History CommonKnowledge / YuGiOh

* Anzu/Tea is universally remembered for doing nothing but making speeches about ThePowerOfFriendship. This happened... maybe twice significantly, one of which was added for the anime, plus a CallBack to one in a NonSerialMovie. Considering that friendship is one of the biggest themes of the series, that's pretty thin on the ground. She does make a few other speeches, but they're generally not about friendship. The fact that one of those speeches was [[FirstInstallmentWins in the first episode of the anime]] probably throws the margin off. Also, while [[NeutralFemale she only duels a handful of times]] (once in the manga, three times in the anime) and frequently played the DistressedDamsel, she's fairly active in both the manga and the anime (solving traps in Death-T, blowing up Zorc in Monster World, defeating one of the Big Five in Virtual Nightmare, keeping Atem together in Orichalcos, coming up with the cartouche in Millennium World).

** There's a particularly common rumor that blames the show's shift in its second half to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal]], which intensified further due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. This is partially true, in that Carly's role was recasted, but this happened ''very'' late in the series, long after the series had thoroughly transitioned away from UrbanFantasy and towards science fiction. Additionally, Carly kept appearing for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. What's more, the series continued to use aspects of the old mythology and mysticism, albeit in a significantly reduced role (such as the appearance of Scar-Red Nova and Team Ragnarok), and the video games based an entire entry off the Arcadia Movement, the ''most'' cult-like entity in the series. Kazuki Takahashi explained in one interview that he conceived of many concepts in the Dark Signer arc, suggesting that the writers simply ran out of occult-oriented concepts and decided to focus on science fiction. Carly, meanwhile, didn't truly become DemotedToExtra until later on in the arc (long after the shift to sci-fi was in full gear), suggesting that her lack of prominence had less to do with any kind of larger initiative and more the writers being [[ShippingBedDeath uncertain of how to handle her relationship with Jack]] post-DyingDeclarationOfLove.

* In point of fact, Yami Yugi definitively kills a grand total of one person over the course of the entire manga. There's a few characters with ambiguous fates (the Player Killer) or punishments that could have killed them (Goro Inogashira), and one case of a character who challenged him to a game and put his soul on the line (Imori), but he only ever killed one person via KarmicDeath, and that person was a serial killer.

** A commonly-stated "fact" is that the character of Crow Hogan was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen rewritten from a primary antagonist to a tritagonist]] due to strong sales of his cards, [[ExecutiveMeddling against the wishes of the creators]]. This is basically impossible, since Crow had already debuted as a heroic character before his archetype ever hit the stands. What's more, Blackwings didn't become a truly meta deck until the release of Raging Battle expanded their lineup, which was well inside of the Dark Signer arc. He also plays no real role in most of the video games, which were directly ''made'' by Konami. It's true that he was rewritten from an early concept (Takahashi's character design envisioned him as a character who has tried to steal Yusei's D-Wheel countless times in the past, but is still "a hot-blooded friend of Yusei"), and that many of his plot points seem to have been rushed or altered in some manner, but it can't have been because of card sales--at least, not initially. Crow also reappeared in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', which had the same director, and he had a basically identical personality there (which was unique among reappearing characters), implying that the creators had no problem with making Crow a good guy--if anything, he seems to be something of a CreatorsPet.

* By a similar token, many fans will tell you that "[[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries Season Zero]]", the Toei adaptation, is far more faithful to the manga than the more famous anime adaptation. It's not; it just adapted a different part of the series (which has also given rise to the CommonKnowledge that it's canon to the other anime, hence the name). Among other things, a lot of plots were given new scenes or added padding, an entire story arc that wasn't present in the manga was added, and a character who was originally a one-off [[AscendedExtra got moved to the main cast]]. . Another common claim is that it wasn't MerchandiseDriven, unlike its successor series. It was; there are multiple one-off episodes added just to show off the cards, and even a NonSerialMovie dedicated entirely to Red-Eyes Black Dragon. It's just that [[TabletopGame/YuGiOhCarddasVersion the game]] based on it wasn't nearly as successful as the one that would follow. Lastly, there's the idea that it's incredibly dark and violent and 4Kids didn't dub it because of that--the truth is, it was actually mostly {{Bowdlerise}}d compared to the manga (for instance, the aforementioned serial killer ended up SparedByTheAdaptation), and isn't that tonally different from ''Duel Monsters'', featuring lots of goofy comedic moments and wacky plot points. Given that it was a completely separate series and uninvolved with the franchise's main cash cow, it's much more likely that 4Kids simply didn't want to go through the trouble of buying the rights to it.

