Yu-Gi-Oh! is like the heavy metal of the anime world. The characters all dress like rock stars and behave in an over the top manner, establishing their societal and personal value through a high-stakes card game. There are demons and monsters, wizards and dragons, and all kinds of cool monster poses and attack names that sound like they came off the back of a Dragonforce album. Just like heavy metal, Yu-Gi-Oh! is ridiculous, but it’s self-aware of this fact and better for it.
These glam-rock sensibilities are why it’s so great if unintentionally hilarious at times. Yu-Gi-Oh! might randomly go from zero to sixty in any given episode on the strangeness speedometer, but it does so with genuine enthusiasm and gusto that’s hard for audiences to resist. It’s the reason that the show and card game have continued to stick around beyond Yugi and friends. Here are some of the oddest and most wonderful events of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime.
The first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! is hilarious mostly for the gaps in logic that it contains. Early on in the episode, Kaiba overhears Yugi and friends discussing that his Grandpa owns a super rare card in their favorite game, Duel Monsters. He follows them to Yugi’s Grandpa’s shop and discovers it is the third copy of Blue Eyes White Dragon. He already owns two of this card and he’s been searching for the other to ensure that nobody else can also have his signature card.
While Yugi’s Grandpa refuses to part with his Blue Eyes White Dragon, Kaiba refuses to take no for an answer. He duels Grandpa, defeating him and taking his Blue Eyes as a prize. For some reason, this card game match was so intense that Yugi find Grandpa on the floor of Kaiba’s headquarters, covered in sweat and short of breath. Unless Kaiba decided to beat up an elderly man, it’s understood this is a direct result of losing the game. It’s completely ridiculous but it makes the stakes feel much more important for Yugi to duel Kaiba next, as only a true jerk would inflict physical pain on an elderly man to steal his favorite card game.
Poor Yugi’s Grandpa. He just can’t catch a break. Immediately after receiving a whooping from Kaiba, Pegasus banishes his soul to the Shadow Realm and puts him into a coma. As if this isn’t bad enough, Pegasus makes getting Yugi’s Grandpa back to normal even more of a chore by forcing him to participate in his Duelist Kingdom Tournament. The result is a blast to watch though, with Yugi and friends embarking on a journey to collect enough Star Chips to make it to the tournament finals, all while encountering an increasingly ridiculous cast of characters.
How are these fellow duelists ridiculous? For one, in a game with tons of monsters and spells, they all choose to limit themselves to one type of monster cards in their decks. They take it a step further and base their entire personality around this card type. Rex Raptor is a beanie-wearing punk with all dinosaur types. Weevil Underwood uses bug types exclusively. Bonz uses a zombie deck. Mai Valentine is devoted to her Harpy Sisters. Surely, at some point these duelists must have noticed Yugi and friends and their decks have mixed types. Such strict adherence to deck themes is either extremely stubborn or just downright foolish.
However, having characters stick to specific deck types makes the episodes their duels are featured in more memorable for the audience. It’s a clever way to help viewers learn about the game as well and basic strategies of the card game. Audiences can remember specific duels better because of these themes, including the monsters played within them. Bonz and Joey’s duel for example takes place on a graveyard-themed playfield and Pumpking the King of Ghosts is played in addition to monsters like Zombie Dragon. It gives a horror or Halloween vibe to the duel and is more memorable because of it.
The original Yu-Gi-Oh series goes over the top by having characters duel each other on giant holographic projectors. They’re purely visual, but characters will often react as if the monsters are actually there and wind does appear to blow when powerful attacks land. As time went on, what was already a somewhat extra method for playing a card game continued to be refined. The holograms became portable with duel discs and a wearable transforming wrist device that held player’s cards. But that was nothing compared to what was to come.
Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s doesn’t follow Yugi and friends, instead following a new cast of characters. It does have one thing that the original series didn’t: dueling on motorcycles. When life presents a series like Yu-Gi-Oh! to jump the shark, it mounts a motorcycle. The rules are even changed a bit to include race elements. It’s totally unnecessary, but one of the most metal things ever created.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is streaming on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu.
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