Yu-Gi-Oh In General

God, what were the writers thinking with Dartz. Good grief!

The worst part is that he gets a happy ending after killing his henchmen's family. He sank an ENTIRE (Caps are for emphaiss, and its appropiate in this context) cruise full of people, created a war that killed many, and a nun. And the worst part is that I only remembered the cruise and the nun. I forgot the war.

Seriously, fuck Dartz. I liked the Doma arc but now with that list I realize how sick and vile it really is.

At least with the dub having Yami Yugi and Bakura be 5,000 years old he was "only" twice as old as them :P Dartz was under the control of the Leviathan the whole time, which I guess the season 4 writer took to excuse his actions rather than explain them.

Dartz did have a neat character design, though. Most Yu-Gi-Oh characters have cool designs ^^

edited 26th Jul '16 10:28:46 PM by lalalei2001

I still like the DOMA arc despite its flaws. Also, I want to add that Dartz also took the thunder from the Millennium World arc in the anime when Dartz pulled that monster with infinite attack points stunt.

Dartz was way too many things at once, which is always the risk with creating a threatening Filler villain.

Yeah, the problem with Doma for me was that the arc had too high stakes. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but it is when it overshadows the final arc, the one that should have the highest stakes.

That and Dark Yugi's OOC moment.

edited 27th Jul '16 6:16:01 AM by SatoshiBakura

Generally speaking, the Yu-Gi-Oh anime (I've only watched the dubbed version of the anime in full so all my comments are based on that; I gave up on the Japanese one pretty quickly) had one major ongoing plotline, and a couple of major subplots. The overarcing plotline, of course, is "who is Yami?"—with exploration of the setting's magic generally tied into it via Millennium Item. Major subplots included exploring Seto Kaiba's myriad personal issues (itself containing a subplot of "who controls KaibaCorp?"), and Joey's quest to get outside of Yugi's shadow. Most of the better arcs advanced at least two of these subplots, if not all of them.

Duelist Kingdom featured Yugi gradually coming to realize that he's not alone in his head, while Yami gradually comes to recognize that he's not just a piece of Yugi. This realization gets sped along by both the Spirit of the Millennium Ring and Pegasus, who put Yugi and Yami in the position of having to learn more about one another and the Puzzle, while also introducing the notion of the Shadow Games, the Ancient Egypt connection, and the Shadow Realm (sidenote: I do not care what anyone says, the creation of the Shadow Realm by the dub was a very good writing decision that filled in multiple plot holes with a single explanation). It also hit on each major subplot—Kaiba had to try and save both his company and his brother from Pegasus (and suffered a defeat at the hands of Pegasus' magic) while Joey transformed from a barely competent duelist into a finalist, complete with defeating his own personal antagonist, Bandit Keith, along the way, and gaining—let's call it what it is—a love interest in all but name with Mai.

Battle City was a direct exploration of Yami's past, as well as the warping of his living legacy in the form of the Tomb Keepers. The links between the modern game and the Shadow Games were expounded on further, with the God cards blurring the line between "playing cards" and "malevolent alien entities", while Marik, the Spirit of the Ring, and especially Dark Marik, put the Shadow Realm in play to a far greater degree than it had ever been previously. Kaiba's quest to regain his self-respect and sever his links to Gozaburo were front and centre, we discover he has his own connections to the past (which he refuses to accept), and Joey continued his journey to the top by defeating several adversaries whom Yugi had previously bested, as well as having to deal with the loss of Mai after Dark Marik took her out.

The Virtual Nightmare arc put Yugi and Yami's plotline on hold, but that's freely acknowledged by the show itself. Kaiba and his subplot instead take centre stage, as the entire gang are forced to deal with the fallout of both Seto and Gozaburo's failings as human beings, and the always pressing question of, say it with me, "who controls KaibaCorp?" Kaiba's battles against the Big 5, Noah, and Gozaburo only serve to deepen his conviction that the past should be left that way, a belief that comes into play again in the Battle City Finals. Joey, in the meantime, plays a key role in the defeat of the Big 5 in the team duel, despite their having included him only because of the belief he'd slow Yugi down.

The Battle City Finals see Yugi and Yami finally in a position to get some answers, provided they can drag them out of Dark Marik. What they do find out provides the set up for Millennium World and Yami gaining access to his memory. Kaiba and Yami/Yugi engage in a philosophical debate about the nature of the past and what to do with it, and the former is struck with images of his past self that he is unable to cope with. Joey takes on the Big Bad of the arc on behalf of both Yugi and Mai and comes within a hairsbreadth of defeating him, wills himself out of the Shadow Realm, and then takes Kaiba to the brink of defeat in the Bronze Medal match, cementing his progress.