* By a similar token, many fans will tell you that "[[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries Season Zero]]", the Toei adaptation, is far more faithful to the manga than the more famous anime adaptation. It's not; it just adapted a different part of the series (which has also given rise to the CommonKnowledge that it's canon to the other anime, hence the name). Among other things, a lot of plots were given new scenes or added padding, an entire story arc that wasn't present in the manga was added, and a character who was originally a one-off [[AscendedExtra got moved to the main cast]]. It's also often regarded as incredibly dark and violent when it was actually mostly {{Bowdlerise}}d compared to the manga - for instance, the aforementioned serial killer ended up SparedByTheAdaptation. Another common claim is that it wasn't MerchandiseDriven, unlike its successor series. It was; there are multiple one-off episodes added just to show off the cards, and even a NonSerialMovie dedicated entirely to Red-Eyes Black Dragon. It's just that [[TabletopGame/YuGiOhCarddasVersion the game]] based on it wasn't nearly as successful as the one that would follow.

* Most people commonly assume that the factions seen in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' are representative of their entire dimension, particularly in the case of the Xyz Dimension. Fans commonly assume and/or state that the Fusion Dimension has destroyed humanity in the Xyz Dimension, when in reality, it's only Heartland that has been attacked. The Synchro Dimension clarifies that only City is involved when Reiji calls out Roget on being satisfied with control over ''one'' city.

** Much of this also comes from the fact that the Duelist Kingdom arc is MisBlamed; it was the people making the ''card game'' that were getting things wrong. For instance, the infamous Catapult Turtle strategy happened because in the manga, Catapult Turtle's effect was closer to "tribute a monster, take damage equal to half its ATK, destroy a card on the field", and Castle of Dark Illusions might have been something like "flip all your monsters facedown, when this card is destroyed, destroy all monsters you control and take damage". That the card game didn't reflect either of these things is hardly the manga's fault, even if some of the reasoning (for instance, the possibility that the monsters could have "run away", which was nullified by Chaos Shield) is hard to suss out how it would work.

* Contrary to what ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' made many people think, Kaiba did not actually summon three Blue-Eyes White Dragons in one turn in the first episode. He summoned them one each in separate turns, and the only ''current'' rule he broke (and which everyone else also broke until the anime began following the TCG's rules) was that he summoned them without tributing.

* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'':

** Much of this also comes from the fact that the Duelist Kingdom arc is MisBlamed; it was the people making the ''card game'' that were getting things wrong. Catapult Turtle's effect was closer to "tribute a monster, take damage equal to half its ATK, destroy a card on the field", and Castle of Dark Illusions might have been something like "flip all your monsters facedown, when this card is destroyed, destroy all monsters you control and take damage". That the card game didn't reflect either of these things is hardly the manga's fault, even if some of the reasoning (for instance, the possibility that the monsters could have "run away", which was nullified by Chaos Shield) is hard to suss out how it would work.

** There's a particularly common rumor that blames the show's shift in its second half to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal]], which intensified further due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. This is partially true, in that Carly's role was recasted, but this happened ''very'' late in the series, long after the series had thoroughly transitioned away from UrbanFantasy and towards science fiction. Additionally, Carly kept appearing for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. What's more, the series continued to use aspects of the old mythology and mysticism, albeit in a significantly reduced role (such as the appearance of Scar-Red Nova and Team Ragnarok), and the video games based an entire entry off the Arcadia Movement, the ''most'' cult-like entity in the series. Kazuki Takahashi explained in one interview that he conceived of many concepts in the Dark Signer arc, suggesting that the writers simply ran out of occult-oriented concepts and decided to focus on science fiction.

* It's common for ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' fans to claim that the name of Judai's SuperpoweredEvilSide, named the Supreme King in most dubs, is "Haou." This is indeed what he's called in Japanese, but that's because "Haou" is just the Japanese word for "Supreme King." Some go so far as to address him as "Supreme King Haou", which translates to [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment "Supreme King Supreme King."]] The Supreme King simply isn't identified with a given name of his own; functionally, [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the title of Supreme King is treated as his name.]] Of course, part of this is that the series ultimately reveals that he isn't so much a true split personality as he is Judai simply embracing his worst aspects and the power of the Gentle Darkness, meaning that his "real name" is simply Judai. Of course, "Haou" does sound like it could be a name and "Supreme King" is rather clunky, which contributes to its use as a FanNickname even among fans who understand how the character works.

