A franchise will try two things to maintain relevance, either has sequel upon sequel or reboot itself constantly to try and get a new demographic. Contrary to popular belief, this isn't necessarily a bad strategy. I wouldn't have gotten introduced to Beyblade or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure without this method. They both had new anime adaptations to introduce a new generation to the story.
However, a large portion of the Yugioh community consensus that the original series Duel monsters was the "best" Yugioh. Funnily enough, I forcibly seem to be reviewing every piece of Yugioh media on which I can get my hands. I decided to finally let out the kid gloves and tell you why in my personal opinion, the Yugioh Duel Monsters is a little overrated and not the pinnacle of every Saturday morning weeb's childhood (that was Kirby Right Back At Ya!). And I don't think I'll waste any more of your time because it's my move!
Note
I don't think I have to make this clearer, but this is my personal opinion of all Duel Monsters. If you like Duel Monsters, then good for you to enjoy something more than I did, but I'm not trying to tear down everything the original series stood for completely. I don't have any real nostalgia for it. I will give it proper props and critique when needed. To have a favorite series and what you consider the best is two different things. Besides, I will review the anime sub/dub in all my other reviews.
Story
Thousands of years ago, Ancient Egypt was strife with the darkness of the Shadow Games, dark competitions that caused the deaths of the losers. Over time this darkness accumulated in the form of the dark god Zorc Necrophades. Using the power of the mystical seven Millenium Items, the pharaoh Atem sealed Zorc and his evil inside the Millenium Puzzle. However, in the late 20th century, the Shadow Games are returning stronger, which means that the light of the pharaoh would also have to return.
Enter Yugi Muto, a young kid who loves all games and puzzles. Once his grandfather returns with the shattered Millennium Puzzle, Yugi solves the seemingly impossible challenge. Once he does, however, the young boy realizes that he is now the current vessel of the nameless pharaoh as they fight to save the world.
Cast
Unpopular opinion, but DM has one of my least favorite cast in the franchise. The characters aren't essential but also prominent enough to become sort of this invisible weight. Tea, Duke, and Tristan, beyond filler, can get taken out of the series with little change in the overall narrative. Beyond that, our mainstays are Yugi, Atem, Kaiba, and Joey, so let's try and break them down.
However, I don't know where I begin with this man? Over 20 years have come gone since he first took the screen, and for a good reason. Out of all the portags, Atem feels like the head honcho. His kingly nature makes every duel with him a treat as he keeps calm. However, Atem's biggest issue is his pride, which led to his few losses haunting him. Which I think are his best character po
Through his loss against Rapheal and Yugi's soul, Atem learned about his flaws. A self-reflection helped him learn how to confront his darkness and become at peace with himself during the finale. Despite that, I think Atem has the opposite problem as Yugi. He ironically needed less duels and more character moments. Waking the dragons was the best the series did at fleshing out his character, but I wanted more. I'm not saying he's bad, Atem is the icon of this series for a reason, and his moments will always stand out in anime history.
Next up, we have Kaiba, who is hands down the best and most entertaining rival in the series. While I don't think he's the greatest character, I believe that if I ever find a girl who looks at me the way Kaiba looks at Yugi, I will get set for life. In all seriousness, Kaiba is a worthy character for analysis. I think the main reason why Kaiba has his famous smug is mainly due to his background. From his perspective, to make sure that he and Makouba got adequately cared for, he had to give up his childhood. For years, he proved himself in a corporate jungle that never backed down. Growing up with this mindset can't have been easy, and it shows as he pretty much considered himself invincible after such hardship
However, after his fight with Yugi, Kaiba's shattered pride forces him to become a more respectable and honorable duelist person in Duelist Kingdom, making him even more pragmatic and ambitious. This ambition perfectly leads up to his little filler arc, where Kaiba learns how to become accepting of his past life while looking into a brighter future.
It's probably through this prideful mindset that he truly respected Yami Yugi to the point he couldn't even let go of the past until he got beat by Yugi. DSOD Kaiba, in general, though, is the best Kaiba as the movie does understand why we love this magnificent bastard. This dude literally makes a virtual copy of Atem, uses his tech to survive instant disintegration, and even goes into the freaking afterlife without killing himself first. I fully believe that Kaiba could solve all of the world's problems in like a week if it weren't for his rivalry with Yugi.
Finally, we have the main man himself, Joey. As much as I would like to be profound, it's obvious that Joey is an underdog with arguably the best arc. Seeing him across Battle City and Duelist Kingdom, learn how to be a better duelist against magical Jesus, literal psycho sorcerers, and billionaires through pure grit and luck are inspiring. It's a reminder of saying that you don't have to be good at the game to accomplish something and I think that allowed Joey to make more friends than enemies across both tournaments through his relatability. Seriously though, give the man a win Konami.
