Yu☆Gi☆Oh! (Movie)

This was my childhood right here. Growing up, this anime always gave me excitement and always left me on the edge of my seat.

If you enjoy sexy characters, with a mix of cute, funny, and kindness, then this show will truly open your heart up to anime.

If you love the Yugioh classics like I do, then this action packed anime of duel monsters is for you!

Great series to get into, great story plot, and even though it has some sad points, every episode has a twist! Enjoy!

Children's Card Games Saga Part II: One Card, One Duel, One Useless Rulebook

Okay, so why is it that Kaiba wants this Red Eyes card SO BAD? Seriously, Kaiba is so rich, he's able to hire personal security, owns limousines, CREATED A DUEL MONSTERS THEMED THEME PARK, and an entire expo center complete with 3D holographic animated versions of the duel monsters game, and owns his own corporation
...
and the mother f*r still can't go to the game shop and buy booster packs.

No. He has to go to the extreme lengths of setting up a contest in an enormous expo center, inviting thousands of onlookers ... and commentators PAYING THEM TO BE THERE, all just so that he can beat a little kid at a card game and take his rare card.
Kaiba don't care. He's Kaiba, b*tch.


*Enter kid with anime haircut, and Seto Kaiba, now off the drugs and looking normal without green hair.*

Seto Kaiba: Hey kid, I heard you have rare cards.

Dumb Kid: YEAH IT'S THE BESTEST!

Kaiba: Watch me go to extremely convoluted and exorbitantly expensive lengths to set up a duel in which we play for your one rare card!

Dumb Kid: Dude, you have like 50 armed henchmen... couldn't they have just, you know, robbed me for it? Or like, you offer me a hundred bucks for it? I mean, I'd probably take like 75, but you know.

Kaiba: BUT THAT RUINS THE GAME! I derive no enjoyment from purchasing things with this plebeian money! I have ALL the money!

Dumb Kid: But if you just want the card, I'm sure you can like, buy 10 of them on ebay for a hundred bucks...

Kaiba: YOU IDIOT! My only joy in this adult life is beating children at a children's card game that doesn't have any rules! (Not like I'd follow them anyway, buuuut) How could I possibly have any fun beating kids for cards that I already own?

Dumb Kid: But didn't you do exactly that to like... basically everyone else, including Yugi's grandpa for a 4th Blue Eyes?

Kaiba: Shut up Charmander. I mean, shut up, Mokuba. I mean, shut up kid.
SCREW THE RULES I HAVE MONEY!

*Kaiba gets on his computer and purchases an entire deck full of Red Eyes*


See? Now everyone can be happy. Except Kaiba. He's always angry.

----

What Actually Happens:

So, this episode is essentially a special episode/epilogue to the 1998 season. It's not a movie, despite what MAL says- it's 5 minutes longer than a normal episode and was released on home video as a stopgap between Season 0 and Duel Monsters.

So basically what happens is that this little kid name Shogo buys a booster pack of Yugioh cards and gets an ultra-rare out of it, then goes around showing it to everyone, claiming he can beat them in a duel, even though he never duels anyone because he suffers a mental breakdown and turns into a blubbering mess anytime even the mere thought of "losing in a duel" flashes through his three neurons.
Anyway, the kid attracts the attention of one greedy corporate assbutt named Seto Kaiba, who, despite owning three of the best card in the game: Blue Eyes, decides he also wants this particular second best card in the game: Red Eyes Black Dragon. So he sends his goons to deliver an invitation to this little kid for the most extravagant duel this side of "On top of a blimp flying over a city Kaiba had built specifically for the purpose of playing a card game tournament".
The kid suffers a lapse in having a brain, and refuses to commit, so Yugi, being the only person who has ever even come close to beating Kaiba takes up the invite, and an epic duel commences.

Seriously, like, this duel takes about 20 minutes of screen time, but it feels like 5. What Yugi and Kaiba took 3 episodes to do in Yugioh 1998, and about 20 episodes in Duel Monsters took them 15 minutes, and oh boy was it ever sweet. The pacing for the duel is very fast, but the flow couldn't be better. Seriously, this episode basically has everything in it that makes Yugioh cool- allowing the gameplay to drive the show, including twists and turns in who holds the upper hand, and some of the classic Yugioh trick plays.