The KC Grand Prix again puts the main plotline on hold, but that's deliberate—it's a final attempt by Yugi and Yami to have some fun before they get dragged into another apocalyptic adventure. Joey gets invited to the tournament on his own merit, bests the man who taught him to duel, and actually takes his defeat by Siegfried fairly well. This is more or less the end, in fact, of his "step out of Yugi's shadow" subplot. Kaiba, is again, dealing with the repercussions of his own actions, and the family legacy when Siegfried and Leon try to sabotage his tournament.

Millennium World is, of course, where Yami gets his memories back, we find out the broad strokes of what happened in the past, there is a final confrontation with the Spirit of the Ring, who's been dogging him since Season 1, and after recovering his name, Yami finally goes home. Kaiba gets forced to accept at least some of his connections to the past, and he and Yami part on relatively amicable terms. All the major subplots are wrapped up.

DOMA/Waking the Dragons, conversely, does nothing to advance Yami and Yugi's ongoing plotline, despite the fact that magic is involved and Dartz supposedly knows some of what went on in the past. In fact it instead relies on taking Yami out of character to advance a pretty moronic plot. It initially appears that it will advance Kaiba's storyline, but Dartz's takeover of the company is all but an afterthought, and Alistair is eventually revealed to be acting on faulty information given to him by Dartz (had he actually been a victim of Gozaburo, I'd be much less annoyed). The only subplot to advanced is Joey's—he gets to be one of the three heroes, he gets a rematch with Rex to demonstrate how far he's come, he gets his own Evil Counterpart in Valon, and what's effectively Rescue Romance meets "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight with Mai. Of course the fact that he's taken out before ever getting a chance to confront Dartz, preventing him from standing on truly equal footing with Yugi and Kaiba puts a damper on this, as does the fact that Mai vanishes from the show afterwards granting us no real closure with her. Still, there's a reason why Joey's portion of the season is easily my favourite part.

edited 27th Jul '16 1:21:22 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Funny thing is that Dark Yugi's character arc in Doma is pretty similar to his character arc in the Duelist Kingdom manga (Dark Yugi's pride ends up causing problems for everyone). The character arc in the Duelist Kingdom anime is the same as the one in the pre-Duelist Kingdom manga (Yugi has to deal with the fact that Dark Yugi exists).

First of all, read this. Second of all, what plot holes are you referring to? You seem to be referencing others besides what happens in Season 2 (which I personally don't agree that they're plot holes).

The Shadow Realm is great concept if used properly, but 4kids over did it.

I love the post that's nothing but "FIRE!" for the anime's Panik duel XD I like how the anime had Ryou discuss what was going on there too, and had foreshadowing with him being the only one to flinch when Yugi played Swords of Revealing Light.

As for the Shadow Realm, I find it pretty interesting in terms of the lore we were given and how that stays consistent throughout the dub—Marik brings up the darkness growing stronger with every person he traps there, too, and it's easier to swallow Bakura coming back from a world of darkness than coming back after his body's destroyed XD

I also like the Shadow Realm because it explains why every Shadow Game of Duel Monsters had those swirly purple backgrounds, though XD In the manga only the Shadow Game players could see them, with (I think) an exception in Yami Marik's duels, but it was still there with no real explanation.

I wonder why those shadow worlds were Duel Monsters only, though. Early Shadow Games and non-DM Shadow Games didn't have that.

edited 27th Jul '16 12:34:11 PM by lalalei2001

I don't think they overdid it at all. The Shadow Realm provides a highly convenient shorthand for most of the ongoing nonsense in the series. Where is the source of the magic that's coming back into the world? Shadow Realm. Where are the monsters the cards are based on originally from? Shadow Realm. Where do people go when they lose a Shadow Game? Shadow Realm. Rather than the ill-defined and ill-explained concept of a Penalty Game, or the idiocy of people dying and then magically coming back to life (complete with total physical disintegration in the case of Bakura/the Spirit of the Ring) or what have you, we have one consistent price with fairly consistent effects. If you lose, your mind gets trapped in the Shadow Realm. If you are really strong-willed you might make it back on your own. Otherwise, you're stuck there until the person who sent you there is himself exiled or chooses to release you.

