YMMV / Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series

• Accidental Innuendo: Episode 12 had Kaibazilla from Joey's nightmare stating, "If you think [my size] is huge, then you should see my ego." Several thought or like to believe that Kaiba was referring to his genitals.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Who's That Mokémon? parodies the classic "Who's That Pokémon?" Eye Catch from Pokémon: The Series, but what you may not know is that the show itself did this several times, sometimes even showcasing human characters that looked weird enough to be 'mon. (Of course, most of these were removed by the 4Kids dub, probably in the name of making the Eyecatches more one-to-one with the Merch.)
  • Team 4Kids being the Big Five seems like just another iteration of the Running Gag against one of the Internet's favourite punching bags, but in fact, 4Kids did it to themselves first as their names were inspired by various people in the company.
• Awesome Ego:
  • The Pharoah's accomplishments are just as impressive here as they are in the show. However, unlike the Humble Hero of the original series, this version of the Pharoah is an arrogant jerk and a Showy Invincible Hero. This hasn't stopped the fans from loving him just as much as the original.
  • Seto Kaiba. The exaggeration of his ego is rivalled only by the exaggeration of his awesomeness. And he knows it.
    I am on a drug: its called SETO FREAKING KAIBA!!!
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The opening of episode 3 of Season Zero Abridged starts with Bakura threatening suicide (or at least attempting to gain attention). It came out of nowhere, is either an unfunny or very funny segment that does not correlate with the rest of the scenes, and is never mentioned again, except for the "Don't be a bitch, bitch" line.
• Broken Base:
  • Bakura's suicide threat in Season Zero Abridged. Some thought it was funny, while others thought it was incredibly tasteless.
  • All of the pot shots at Naruto: The Abridged Series. While taking a jab at other Abridged Series has been par for the course for this series, some felt the ones at NTAS were far more mean-spirited and legitimately hateful than others (though they likely are intended in good humor as both Kuriboh and NTAS co-performer MasakoX are part of Team Four Star). Not helping matters was LittleKuriboh's refusal to let Vegeta3986 live down Naruto The Abridged Movie years later.
  • The general mockery of the DOMA/Waking the Dragons Filler. Some watchers are perfectly happy with Little Kuriboh's Take Thats against this filler arc and its plot elements, either because they didn't like the arc themselves or found the derision in-character for Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged. Other watchers, some who liked the DOMA/Waking the Dragons arc, were not fond of Little Kuriboh's contemptuous ridicule for it and consider his abridgedment of the arc a low point for his series as a result. Alternatively, people have criticized the arc for leaning too heavily on meta jokes that the general writing quality of the episodes suffered due to relying too much on just potshots at the season itself over making new material. Fans who are neutral toward DOMA arc thought that while it was okay to not like the said arc, damaging his own series to OOC character level (even for abridge standard) was unacceptable, especially for experienced abridged series youtubers like Little Kuriboh, who should not let his biased contempt clouded his works.
  • Which style of humor is funnier? The first two seasons which, despite the potshots at 4Kids and the plot itself, were extremely bizarre with dialogue often bordering on sheer randomness and Rule of Funny unless you could understand the intricate amount of obscure references that sometimes felt like a Word Salad. Or the newer seasons which lessened the randomness in favor of Rapid-Fire Comedy, increased potshots, and established characteristics. While consistent enough to still be identified as YGOTAS at any point, older fans usually prefer the former and feel the latter too predictable and bland, while newer fans find the former too inscrutable.
• Cant Unhear It: After watching TAS that has continued for years after the original anime has ended, it can be a bit distracting to watch the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! second series anime, or even just read about it, without hearing LK's voices for the characters instead of their actual voices. The reverse is averted for most who grew up with the original series, as LK does a good job spoofing most of the voices.
• Continuity Lockout: While kind of expected for a parody show, the abridged series still relies on admittedly tight continuity for many of its jokes and plotlines with little to no exposition.
