Yugioh - Decent anime or milked merchandise-machine .

This might be long. Hi. I'd like to ask an odd question. But I would like to discuss this for some reason. Perhaps of the following reasons. Let me say this at first. I am not a hardcore Yu Gi Oh fan like some people. I never go to conventions, neither do I collect the cardgame. I still own most cards I bought as a kid tho. Now I have come across a video where someone was listing his top ten worst anime series ever. Among pokemon and digimon, which can also be considered ''nostalgic childhood anime'', there also was yu gi oh on his list. The arguments the guy who made the video had, were pretty obvious. ''Stupid kids show only developed to sell retarded cardgame'' . But here I had to disagree strongly. See, I was wondering whether it was the nostalgia speaking out of me, or just the fact that I watched the show as a child and kids have quite a different point of vierw about the quality of writing in a tv series. In other words kids watch all the crap adults wouldnt. At least thats the opinion of most people but i try not to get carried away. Now for some reason I felt like watching the series again. I decided to go with the original German dub (yes I am german) because thats what I used to watch as a kid. I then foundout that germany aired the 4 kids censored version of yugioh, which made me think. I then downloaded the entire series in japanese with english subs because I wanted to check whether the difference was huge. Holy shit it was. 4 kids pretty much gave the show a different color by removing all the gore and occult signs which made the yami no games so creepy and interesting. Because in the original manga (which I am reading right now) It was indeed meant as hell, the realm of demons and darkness while in 4kids it was just some kind of magical dimension where evil souls get send or something. Anyways I then waqtched the last 2 seasons of the series in japanese. Only the cannon episodes though. I skipped the filler arcs. And I was pleasantly surprised that I actually enjoyed the series as a anime and not because of nostalgia. It was a damn awesome series. The milenium items, the fate of Kissara and seto kaiba and the insane plottwists involving the truth about bakura and zork. It was a damn well written story even though the end of it was kinda cliche. Good guys win, goodbye forever. Lol. But other than that I was epic. I then started watching yu gi oh Gx and I noticed that even though everything past the original Egypt based series, the others can be arguably considered fillers. (But since they are quite faithful to the world they play in and are connected to the happening of the first yu gi oh, I consider them cannon. Anyway ) , I realised that the creators improved alot of problems from the original. For example the character development in Gx was far better than in the original. In the original the characters barely changed even though they grew as duelists. When I finished Gx I thought: '' Man the next series involved FUCKING CARDGAMES ON MOTORCYCLES. WHAT THE FUCK ?!! And so I watched yu gi oh 5d's biased by the idea of how bad it will be. I was wrong . 5d's was so badass, not comparable to the first 2 series. The ridiculous Idea of cardgames on motorcycles worked and it was awesome executed. The main character had an actual dark past and almost every character in the series had to go through hard/dark times once which mnade the series so damn serious. I mean I could take the series as serious as breaking bad. No poun intenbdedn. Once I finished 5d's my attitude towards the series was changed. I realized I watched a really good show. Then yu gi oh zexal. Lets be honest. Just by looking at the characters hairstyles and the designs, it makes one puke. What the heck japan. You did it again . Weirdo anime lololol. Once again I was biased by the look of the series. Dont judge a book by its cover I have to say, is what ive learned there. The first few 20 or 30 episodes of zexal were quite boring and unspectacular. But once the main events show up Zexal gets absolutely epic. I am not kidding. I wont give spoilers but in Zexal, there are more character deaths than in any other yu gi oh series. No character is safe and that helps you alot taking the show seriously. I was watching some duels almost shivering (no kidding). It is a show about a cardgame. That might sound ridiculous and it is. But the explanation for the decision to use that way of battle throughout the series was quite good. It was the resurrection of the game of darkness from ancient egypt. Cards represent stone tables where monsters souls were sealed for battles. Magic and trap cards represent the power of magical spells that were also common in ancient egypt. nIt all fucking works. Another thing I'd like to say is that the only series of the yugioh franchise that was dragged out was the original. The first. Because of its filler arcs. Now I dont know how to say this..does anyone feel the same way as I do ? Has anyone here even seen any yu gi oh series besides the original when he was a kid ?

Lets just say Yugioh pretty much has turned into Pokemon. Not that I am saying either one is bad its just the creators are just crazy for money and since people like it they have to add some twists and turns or people would lose interests in it. How ever I have watch bits and pieces to the Yugioh GX gotta say though I didnt like it as much as the original series, because a school of learning how to play or whatever. (it has been a while) It was just kinda meh to me.

I have to add to this that the 4kids version of gx was ridiculously bad interms of dialogue. Some violence was cut too but Gx was the most kid friendly season of all. That said, I have watched the entire series in japanese and to sum up my insanely long review, It was pretty damn good, I would have never expected to enjoy the franchise past the original series.

Ok so I skipped most of wat u said cuz im plain lazy to read it all (everything after the first few sentences) but anime is like video gamed 1st generation is always good n u get hooked n become a fan of it. But thats how we fuck up as consumers , watchers , etc. Anyways to the point lol anything after the 1st season was mostly shit that came out of their ass just saying n we bought it cuz we r fans period

I think it used to be really brilliant, I remember watching as a kid and adoring the original series, but I think they have milked it and it has become horribly boring but that may just be because I have only recently seen the 4kids GX versions. I think it is because of the lack of real danger, like, there really isn't a lot of real danger and everything is too easily overcome, also I didn't care much for the characters, they were all very typical and boring, where as in the original series there was genuine concern and care for the characters which made it more fun to watch. but maybe that's because I was so young, I think I will probably watch them again like you did to see how I feel about them now and you've definitely made me more interested than I was about watching 5d's and Zexal :) Zexal sounds awesome!

I love it how nobody has read my review. In my review I mention that ''danger'' is one thing that was strongly presnet in both 5d's and zexal. Holy shit In zexal there were character deaths that nobody would have expected. Some of the most shocking deaths in anime happened in zexal. Yet zexal is the ygo series with the worst reputition. And I can partially understand that because the main character looks..looks ...GAY. But the series is really damn good (in japanese only tho)

I know nobody is gonna read my insanely long yet really good rewview, so I'll sum up my opinion. I think out of the many kid franchises of past generations like yu gi oh, pokemon, digimon, etc, Yu Gi Oh is the only one that manages to be really good and improve in comparision to past series. My favorite yu gi oh series was in fact NOT the original, but 5d's. Trust me 5d's is badass. Cardgames on motocycles works.