As for the complaints about replacing the buzzsaws with energy disks, or dropping people into the Shadow Realm instead of off a building, that doesn't bother me. It keeps the supernatural elements front and centre, where they should be.

edited 27th Jul '16 1:02:02 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

One of the video games had it that Marik sent his father to the Shadow Realm... where he died. (Zorc also created the place in the dub.)

edited 27th Jul '16 1:04:41 PM by lalalei2001

Which again, makes sense. Spend five or ten years in the Shadow Realm, don't come back.

Interestingly, in the final season of Yugioh GX, Darkness / Nightshroud claimed that he created the World of Darkness / Shadow Realm. Luckily 4kids never bothered dubbing that season, so they didn't have to worry about that particular Dub-Induced Plot Hole.

I wonder if all of these ancient evils were rivals or friends. XD

We still don't know if ZEXAL and Arc-V are canon to the other three, really.

edited 27th Jul '16 1:49:50 PM by HamburgerTime

Let me answer those questions.

Magic doesn't need a source. It just exists. That's the way it works in actual Egyptian Mythology. It links the human world and the divine.

They come directly from the soul. They are ka, a spirtiual double of a person that represents their life. When a person dies, the ka moves on to the afterlife. This is part of Egyptian mythology, that the series often uses.

They don't go anywhere. Only a few people go to the World of Darkness in the Japanese, and the Shadow Realm is virtually non-existent in the manga. Why would there have to be a place to go? Why not just suffer your punishment here?

In the manga, the Penalty Games are very self explanatory: they are just magical punishments, nothing more and nothing less. They can go from Mind Rape illusions to just flat out killing people. But they only work on someone who loses a Shadow Game. The Shadow Game is based on one's soul, and its weakness is what causes a person to lose. It's not "oohh, darkness", it's based the heart. And Penalty Games are reflective on the weakness of the heart.

And contrary to popular opinion, no one who dies comes back to life. Mai is trapped within her own mind and is released when Dark Marik is killed. Jonouchi goes into a coma, but barely survives. Bakura is eaten and trapped by darkness and escapes when Dark Marik is killed. I'm actually beginning to wonder if his body vanished at all in the manga since the Shadow Games for the most part involve illusions and no one checked to see where Bakura was in the manga.

It's convoluted, but it is not nonsense.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:05:04 PM by SatoshiBakura

Think it's safe to say they aren't at this point.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:15:29 PM by VeryMelon

If I remember right Ra was so strong it killed the monsters AND the opposing player. Mai would have died if Yugi hadn't shielded her from the fire, so Yami Marik gave her a body-eating penalty game instead.

When he does the one-turn-kill on Bakura he also says it'd kill the monsters and Bakura with them. "Dark Marik orders "Ra's" "God Blaze Cannon, and "Ra" attacks, blasting Dark Bakura's entire side of the fire with a massive cannon-blast of fire. It destroys all of Dark Bakura's monsters and then kills the player."

Joey was clinically dead for a few minutes before recovering enough to be in a coma. A lot of Kaiba's dialogue early in his duel with Yugi is how he came to duel him despite his friend's death, and then there's this afterwards.

Mokuba: Jonouchi's alive!?

Kaiba: Hmph! He should've stayed dead...

edited 27th Jul '16 2:21:05 PM by lalalei2001

I'm not a huge fan of the Shadow Realm as applied by the dub because it felt like Never Say "Die" gone wild. People have pointed out that it's actually WORSE THAN DEATH, which is pretty hilarious.

According to the lore, the worst thing that can happen to you if you stay there too long is your soul being shredded to pieces. And you'd presumably have your body waste away too from lack of food/water/Duel Monster attacks.

So you can die horribly and painfully while already dead! :D

I think that's why the Shadow Realm posed a danger to both Yugis. Otherwise even if they had died straight-up they might stick around as spirits, like Shadi, Yami Yugi, or Yami Bakura did. I'm not sure what the rules are for sticking around or just staying dead, since Shadi wasn't explicitly anchored to an Item but it's heavily implied (and later confirmed in the anime and DSOD) that he's a ghost.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:33:30 PM by lalalei2001

The thing is that Dark Yugi and Dark Bakura were bound to their own items, so that's why they are spirits. Shadi is just that power. Yugi however isn't. If he's killed, then he just moves on, and Dark Yugi is trapped in the Puzzle forever.