Mai was another great character I will discuss in the Waking the Dragons Arc. Overall she was an amazingly strong female duelist who added more kickass to the group whenever she appeared. Too bad she was also completely shafted after Battle City, though. Unfortunately, it took Yugioh way too long to realize that girls like ancient satanic card games as guys. In the end, DM shows as a textbook example of having a well-established cast but not a well-utilized one in the grand scheme of things.
Presentation
As the first Yugioh series, I think this series's animation is mainly okay. Animation-wise, I think the anime gets spicier in the opening and only in certain scenes. Though, the overall art design was amazing. I will always find it lowkey inspiring and ballsy that a children's card game advertisement was willing to get so dark and creepy. Through this, the dark character design is very apparent, with the series adopting a very arcane, sharp-edged, and darker presentation for the series as a whole which works well.
Soundtrack-wise, though, the original series is still plenty strong for dub and sub. Passionate Duelist and Kaiba's theme are strong and amazing, with Shuffle, Warriors, and Overlap great openings. The dub is also iconic, with the original theme and the Kaiba corp being something special. Dan Green and Eric Sturaut still kill it to this day.
Overview
Duelist Kingdom
Okay, so I'm just going to say that this is a pretty good arc. While the first episodes aren't the best, Maximillion Pegasus is easily one of the best villains in the franchise and throws the gauntlet in the most shocking way possible. After stealing Solomon Muto and Mokuba souls, he instantly proves that his skill and power were beyond most of the series. Thus bringing all our star players, and with the unique rules of Duelist Kingdom and Exodia cast out, Yugi needs to rely on strategy far more than ever.
The series got memorable baddies, great development, and depth to Yugi, Joey and Kaiba. Mai's introduction and relations with Joey are sweet as hell since it further shows that despite Joey's skill, he is a fast learner. Also, an awesome twist that I like is that despite the marketing, Yugi and Atem spend a couple of episodes arguing over their shared position. It creates a level of realism that the other arcs don't do in my eyes. Finally, we get to Maxmillion himself, who is a freaking delight.
His flamboyant mannerisms, overconfidence, and twisted humor create an opponent that screams dominance even without the Millenium Eye. However, what I love about this is that Peagsus' motivation isn't cartoonish. He holds on to juvenile mannerisms because he wants to do everything to hold onto the memory of his lover, which is sad and understandable. His Toon monsters are supposed to represent ownership of the game and a good reflection of how his nostalgia became a dark reflection that hurt people in the end, and it's so awesome that he becomes an ally after his defeat.
However, the biggest problem of the arc is the duels themselves. While I do know that the card game wasn't made during this time in the anime, I can't defend that the series had rules that aren't consistent and led to many of the wins feeling completely unearned and bull crap. I'm not looking for the biggest strategies or most complex symbolism from the first season, but Duelist Kingdom watched children in the playground make new rules in real-time.
Battle City Part 1 and Part 2
Even roughly 20 years later, this arc still is a blast. Kaiba's lust for power being the cause of the arc was fun even if it did tred ground we were already familiar with. Joey still develops and makes more unique friends and strategies. This arc also became the baseline of modern Yugioh and created most of the iconic cards attributed to the main cast. The Rare Hunters are rather interesting and downright creepy antagonists whose penalties and decks created interesting duels overall. The greater focus on the Millenium Items adds to the world's mythology with a good build-up to the events. The Egyptians God cards, though, are all awesome, and as convoluted as they are, they provide for somewhat exciting strategies, and I love the symbolism of who owns them. Obelisk, like Kaiba, seeks domination of others as the absolute. Slipher counts on unity to become stronger, with Marik having a card that must be powerful with sacrifice.
I've got to talk about the psychotic elephant in the room. Overall, Marik as a villain is weird. The seemingly omnipresent power of his shiny rod Marik serves as an awesome unknown evil that is a true master of manipulation for everyone involved. His backstory is legitimately interesting and thought-provoking since the subject of how destiny can be a legitimate bad thing to those unwilling. However, everything else with Marik is problematic.
Yami Marik is a far more menacing villain that does well to offset Marik's subtle nature, but I hate how his somehow makes his other half good. Hell no to that since while you can view these two characters as different, they were both awful human beings that caused the intentional deaths of countless innocents and had no implications they would change. On top of that, to me, Yami Marik isn't that clever of an antagonist. Pegasus, og Marik, and Yami Bakura were master strategists and tacticians. Still, Yami Marik only wins through timely plot conveniences like Joey's knockout and Mai's lack of knowledge of Ancient Egyptian. Dm still has some of the best villains, but Marik falls apart by the end of part 1. Combined with the slow pacing at times and Battle City while a fun watch does have issues.
Virtual World
Okay, so I'll be brief on this mess of a filler. Virtual World's placement is the worst placed arc I've ever seen, as it destroys the pacing of the tournament. The arc itself gets held back because of how it trends on the already passed ground. The virtual world got done in season 1, and the Big 5 serve as forgettable antagonists with no threat level given their proper defeats. This does a lot for Kaiba's character and at least makes Yugi's gang somewhat useful given the penalty. I like the idea of the Deck Masters, but like most of the series, this gimmick quickly became too commercialized.