* It's common for ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' fans to claim that the name of Judai's SuperpoweredEvilSide, named the Supreme King in most dubs, is "Haou." This is indeed what he's called in Japanese, but that's because "Haou" is literally just the Japanese word for "Supreme King." Some go so far as to address him as "Supreme King Haou", which is literally [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment "Supreme King Supreme King."]] The Supreme King simply isn't identified with a given name of his own; functionally, [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the title of Supreme King is treated as his name.]] Of course, part of this is that the series ultimately reveals that he isn't so much a true split personality as he is Judai simply embracing his worst aspects and the power of the Gentle Darkness, meaning that his "real name" is simply Judai. Of course, "Haou" does sound like it could be a name and "Supreme King" is rather clunky, which contributes to its use as a FanNickname even among fans who understand how the character works.

* It's common for ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' fans to claim that the name of Judai's SuperpoweredEvilSide, named the Supreme King in most dubs, is "Haou." This is indeed what he's called in Japanese, but that's because "Haou" is literally just the Japanese word for "Supreme King." Some go so far as to address him as "Supreme King Haou", which is literally [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartmentb"Supreme King Supreme King."]] The Supreme King simply isn't identified with a given name of his own; functionally, [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the title of Supreme King is treated as his name.]] Of course, part of this is that the series ultimately reveals that he isn't so much a true split personality as he is Judai simply embracing his worst aspects and the power of the Gentle Darkness, meaning that his "real name" is simply Judai. Of course, "Haou" does sound like it could be a name and "Supreme King" is rather clunky, which contributes to its use as a FanNickname even among fans who understand how the character works.

* It's common for ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' fans to claim that the name of Judai's SuperpoweredEvilSide, named the Supreme King in most dubs, is "Haou." This is indeed what he's called in Japanese, but that's because "Haou" is literally just the Japanese word for "Supreme King." The Supreme King simply isn't identified with a given name of his own; functionally, [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the title of Supreme King is treated as his name.]] Of course, part of this is that the series ultimately reveals that he isn't so much a true split personality as he is Judai simply embracing his worst aspects and the power of the Gentle Darkness, meaning that his "real name" is simply Judai. Of course, "Haou" does sound like it could be a name and "Supreme King" is rather clunky, which contributes to its use as a FanNickname even among fans who understand how the character works.

* Many people like to complain about how the Duelist Kingdom arc doesn't follow the rules; that's because at that time, the game was a PlotTumor that basically ''had no rules to follow'', and needed to be made up wholesale (there's even an obscure version of the game made by Bandai that follows a much different set of rules than the OCG/TCG). In fact, Pegasus even states that "there would be new rule changes" at the beginning of the arc, meaning we don't know exactly how the rules prior to that arc were any different. That being said, the anime didn't start following the OCG/TCG rules until the Battle City arc, when ''Kaiba'' instated them, and the rules weren't fully solidified until ''[[Anime/YuGiOhGX GX]]''. That being said, a lot of the crazy things that happen in that arc ''do'' have some merit in regards to the game; for instance, the "field power bonus" correlates to the real game's concept of a Field Spell, and the former {{Trope Namer|s}} of "NewRulesAsThePlotDemands'' could've actually worked in the real game, given the effect of Catapult Turtle and the progress of the duel (and the obscenely low LP the players start out with, at the time).

* Many fans will let you know that most duels are won by the protagonist pulling a card out of their ass that conveniently defeats the opponent and is never seen again...only, this is really not the case. While the cards are often extremely convenient, they tend to be foreshadowed or ChekhovsGunman affairs just as often, and crop up a lot more. It's zigzagged depending on the media; on one hand, the wonky rulings for certain cards in comparison to the TCG/OCG mean that reappearances of manga cards are replaced[[note]]Magic Cylinder's second appearance being changed to Magician's Selection for example, along with several examples in Yugi vs Bakura Battle City[[/note]], while the longer length of the anime allowed certain cards to show up again. Later installments of the franchise ''do'' play this straight, though, especially from ''5Ds'' onward.

*** The rumors about Crow have led to the similar idea that the various shows will introduce major characters with the specific intent of them showcasing highly dominant meta decks, with the other major candidate being Soulburner in ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'', whose Salamangreats won the 2019 World Championship. As the page for CCGImportanceDissonance can tell you, there are many, many cases of major characters with decks that were nonviable in the meta, and minor or DemotedToExtra characters with decks that were the GameBreaker of their format. One need only look at the deck that won the prior year's World Championship, Trickstars--a deck whose user, Aoi Zaizen, was almost completely OutOfFocus past the first season, suffered a total of five serious onscreen losses that sometimes put her out of commission for whole arcs, never defeated a single character who had played against anyone else, and ultimately swapped her deck out entirely for the Marincess archetype. While Crow and Soulburner were both characters who came out of nowhere with incredibly dominant meta decks, they also seem to be the exception to the rule, and the franchise as a whole is no stranger to abruptly-important SixthRanger characters.