When Dark Marik said that Ra would "kill the player" he meant that figuratively. Bakura lost all of his life points and was thus a victim of that Shadow Game naturally: getting swallowed by darkness.

4kids has done a number of censorships that were arguably worse than what they were covering up. In One Piece for instance the character Zoro has a Lost Lenore in the form of his old sparring partner, a little girl who regularly beat grown men in fights. In the original, she died in a senseless accident. The dub? All the aforementioned grown men ganged up on her for revenge and beat her so badly she was paralyzed for life. Offscreen of course, but geez.

I wasn't asking any questions. I was making a statement about my preferences. I tried reading the manga. I didn't like it. I tried watching the Japanese anime. I gave up. I prefer the English dub. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise. And it seems silly to be having this debate, since the entire thing was started by a one-off line in a post I made outlining my issues with Dartz and DOMA/Waking the Dragons. I'm not especially interested in having a debate about which adaptation of the story was better—though if you press the issue, I will defend my opinion.

Magic might not need a source in a full blown fantasy, but in a world where magic is not only rare, but hasn't been around for several thousand years, it's nice to have an explanation.

That is a ludicrous explanation—particularly in view of the fact that we see cards that weren't anyone's ka early on, turn pretty real whenever shadow magic gets involved.

Bakura's body quite literally vanished. If there's no Shadow Realm it's bleeding off to, then we're left with the notion he was disintegrated and then magically recovered.

Excuse me while I gag. On a more serious note, if the Penalty Games are an attempt at some sort of ironic or karmic punishment for the victim, they really miss the mark.

The manga has Mai's brain eaten by beetles. You wouldn't come back from that. It also explicitly has Joey ending up dead and then willing himself back to life.

In 5D's, a big deal was made about how Synchro monsters were gonna become incredibly popular in the future, but then in Zexal there's no mention of them existing at all. Likewise, there's no mention of Xyz monsters in 5D's despite them being used by almost everybody in Zexal. This would seem to imply that the universes of 5D's and Zexal are mutually exclusive from each other. Furthermore, Zexal explains that the universe was created by the Numeron Dragon, which doesn't mesh completely with Darkness/Nightshroud's explanation for the origin of the universe in the final undubbed season of GX.

The only connection Zexal has to the old series is statues of Dark Magician, Blue-Eyes, Elemental Hero Neos, and other iconic monsters showing up and being called "ancient Duel Monsters." But only the monsters were mentioned, not the characters. They never said anything like, "Dark Magician was the ace monster of the legendary King of Games!" or whatever. I don't see why two Yugioh-related shows have to be in continuity just because the same cards exist in both shows.

As for Arc-V, obviously the Synchro, Fusion, and Xyz dimensions have their own alternate versions of several characters from the old shows, so they can't be in the same universe as them. You could argue the past animes all took place in the Standard Dimension, except that in the Standard Dimension, Fusion/Synchro/Xyz monsters are incredibly rare, whereas in the previous shows using, say, a Fusion monster wasn't considered that big a deal. Also, the people in the Standard Dimension had never heard of Riding Duels before, whereas in 5D's Riding Duels were commonplace.

It's just easier to assume ZEXAL and Arc-V are standalone continuities. Less Plot Holes that way. In fact, you could argue that Arc-V is a partial Continuity Reboot seeing as it resets Jack's backstory and whatnot.

edited 27th Jul '16 3:14:26 PM by thebandragoness

I'm just trying to show you why it makes sense from my point of view. I won't try to argue anymore (but I can) but I still hold in my mind that it's correct.

edited 27th Jul '16 3:11:39 PM by SatoshiBakura

Yami Yugi's Penalty Games are an attempt at some sort of ironic or karmic punishment for the victim, like the crooked TV director being made to see mosaics or Kaiba being made to experience death by his own cards to teach him that cards had a heart. Frankly, I'm surprised Kaiba's was the only one that backfired. XD

Shadi's Penalty Games had Ammit devour their souls, Yami Bakura's penalty games were either killing people or trapping them in figurines, Pegasus's were stealing souls or killing people (Keith's hand became a gun, which he shot himself with), and Yami Marik's were designed to torture and slowly kill the victims.

Also, I just realized Pegasus's Penalty Game to Keith was given without the preceding duel being a Shadow Game; it was as punishment for him cheating in his duel with Joey and trying to take the money by force afterward. (He apparently beat Mokuba in a game off-panel to take his soul, but we don't see that either.)

edited 27th Jul '16 3:14:06 PM by lalalei2001