When I was a kid, three of the things we considered "the sh**" were Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh!. All these things had games, animes that were on TV and a lot of merchandise. But as I grew older, the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia faded. I still love the Pokemon games, and at times watch the anime purely for the novelty factor, though I don't consider it as awesome as before, since I now see things a different way. Digimon I complety got over, ocasionaly playing the games and seeing an episode or two of the anime, but it feels really basic and kind of copycat of Pokemon in a lot of areas. But what about the latter? Well, it is... complicated.

You see, I have played the card game for as long as I have watched the anime, and had a bigilion card till last year, when I got rid of them. I don't regret that, but I feel like the game, as it was originaly intended to be played, still is pretty sweet for a "children's card game". But looking at how complicated it got with the new spin-off series, it just pisses me off. The card game that once was a guilty pleasure became much more series and complext, taking away the simple child fun it had. But I digress. Let's talk about the animes.

When it comes to the anime, I feel somwhat reluctant to talk about, because it is hard to really get my point across. First of all I will say this: the original series was pretty good in general. It had characters that weren't too deep, but you could like them, the story was simple but got complexier as it went on and watching the card games was really awesome. However, at the same time, all the positives have negative sides: the characters stayed the same thoughout the whole series (besides Yami) and talked about constantly the same things (Tea = Friendship), the story took FOREVER to get to the more interestings parts, since half of the 200 something episodes are filler, and the card games also took forever to end. A duel between Yugi and Kaiba once took 5 or 6 episodes.

The way the anime did things was that so, while a card game was being played, plot devices, such as flashbacks, were being explained, but it just came across as lazy and annoying. Even as a kid I thought it took forever. It is even worse than Dragon Ball Z fights. Take for example the duel between Kaiba and Yugi again: they could have made the duel in a maximum of 3 episodes (which is still exageating), and then used one whole for plot exposition, which would have diminixed the series unecessary filler by a lot. Another example is the arc about the digital world, which went absolutely nowere. They were 50 awkward episodes of things that, what matters to the plot, could have been explained in no time. The villain was a brat that had a ridiculous change of heart in the end, and, in the end, you were just left with a "wha...?" feel.

Oh the villains! How could I forget about them? Well, basicaly because there kind of are no villains. Taking for example the arc until the city tournament, we had: Pegasus, Yami Bakura and Yami Merric. The latter two were just being controled by evil spirits, and first wanted to revive his dead lover. Pegasus was probably the best of the three in terms of vilany, and Merric was the most developed character of the three, but in the end he was just freed of the evil spirit of his Millenium Item. Bakura was around for the whole series, but only in the very end he made his move. Why? So we could have more filler. Of course.

An interesting fact that many people didn't know is that, in Japan, there was another anime of the series, produced by Toei, which took place before the tournament that Pegasus made. It only aired there, and so we missed a bunch of plot points that were vital, such as Yugi meeting his friends, finishing the Millenum Puzzle and freeing Yami, and the introduction of characters that were very important in terms of the plot itself, such as Shadi, who just came and went in the following series. Most of the plot points of these season were explained in flashbacks, but a lot still weren't, and flashbacks in the entire series to retome things vital when we could have just had the other season feels... cheap.

Of course, I can't fail to mention the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged Series, made by LittleKuriboh, which basicaly parodies everything that I just said. In fact, I have to thank him, because it made me get a little into this important part of my childhood (besides making me laugh very hard). If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have explored the series and understood it more as I could now, and get my thoughts across of my feelings for it. If you haven't seen it yet, google-it and watch; you will laugh hard.

So there goes my rant on the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. How does it stands up? It really is hard to say, because when it gets its point across it normaly is quite intereting and very enjoyable, but we have to sit through so much filler and unnecessary stuff to get there, that it becomes qutie ridiculous in the end. It is an anime that is just worth seeing for the sake of nostalgia. And it is just enjoyable to watch, due to its light hearted material.

What do you think about Yu-Gi-Oh!? Can you sit though the filler and get to the good points or not? Or have you never gotten into the series?