's not that far off. Yugi is portrayed as this guy who loves games, but hates violence; Jounouchi and Honda (you can't imagine how hard this is to write, as I'm used to typing out their English names) are portrayed as the comic relief and the bullies turned friends, Anzu is basically...Anzu, and Kaiba is portrayed as an egocentric billionaire who wants to beat Yugi by getting Yami Yugi to show himself (Kaiba's kinda obsessed as you'll see in later episodes). Miho is an exclusive character to this season, so she's portrayed as a bit of a ditz that Honda has a crush on.
So...what do I give this? 10/10
Why: The animation is great for the time. Some anime from the late 90s didn't have the best animation, so to see something like this is pretty cool.
The character voices are well done, and even if they don't suit the characters, they do sound believable enough.
It's dark in ways I can't even begin to describe, and that's what sets it apart from the Yu-Gi-Oh we know and love. There was a reason it never aired outside of Japan and why episodes of it are extremely hard to find.
Each episode is incredibly well-written, and to see the antagonist of the episode get what's coming to them in the way they've been antagonizing the protagonists is actually quite interesting. Here's an example:
See what I mean about this series being dark? And this was only from the first episode!
Sorry for the short review, but it's better than nothing, right?
Next time on Anime Mondays: Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters
