Yu-Gi-Oh In General

The Keith one implies that the entire tournament was apparently a Shadow Game, I guess.

Huh, that... makes a lot of sense. o.o

I find the early Shadow Games and Penalty Games pretty fun because of the variety. It was difficult for Takahashi to come up with a different one every week, though, so when he settled on cards that's what he stuck with for the most part. (That and if it weren't for Kaiba and his cards the manga would've been canceled at Shadi's Trial of the Mind.)

My favorite non-Duel Monsters games are Capsule Monsters and Monster World, as well as the off-the-wall stuff like the money and knife game. I also liked the chapter with Ms. Chono a lot—when I first skimmed Volume 1 I thought she was Mai!

edited 27th Jul '16 3:18:17 PM by lalalei2001

Monster World is my favorite story arc in the series. Everyone gets something to do, even Yugi. And it makes a great introduction for Bakura and Dark Bakura.

Upon reading the manga I found it pretty interesting that Dark Bakura was hinted to be the biggest baddie from very early on. If Kaz didn't have to retool the series around the card game, I wonder what his role would've been like?

Probably mostly the same, considering that they play another RPG in the final arc.

Yeah, I heard that Takahashi's favorite form of game is tabletop RPG, so an evil gamemaster sounds like the perfect role for him.

@ Ambar

I had no idea you were a YGO fan.Have you seen the other series?

I too like the Shadow Realm. I think the dub fixes a few plot holes as well. Not that I'm unbiased - I grew up with the 4Kids dub and I still like it to this day. It's hammy and ridiculous but so was Yugioh in general. Also you gotta love the dub OST.

Oh and Pegasus. Dub Pegasus might be one of the greatest antagonists in anime for me.

Although I still like Dub Regular Marik. His goofy "trying too hard to be evil" voice fits his character so well. Also his motivation makes more sense to me.

Marik was Neutral Evil, by the way.

Pegasus...hm, tough one there.

Maybe it's time I finally got those DM DVD's I've been meaning to get forever....

edited 27th Jul '16 7:29:14 PM by Nikkolas

Pegasus is fabulous and the anime sparing him was the right call.

Way back in the ninth grade I had to play a snooty film critic in a play. I stole Pegasus' voice for it—right down to the "boy" inflection.

I don't think we need to debate character alignments in every thread we wind up in. That said, regular Marik is a pretty clear case of NE. Dark Marik arguably dives into CE, as his goals degenerate from "gain personal power" to "hurt everyone I encounter for kicks" to "end the world."

Pegasus during his villain days would probably be Lawful Evil, of the "makes the rules and abuses them to his advantage" variety.

edited 27th Jul '16 7:46:50 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

That's amazing XD

It was fun. I had five lines, but got a standing ovation at the end of the night. Such is the power of Maximilian Pegasus.

Fun fact: Darren Dunstan still plays Pegasus on occasion, at special high-level matches of the card game called Pegasus Challenges. They're exactly like any other game of YGO... at first. The trick? Dunstan, in-character as Pegasus, can change the rules to anything he wants at any time and the players have to adapt to that.

@ Ambar I know, it just crossed my mind randomly so thought I'd throw it in there to give my post a bit of extra fluff.

And it's awesome to hear so many people love Pegasus.

edited 27th Jul '16 7:52:12 PM by Nikkolas

It's gone now, but there used to be a great amv on You Tube of Pegasus with this song (classic one-hit wonder "Eye in the Sky"). It fits amazingly well I think, and I'll always associate the song with him.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:04:27 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I saw those on TCG-related blogs before! Last year Marik got in the fun. one time he ruled that the game acted as if Necrovalley was in effect for 3 turns, which messed up a Chaos Emperor Dragon player.

The V As also voice their characters in Duels and sometimes video games. ^^

edited 27th Jul '16 8:01:10 PM by lalalei2001

I remember as a kid getting really hyped up by that duel: "Awesome, Yugi figured out a way to beat the Toons - aw snap, now Pegasus has that freaky eye-thing that steals his monsters, oh shit now it's even stronger, how's Yugi going to beat him now?!" You don't get that feeling as much in the post-Duel Monsters spinoffs anymore with almost everyone pulling out their boss monsters by turn three and sitting on them.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:00:54 PM by ComicX6

And we had to wait a WHOLE WEEK to see if yami would continue the duel or surrender at the end of part 4!

I touched on it in my earlier post, but the thing the original anime did best—Dartz aside—was vary up the big bads. They all felt like threats, but they were never the same kind of threat, and that's important in an ongoing show.

Pegasus was the creator of the game and could abuse the rules at will, Marik was the manipulative snake who turned friends against one another, Dark Marik the raving lunatic who upped the sadism with every duel, and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring the Evil Counterpart who held the key to the ongoing plotline. And then you've got the Filler Villains, like Noah and Siegfried, who sensibly don't try to upstage the main villains, and instead focus on exploring the emotional damage and troubled past of one of the most popular secondary characters—a writing decision on the part of the anime directors and writers that I applaud.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:13:36 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Although it does seem like Yami Marik's threat was hurt a lot by Kaiba. Kaiba was the antagonist everyone wanted to see duel Yugi and indeed, the duel they had in the Battle City semifinals might very well be the greatest duel in YGO history.

And then after that...oh, the "actual" climax with Yami Marik. Thrilling.

He really was upstaged by the more charismatic Kaiba, I think.

Hardly. Dark Marik took Yami and Yugi to the brink of defeat, survived attacks from Slifer and Obelisk both, and required them to throw away every monster in their deck just to take out his best monster. Had the shock of Ra's destruction not enabled normal Marik to regain control of their body, Dark Marik would have won the duel on his next move—all he'd have had to do is order an attack by pretty much any card he drew. No other major villain, not Pegasus, not the Spirit of the Ring, not Noah, not Rafael, not Dartz, not Leon, has ever outdueled the dream team of a god-card armed Yami and Yugi like that.

This isn't to say the Yugi/Kaiba rematch wasn't awesome. But the Dark Marik match was everything I could have hoped for in a season finale—and is one of the reasons why I found the next arc so lacking.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:18:27 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

In the manga, if you didn't know, Ambar, Kaiba's plot line concludes with him demolishing the Duel Tower, which as it turns out was formerly Gozaburo's weapons factory. A decent conclusion, but actually getting to meet Gozaburo himself does add some more oomph to his arc, yeah.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:18:49 PM by HamburgerTime

Not even just Gozaburo. Seeing the fallout from Kaiba's takeover of the company, in the form of the Big 5 (who raise some legitimate points about his treatment of them) was also, I thought, really good. So was seeing what happens to those who try to compete with Kaiba, as embodied by Siegfried. One of the reasons I was so annoyed when Dartz turned out to be behind what happened to Alistair, is because Kaiba having to deal with a monster his adoptive father made would have actually been an interesting plot point.

No, Dark Yugi still had Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl on his field. Dark Maril wouldn't have won with just any drawn monster.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:25:23 PM by VeryMelon

Didn't they have to throw out literally every card in their deck in order to activate Ragnarok? I'd rewatch the episode to check, but I'm in the midst of watching Obama's DNC speech right now.

Believe it or not, after that point in the manga, he isn't actually seen again until the very, very end, where both Kaibas attend the Ceremonial Duel. He has no role in the Memory World arc whatsoever.

edited 27th Jul '16 8:24:24 PM by HamburgerTime