• Crazy Is Cool: Yami Marik. He's one of the few characters LK doesn't really do a piss-take of. Instead, his Ax-Crazy personality from the original series is largely preserved, if with more pop-culture references added.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The redub of the first episode to promote a podcast that LittleKuriboh took part in, where a large portion of the nouns were replaced with the word "vagina".
    Kaiba: It's because this vagina makes no sense, nobody could figure out how to do it!
  • Duke Devlin manages to cross the line three times.
    "I summon the extremely phallic spaceship, but since it belongs to me, it grows to twice its usual size. Duke Devlin always rises to the occasion, baby!"
  • For some, the fact that Bakura threatens suicide at the beginning of episode 3 of Season Zero Abridged.
  • Skeletons fall on the gang and their response is "Oh no! Supermodels!", and the joke is repeated when Bakura runs to the gang with a skeleton on his back and he says, "Help! This supermodel is one of my fangirls!"
  • Trauma is not funny. Kaiba being traumatized by Yami Yugi summoning Exodia against him and Mind Crushing him is dubiously funny. Kaiba being so traumatized by Exodia that in later episodes he is horrified by the mention of it even when he himself says its name, and each time he reacts by quoting his reaction from the first episode, is hilarious.
• Designated Monkey: Jaden. Several people actually find his character quite hilarious and likeable which makes some of the jokes against him feel forced.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kemo (The Hair Guy), Bandit Keith and Jack Atlas, all mainly because of their memetic catchphrases^note My hair, in America, and card games on motorcycles, respectively.
  • Mr. Ishtar. In canon, he's a horrible case of Abusive Parents. In this show, he's also a hilariously insane Cloud Cuckoolander.
  • The Slender Man, for being an Affably Evil Attention Whore.
• First Installment Wins: While the series is certainly known beyond the first episode, the first episode has been referred to and remade the most, even by LittleKuriboh himself.
• Franchise Original Sin: One of things Season 2 was criticized for was its reliance on running gags and referential humor. These were present in the series right from the start, but Season 2 was considered the point where there was no reasonable balance to either form of humor.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • It's big enough in Japan to have an unofficial Japanese site. As of August 2009, however, all the Japanese-captioned episodes have been deleted except for those since episode 42. LK's YouTube channel was at one point the #1 most subscribed in Japan. You do NOT want to know how he celebrated. (Schmuck Bait here.)
  • And if you think about it this way, the series is made in England, and more than half the fanbase is IN AMERICA!, because the largest (by far) potential audience of any English-language production is IN AMERICA! - unless it has jokes that specifically pertain to a certain country/culture (e.g. Britain, Australia, whatever).
  • 4Kids themselves are big fans of YGOTAS. It should be noted that they are not the ones who took the episodes down. That would be one of YouTube's copyright bots acting on its programming.
• Growing the Beard:
  • The first few episodes are not very good — the voices are slow, the audio quality is poor^note The audio quality significantly improves in Episode 4, the jokes are weaker, and so forth. The beard starts coming in around Episode 10 (ironically his least favourite episode due to excessive referential humour in lieu of real jokes) as Little Kuriboh's voice acting, recording software, and writing noticeably improve.
  • For some, the Virtual World Arc, where the show gained the rapid-fire humor style it uses today, as opposed to the slower dialogue in previous seasons.
• Harsher in Hindsight
  • It's hard not to cringe when Serenity asks Tristan what sort of lonely deranged freak proposes on the Internet, and Tristan's response, now that LK and Safty have split up.
  • In episode 32, Yami Bakura mentioned that his gaydar once led him to Kevin Spacey autograph signings and commented that "everyone knows that he's straight as a die." This joke did not age well after Spacey came out as a gay man... during a period where he was accused of sexual harassment against several young male actors.
  • The joke in episode 40 where Ghost Nappa expresses his desire to capture Mokuba with a Master Ball becomes creepier after the revelation that Ghost Nappa is Mokuba's real father.
  • Joey claiming his parents split up after he tried to teach Serenity how to drive becomes a lot less funny when you find out that Serenity ran Noah over while driving. If the joke doesn't get even funnier, that is.
