Ranked #2233

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX

It's best to note that while the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime is not the worst anime in existence, it is far from the best. This series puts a couple of blemishes on the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise; in fact, when compared with the manga, it earns the same reaction you'll find from avid Tsukihime fans: "What anime?"

The premise of a dueling academy makes a lot of sense when you consider the fact that Yu-Gi-Oh! is about a children's card game. While the importance of a children's card game seems exaggerated in the viewers' eyes, you have to remember that in this animeverse, it -isn't-. Duel Monsters is the most popular--and clearly the most influential--sport of the world. Plus, when you realize the Academia still has the required graduation classes (though you won't see them too much on-screen), you realize that the school is a typical high school--just one with a very specialized "Ivy Leage" program.

Still, while the premise doesn't have flaws, the way it was carried out does. The first half of season one made GX seem like a slice-of-life anime, which wouldn't be so much of a problem if the plot was at least consistent rather than having these separated one-shots. Then when GX actually started having substantial plots, it seemed like another series taking itself too seriously. A white hole in space sending proxies to bring about destruction? A deranged hermaphrodite demon seeking her lover? A force of darkness wishing to unify all existence in nothingness? Sorry NAS, not buying it. What probably made these plots worse was that they were arranged in a "What enemy will I face this school year?" fashion.

The art was average. It didn't thrill me, but it didn't disgust me either. No more to say on that. Now as for music, that was actually GX's best asset. The OPs and EDs weren't the best, but the OST soundtracks were. They did their job of accenting the situations quite smoothly. If an upbeat song came on, the situation was happy or comical. If a slow and sad song came on, the situation was depressing or dark. And if that one song that raised your spirits came on, you knew the protagonist of the duel was making his comeback.

NAS dropped the ball with its characters. Too many characters introduced at a time with too little development reserved for each one. Judai, the main character, was a Gary Stu that didn't get a background story until season three. The background wasn't even good either, turning out to be a contrived DM reincarnation rip-off with pathetically shallow "I need to grow up" development in season four that made him nothing more than an ass. And the other protagonists only got their little development in season one, and were shafted in season three with the appearance of the Academia champions.

Still, I found myself enjoying the series while watching it. Much of the bashing GX gets is in hindsight, when the fans start looking back and realize the flaws they overlooked when they first watched it. In the end, the GX anime turned out to be run by a group of people who had no idea what direction they wanted to take the show in; they would rather insert any random and unnecessary bit of occult history and symbolism if it made viewers think they were actually putting any thought into the series. (And let me tell you, GX is riddled with occult stuff if you know how and where to find it.)

I suggest that rather than watching this anime you read Kazuki Takahashi and Naoyuki Kageyama's manga adaptation. read more

After watching the whole series in just two weeks or so, I will tell you how I felt about this series. I will be keep this review spoiler-free. I watched the orignal Japanese version, just so you know.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is a sequel of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series as most would know. The game of Duel Monsters has gotten so popular that there are pro leagues as well as specialized schools to mainly train and teach students to become great duelists. It's an interesting setting and did intrigue me.

The story follows after a young boy named Yuki Judai, who just starts to attend an elite Duel Monsters school called, "Duel Academia" The school is divided in three different classes, "Obelisk Blue", "Ra Yellow" and "Osiris Red" (the names should sound familiar for those who watched the original series). It is basically dividing students into their skill levels, Osiris Red being the lowest class, Ra Yellow in the middle and the Obelisk Blue, consisting of the school's best duelists.

The series starts off with a lighter tone, just following Judai and his life in school as he makes new friends. But as the story progresses, it gets much more complex and intense. I felt that there were quite a few story elements that seemed forced and didn't make sense, but it was watchable overall. Much like the original series, there's heavy emphasis on friendship. One thing that does get a little annoying is that duelists read their card effects every time they play it and it kind of gets tiredsome when I know a lot of the cards. But I guess they can't help it since there will always be people who aren't familiar with the cards and their effects.

I wasn't too impressed with most of OP and ED songs, but soundtracks were quite good, although I would have liked a little more variety of music during duels. It's like when you hear a certain music starts to play, you know that our hero's pulling off an awesome combo to finish the duel!

Art wise, I felt that GX got a slight down grade from the original series. Not a big difference, but I never thought that GX had better animation or art quality. Not the worst, but not too impressive on most parts. However, I never expected it to be amazing since it is a 180 episode series afterall.

There are quite a bit of characters in GX and I felt that there were a little too many. Character developments are there, as it would be crazy to have a 180 episode series without character growths. Some character developments being more natural and suttle than others. The series inserts new characters here and there, which keeps it interesting, but it feels too crowded later on.

I mainly watched this because I play the card game myself. It will be much more enjoyable if you play the game. It does gets kind of repetitive, but that could be because I was having a marathon (almost). I never read the manga, but I heard that they are quite different. Unfortunately, since I didn't read the manga, I can't compare them. This series is good for people who actually play the card game or just to kill some time.

In conclusion, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX was a decent series, but it was never at the level of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series. read more