** There's a particularly common rumor that blames the show's shift in its second half to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal]], which intensified further due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. This is partially true, in that Carly's role was recasted, but this happened ''very'' late in the series, long after the series had thoroughly transitioned away from UrbanFantasy and towards science fiction. Additionally, Carly kept appearing in a significantly reduced role for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. What's more, the series continued to use aspects of the old mythology and mysticism, albeit in a significantly reduced role (such as the appearance of Scar-Red Nova and Team Ragnarok), and the video games based an entire entry off the Arcadia Movement, the ''most'' cult-like entity in the series. Kazuki Takahashi explained in one interview that he conceived of many concepts in the Dark Signer arc, suggesting that the writers simply ran out of occult-oriented concepts and decided to focus on science fiction.

** A commonly-stated fact is that the character of Crow Hogan was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen rewritten from a primary antagonist to a tritagonist]] due to strong sales of his cards, against the wishes of the creators. This is basically impossible, since Crow had already debuted as a heroic character before his archetype ever hit the stands. What's more, Blackwings didn't become a truly meta deck until the release of Raging Battle expanded their lineup, which was well inside of the Dark Signer arc. He also plays no real role in most of the video games, which were directly ''made'' by Konami. It's true that he was rewritten from an early concept (Takahashi's character design envisioned him as a character who has tried to steal Yusei's D-Wheel countless times in the past, but is still "a hot-blooded friend of Yusei"), and that many of his plot points seem to have been rushed or altered in some manner, but it can't have been because of card sales--at least, not initially. Crow also reappeared in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', which had the same director, and he had a basically identical personality there (which was unique among reappearing characters), implying that the creators had no problem with making Crow a good guy--if anything, he seems to be something of a CreatorsPet.

** There's a particularly common rumor that blames the show's shift in its second half to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal,]] which intensified further due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. This is partially true, in that Carly's role was recasted, but this happened ''very'' late in the series, long after the series had thoroughly transitioned away from UrbanFantasy and towards science fiction. Additionally, Carly kept appearing in a significantly reduced role for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. What's more, the series continued to use aspects of the old mythology and mysticism, albeit in a significantly reduced role (such as the appearance of Scar-Red Nova and Team Ragnarok), and the video games based an entire entry off the Arcadia Movement, the ''most'' cult-like entity in the series. Kazuki Takahashi explained in one interview that he conceived of many concepts in the Dark Signer arc, suggesting that the writers simply ran out of occult-oriented concepts and decided to focus on science fiction.

* Many people like to complain about how the Duelist Kingdom arc doesn't follow the rules; that's because at that time, the game was a PlotTumor that basically ''had no rules to follow'', and needed to be made up wholesale (there's even an obscure version of the game made by Bandai that follows a much different set of rules than the OCG/TCG). In fact, Pegasus even states that "there would be new rule changes" at the beginning of the arc, meaning we don't know exactly how the rules prior to that arc was any different. That being said, the anime didn't start following the OCG/TCG rules until the Battle City arc, when ''Kaiba'' instated them, and the rules weren't fully solidified until ''[[Anime/YuGiOhGX GX]]''. That being said, a lot of the crazy things that happen in that arc ''do'' have some merit in regards to the game; for instance, the "field power bonus" correlates to the real game's concept of a Field Spell, and the former {{Trope Namer|s}} of "NewRulesAsThePlotDemands'' could've actually worked in the real game, given the effect of Catapult Turtle and the progress of the duel (and the obscenely low LP the players start out with, at the time).

