At the gym where I work out, there is a bank of television sets in front of a troupe of stairclimbers, ellipticals, treadmills, and recumbent stationary bicycles. They have a system that allows people to get the soundtracks of each channel by tuning in personal radios to frequencies on the FM dial. I listen to CDs instead. I’d rather hear Laura Love than Oprah or Montel.
However, I seem to get there in the afternoon, when one channel runs the simple morality plays of The Smurfs or tales of Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd century. A couple of times, I’ve caught episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh. The cast seem to engage in a supernatural card game (the closed caption is on, so I can nearly figure out what’s going on.) Is this exciting, with the sound on? I feel like you have to be hip to the backstory to understand any of it. It seems to take place slowly, as if all the viewers are reading the closed captioning.
As best I can tell it’s a set up to sell “trading cards” to mainly 7-15 year old kids. Hence the slow exposition. Individual cards can sell for hundreds of dollars, although a pack of cards costs about $3-5. Accessories sold separately. I don’t know how closely the game in the show mirrors game play in real life.
My five year old son loves the show and, by extension, the cards. He has no clue how to play but can spend hours with his cards looking at the pictures and arranging them and making up games in his head. So, for the cost (I never bought him that many but a relative who used to play gave him a bunch of cards as well) it’s probably a better value than most of his toys.
Anyway, having ridden the wave of Magic: the Gathering when it was the big thing in my college days, I was interested enough to actually read through the rules. The game played on the cartoon is rather loosely adapted from the card game, even discounting the holographic projectors.
The premise in the cartoon, near as I can follow, is that the game used to be played by Egyptian royalty and invoked magical powers. One of the major antagonists in the show is some fellow named Kiba (I’m sure someone will correct the spelling) who is a gazillionaire and who “invented” the game in the modern era. Since they keep making hints that he used to be one of the afore mentioned ancient Egyptians in a past life, I’m guessing that his past spirit influenced him to re-create the game. Likewise, Yu-Gi was one of the past pharoahs and had his past spirit unlocked when he reconstructed an ancient artifact (the pyramid thingie he wears). When he duels, his other self takes over for the game. In addition to all this, there’s other fellows who are trying to possess the powers of the cards, etc. I’m sure that somehow Yu-Gi is saving all of mankind by perpetually playing card games but I’m not sure what the outcome would be if he had to take week off sick or something.
Really, I can’t explain it much better than that and I have the suspicion that someone will come along now and discredit all I said. Much of the show makes little sense to me. It probably makes even less sense to my son, but he mainly watches just to see the characters use overly dramatic voice acting to summon forth cool monsters.
Not really. It’s heavy on dialogue and low on action. Even the action seems dull because 1) they’re playing cards and 2) I can never figure out what’s going on.
Jophiel pretty much nailed it. There are variations from season to season, but the main plot remains the same. I happen to enjoy the show and am sure to catch every new episode.
I recall someone mentioning that in the original manga each episode was supposed to feature a different game. But then the cards took over. I believe we (in the US) have yet to see the first season of the show (where Joey and Tristan were still picking on Yugi) which was before the cards took over the show. Although they’ll occasionally use clips from those episodes in the ones we’re watching now.
It does make me want to play the game. But then watching anything makes me want to play. I’ve watched almost all of it yet still own not a single card.
But a double shunt to Liverpool St Station would leave you wide open if you invoked Hunt’s 2nd variation.
:Ducks and runs leaving US dopers mighty confused:
Whee, someone remembered me!!! (If not my name…oh well). But yeah, the first card episode was really popular, so it became the main theme, though occasionally they’ll play something different.
Anyways, back to the subject at hand. First of all, it’s spelled Kaiba. And I’ll also point out that there’s two Kaiba’s–Seto and Mokuba, who are brothers. Usually ‘Kaiba’ refers to Seto, the older one–Mokuba is always called by his first name.