  • The jokes about Naruto: The Abridged Series, especially the joke in episode 46 about it being dead since Masako and Vegeta are no longer working together.
  • Melvin mocking Team Four Star for DBZ Abridged getting taken down from YouTube. Originally, this was just a friendly jab, but it's become ironic after Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged itself was taken down over and over again. Even moreso, Team Four Star eventually cancelled DBZ Abridged altogether, citing YouTube's increasingly stricter copyright rules as one of the main reasons.
  • Yusei's mistreatment of Aki in Bonds Beyond Time Abridged became much less funny when years later, Aki's voice actress, Squeaky93 (who at the time of the movie's upload was the real-life girlfriend of Yesei's voice actor The Azure Crow), made a tumblr post revealing that Azure Crow had a history of abusive treatment towards women.
  • The various self-deprecating jokes that resulted from some fans expressing the view that the series has suffered from Seasonal Rot can be extremely cringeworthy if you've watched LittleKuriboh's We're Still Here videos and know that his depression often causes him to feel that he's a disappointment to everyone and think that his attempts to make people happy have failed. This is especially difficult when he admitted that these insecurities have prevented him from being able to enjoy the 10th anniversary of the abridged series, and instead have only brought a feeling of shame.
  • From the Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time movie, Jaden's line about "nothing bad happening in Germany" becomes painful (or Crosses the Line Twice) now that Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V turned the school he loves into a training ground for Nazis by Any Other Name.
  • The punk beating up Rex and Weevil in episode 73 for not meeting his standards becomes this, when 1Kids Entertainment, who voiced said punk, was revealed to have been abusing NoWacking and XJerry64X, close friends and collaborators for LittleKuriboh, for years.
  • The "YGOTAS 2nd Anniversary Spectacularmathon":
    • Edward Elric plushie plays "Vic Mignogna" and is portrayed as a huge lech to the point that Yami/"Dan Green" starts being disturbed with his comments. Additionally, there's an offhand comment where Yami mentions that he personally banned Monica Rial from appearing at the celebration. It's uncomfortable to watch after 2019 when the real-life Vic was accused of sexual harassment, with Monica being one of the primary accusers against him and the subsequent fight in court with the two at each others' throats.
    • Johnny Yong Bosch is present, and he is depicted as more polite and not as lecherous. After Vic Mignogna was fired from Funimation, Johnny became his official replacement as the voice of Broly in Dragon Ball Fighter Z and Sabo in One Piece.
  • The joke at the beginning of Episode 73 about how Yami may not have been in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions all that much, but did get paid more than Kaiba did, can be this for Latin American fans of Yu-Gi-Oh!. The original Latin American Spanish dubbing actors for Yugi Muto/Yami, Seto Kaiba and Bakura were replaced due to an economic disagreement with the dubbing studio, while the original Latin American Spanish VAs for Joey, Téa, Tristan and Mokuba were never contacted at all.
  • The antagonism between Jaden and Yugi, and the live action recreation where the former's voice actor Shadyvox is physically attacked, don't seem so humorous anymore after LittleKuriboh ended his friendship with Shady over abusive behavior and other reasons, which was followed by Shady attempting to frame LK for abuse.
    • Similarly, Kirbopher's contributions to the series (e.g. voice acting, animation for the Leather Pants music video) due to him taking part in the same abuse against LK. Especially this line in the literal lyrics version of Leather Pants (regarding the animation):
    Marik: Leave it to Egoraptor!
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Episode 36 does this to Episode 3 as the scenes that were played straight referenced scenes that were parodied in the earlier episode. For one thing, it shows Joey does in fact remember Yugi standing up for him and Tristan, not to mention “Must...risk...life...for best friend.”
