History Franchise / YuGiOh

** ''ZEXAL'', ''ARC-V'', and ''VRAINS'' have {{Mythology Gag}} references to the first three spin-offs, but it's otherwise ambiguous if they take place in the same universe. ''ARC-V'' has parallel dimensions which are not only based on the past spin-offs ''GX'', ''5Ds'', and ''ZEXAL'', but alternate versions of characters from those shows appear in it; there is no explanation given for how this is possible or what it means. ''VRAINS'' at least was stated to take place during 2027.

* GagDub: ''Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series'', TropeCodifier and {{Trope Maker|s}} for TheAbridgedSeries as a medium. The official English dubs also delve into gag dub territory from time to time, some more heavily than others.

** ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Cross Duel''

* ArtifactTitle: The original manga focused on the protagonists playing many different types of games with each other: that's why "Yu-Gi-Oh" translates as KingOfGames, as in all games, not just ''Duel Monsters''. Additionally, the main hero was named "Yugi" to further draw back to this title, and the title "King of Duelists" was the title he won for beating Duelist Kingdom; the dub changed this to "King of Games" as another nod to the title. Each subsequent spin-off has further distanced itself from these concepts; ''GX'' still has Yugi as a famous duelist and ''5D's'' had Jack as the King of Turbo Duelists before he lost the title to Yusei. Since ''5D's'' though, the franchise name has little relevance to the franchise itself any more. ''Anime/YuGiOhSEVENS'' brought it back in a clever manner; not only is the title "King of Duels" an important part of the series, but the main protagonist is named "Yuga Ohdo".

* AnimeHair: The franchise can easily be considered the TropeCodifier, or at least, the first anime of the franchise is usually the first thing people think of when they think this trope. The original anime had Yugi's trademark hair style and a few others while ''GX'' generally had more toned down hairstyles by comparison. ''5Ds'' has an equal balance of crazy and reasonable, while ''ZEXAL'' has hair styles that are pretty crazy ''[[UpToEleven even by the franchise's usual standard]]''. ''ARC-V'' takes the middle ground. The styles are generally more toned down compared to ''ZEXAL'', but [[WorldOfTechnicolorHair multi-color hair is all over the place]]. ''VRAINS'' seems to be shaping up to have largely normal styles, but compensating by giving this to the LINK VRAINS Avatars. ''SEVENS'' generally has normal hairstyles, but odd colours, while ''GO RUSH!!'' cranks the craziness up a bit again, though some of the characters have the excuse of being aliens.

** If you haven't figured out this trope applies to the card game, you haven't been reading very closely. In the original manga, this applies to gaming in general. ''SEVENS'' takes it UpToEleven with all sorts of strange issues being treated with the utmost seriousness.

* GagDub: ''Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series'', TropeCodifier and TropeMaker for TheAbridgedSeries as a medium. The official English dubs also delve into gag dub territory from time to time, some more heavily than others.

* NiceGirl: All the Franchise/YuGiOh female protagonists are this.

** 5D's sees friendly rivals Yusei and Jack face off as a means to see where the future of their team lies. While Team 5D's doesn't want to leave New Domino city, Jack is the only one adament on his future to become a true King of Turbo Duels. Yusei decides to duel him not only to find his own future, but to inspire Jack, Akiza, Leo, and Luna on their futures. Yusei defeats Jack not with his dragon, but with Junk Warrior, a monster who gains power through his fellow monsters and declares that he will remain in Neo Domino city so that they can come back when they have fulfilled their dreams.
** ZEXAL, similar to Duel Monsters, ends with spiritual partners Yuma and Astral as Astral wants Yuma to regain his passion for dueling again after the tragedy of the Barian War ends with many of his friends deceased including his best friends and rivals, Kite and Shark/Nasch, Yuma vs Shark could have been on this list for a similar reason if it wasn't for the Astral and Barian World conflict. The duel ends with Yuma's win and the world restored to revive every casualty, reunited to help Astral when he calls for help from Yuma once more.
** Arc-V takes a page from 5D's as the duel is between Yuya and his rival/leader Declan. While the final duels are meant to ensure that Zarc can no longer pose a threat, this is also a duel to will Yuzu and her counterparts back into existance and to allow Yuya to gain back his passion as a dueltainer, sense a pattern here? Yuya defeats Declan, whose duel not only removed any last trace of Zarc within Yuya, but was the last push to will Yuzu back into existance.

** Every final duel in each series is an important duel, usually with much lower stakes, but often a strongly character driven one as the duel is also a conclusion of those characters' arcs. These are often referred to by fans as the Ceremonial Duel, named after the Duel Monster's final duel of Yugi vs Atem.

* AscendedExtra: Pot of Greed had a grand total of ''one'' appearance in the original manga, but was a staple in the ''DM'' and ''GX'' anime and the card game until it was banned.

* GagDub: ''Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series'', TropeCodifier and TropeMaker for the genre.

** In ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'', Yusaku is an outlier. He does have an [[ArtificialIntelligence Ignis]] that gives him the extra deck monsters he needs via "Storm Access" to win speed duels. Other than that, he's the only one who's not a TokenSuper or ChosenOne as there are others who have the "Storm Access" skill too and he relies on his own skills to win. While he is the only Duelist to possess a LInk Sense that allows him to sense what's happening in the network, it's not used much.