The characters in this episode also show up looking like they do in Duel Monsters- Yugi sporting his signature sleeveless edgemaster vest and cape, and Kaiba with his infinitely long swooshy blue trenchcoat- the art is MILES better than it was in Yugi '98- so much so that it actually upgraded to N64 graphics from Phillips CD-i! (and in the span of only 6 months. Jeez, Toei, you came a long way.)

Anyway- to wrap up, this episode is basically the entirety of Yugioh in a nutshell. Heart of the Cards, friendship, card games, and pulling a win out from way, way up inside one's butt- Egyptian Pharoah style.

Yugioh 1999 is hardly a movie at all since it's only half an hour long. So it's pretty much just a 30-minute commercial for the manga and/or card game. As a Yugioh fan I still got some sort of enjoyment out of this, so let's start with the story of this so-called movie:

A little boy named Shougo Aoyama finds a powerful card called Red-Eyes Black Dragon, but he is too scared to actually "fight" (aka play a card game), so he just doesn't use the card at all. Kaiba wants to have the card, so he invites Yugi, Shogo, and some other duelists to a ... tournament. Wow, what a creative plot! Since Shougo doesn't want to fight, Yugi borrows his card and battles Kaiba instead. The first half of the movie is pretty much Shougo whining over the card and the second half Yugi and Kaiba playing Duel Monsters.

Sounds pretty terrible, right? So why am I rating this a 6/10? Before I start with the positives, I want to mention some flaws in the plot. It's just so ridiculous how everyone is overreacting over this dumb card. Yeah, it's Yugioh, but even in the show, they don't react like this. On top of that, they mention in the movie that Red-Eyes is the second most powerful card, right after Blue-Eyes White Dragon. So I thought to myself "well the Dark Magician probably wasn't introduced at this point". But guess what: the Dark Magician actually appears in this movie! So shouldn't Shogo's Red-Eyes be the third strongest? Also, Shougo himself is pretty annoying and not memorable at all.

The duel between Yugi and Kaiba was pretty sweet. I mean it's nothing you haven't seen before, but "Yugi vs Kaiba" is just a pretty safe bet, so it should appeal to most of the audience. The monster design looks especially nice. In fact, the whole movie looks pretty pleasant. Just from the coloring, you can tell it's based on the 1998 version (season 0), but the character design looks more like the Pegasus arc and onward. Also, Kaiba finally has his brown hair instead of green one. So the style looks like a mix between Season 0 and Duel Monsters. The music was good too. It had a very video game-ish feel to it, which I found very fitting. I especially liked the remix of Yugi's transformation theme.

I really like how they actually use Kaiba's proto-type Duel Disk, which was introduced in the Pegasus arc and only used there. It makes no sense that it appears in this movie, but hey it's a nice touch. Also, Rex Raptor, who hasn't been introduced at this point makes a small cameo ;)

If I actually went to the cinema to see this, I'd probably be very disappointed, but as a fan of the franchise who just discovered this obscure movie on the internet, I found this to be an alright experience.

It starts with a totally different mood than the conventional Yu Gi Oh Zero, with some relatively evolved and different characters (some even physically like Kaiba). The movie focuses on the card game "Duel Monsters", no longer featuring familiar games, and that's interesting, because that's when they started focusing on what would later become the well-known Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG.

The premise is generic, telling the classic story of the introvert and frightened boy who can stand out with something by luck (in this case, catch a Red-Eyed Black Dragon in a booster). I found it senseless that even after getting such a good card (The second best ... in the game), the boy still had no confidence and still had an absurd fear of losing.

Kaiba organizing a tournament, as usual, calls Yugi and Shougo to participate. I thought Shougo would duel, but again Yugi who will duel with Kaiba. It's a rather interesting battle that makes you slightly distressed and anxious, but the end is already as expected. But it was a good scene, I admit ...

Final Thoughts: I don't even know if it should be considered a movie, it's more like an OVA. It seems more than just an advertisement to sell the cards that Bandai released shortly after the end of Yu Gi Oh Zero. The main mistake of this "movie" is that things happen too fast, it has a crazy pace. They tried to put too much into a short time!