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Enough to warrant its own page.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: 'Harpoonshipping' (Mako Tsunami/the Ocean) has made it onto Yu-Gi-Oh! shipping lists, despite being a parody of the fandom's dozens of ship names. LittleKuriboh also references Thiefshipping and Puzzleshipping by name.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Yami Bakura. He's evil, but between having his spotlight stolen constantly, the Enforced Villain Decay, and putting up with the "Evil Council", it's hard not to feel sympathy for him. Not to mention his "relationship" with Marik.
  • Marik too, in different ways. Even at his most dangerous, he seems completely incapable of taking care of himself, and having No Social Skills makes running an evil organization and Council all but impossible. He also displays classic symptoms of an Inferiority Superiority Complex, and usually breaks down when someone close to him leaves. The series also hints that his stunted mental/emotional state harkens back to Hank Ishtar's spectacularly inept parenting. He also created the Melvin personality so he could get all the hugs he wanted. Hell, he even has "Out There" as his Image Song.
  • Yami as of episode 71, after Yugi's soul is taken and he's clearly very shaken up about it.
  • Kaiba (even though he hates being pitied for it). The entire Virtual World arc revolves around his relentlessly miserable backstory, and it's especially hard not to feel sorry for him after seeing what his adoptive father Gozaburo is like, but in the present day he's still a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk.
    Yami Yugi: Why is everyone in this series either a super-rich asshole, or from a broken home? Or in Kaiba’s case, both.
• LGBT Fanbase: While the original Yu-Gi-Oh series already had one thanks to the effeminate male characters, the abridged series has an even larger one thanks to LK's own bisexuality and taking the effeminacy up to eleven without being overly offensive.
• Memetic Mutation: Enough for their own page.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Despite the usage of gay stereotypes here and there, the series still has a dedicated LGBT Fanbase since it's all done in hilariously over-the-top manners and the fact that Everyone Is Bi (well, those that have been confirmed to be bi at least). Certainly helps that LK himself is bisexual.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Exploited heavily by LK for humor. Prime examples include Anzu's friendship speeches, despite many of the central characters being prone to them in the manga, the heavy amounts of shipping fodder and treating Yami Bakura and Marik as being more sympathetic (or deserving of more screentime) than the actual heroes.
  • Due to some of the more cutting nature of the jokes at the series and the company that produces it, some fans watch under the impression the show is a big insult to Yu-Gi-Oh instead of a parody. Rank10YGO mentions as much that the show's jokes pander to what amounts as the same as Pokemon's GenWunners^note A GenWunner is a member of the Pokémon fandom who bashes every generation except for the first generation due to Nostalgia Filter. The Yu-Gi-Oh equivalent would be fans who bash the spin-offs simply for not being the original DM anime, and that a lot of the fans will take the jokes it makes about the series as well as sister series GX and 5Ds will be completely taken at face value, rather than parody.
• Mis-blamed: Many people blame 4Kids for LittleKuriboh's suspensions. However, it was actually done by a company named Nihon Ad Systems, which is the company that does the Japanese episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Despite the fact 4Kids are portrayed as the Big Five in Season 3, they seem to like Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged.
• More Popular Spin-Off: Many fans, and LittleKuriboh to a small extent, believe that the series is one of the major factors keeping the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise relevant and well known in western markets, especially since every official dub after the original anime has been Screwed by the Network.
• Narm Charm: Dartz's ridiculously exaggerated accent should (and usually does) make everything he says sound absolutely ridiculous; however, when he reveals he was himself responsible for all of his henchmen's falls to villainy, the hilarity with which he explains to Rafael how he ruined their entire lives only reinforces his cruelty, and thus makes the scene more disturbing. Similarily, the silly accent does nothing to damage the drama in his Breaking Speech to Yami.
• Never Live It Down: Kaiba's Screw the Rules, I Have Money! line. The way many fans use it, it could lead non-viewers to assume that line is his Catchphrase, even though he only said it once (though many variations followed).
• Periphery Demographic: The series is popular even with those who aren't fans of Yu-Gi-Oh.
• Seasonal Rot: Season 2, while certainly not without its fans, was seen as this for some people due to its over-reliance on old jokes and referential humor without adding much else to balance it out. LittleKuriboh acknowledged this with Ishizu claiming their universe has grown tired and cliché in Episode 44.
