History YMMV / YUGIOH

* CharacterPerceptionEvolution: Compared to [[Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL Kotori]], many fans have softened their opinion towards Anzu/Téa for [[WhatTheHellHero calling out]] Kaiba over his cruel BatmanGambit on Yugi, dueling experienced players (Mai and Otaki) twice and ''winning'' in the anime (granted, the former forfeited despite having the cards needed to win), getting a short character arc about her dancing career, and formulating a few extremely risky gambits when the situation calls for it. ''[[Anime/YuGiOhCapsuleMonsters Capsule Monsters]]'' takes this up a notch, as Anzu knows a lot of historical facts, gets to be a DeadpanSnarker without being overbearing, and has a lot of moments of supporting her friends, including Jonouchi. It helps that she's directly involved in the action, with her Dark Witch being one of the strongest team members initially.

** "DORO! MONSTA CARDO!", a line immortalized by the scene where Yami Yugi reaches his RageBreakingPoint with Insector Haga when the latter pretends to have had little Yugi's soul card ripped in half solely to piss him off, with Yami activating "Berserking Soul" and continuing to assault Haga with it even after his Life Points are depleted and he is beaten, only stopping with Anzu interferes.

* PanderingToTheBase: Thanks to FirstInstallmentWins meaning that most people that ever watched the anime remember ''Duel Monsters'' most, the card game in later years began revamping old archetypes like the Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes White Dragon with new cards to keep them relevant to the modern metagame.

* BrokenBase:
** Do you like the manga with the darker, more consistent storyline or the anime with the lighter tone and fun duels? Fans disagree about this often.
** People who like the manga, people who like the anime, and people who like the dub, as well as fans of the individual anime series, are ''very'' passionate about their preferences and get into heated disputes about which is better or worse, and the best or worst. Character-based rivalries also spring up, like Jonouchi fans that dislike Kaiba or Kaiba fans who dislike Jonouchi and Anzu.

* BrokenBase: Do you like the manga with the darker, more consistent storyline or the anime with the lighter tone and fun duels? Fans disagree about this often.

* FandomRivalry: There are inter-fandom rivalries between people who like the manga, people who like the anime, and people who like the dub, as well as fans of the individual anime series. Character-based rivalries also spring up, like Jonouchi fans that dislike Kaiba or Kaiba fans who dislike Jonouchi and Anzu.

** Seto Kaiba. Fans are equally divided as to whether he should or shouldn't win against Yugi, whether or not his abusive past excuses/explains everything negative he does, whether the story and other characters are biased against him or if Yugi and his friends are right, and whether or not the Mind Crush was necessary for him to heal or a plot device to make him not evil. This even crops up in-story to some degree, with Jonouchi/Joey ''hating'' Seto, Anzu/Tea chiding him for saying whatever he wants and not caring about what others have gone through, and both Yugis seeing him as a rival and friend. The anime cranks this up by giving him a lot more screen time to the point where he's a SpotlightStealingSquad, leading the fanbase to argue whether or not he deserves the extended role. His obsession with wanting to beat Yami Yugi/Atem also has divided thoughts as it either gives Kaiba a realistic flaw given his stepfather's abuse of him to stand above all of his opponents, or it makes Kaiba look like the least developed character of the cast given that he never moves on from this obsession despite that the narrative says that it would be best for him if he did and the fact that he still continues to hold that obsession at the end of ''[[Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions The Darkside of Dimensions ]]''. It's taken even further in the English dub of the anime where he gets hit with some AdaptationalJerkass by downplaying his redeeming qualities and cranking up his pettiness to sometimes ridiculous levels.[[note]]In the Japanese version, he allows the Rare Hunter with the counterfeit Exodia cards to cheat because he sees Yugi as a WorthyOpponent who he knows wouldn't lose to someone like that. The dub changes this to letting him cheat to spite Yugi for having beaten him with Exodia in the past. Another case is in the Battle City finals, with [[spoiler:Jonouchi pretty much beating Marik but blacking out from the pain of the Shadow Game before he can declare the winning move; the original gave Kaiba a moment of CharacterDevelopment by having him admit internally that Jonouchi had finally earned some of his respect, while the dub replaces this entirely with a KickTheDog moment of Kaiba changing nothing and just calling him a loser again]][[/note]]

** Anzu Masaki/Tea Gardner once people realized she technically has a ''100% win rate'' [[note]]she won her battles against Jonouchi/Joey, Mai (though Mai had the ability to win and forfeited instead), and Crump[[/note]] out of all the characters in the franchise, something her successors and even the {{Invincible Her|o}}oes like Yugi and Yusei can't say.

** Anzu/Tea. She suffers from DieForOurShip courtesy of [[HoYay Yugi x Atem]] [[YaoiFangirl shippers]], who love to give her flack for [[DeadpanSnarker her snarkiness]] and her corny friendship speeches, [[CommonKnowledge despite how rarely she makes them]]. On the other hand, her fans appreciate that despite not being a Duelist, she actually does have many courageous and assertive actions to her name (see CharacterPerceptionEvolution), which became even more apparent in contrast with NeutralFemale [[Anime/YuGiOhZeXal (Ko)tori]] from ''ZEXAL''.