** Several guns are left intact, however, but are slightly redesigned to look less like real guns. One particular trap card features an old fashioned flintlock, in the Japanese version, that was covered in gold ornaments for the international release.

** ''5Ds'' got it's theme tune, ''Hyperdrive'', from a vote. And it's... surprisingly good! Even sub-only fans say they enjoy the theme unironically. You know how ''going fast makes you feel alive''...
** ''ZEXAL'' is the only entry to have two theme songs: the first one is ''Take a Chance'' which rather neatly summarises Yuma and his "kattobingu" attitude and it gets [[ReplacedTheThemeTune replaced]] by ''Halfway To Forever''. Considering the Barians are actually a far greater threat, they indeed seem like "forever" at first.

* VendorTrash:
** There are thousands upon thousands of cards in the real-life card game - the card Ten-Thousand Dragon was released to commemorate 10,000 cards existing in the game - and a large chunk of them are completely useless even for casual duelists who use gimmicky deck themes.
** In-universe in the original series and ''GX'' to a lesser extend, most cards 6 stars upwards and some 4 stars are so rare [[note]] Numbering in the single-digit world-wide sense [[/note]] that casual duelists would not likely have any, let alone more than a few in his/her deck. So what we would consider vendor trash is often what the characters have to work with.
** A minor plot point in ''5D's'', where Yusei's deck is explicitly said to be made up of a mishmash of cards from the junk heap, with some exceptions, and Crow obtained his powerful Blackwing deck from someone who likely had it before Zero Reverse.

* ''Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG Stories'': A manga focusing on the storylines of the cards themselves, rather than the world around the cards, debuting in April 2022.

** ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks''

* [[Metaplot/YuGiOh Metaplots]]

* AnimeHair: The franchise can easily be considered the TropeCodifier, or at least, the first anime of the franchise is usually the first thing people think of when they think this trope. The original anime had Yugi's trademark hair style and a few others while ''GX'' generally had more toned down hairstyles by comparison. ''5Ds'' has an equal balance of crazy and reasonable, while ''ZEXAL'' has hair styles that are pretty crazy ''[[UpToEleven even by the franchise's usual standard]]''. ''ARC-V'' takes the middle ground. The styles are generally more toned down compared to ''ZEXAL'', but [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair multi-color hair]] is all over the place. ''VRAINS'' seems to be shaping up to have largely normal styles, but compensating by giving this to the LINK VRAINS Avatars. ''SEVENS'' generally has normal hairstyles, but odd colours, while ''GO RUSH!!'' cranks the craziness up a bit again, though some of the characters have the excuse of being aliens.

* MulticoloredHair: A requirement for the main hero, with Yugi and his starburst of black, red and blond reigning supreme. Downplayed with Jaden/Judai, who has brown hair in two different shades. Since ''ZEXAL'', even the side characters have these kind of hair.

Of course, that's only half of the franchise. The ''other'' big moneymaker for this series is the companion card game. In a fun bit of {{Defictionalization}}, ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' eventually produced a real card game to go alongside the manga following fan outcry. Konami purchased the license and eventually produced a card game for the manga, which was then brought over to the west a few years later. The impact of the card game on the franchise has been notable- while the manga was initially written with the conceit of a new game being played every few weeks, the ''Duel Monsters'' card game quickly eclipsed the other concepts in popularity. Now, the ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' anime acts as a way to promote new cards for the game and show off potential strategies that are, for the most part, replicable in-game.

Moving away from the manga's flexible and non-committal ruleset, the ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game'' has a defined tournament rulebook with lots of room for strategy. Each new season of the anime brings in more cards to the game, and many arcs introduced entire new mechanics like Synchro Summoning and Pendulum Summoning. It, alongside the ''TableTopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' and ''TableTopGame/MagicTheGathering'' define the "Big Three" of the trading card world.

* ThemeDeck: All over the place. The main characters adhere to it less than others, while a particular archetype will compose the core of their deck, they've probably got several unrelated cards for flavor.

** ''Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries'': The first anime series, based on the first 7 volumes of the ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' manga, produced by Toei. Commonly nicknamed "[[FanNickname season 0]]".

** ''[[Anime/YuGiOh Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters]]'': Probably what you're looking for; the second anime that most people know ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' by today. Based on the manga from Duelist Kingdom on, and sponsored by {{Creator/Konami}}; revolving around their version of the card game to ensure their domination of the card game license.

* ''[[Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS]]'': Fifth anime spin-off, it debuted [[Spring2017Anime Spring 2017]] starring Yusaku Fujiki and Duels on hoverboards within virtual reality. It introduces Link Summoning.

* ''[[TabletopGame/YuGiOhCarddasVersion Yu-Gi-Oh! (Carddas Version)]]'': the card game based on the ''Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries'', released by Bandai.

* ''TabletopGame/YuGiOhCapsuleMonsters'': A short-lived board game released by Creator/{{Mattel}}, very loosely based on the Capsule Monster Chess game from the manga.

*** ''Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution'', an UpdatedRerelease