Yu-Gi-Oh

Yu-Gi-Oh! (遊☆戯☆王, yūgiō in Romaji, Japanese for "King of Games") is a popular Japanese anime and manga franchise that involves characters who play a card game called Duel Monsters (originally called "Magic and Wizards" in the manga before it was changed to Duel Monsters; for continuity in this document the card game will be referred to as Duel Monsters) wherein each player purchases and assembles a deck of "monster, magic and trap cards" in order to defeat one another.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, created in 1996 by Kazuki Takahashi, was one of the most popular titles featured in Japan's Weekly Shonen Jump and ended its run in the weekly manga anthology in 2004. A new series, called Yu-Gi-Oh! R, is now published in V-Jump. Yu-Gi-Oh! R has the same characters but is not connected to the prior series. The manga is drawn by Akira Itou and the story is done by Kazuki Takahashi.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was first broadcast beginning in 1998 on Asahi TV and after 150 episodes, it moved to TV Tokyo and has recently aired the 200th episode. In recent years, both the manga and anime have also been brought to the United States. The manga runs in Viz's Shonen Jump and the anime is broadcast as part of Kids WB, on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and in syndication in many other places.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise has since grown to incorporate a real-life version of the card game featured in the anime and manga, a series of video games by Konami, toys, and many other products.

English adaptations

English anime

Like many anime shows originally created for the Japanese market, a number of changes were made when the Yu-Gi-Oh! television show was released in the United States. These changes are frequently done to make the series more understandable, and to remove material which might be considered inappropriate for the target audience - young children. The changes to Yu-Gi-Oh! include:

• Americanization of character names (e.g. Yugi Mutou, Katsuya Jonouchi, Hiroto Honda, Anzu Mazaki became Yugi Moto, Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor, and Téa Gardner, respectively)
• removing all instances of weapons (like guns and knives, which are often prevalent)
• removing scenes where two or more characters are fighting
• removing or obfuscating many references to religion, such as the pentagram
• removing or rewriting scenes where characters are in real danger of death (In the English anime, characters are instead threatened with the possibility of going to the Shadow Realm)
• removing or editing scenes where monsters undergo some form of violent death (such as being eaten or being stabbed)
• removing scenes where characters make obscene gestures
• editing scenes where a character or duel monster appears nude
• removing assorted sexual innuendo
• removing much writing in Japanese and English (this resulted in the unusual design of the Duel Monsters cards in the English version of the series)

4Kids Entertainment, the U.S. distributor of the show, has allowed FUNimation (their chosen DVD distributor) to release the first 27 episodes of the Japanese version, which set up the main characters and involved very little Duel Monsters dueling, as part of a special unedited DVD release. The English version began with the second storyline.

English manga

The English manga is published in its original right-to-left format by Viz Communications in both the Shonen Jump magazine and in individual graphic novels. The original Japanese names are kept and the manga is largely unedited.

Yu-Gi-Oh is related to Japanese Manga

List of manga

By English title

Symbols - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z - Webmanga

by Japanese title

あ - い - う - え - お - か - き - く - け - こ - さ - し - す - せ - そ - た - ち - つ - て - と - な - に - ぬ - ね - の - は - ひ - ふ - へ - ほ - ま - み - む - め - も - や - ゆ - よ - ら - り - る - れ - ろ - わ - を - ん

List of Manga-ka

A - B - C - E - F - H - I - K - M - N - O - R - S - T - U - W - Y

List of manga distributors

By language

Japanese - English - French - German

Characters

• Yu-Gi-Oh! main characters
• Yu-Gi-Oh! minor characters

Important Terms

• Millennium Items - Seven magical items originating in ancient Egypt. The items include the Millennium Puzzle, Eye, Ring, Ankh, Rod, Tauk and Scales. Each one has its own special powers, but some (which are more important to the storyline) are known for one or two powers.

• Monster Cards - A type of card in the game Duel Monsters, this represents a creature or warrior which is summoned during a duel to attack the opposing player and his monsters.

• Magic Cards (also known as Spell Cards) - A type of card that is basically a magic spell, which have various effects, from reviving a monster with Monster Reborn/Raise Dead or to cancel a spell in effect such as De-Spell.

• Trap Cards - A type of card that is usually triggered by an event, such as Negate Attack which is activated during an attack, and as the name implies, negates it.

• God Cards aka Egyptian God Cards - Three all-powerful Duel Monsters cards created by Pegasus J. Crawford, after the mysterious Shadi shows him an ancient stone carving of the Unnamed Pharaoh (the same one whose spirit is in the Millennium Puzzle) facing an Seto, one of the six priests that guarded the pharaoh, but dueled him as a foe, and a friend, though he seemingly has been both good and evil. They are the God of Obelisk/Obelisk the Tormentor/Oberisuku no Kyo Shin Hei (Immense Divine Soldier of Obelisk), Saint Dragon - God of Osiris/Slifer the Sky Dragon/Oshirisu no Tenkūryū (Saint Dragon of Osiris) and the Sun of God Dragon/Winged Dragon of Ra/Rā no Yoku Shin Ryū (The Winged Divine Dragon Of Ra) (thought to be the most powerful because of all its effects). When the cards were being made, and the stone carving was being investigated, the three men with Pegasus met with some rather unfortunate fates. When Dark Yugi's name is unlocked from depths of his memory (A.T.E.M.U), it acts as sort of a Magic Card, fusing the three god monsters together, creating "Hokarhati, The Creator of Light". Hokarhati means "Horus", an Egyptian god. The Eye on the Millennium Items is known as the "Eye of (Horus)". Hokarhati's power is infinite, therefore making it virtually invincible. Hokarhati makes his appearance in the duel between Thief Bakura and Atemu in Pharaoh's Memory. These God Cards become a focal point later in the series, for they and the Millennium Puzzle unlock the Pharaoh's Memory.
• Battle City - The second tournament held in Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Shadow Realm - In the English anime, the Shadow Realm is a place of eternal suffering and darkness. The Shadow Realm does not exist in the manga and the original Japanese anime.

Merchandise

The real-life Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game is based on the fictional Duel Monsters game played by the primary characters. Unlike other television shows, books, games and films which have spawned card games (such as those for Pokémon, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Star Wars), the Yu-Gi-Oh! TV shows features the game, and viewers of the show learn how to play the game along with the characters. A key thing to keep in mind is that the behavior of some cards in the real-life game are not the same as the behavior of the card in the TV show. Related card games include Yugi Mutou's Cards (Yugi Moto in the English card packs), Seto Kaiba's Cards, Pegasus' Cards and Jonouchi's Cards (Joey in the English card packs).

Other collectible games that were originally created as fictitious games for the series but were later turned into real games include Capsule Monster Chess, a sort of pre-Mage Knight collectible miniatures game, and Dungeon Dice Monsters, a dungeon crawl boardgame where the tiles are created by unfolding the faces of 6-sided dice, and which is a variant on an earlier, non-collectible Japanese game called simply Dungeon Dice.

The merchandising of Yu-Gi-Oh! products and games has drawn criticism from adults and anime fans. The original manga did not include Duel Monsters as a regular plot vehicle for the first seven volumes. In those seven volumes, which were released in the American Shonen Jump, there has only been one instance of the game Duel Monsters. After Yu-Gi-Oh! become popular, Kazuki Takahashi was asked to modify the storyline to feature more of the card game.

Related topics

• List of anime
• List of manga