* CrackPairing:[[https://sites.google.com/site/yugiohshippings/the-list The Official]] [[http://ygo-dm-shippings-list.tumblr.com/list Yu-Gi-Oh Shipping List]] contains all of the 'official' ship names, and it goes up to six-way pairings and crazy combinations of characters, some of whom never interacted at all. It's more surprising when a ship in this fandom ''isn't'' named than when it is.

* CatharsisFactor: Yami snapping and beating the hell out of Weevil with Berserker Soul is probably supposed to be unnerving to some degree, and it certainly is to Tea in universe. On the other hand, it's [[HateSink Weevil]] that's getting slaughtered, so viewers are probably experiencing a fair bit of satisfaction at seeing the slimy bastard get exactly what he deserves.

** Anzu/Tea. She suffers from DieForOurShip courtesy of [[HoYay Yugi x Atem]] [[YaoiFangirl shippers]], who love to give her flack for [[DeadpanSnarker her snarkiness]] and her corny friendship speeches, [[CommonKnowledge despite the fact how rarely she makes them]]. On the other hand, her fans appreciate that despite not being a Duelist, she actually does have many courageous and assertive actions to her name (see CharacterPerceptionEvolution), which became even more apparent in contrast with NeutralFemale [[Anime/YuGiOhZeXal (Ko)tori]] from ''ZEXAL''.

** Anzu/Tea. She suffers from DieForOurShip courtesy of [[HoYay Yugi x Atem]] [[YaoiFangirl shippers]], who love to give her flack for [[DeadpanSnarker her snarkiness]] and her corny friendship speeches. On the other hand, her fans appreciate that despite not being a Duelist, she actually does have many courageous and assertive actions to her name (see CharacterPerceptionEvolution), which became even more apparent in contrast with NeutralFemale [[Anime/YuGiOhZeXal (Ko)tori]] from ''ZEXAL''.

* DontShootTheMessage: Regardless of how one feels about Mai giving into Doma post-MindRape was handled, given how she seemed fine at the very end of Battle City, delayed PTSD is a very real thing.

* ArcFatigue: Battle City in both versions is where the duels slow to a crawl, and it's the longest arc in the whole series. The fact that several important events happen at around the same times pads things out further.

* SeasonalRot: The fourth season, "Waking the Dragons" aka the Doma arc, is considered to be one of the weakest parts of the anime due to it not only being an anime-only arc that takes up the entire season and doesn't add anything to the main story involving Atem's past or the Millennium Items, but also a ClicheStorm involving Yugi, Kaiba, and Jonouchi as [[TheChosenOne The Chosen Ones]], which ran contrary to the personal stakes that the manga and previous seasons intended. The different powers of the Orichalcos, which is the central element of the arc, is frequently expanded upon via AssPull in the episodes where it feels like they are all just made up on the spot. The dub didn't help with this, often removing nuance, such as giving the villains generic BlackAndWhiteMorality, or adding in plot holes, like downplaying Mai's trauma at the hands of Yami Marik to make her FaceHeelTurn feel forced rather than a response to trauma. They also gave the Seal of Orichalcos the power to turn its wielders evil, as opposed to the original simply revealing and testing one's true nature, making Atem's use of it look even more like AesopAmnesia from Duelist Kingdom. Naturally, this arc and especially the dub is a frequent source to poke fun at in ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries''.

** Alister looks ''very'' girlish.

* OnceOriginalNowOverdone: Yugi using Exodia to win an otherwise unwinnable duel against Kaiba was suspenseful at the time the relevant chapters/episodes were released. Since it became a SignatureScene of the franchise and Exodia became one of the most popular, recognizable monsters, most of the tension is lost as a result.

** In the original Japanese, Yami Bakura is voiced by Rica Matsumoto, the seiyuu for [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Ash Ketchum]]. In the English dub, he's voiced by Ted Lewis, the dub actor for Giovanni.

* HilariousInHindsight: The card game as treated in the anime and manga is a TropeCodifier for SeriousBusiness; one can have a lucrative career playing Duel Monsters, schools exist to teach how to play the game, and there are major multinational corporations dedicating to creating the cards and tie-in accessories for them like the Duel Disk. In the 90s when this franchise began, all of this seemed ludicrous. But this was before the rise of e-sports and internet streaming, fields where players ''can'' make a living playing video games as their full-time job, and there are professional teams, camps, and schools for some of them. Not to mention that others stream or record themselves opening packs of trading cards, and there is an audience who will watch them. While the real world will never treat Duel Monsters with the prestige the anime and manga do, that treatment isn't so silly and outlandish these days.

* HilariousInHindsight: The card game as treated in the anime and manga is a TropeCodifier for SeriousBusiness; one can have a lucrative career playing Duel Monsters, schools exist to teach how to play the game, and there are major multinational corporations dedicating to creating the cards and tie-in accessories for them like the Duel Disk. In the 90s when this franchise began, all of this seemed ludicrous. But this was before the rise of e-sports and internet streaming, fields where players ''can'' make a living playing video games as their full-time job. Not to mention that some people will stream or record themselves opening packs of trading cards, and there is an audience who will watch them. While the real world will never treat Duel Monsters with the prestige the anime and manga do, that treatment isn't so silly and outlandish these days.