• Shallow Parody: The various shots at the sequel series. The jokes basically boil down to "it sucks" and the characters have paper thin personalities with only the most superficial resemblance to their canon counterparts. The jokes started to more closely resemble what they're supposed to be parodying after LittleKuriboh actually started watching GX.
• Signature Scene: The famous battle between Yami and Kaiba from the Pilot episode, most notably the exchange that gave birth to the "Screw the Rules, I Have Money!" meme, is probably the most talked about scene in the entire Abridged Series.
• So Bad, It Was Better: There are some fans who prefer the more shoddy video quality and slower dialog of the first two seasons, feeling that the more up-to-date quality and improved voice acting of later episodes don't have the same charm as the classic episodes.
• Special Effects Failure: In the early episodes, the Mouth Flaps were almost always off.
• Squick:
  • In episode 60 Téa talks in her sleep while dreaming she's being "friended" by the Pharaoh. It's disturbingly graphic.
  • Episode 63. Crump masturbates while watching Pingu. Twice.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Miho's appearance in Season 0 Abridged has her being routinely ignored by the main cast, she has a grating voice and is possibly mentally disabled. Considering how she was originally depicted as shallow and a tease who took advantage of Honda/Tristan, this bastardisation of her character was well received by the fans.
• Values Dissonance: Little Kuriboh added a disclaimer to many of the episodes on YouTube apologizing for the "transphobic, homophobic, sexist, or other types of humor or dialogue that no longer represent how I, the creator of this video, wish to present my works." Episode 21 in particular is usually pointed out as the most awkward on rewatch due to some of the jokes surrounding Princess Adena, who's a gender-switched Mokuba.
• Win Back the Crowd: At the start of the Virtual World arc, LittleKuriboh stepped up his game. The jokes became more based on the characters and story, fourth wall jokes and references were there but toned down, and it started following along with the actual plot of Yu-Gi-Oh!. This was exceedingly well received by the audience; in fact, episode 61 was considered so good that it has been compared to fellow popular abridged series Dragon Ball Z Abridged in terms of quality.
• Woolseyism:
  • The Swedish dub replaces some jokes that would not make sense in Swedish with jokes that do. Bakura's accent is now Scanian and Joey now makes references to Stureplan. The fact that the Swedish dub comes out years after the original episodes also means that some references have to be changed to something more current at the time. For example, as the final Harry Potter book had been out for years when the Swedish dub of episode 23 was released, the book Téa had spoiled was changed to the final Twilight book, a-and her ship was changed from Harry/Hedwig to Edward/Jacob.
    English!Pegasus: No! I can’t live without "Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series"! It’s so important to me!
    English!Yami: Don’t worry, Pegasus. There’s always "Naruto: The Abridged Series". But as everyone knows, that’s just not quite as good!

    Swedish!Pegasus: No! I can’t live without "Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series"! It’s so important to me!
    Swedish!Yami: Don’t worry, Pegasus. There are many more abridged series. But as everyone knows, they don't exist in Swedish!

    English!Mokuba: Let's go find the genie voiced by Robin Williams and occasionally by Dan Castellaneta.

    Swedish!Mokuba: Let's go find the genie voiced by Dan Ekborg, who also played Hades.
  • The Polish dub by FlyingIrzimekFTW (reuploaded on the YouTube Channel GryKarcianeDlaDzieci) is also full of these. For starters, Joey's Brooklyn accent is replaced with Bialystok accent (a Russian-influenced accent). Episode 8 replaces the Spanish opening with German (the episode being titled "Kartenspiele"). 4Kids is replaced in all instances by Polsat. The aforementioned joke in the Swedish dub paragraph goes like this:
    Polish!Pegasus: No! I can’t live without "Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series PL Fandub"! It’s so important to me!
    Polish!Yami: Don’t worry, Pegasus. There’s always a version with Polish subtitles. But as everyone knows, that’s just not quite as good!

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