Waking the Dragons
Speaking of filler arcs, we have an even longer arc. Like Virtual World, this has incredible weaknesses and annoying weaknesses. If you guys think that Yugi was useless before, he is nonexistent here. Dartz is an okay villain, but his ties in history and philosophy are so nonsensical that the abridged series made his motivation more convincing. However, this season did an amazing job at giving Yami Yugi much-needed depth that humanized him with villains that matched that said humanity.
All 3 of Dartz goons had well-established motivations that made them so cynical that they decided to let the world burn rather than make it better, with Rafael being my personal favorite out of the 3. Mai was also an amazing standout character here since it delves into an awesome and poetic arc about her trying yet failing to overcome her trauma and loneliness. Too bad this scene never gets addressed past her defeat to Raphael. Overall, Waking the Dragons is the best filler arc, but the nonsensical duels on level one put it as the in-between of Duelist Kingdom and Battle City for me.
Grand Championship/Capsule Monsters
So might as well bring these two arcs together, given their length. I like more screen time with Rebecca and Leon is interesting, but this arc is a blatant fever dream that doesn't deserve much of anything. Capsule monsters are even more of a fever dream and represent something that bugged me about this series.
Give the other series credit, but they tried to have their gimmicks service the story in a way that didn't interrupt it(ex: excel synchro or the rank-up magic cards). But it feels like the series was so unsure of what it was trying to be or what it had that got forced seeing unnecessary additions like the Dungeon Dice Monsters and the Capsule Monsters. It's annoying since at least the filler in Gx managed to be plausible additions to their story, like it or not.
Dawn of the Duel
And now we get to the last arc of the original arc, and I've got to admit it's an interesting one. Not having complete duels pepper the flashbacks is amazing in many respects, and they did an excellent job of finally giving life to Atem's past and answers to what all the Millenium Items could do. However, I have to bring up the second psychotic elephant in the room.
Yami Bakura, for me, is not an exciting enemy. Look, I get what they were trying to do with him, make an antagonist that would lie in wait until the story's climax. And Yami Bakura is also legitimately a terrifying force with a somewhat tragic backstory and nearly immortal presence to him. However, the problem with Yami Bakura is that he's such a minor antagonist in the previous arcs his actual "victories" come off as lame as he beats a weakened pegasus and loses to both Yami Marik and Atem on numerous occasions.
If anything, this proves that he's just a walking-talking vulture pirating off the success of the protags and villains, which isn't enough for me to fear him since his major duels involve the defeat of fodder. Also, making him nothing more than an extension of Zorc's shows that Yami Bakura is more a puppet to a much more bland villain instead of his character. Something that would've added a lot to this guy would be if they decided to make Bakura more of a mainstay in the series. We've already seen the beauty of Yugi and Atem's relationship, so having a dark reflection with the Bakura's would have been sweet.
Other than that, though, this arc ends on a sad note as the ceremonial duel is a perfectly paced and intently final duel that does a lot to end over 200 episodes of world-saving adventures. However, I think this shows Yugi's lack of development since it feels artificial. He goes from a guy that can barely duel against some minor antagonists to on the level of Bakura. Still, I digress because that works well with the last entry.
Darkside of the Dimensions
All plot contrivances aside, this arc is awesome as a Yugioh fan. The animation for both the monsters and characters was a joy to watch, with the duels' pacing vastly improved. All the characters knew their place, and this was the arc I needed when I was a kid since it forced Yugi into someone I could finally consider to be a protagonist. Kaiba is also a fucking delight he's just so salty and entertaining that I can't help but crack a smile every time he appears. As a definite end to the series, I think this is more than a serviceable installment for the story.
Though I have critiques, Aigami is a great villain, but his very existence feels out of nowhere, given how important and integral to the story. Same thing with the Plana, given its reality-shaking events. Finally, I wish Yugi got the final win in the end here since it just feels suitable with the themes of moving on, but again I digress since this is a godsend to any Yugioh fan.
Epilogue
Overall the original series of Yugioh is a mammoth. It started this franchise and was the thing that got a lot of people into anime. All jokes and memes aside, I think the best way to sum up my thoughts on the series is to pay tribute to the abridged series. Because I believe that a long time ago, despite all of its achievements, it was still a bit of a mess of a franchise, its cast was underutilized, the gimmicks were annoying, and the filler has ranged widely.
However, I don't hate Duel Monsters because this series was one of the first examples of showing never to be afraid of trying something edgy or different. Never be scared of moving on from life and accepting a different perspective. This philosophy made this franchise have so many audiences today, and I'm happy it will still have many more fans. People may not like Sevens right now, but I'm sure the next series will do what the anime has always done best: try something new. I hope you enjoyed my review, and I hope you have a nice day.