I finished reading Yu-Gi-Oh! For the second time this summer/fall. How wonderful the system is! It's very simple, but catchy. You have a part where Yuugi is wronged, and then gets revenge by turning into Yami Yuugi, who challenges the offender with a shadow game: a risky game that will twist the soul of the loser. It features such games as 'stack of money with knives', my personal favorite. (I just gave it a name.) For instance, two players layer 500 bills on each other's hand, and they take turns stabbing the stack with a knife-trying to pluck off as many as they can. The winner is the one with the most bills. Losing.. Well, you know what happens. Your hand gets a coupla dents, and you get to be punished in a judgmentally sadistic way.
My beef is, why did they market the card game so hard? I understand the story asked for a little bit of marketing, but by the beloved 'Pegasus Arc', the story is downright.. Unattractive. Also including that the american folk's Yu-Gi-Oh exposure starts with Pegasus. Forgetting all the, you know, REASON why Yami is there and all, with his friends!!
Turning it into a card game palooza is just irritating and destroys the value.So, in retrospect. It's nice to have a card game. Who doesn't like collecting cards. But show about cards? One can only push the theme of 'the heart is in the cards' so much, before it becomes downright transparent. I love the beginning series, gosh, I never thought I'd say that about a Yu-Gi-Oh thing, I mean anything. But I love it. I really do. So much charm, now I cherish my 1 (count them 1) manga, which just so happens to be the Bobobo volume where Yuugi guest appears with Slifer! : )