Second, Jophiel got most of it right. It wasn’t Seto Kaiba who re-created the game (he created the holo-emitters that they usually play on), it was a man called Maximillion Pegasus (Who also is usually refered to by his last name only). He’s not a reincarnation, but there are six items like the puzzle Yugi has, and Pegasus had one of them. This is what allowed him to recreate the game.
Originally, in the parts that we haven’t seen this side of the pond, Yugi couldn’t control when his ‘other self’ took over. It would just happen, and he wouldn’t remember a thing afterwards. Eventually, he started to learn to control the powers of his puzzle, which incidently was around the same time as the beginning of the card take-over. So the puzzle doesn’t always take over, only when needed. Another name piece–Yugi means ‘game’, Yugi-Oh means ‘King of Games’.
Did I used to watch the show? Yes. Do I anymore? No. Am I proud that I used to? Not really. Do I have a box full of Yu-Gi-Oh cards at home? Unfortunately.
Just thought I’s add (Geesh, I’m starting to feel pathetic) that the original idea was that Yugi was the king of all games. It’s not that evident since we mostly see card-based episodes, but whenever he plays a game he always wins. In the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc, he was playing a game he’d never even heard of before in his life, yet he beats the games creator.
It has yet to be determined if he can beat Téa at DDR though.
But if you tap your birds of paradise, you have enough mana to stop the tram before Baker’s Street, exit through a manhole, and skip cross lines right there.
What? Some americans know about Mornington Crescent. Even if we are a bit rusty.
I catch my husband watching this show in the afternoons sometimes, and neither of us have a clue as to what’s what. We just like it when they start to fight and we cheer “GO YU-GI! GO!” and stare confused for a while.
Ya know, I actually remember the Dungeon Dice one. You’d think for being King of All Games, he’d be able to score an endorsement deal out of someone. Or at least take up high stakes poker.
My mistake on the Kaiba and Pegasus thing. I remember the whole arc with Pegasus and the island but forgot that he had reintroduced the game. You’d think the guy who controls the print runs on the cards would be tougher to beat. I, Lord help me, saw the feature film (erm, I feel obligated to remind that I have a son) and he got stomped in like three turns.
I notice in the show, Yu-Gi actually physically suffers from the card attacks. I’d assume that this only occurs when a couple of principle players who were involved in the ancient game play and there’s some actual spirit battle occuring or else the game would have a tough time becoming popular. Or maybe when at least one of the players was involved since Joey seems to suffer as well sometimes and I don’t think he had anything to do with the Egyptian thing. But you don’t see it when they play, say, Weevil or whoever that guy with all the bug cards is.
Ok, now I’m thinking way too much on this. It is kinda sorta interesting that, unlike Pokémon where you buy the cards to emulate the fights you see on the show, in Yu-Gi-Oh you’re actually supposively playing the actual game played on the show, albeit without the benefit of holographic projectors or getting your soul crushed by evil ancient spirits.
The feeling of pain when they take damage started in the Pegasus season, when Yugi and Yami were switching places during a shadow duel. Yugi, being merely mortal, wasn’t strong enough to…I can’t explain it. Suffice it to say that it was tough on Yugi. I’m pretty sure this isn’t what you’re refering to though.
You’re probably refering to a later season, which takes place in a virtual reality. One of the rules imposed on them while there is that they take damage when their hit points are lowered. So not just Yugi, but Joey, Téa, and everyone else went though this. You just saw Yugi duelling the most.
There are also other shadow duels with similar rules imposed, however shadow duels have to be instigated by someone with a Millenium item, like Yugi’s puzzle. And normally someone will only do this when playing against Yugi (One exception–Bakura/Marik vs. Yami Marik). The VR season mentioned above worked similarly, except that every duel had these extra rules, not just Yugi’s.
(You know, I always wanted to be the expert on something, but did it have to be this?)
Thank you, all, for painting in the overall outline and some details. Now I’ll understand a little more while huffing and puffing on an exercise machine.
I won’t ask you the premise behind Montel; I really don’t want to know. He seems much stranger than Yu-Gi.