* Many people like to complain about how the Duelist Kingdom arc don't follow the rules, either; that's because at that time, the game was a PlotTumor that basically ''had no rules to follow'', and needed to be made up wholesale (there's even an obscure version of the game made by Bandai that follows a much different set of rules than the OCG/TCG). In fact, Pegasus even states that "there would be new rule changes" at the beginning of the arc, meaning we don't know exactly how the rules prior to that arc was any different. That being said, the anime didn't start following the OCG/TCG rules until the Battle City arc, when ''Kaiba'' instated them, and the rules weren't fully solidified until ''[[Anime/YuGiOhGX GX]]''. That being said, a lot of the crazy things that happen in that arc ''do'' have some merit in regards to the game; for instance, the "field power bonus" correlates to the real game's concept of a Field Spell, and the former {{Trope Namer|s}} of "NewRulesAsThePlotDemands'' could've actually worked in the real game, given the effect of Catapult Turtle and the progress of the duel (and the obscenely low LP the players start out with, at the time).
* Much of this also comes from the fact that the Duelist Kingdom arc is MisBlamed; it was the people making the ''card game'' that were getting things wrong. Catapult Turtle's effect was closer to "tribute a monster, take damage equal to half its ATK, destroy a card on the field", and Castle of Dark Illusions might have been something like "flip all your monsters facedown, when this card is destroyed, destroy all monsters you control and take damage." That the card game didn't reflect either of these things is hardly the manga's fault, even if some of the reasoning (for instance, the possibility that the monsters could have "run away", which was nullified by Chaos Shield) is hard to suss out how it would work.

** There's a particularly common rumor that blames the show's shift in its second half to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the Roma-Sophie sex cult scandal,]] which intensified further due to Carly's voice actress having been a prominent member of the cult. This is partially true, in that Carly's role was recasted, but this happened ''very'' late in the series, long after the series had thoroughly transitioned away from UrbanFantasy and towards science fiction. Additionally, Carly kept appearing in a significantly reduced role for pretty much the entire series even after that transition, which doesn't line up with wanting to distance themselves from her actress. What's more, the series continued to use aspects of the old mythology and mysticism, albeit in a significantly reduced role (such as the appearance of Red Nova and Team Ragnarok), and the video games based an entire entry off the Arcadia Movement, the ''most'' cult-like entity in the series. Kazuki Takahashi explained in one interview that he conceived of many concepts in the Dark Signer arc, suggesting that the writers simply ran out of occult-oriented concepts and decided to focus on science fiction.

* A commonly-stated fact about ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' is that the character of Crow Hogan was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen rewritten from a primary antagonist to a tritagonist]] due to strong sales of his cards, against the wishes of the creators. This is basically impossible, since Crow had already debuted as a heroic character before his archetype ever hit the stands. It's true that he was rewritten from an early concept (Takahashi's character design envisioned him as a minor antagonist and JerkWithAHeartOfGold who makes a HeelFaceTurn), and that many of his plot points seem to have been rushed or altered in some manner, but it can't have been because of card sales - at least, not initially. Crow also reappeared in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', which had the same director, and he had a basically identical personality there (which was unique among reappearing characters), implying that the creators had no problem with making Crow a good guy - if anything, he seems to be something of a CreatorsPet.

* By a similar token, many fans will tell you that "[[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries Season Zero]]", the Toei adaptation, is far more faithful to the manga than the more famous anime adaptation. It's not; it just adapted a different part of the series (which has also given rise to the CommonKnowledge that it's canon to the other anime, hence the name). Among other things, a lot of plots were given new scenes or added padding, an entire story arc that wasn't present in the manga was added, and a character who was originally a one-off [[AscendedExtra got moved to the main cast]]. It's also often regarded as incredibly dark and violent when it was actually mostly {{Bowdlerized}} compared to the manga - for instance, the aforementioned serial killer ended up SparedByTheAdaptation. Another common claim is that it wasn't MerchandiseDriven, unlike its successor series. It was; there are multiple one-off episodes added just to show off the cards, and even a NonSerialMovie dedicated entirely to Red-Eyes Black Dragon. It's just that [[TabletopGame/YuGiOhCarddasVersion the game]] based on it wasn't nearly as successful as the one that would follow.

* Many people have heard that the original manga started out as a delightfully gory RevengeFantasy featuring a VillainProtagonist Yami Yugi dishing out ironic deaths to people [[DisproportionateRetribution for minor slights against him]] and was later dumbed down to a generic PowerOfFriendship story by [[ExecutiveMeddling heartless executives]] [[MerchandiseDriven to better sell cards]]. In reality, the PowerOfFriendship theme and numerous lighthearted moments were present from the beginning, Yami Yugi indeed starts off as a dark character but mellows out through real and gradual CharacterDevelopment, and very few of the victims of his punishments actually died, the ones that did always being outright murderers themselves. The series shifted its focus to the card game well before the actual game came out, and while the shift was indeed imposed by editorial it was done in the interest of ''saving'' the series, as the early done-in-one format was extremely unpopular, with the noted exception of the two-parter focusing on the card game. Even after the shift took place the series still had plentiful dark moments as well, including limb-chopping, eye-gouging, horrendous child abuse, and even a PsychicAssistedSuicide.